When Tyler Thigpen saw his students help design their own school building (literally), he knew there was a better way to educate children than the traditional system. Tyler reveals why the industrial education model is creating generations of dependent learners – and how parents can take back control of their children’s education.

Self-Directed Learning: A Complete Parent’s Guide for 2025

The first thing you might notice about the old building for the Forest School is that it was designed by the same company that built Georgia’s state prisons. This is not some dark metaphor we’re inventing to make a point about American education. It’s just a fact – the kind of accidental poetry the universe occasionally provides.

“We used that as a fundraising pitch,” says Thigpen, co-founder of the innovative Acton Academy outside Atlanta. “‘Help us get out of here.'”

They did get out. Today, Thigpen’s students learn in a building they helped design themselves. It has soaring ceilings, floods of natural light, and a central courtyard where three-year-olds and teenagers mingle freely. The contrast between these two spaces – prison-builder versus child-architect – tells you everything you need to know about what’s wrong with traditional education and why an increasing number of families are seeking alternatives.

“I’ve lost patience for boring learning environments,” Thigpen says, with the weary conviction of someone who’s spent years fighting institutional inertia. “I’ve just seen too much at this point. I’ve seen ways that captivate 17 and 18-year-olds, and I’m just not willing to put up with stuff that I know is going to bore them.”

He’s not alone. A seismic shift is happening in American education. According to recent data, traditional school enrollment has plummeted while interest in self-directed learning approaches has skyrocketed. Parents who glimpsed behind the curtain during COVID-19 lockdowns are asking harder questions about how and why we educate. They’re discovering that the factory model of education – the one that puts kids in identical boxes for identical time periods to learn identical things – isn’t just outdated. It might be actively harmful.

What is Self-Directed Learning?

The term gets thrown around a lot these days, usually by education startups promising to “revolutionize” your child’s learning with the same old standardized curriculum wrapped in shinier packaging. But real self-directed learning is something far more fundamental – and far more powerful.

At its core, self-directed learning means exactly what it sounds like: students take ownership of their education. They learn to identify what interests them, figure out how to learn it, and actually do the work – not because someone is forcing them, but because they want to. It’s the difference between being force-fed information and learning to cook for yourself.

“When you’ve got a learner in a classroom for 12 years plus, they are having to follow rules they didn’t make. They’re having to listen to answers to questions they didn’t ask,” Thigpen explains. “What does that do to you? What does it do to your spirit? What does it do to your heart? What does it do to your mind?”

Research from the past decade shows that students who direct their own learning tend to develop stronger academic skills, better emotional regulation, and higher levels of motivation that persist into college and careers. One comprehensive review found that self-directed learners performed equal to or better than their traditionally educated peers on standardized measures, while showing significantly higher levels of initiative and independence.

But perhaps most telling is what happened when COVID hit. “In March 2020,” Thigpen notes, “parents and caregivers across our nation suddenly saw whether or not their kids were self-directed learners. If they were sitting around waiting for some older person to tell them what to do for their learning – that’s a dependent learner right there.”

The revelation wasn’t pretty. Parents watched their kids flounder in remote learning, not because the material was too difficult, but because they’d never learned to learn without someone standing over them. Meanwhile, a smaller group of students – those who’d already developed self-direction – actually thrived in the flexibility of learning from home.

This divide exposed what educators like Thigpen had been seeing for years: our education system isn’t just failing to prepare kids for the future – it’s actively training them to be dependent. Students are rewarded for compliance and penalized for curiosity that strays from the prescribed path.

The results are predictable. “It took me a good 10 years after graduating college to figure out how to take feedback well and want feedback,” Thigpen admits. “My school was not designed to teach me that.”

But there’s another way. At The Forest School, students don’t just passively receive an education – they help create it. Take the school building project. When they needed a new campus, they didn’t hire architects to design it in isolation. Instead, they turned it into a learning opportunity. Elementary school students formed design teams, studied architecture and construction, built models, and presented their ideas to town officials and industry experts.

The result? A building that actually works for learning. High ceilings and natural light that research shows improve cognitive function. A central courtyard where different age groups mix naturally, fostering the kind of organic mentorship that’s impossible in age-segregated traditional schools. Most importantly, a space that students feel ownership over because they helped create it.

The research is clear: when students have agency in their learning environment, they develop stronger executive function, better problem-solving skills, and higher levels of motivation. They learn to take initiative, handle feedback, and navigate uncertainty – exactly the skills that modern employers say they’re desperately seeking and traditional schools are failing to deliver.

The Research Behind Self-Directed Learning

If this all sounds too good to be true, the numbers back it up. Multiple studies over the past decade show that students in self-directed environments perform as well as – and often better than – their peers in traditional schools on standardized measures of achievement.

Take college success. A comprehensive study of self-directed school graduates found that 83% went on to higher education (Gray and Riley, 2015), with many getting into their top-choice schools. More importantly, they thrived once they got there. While their traditionally-schooled classmates often struggled with the sudden freedom of college life, these students already knew how to manage their time, seek help when needed, and drive their own learning.

But perhaps the most compelling evidence comes from the job market. A longitudinal study of graduates from self-directed programs found them succeeding across diverse fields – from entrepreneurship to engineering, arts to medicine. Employers consistently rated them higher in critical thinking, problem-solving, and initiative compared to traditional graduates.

The psychological research explains why. Studies show that when students have autonomy over their learning, they develop stronger intrinsic motivation, better emotional regulation, and more robust executive function – the mental skills essential for planning, focusing attention, and juggling multiple tasks. In other words, self-directed learning doesn’t just teach students what to learn; it teaches them how to learn. In a world where the half-life of skills is shrinking rapidly, that’s the ultimate competitive advantage.

Getting Started with Self-Directed Learning

The evidence for self-directed learning is compelling. The challenge for most families isn’t whether to pursue it, but how. Traditional homeschooling requires significant time and resources. Private microschools like The Forest School, charge tuition and aren’t always within reach. And piecing together a DIY solution can feel overwhelming for parents who are already juggling work and family responsibilities.

This is where the real innovation in education is happening. A new model has emerged that combines the freedom of self-directed learning with the resources and support of public education. Through partnerships with forward-thinking school districts, programs like OpenEd are making personalized, self-directed learning accessible to any family – at no cost.

Here’s how it works:

• Students get funding for approved educational expenses
• Parents maintain the flexibility to choose curriculum and resources
• Certified teachers provide support without micromanagement
• Students can learn at their own pace and focus on their interests
• Regular check-ins ensure progress while maintaining autonomy

“Choose your gaps,” as Thigpen puts it. “Whatever educational institutions you’re utilizing, they can’t do everything. There will be gaps. The key is taking full responsibility and choosing which gaps you’re willing to accept.”

The future of education isn’t about replacing traditional schools entirely. It’s about giving families real choices and the support they need to make those choices work. Whether your child needs more challenge or more flexibility, whether they’re falling behind or racing ahead, self-directed learning opens up possibilities that simply don’t exist in a one-size-fits-all system.

Ready to explore your options? Learn more about OpenEd’s program and start your family’s journey toward self-directed learning today.