The reason this conversation is really bothering me, is because Sandra kept responding with other points that had nothing to do with my one and only question. (Her points are GREAT ones, and ones I in fact agree with, but they are points about something other that my one question: Should I give my 4 & 7 year olds that particular game? She never said Yes (and why) or NO (and why). You might ask yourself if you were trying to have a conversation with someone and they were skipping over your particular question, and making lots of other points that had nothing to do with what you were still trying to talk about!!! I'm not wound up and defensive and angry. Although I find myself frustrated, and now on the defense trying to tell you (and Sandra) that I agree with all those points she made, BUT IT'S NOT WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. That's all.

If we answer questions with "yes" and "no," and give people what they claim to want, or what they think they want, we are chucking fish out instead of providing information on how to fish, how to make one's own custom fishing equipment and when and where the fishing is great. Unschooling can't work as a series of yes/no questions.

Another principle at work. Helping people learn to find their own answers is vastly superior to distributing answers on demand. And those who volunteer their time and experience are not willing to hold other's hands for years or months. They want to empower others. Empowerment is a principle, not a rule. Learning to examine one's own life and needs and beliefs is necessary for unschooling to work. When priorities and principles are coming clearer, such questions as whether or not to buy a particular game or tool or movie or food are EASY, simple, happy questions. That's why the mom quoted above didn't get the simple straight answer she thought she needed. No one wanted to waste time or energy sending her down the wrong path.

I'm reading the first book, Shaman's Crossing, in the latest trilogy, Soldier Son Trilogy, written by someone I met about 25 years ago. (You can find her website at Robin Hobb.)

She is not an unschooler or a homeschooler, although she had four children. Her youngest is now a teen.

This quote touches on the differences between appearing to know math and really knowing math and between rules and principles:

I was good at math, but I was good at it in a rote way, just as a small child can recite "nine plus twelve is twenty-one" long before he knows what numbers are or that they signify quantities. I could manipulate numbers and symbols accurately because I knew the rules. Gord, however, understood the principles. He explained exponents in a way that made me understand that I had been looking at a map of mathematics and Gord knew the countryside of it. That is an inadequate explanation for such a subtle awakening, but it is the best I can do.