Kolleen

There were so many posts that I wanted to respond to. But alas there must
of been a reason the power went out twice and I lost the snippets. With
no time to go back through the massive amount of mail to find them
(again).

Bridget's explanation of experience reminded me of when I was hiring a
pressman. Not an easy task at a time when unemployment was low. A very
wise person said to me "Make sure they have experience. I mean 15 years
of experience, not 1 year of experience 15 times over."

If all your children fall easily into unschooling, are very adaptive and
there's no neurological damage going on.. then you're going to have very
little rocks in the road with unschooling. It becomes a challange when
you hit bumps outside the norm. Or when you take on another child that
you didn't raise and have to deschool them, or *gasp* they are damaged
beyond repair and now you still need to fit that into a lifestyle.

Experience comes in many shapes and forms. And what about the ones that
are born into it.. are they more experienced? Or the ones that it comes
natural and they didn't have to awaken to it? There was no 'aha' it just
always was and anything outside of it seems strange...

Like I said.. many shapes and forms... I'm not going to judge who's is
worth more in anyone elses eyes but my own. Which leads to experts.

Even experts with degress might not be considered experts by others at
all. If you show me your chiropractic expert, I'm going to ask if he is
Grostic. If not, he's no expert to me. In my eyes.

We all pick our experts that belong to our belief system. In the realm of
unschooling, I would choose my father for a start.. then think about
Holt.. then maybe jump over to Lynda because she sums things up in a way
that I can relate to instantly. I haven't read enough of anyone elses
information to determine if they are my experts.

Without a bonafide expert. Nor any officially recognized movement, then
unschooling doesn't have an owner per se. It has advocates. Some of them
vehemently disagree on certain points. Somehow, there is a commonality
amongst them, even if the devil is in the details.

With all these advocates, who then has the right, the power, the
ownership to determine what fits into this term and what doesn't.

Should we use your expert? or my expert? (blanket question, not directed
at anyone)

NY Times, Washington Post, Globe and Mail.. I haven't seen any
proclamations that there is a unified group of the unschoolers and they
have chosen a leader and defined the term. So we're back to square one.
No nationally recognized experts.

And for that, I'm glad. I remember learning how the AMA established
itself in courts as the medical experts. So anything alternative isn't
viable. I would hate to see the same of something so organic as
unschooling.

There might be factions or groups that look to certain experts. But they
are congregating in specific places. A group here, a group there. Nothing
on a nationally established level. So there is no ownership of the word.
Or a movement en masse that says this is how it has to be if you want to
be an unschooler.

Therefore, nobody has the right to proclaim it as this or that, and you
don't belong unless you follow what my group has established.

Lets find the commonalities, like 'the child's agenda', and after that...
maybe it can grow into something beyond this website, that conference,
this publication etc. Who know?

Off on a road trip, just me and the kid. I even went as far to get myself
one of those brain-scrambling cell phones for emergencies.

Going offmail for a bit.. I'll drop in if I get near a computer... enjoy
the discussion.

kolleen

Mac OS X is like a wigwam: no Windows, no Gates, Apache inside.

"People take different roads seeking
fulfillment and happiness. Just
because they're not on your road
doesn't mean they've gotten lost."
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.