Bing…… Bing…..
Two resumes just arrived in your inbox. Both look very promising, and similar. In fact at first glance everything about them is pretty on target with what you’re looking for to fill the position. Both went to comparable colleges with the same focus, job histories are alike and their references are all positive. The only major difference you can see is that candidate Jones had a conventional secondary education at a public high school while candidate Smith was unschooled.
Unschooled? According to Wikipedia: “Unschooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including child directed play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum.”
Everyone has an opinion about it and it’s usually a strong one but whether you agree with it or not, it’s a trend recruiters will be seeing steadily increase on resumes in the next decade. Right now there are 56 million children enrolled in school in the U.S, 1.5 million are home schooled and 10-20% of those are unschoolers (about 150,000) and on the rise. A type of education that was once un-heard of is suddenly a hot topic. Good Morning America recently did a piece on radical unschooling, their opinion is bluntly negative. While Lee Stranahan (who unschools his own child) is very much in favor of it, as he described in his response to the GMA piece on his blog on The Huffington Post.
So what does this mean to you? Well, it depends on who you listen to. There isn’t a lot of information out there about the successes and failures of those unschooled but the naysayers claim it will result in un-motivated adults, they say they will grow up as leaders and be unable to follow, have limited opportunity to experience diversity (this could of course be argued) and a general lack of education. The pro side of the camp of course completely disagrees and argues the opposite claiming that children are natural learners; it’s in their best interest to learn at their own pace rather than be forced in a group and excel in learning, they receive one-on-one attention - something traditional schooling can’t provide and they can be a part of common socialization by joining clubs and other activities outside of school.
I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert on unschooling and do not claim to be – That’s the point. How many of us are? Will your pre-conceived notions impact what you do with candidate Smith’s resume? How does this increasing trend impact your future talent pool? Could this be a new generation blooming in front of us? What will that mean for how we train, collaborate with and retain this new group of talent? Perhaps WE should start studying now…
Photo: Claudia Snell
