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In a message dated 7/3/03 2:07:51 PM, CHILDLEDucator@... writes:

<< The closer we get to high school (both turning 13 this
year), the more I panic. >>

There is no high school in unschooling.

<<I have to bolster myself and remind myself that I
made an educated decision ...>>

You're really attached to "education," still. You used it here and its in
your e-mail address.

I think "education" is something someone does to someone else (or even to
oneself, but still it's the insertion of a prescribed body of SOMETHING).

Learning just happens, not from a set of things they "should know," but from
all the things they DO know, and if their learning in the back yard is as
valid and real as their learning in the front yard, if their learning by the river
is as real as their learning on a mountain, soon you can see that their
learning from a TV show is as real as their learning from a book.

Maybe the book is an almanac and the TV show is The Price is Right.

Maybe the book is twenty year old dirt on some actress's marriage, and the TV
show is a re-run of Connections on PBS.

Learning is taking every bit of stuff you hear/see/touch/think/smell/taste
and connecting it to other things in your mind. The more input and the more
peace to connect, the more learning has taken place.

Motherly nervousness doesn't add a lot to what your kids know. Being and
doing with them will though!

Sandra