Conference Program

Unschooling is often seen as a phenomenon that emphasizes individualism to the detriment of the social, public dimension of the individual. Empirical data and literature on unschooling, however, lead to completely different conclusions. The characteristics of this approach and its practice highlight how the relationship between public and private sphere can be deeper, richer, more multifaceted and advanced than in other educational and learning approaches. The educational system's beginning and ending point is the person. The Italian Constitution includes among its foundation principles a commitment to removing obstacles that impede "the full development of the human person." Unschooling creates the conditions for all the aspects that ultimately constitute the person to emerge and develop. This approach finds the concept of interest as the key to every activity. Interest is the moment of convergence and synthesis between the subject's interiority (the private) and the world (the public sphere) (Stern, 2006). Interest is the vital nucleus that begins and sustains the process of shaping the person, arising from the encounter between the public and the private sphere, where its propulsive and necessary action transmutes the individual's inner temperament into the character that will be the figure of their person (Bollea, 1995). In unschooling, learning dynamics unfold in real contexts, both cultural and natural, and there, without pre-orders or prescriptions, study and research paths are liberated and unfold, where the individual penetrates the public sphere, gathers its stimuli, and investigates its components and connotations.