The last two years I lived in Madison, I worked at a bakery co-op. We ran everything by consensus, and we had no one in charge.

Once me and two friends of mine at the co-op were reading an essay answer to a question on an application that a job applicant wrote for us. The guy was going on about how hierarchy is this capitalistic invention, and how we should all try to emulate Nature instead, because it's completely non-hierarchical.

Oh gawd, did we laugh our asses off. A friend said, "What, has this guy never heard of a pecking order?"

Anyway, I have a feeling if I met the "true freedom" person, their views would spark a lot of deja vu for me....

Juliana congrats on the job!

Hil, I've read about this unschooling thing. It kind of sounds like lazy parenting to me.

I had a rather unpleasant weekend. I was hit with a stomach virus Saturday night and spent Sunday feeling icky (especially after I over did it and ate a banana). Today I stayed home from work but tomorrow I'm going in, my tummy feels better, I've been drinking watered down Gatorade and water and eating crackers and jello and finally up graded to some apple sauce and plain rice. Although I think the rice was pushing it.

Hil, I've read about this unschooling thing. It kind of sounds like lazy parenting to me.

From what I've read about it, and a few unschooled kids that I taught during summer programs, it seems like it can work well if it's done right and with real thought put into it. What this person is advocating doesn't sound to me like the way I've generally seen/heard about it practiced, though.

Congratulations, juliana!!! May this job treat you very well!

Hil, I've read about this unschooling thing. It kind of sounds like lazy parenting to me.

From what I've read about it, and a few unschooled kids that I taught during summer programs, it seems like it can work well if it's done right and with real thought put into it. What this person is advocating doesn't sound to me like the way I've generally seen/heard about it practiced, though.

I know one gung-ho unschooler. She's bright and dedicated to her children, but I've also seen (through her) some of the weirder philosophies behind "unschooling." It's very Lockean at its core--the "noble savage" and all that.

FWIW, unschooling is mostly in Texas--where the homeschooling laws have been gutted by Christian fundamentalists who don't want the evil, sectarian gubbement telling them what to teach their children. But it's been embraced by granola, new-age hippies as well. So you get a wide-spectrum of practices within the unschooling movement that ranges from really teaching kids based on their own interests every day to having a 14 year old who can't read because he didn't want to learn.

I'm not exactly an advocate of child-led education. I know where my kids would lead me if they could.

And are there any results of the "un-schooling" out and about trying to make it as adults now?

Yeah, the girl I knew who was unschooled was definitely from the crunchy granola side of it. Great kid. I can't really say anything definite about her academically, since I didn't teach her, but to get into this program (for the class she was taking) required getting something like 550 on the verbal section of the SAT in seventh grade.

Most of the stuff that I've read about it has been from the John Holt/Learning All the Time side of it. I haven't seen much "noble savage" stuff there, more of a "kids won't learn much if their motivation is grades or gold stars or praise from a teacher -- learning how to get the right answer is a totally different skill than learning the material" philosopy. But I'm been purposely staying away from the totally crazy ends of the spectrum.

I think my sister started her kids off with unschooling and still does some of it, but she's found that her son learns better from teachers that are not his parents and benefits from some leading and her daughter just loves going to school (she's in a Waldorf school now, I think), so she hasn't completely stuck to it.

Locke was tabula rasa, Rousseau was noble savage. FWTW.

And are there any results of the "un-schooling" out and about trying to make it as adults now?

Somewhere in something I was reading, it mentioned an unschooled kid who's now a student at Georgetown. I recall something about another one who took a few years off to travel and figure out what he wanted to do, then settled into being a carpenter, then decided that he wanted to go into engineering and went to college for that degree. A quick google search isn't finding me either of those articles right now, though.

OK, found it:

Or Skolnik, 19, was unschooled in Phoenix, and the first official test he took was his driver’s license test.

The next test he took was an admissions test to attend community college at age 16. He got a perfect score.

Today, he’s a junior at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., majoring in government.

When his fellow students learn that he was unschooled, they are sometimes surprised he’s not socially awkward — the stereotypical image of a home-schooler, he said.

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