Deschooled

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Released from the conventional assumptions and habits that formal education tends to instill in people
2. Having been freed from the expectation that learning must happen inside traditional schools and classrooms
3. Liberated from the institutional shaping that schooling imposes, so that one thinks and learns more independently

Etymology: "Deschooled" is the past form of "deschool," a verb built from the prefix "de-" (meaning "undo" or "remove") and the noun "school." Its literal sense is to strip someone of the schooling they have received, or to free a person from the habits, assumptions and expectations that formal education instilled. The idea behind the verb is the older and more famous one in education reform. Thinkers who argued that institutional schooling shapes children into passive, obedient workers, and who called for learning outside that system, gave the notion currency, and "deschool" became a way of naming the process of recovering from it. The past form appears most often in discussions of adults who have left school or unlearned its lessons.

Synonyms: unschooled, unschool

Antonyms: schooled, educated