[email protected]

 Hello to everyone.  Some of you may know me. .some of you, I'm sure, do not.  A brief intro.  My name is Teresa, I am the mother of 4 wonderful children.  I took my 3 younger ones out of a charter school about 18 months ago.  They are dd, 14, ds, 12 and ds 9.  My oldest son, 17, just graduated from public high school ( HOORAYY)  When I started out on my homeschooling journey, a few months before I actually took them out of school, I started by doing my own homework.  I began searching for every type of resource and support group I could find.  I assumed I would do school at home, although in a very relaxed fashion.  I had never heard of unschooling.  My research brought me again and again to unschooling and the concept planted itself in my brain it felt right. I decided that school at  home was for the birds.. lol.. and I knew that we would be unschooling.  I began to realize that homeschooling support in general is usually pretty easily found.. Most areas have several  real time hs support groups, but unschooling is a much more rare bird, especially "total unschooling"  ( which I perfer to "radical' unschooling).  I, as most others, turned to the Internet to find the interaction,  support and guidance in my unschooling journey. 
 I realize, when one is trying something on for the first time, perhaps going headlong into adversity from family, friends and even thier own "self talk", you feel an overwhelming need to seek out support and validation. Many new unschoolers end up on one of the many email lists that have been formed. Being a member of an online group is not a bad thing, it can be very rewarding, informative, and supportive.. But, in my own experience, online groups are NOT the best source for REAL LIFE support, resources, and guidance.    Your quest becomes cluttered and takes on inconsequential tangets that have little significance in your actual day to day life.. Things like defining unschooling and trying to place how one unschools in varying degrees of "right" and "wrong" hinder from actually learning anything about the lifestyle.    Personal conflicts only deter your path to unschooling,  they do NOT enable it.  
 
Finally, my "friendly advice".  New unschoolers should put all of thier efforts into finding like minded familes in thier area.   Meet them, visit with them, play with them, learn from them.  There may be only one family within driving distance that unschools, maybe a few if you are lucky.   Make it a specific point to find them.. search local hs groups.. make it known that you are an unschooler and looking for other familes to get together.   Even within our VERY " Bible belt, southern baptist, school at home" area.. we have a handful of unschoolers that live within an hour of us.. And even more as close as 2 hours away.   Living an hour apart, meeting halfway IS doable. and well worth the effort.  Establish real life friendships, make those folks your email buddies.  Exchange stories and toss ideas off of each other.  Offer support, commiseration, shared joy and enthusiasm.  Watch unschooling happen in a real, day to day situation.
 
It may seem like I am making this sound "too easy". and you may think, " Yeah right, thats not going to happen to me".  Believe me, IT WILL happen if you want it to. It  has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with effort.   I do feel very lucky that I met Pam Genant via a "regular" hs support group for NC.  Her boys, 7 and 9, have never been to school, they are "lifers"... have been unschooling since birth..  It is luck that Pam's boys and my son are in the same age range.. It's luck that they really like each other.. and probably luck that Pam and I like each other too.. LOL..   But, as wonderful as it has been to be friends with a veteran unschooler.. I can not discount the other interaction I have had with other unschoolers in our area.  Pam and I set out on a quest to bring unschoolers together in NC.  We created a yahoo group ( and here I am saying to NOT look towards groups.. lol)...  But, the intent of our group is not only to have "list discussions".. which we do, and they are very inspiring and helpful, but foremost to provide opportunities for unschoolers to actually meet and get to know each other.  This network of likeminded folks has helped me more than any amount of bickering and arguing on an unschooling list full of folks that I will probably never meet.  
 
 Please, if you take any bit of this email to heart.. let it be my urgence to seek out and connect with other unschoolers who can offer real time support and guidance.  Someone you can pick up the phone and call in a moment of crisis... someone you can send an email to just to share an exciting moment in your day.   Find unschoolers to go the park, museum, pool, zoo, movies, out to lunch with your family.  This type of mentoring and involvment is what will make your unschooling journey fall into place more naturally.   The only thing I can advise above this endeavor is just to enjoy your children.  Enjoy them.. trust them, nurture them. and do the same for yourself.  Don't sweat the small stuff, and do not allow yourself to be sucked into a vacuum of negativity that feels like you are back in school yourself.  Get out and get living!
 
Teresa
 
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pam sorooshian

Learning about and discussing unschooling in online forums has
transformed the lives of countless families, so I would not lightly
dismiss the incredible value of email and message board formats.
Finding face-to-face friends with whom to share our unschooling lives
is a gigantic blessing, though, I couldn't agree more with that
sentiment.

On May 31, 2004, at 6:35 AM, TeresaBnNC@... wrote:

> Your quest becomes cluttered and takes on inconsequential tangets that
> have little significance in your actual day to day life.

I think we each must speak for ourselves and maybe take care in telling
others what their experience will be. The above has not been my
experience, but I have seen that there are people who are "distracted"
by the discussions - wrapped up in the discussions to the extent that
they lose focus on their own families. For many of us, though, the
online discussions are extremely thought-provoking and we immediately
and constantly examine our own ideas and actions in the light of what
we are reading. So, although online discussions have had tremendous
significance in my actual day-to-day life with my family, I can
understand that, for some people, they are not helpful because that
person has a tendency to get caught up in contention and tangents that
are not useful for them.

> Things like defining unschooling and trying to place how
> one unschools in varying degrees of "right" and "wrong" hinder from
> actually learning anything about the lifestyle.  

Defining unschooling is part of the process of understanding what
people are talking about when they say, "We unschool" and is the answer
to the question, "What is unschooling?" I see absolutely no problem at
all with an unschooling discussion list spending considerable time
discussing what defines unschooling as unschooling - what it entails,
what unschoolers do that is different than other homeschoolers, what is
not unschooling and what is. The perception that these discussions are
placing people into varying degrees of "right" or "wrong" is only true
if people are overly concerned about what label they are placing on
themselves. To be a useful term that conveys enough meaning to be
valuable in communication, "unschooling" has to be understood as
something. Sometimes people simply mean that they don't send their
children off to a brick-and-mortar school - they "unschool." Early on,
that was the general meaning of the term as used by John Holt and
others. But, as pointed out in later issues of Growing Without
Schooling, the term "homeschooling" gradually took over as the more
general term and "unschooling" became increasingly specifically
associated with the kind of natural learning promoted by John Holt -
learning without curriculum, lesson plans, assignments, testing, and
grades. It became a subset of homeschoolers whose focus is on living a
lifestyle of learning together without any of the trappings of school.

Is there a continuum of homeschooling with unschooling at one end and a
complete formal required curriculum with teachers grading students'
examinations and assignments at the other end? I don't honestly think
there is an unbroken continuum. There is more difference between how
unschoolers live versus what some homeschoolers do to their children
than between some schools and unschooling. I'm not sitting on the same
continuum with those homeschoolers who keep a switch hung on the wall
next to the big chart for the black marks for children who don't pay
enough attention to their lessons. I'm a lot closer to my local public
school's "open classroom" with experiential learning stations than I am
to homeschoolers whose kids learn from boring workbooks and repetitive
regurgitation of facts. Learning and education is far too complicated
to be thought of as a simple continuum.

I really like the vegetarian analogy to unschooling. Vegetarians eat a
wide variety of foods - no two vegetarians (or unschoolers) are alike.
But, you just can't eat a steak while claiming to be a vegetarian. It
isn't "vegetarian" to eat a mostly vegetarian diet with a steak thrown
in on occasion. People who eat an occasional steak should not take
offense when it is pointed out that that isn't real vegetarianism. The
label is important for communication, that's all. Somebody who feels
more comfortable eating mostly vegetarian diet with an occasional
steak, but covets being called a vegetarian, is caring more about the
label than what really works for their family. Someone who feels
comfortable mostly following their kids' lead with just requiring that
they write something once a week or do a math program, but covets being
called an unschooler, is caring more about the label than what really
works for their family. They see discussions about "what unschooling
is" as "trying to place how one unschools in varying degrees of "right"
and "wrong,""

I think some people aspire to be "unschoolers" just like some aspire to
be "vegetarians" - for some reason they want to be able to "say" that
that is what they are, even though they don't want to entirely embrace
it. I'm a lot more reticent than that to label myself. I ate a totally
vegetarian diet for 12 years and never called myself a vegetarian,
because I never wanted to feel boxed in - didn't want to feel I had to
live up to people's expectations of a vegetarian if one day I suddenly
decided to pick up a barbequed rib. I own an unschooling discussion
list and write and talk about unschooling, but the honest truth is I
don't go around announcing to people that we are "unschoolers" as if
that is some sort of badge I wear. Just like I'd order a vegetarian
meal on an airplane, because there was a reason to point out that I ate
vegetarian food, I might say to another homeschooler that we unschool,
because it means something to them and helps them understand that I'm
not interested in comparing our choices of curriculum. But primarily
the term "unschooling" is used to introduce people to the kind of
natural learning and living lifestyle that John Holt promoted.

-pam
"To parents I say, above all else, don't let your home become some
terrible miniature copy of the school. No lesson plans! No quizzes!
No tests! No report cards! Even leaving your kids alone would be
better; at least they could figure out some things on their own. Live
together, as well as you can; enjoy life together, as much as you can."
John Holt in "Teach Your Own"