We Don’t Need No Education -- We Don’t Need No Thought Control: Reflections on Achieving Musical Literacy & the Importance of Unschooling

During a recent curriculum methods class, one of my students inquired about my musical training. Since the vast majority of my musical experiences transpired outside the forum of formal music education, I was unable to answer the question without getting into my life’s story. This experience motivated me to chronicle my lifelong musical experiences and subsequently reflect on them. These reflections ultimately substantiate that the process of rejecting formal music education and engaging in self-teaching has been the primary method that allowed me to achieve a high level of musical literacy. The paper also argues that the process of self-teaching in the musical arena is very similar to the principles of unschooling (a term coined by American author and educator John Caldwell Holt) where learning is based on the student's interests, needs, and goals.