Imagine if education was only concerned with remembering our true animal essence. What might it look like?
Everything would shift: how we teach, what we value, even what a ‘successful’ learner looks like. I have spent many years pondering this question, and trying to live it myself, with my now grown unschooled family and in my work as an educator. Of course modern living fights our animal nature every step of the way, and at the end of this piece I will shine a light on the challenges and common critiques of trying to live more in alignment with the human animals we are.
But make no mistake; this is who we are. We all know it of course, we understand the literal biology; but somehow we don’t believe it, or act like it’s true. We assume superiority to all other animals, and because of this we suffer to greater or lesser degrees.
Some young people can more comfortably adapt to fluorescent lights, hours of sitting and listening, being scheduled by clocks and bells, prodded and tested, but more and more of us are remembering who we are and unmasking.
Years ago, when I made the choice not to send my children to school, I wasn’t able to rationalise it in my mind easily. My daughter was used to running free and wild, and I knew school at that time wasn’t right for her. My son needed his family, his tribe and he also needed to follow his own body rhythms of play and rest. I look back now and I can clearly see that what I was fighting against was the taming of their pure animal selves.
Mainstream schooling is a kind of captivity. It captures our wild children and it tames them. Supposedly, it creates humans with skillsets, ready to contribute to the economic success of our country. But school is a machine, and just like any factory machine, it sorts and discards, throwing away the pieces that don’t fit. Many children learn to twist and bend and shape themselves to fit; with great detriment to their minds and emotional well-being.
But there is an alternative. To live and educate in a way that not just remembers, but celebrates our true animal essence.
Here are 8 core principles for education which is suitable for the human animal:
1. Learning Through the Body
Movement, instinct, and sensory experience would be central. Children would learn by running, building, dancing, listening to sounds of nature and being entirely present in all they do. ‘Schools’ would look more like forests, beaches, open studios – and less like rows of desks. The body would be honoured as the first language of knowing.
2. Emotions as Teachers
Feelings and ‘behaviours’ would not be managed, punished, or silenced – they’d be guides. Emotional intelligence would not be seen as a ‘soft skill’, but as core wisdom. Anger, joy, sadness, fear – all valid responses that reveal needs, boundaries and desires – would help shape our young people into self-regulated beings with the capacity for deep compassion.
3. Wild Creativity
Creativity wouldn’t be something you do ‘once a week in class’ – it would be woven into all learning. Mark-making, storytelling, singing, building, creating, problem-solving, imagining – these would be instinctual, expressive acts. There would be no right or wrong, just exploration and discovery. Alongside that we might offer practical skills to make and create useful objects that enhance our lives. Instead of our consumer based throw away culture, we could provide opportunities for our young people to learn skills for sustainable living.
4. Cycles, Rest and Natural Rhythms
The school day would respect circadian rhythms, seasons and energy levels.There would be rest spaces, quiet times, and active bursts. Education would follow a spiral pattern – cyclical, not linear. Periods of deep immersion followed by spacious integration.
5. Curiosity Over Curriculum
The question wouldn’t be, ‘What do they know by age 8?’ but ‘What are they curious about today?’ Educators would be guides and witnesses, not information gatekeepers. Children would be trusted to follow their fascinations, and discover their unique contribution to their communities.
6. Belonging and Pack Life
Education would nurture connection and interdependence, not competition. Children would be raised in multi-age learning communities, learning from older and younger peers, and tending to shared responsibilities. There would be a deep sense of tribe, where decision making would be shared, and everyone’s voice, regardless of age, was heard. Parents wouldn’t feel alone in raising their young people; there would be a wealth of wise elders and mentors to lean on for support.
7. The Earth as Teacher
Learning would happen outside as much as inside. Children would be taught by the wind, the soil, the migration of birds, the changes in the sky. There would be an unbreakable bond with nature, not just as a resource, but as a relative.
8. Play as Sacred Practice
Play would be recognised as a profound expression of instinct and imagination. It would not be ‘earned’ after work -it would be the work.
Education like this wouldn’t try to tame us into productivity machines. It would remember us back into wholeness – where wildness is wisdom, creativity is instinctual, and the body is a trusted guide.
I am fully aware of the criticisms of this kind of learning; over the years, I’ve heard it all. Even people who agree with it in principle, often believe it is only for young children and that we must at some point ‘grow-up’ and face the responsibilities of adulthood. And though there is some truth in that; we do after-all want our young people to thrive in an ever more complex world, where an ability to earn money is essential; I don’t think we need to throw out the wisdom of our inner wildness to do this. In fact, thriving might mean truly leaning into our animal minds and bodies.
What does leaning into our animal essence look like for teens?
By raising children with this amount of supported freedom, we encourage them to learn to trust their gut feelings, curiosities and inner pulls – their purpose wouldn’t be something to figure out, but something they already carry, like an inner migration pattern that needs space to reveal itself.
Purpose would not be just a career or goal, but a way to move through the world. The young person who loves to tell stories might be weaving connections; another who tends animals may carry a healing instinct. These are soul clues.
And, like nature, there would be natural seasons of dormancy and blooming. A young person might need to wander, rest or rage, before clarity comes. They may need to go through hard times and struggles, in order to meet the parts of themselves they have tried to keep hidden or suppress.
Purpose doesn’t show up just in light – but often it is birthed from what breaks us open. Shadow work should be a sacred part of education, and adolescence is often the time the shadow is first revealed. The timing couldn’t be worse, for this is also the time when modern schooling pushes them through GCSE’s and A Levels.
Teens may need more time and space than the system currently gives them. They may not really know their true calling and purpose by 16 or 18. This is especially true of our neurodiverse young people; who it is often said are ‘the canaries in the coal mine’.
The typical response I hear is usually that all of this is very idealistic, and a common question asked is: How does this type of education help young people become future providers and upholders of the economy?
But the economy is not the purpose of childhood. Young people are not raw materials for industry; they are whole beings, not future workers in training.
The current education model serves the economy, but does it serve the soul, the Earth, or our collective well-being?
Clearly, it doesn’t, and here’s why:
The existing system is already failing.
Burnout, anxiety, disconnection, and ecological collapse are not signs of a thriving society. A generation forced into productivity at the cost of inner aliveness will not sustain the economy – they will crack under it. That’s already happening.
The future economy needs exactly these ‘idealistic’ qualities.
Creativity. Adaptability. Emotional intelligence. Collaboration. These are not optional soft skills – they are essential survival tools for a rapidly changing world. AI and automation are already replacing rote, trainable tasks. What remains is the human heart and the human imagination, and our innate purpose and drive.
Purpose-driven people become powerful contributors.
When young people know who they are, what they care about, and know how to follow their inner compass, they don’t opt out of the world – they reshape it. They create ethical businesses, innovate solutions, and tend to people and the planet. Instead of becoming cogs – they become conscious participants in the economy – builders of a regenerative one.
A society rooted in wholeness will flourish longer.
This kind of education might not produce the fastest short-term economic gain, but it produces far more resilient, whole, wise humans – and ultimately that is what will sustain communities, economies and ecologies in the long-term.
The critique of this approach is built on a dangerous assumption.
The assumption that the purpose of education is economic is deeply embedded, but not at all natural. It’s a cultural choice – one we can rewrite. What if the purpose of education was to foster aliveness, connection, creativity, and compassion? Wouldn’t a thriving economy naturally follow?
So yes, it is idealistic, but that’s exactly what we need. We are living in a time that demands radical reimagining, not more of the same. Idealism isn’t the enemy of realism – it’s the seed of change.
I haven’t made the perfect argument. Creating the change will take many different minds working on the solutions, and it won’t happen over-night. In raising my own children and in my tutoring, I constantly come up against situations which directly challenge my ideals. In my work I regularly find myself having to redefine my boundaries in line with my values.
For example, something I am grappling with right now is: How do I make space for radical rest and cyclical working arrangements and still be able to pay the mortgage? The current cost of living crisis makes leaning into our animal selves very difficult! And at home, I find myself proud of the teen who is navigating the system at college, after a life-time of unschooling, whilst simultaneously proud of the one who doggedly resists the ‘machine’, even if it worries me sleepless.
I try to be reminded of the 17 year old version of myself, who told their Dad that she ‘just wanted a simple life, living in a van’. I often wonder how my life would have played out differently if I’d been encouraged to ‘drop out’. No shade on my Dad, he was the best I could have asked for. It’s only now of course, with similar aged children, that I understand how he felt. The world isn’t ideal, it’s hard; but please let’s not give up!
In a way, these struggles are the point. Every time I wrestle with an issue; I talk to students, parents, employers, colleagues and we all learn something new. We reshape culture together by living the challenges.
I also know this is the reality of the bargain I have struck. I have sacrificed financial comfort in order to live closer to my values. Sometimes that makes me resentful of people living more comfortable lives, and sometimes when I can’t buy my teenager a new pair of trainers or take them on holiday, I wonder if it’s time to trade my values in.
For families like mine, who have tried to do things differently – the timing has not been perfect. We have been caught one foot in an unfolding, alternate reality, and the other foot wedged firmly in the mud of big business politics. Stuck, immovable, no matter how much we try to wiggle free.
And though the mainstream will cling to the current systems for as long as they can, and governments will ‘double down’ – which is what happens I think when something is nearing the end of its natural life, it gives one last superhuman effort, one giant burst of energy, before it withers and dies, and truly makes space for an alternative – I do see glimmers.
I have conversations with friends or colleagues that give me hope. I notice something about my teens that make me feel proud of the humans they are becoming. There are new exciting opportunities and alternative paths that didn’t exist even a couple of years ago.
I don’t know where we’re all headed. No one can predict that – the possibilities the world will go in seem vast and unfathomable. I mean, I barely understand the limited tech I have at my finger-tips now.
All I know is we have autonomy; we have choices. We can resist, revolt and most importantly; we can remember who we are.
Unschool Sketchbook 