what I've learned from unschoolers...

[Gracefulmom]

I take a fairly relaxed, but classical approach to homeschooling, and I'm a member of a couple classical education groups (online). But here at MDC, I've learned a lot from all you unschooling families...
*RELAX! It's ok to go off on tangents when we want to know more about something.
*Have fun.
*Education doesn't have to come from books. (And certainly doesn't have to come from [I]textbooks[I].
*Listen to your child. My dd was having problems with first grade math... we tried all kinds of things, and finally just dropped it altogether for almost a year. When we started math "officially" again, she was still at grade level, even without having studied it at all!

So thank you unschoolers! You've taught me a lot.

P.S. What have you learned from other "styles" of schooling here?

[simple living mama]

Being an unschooler, I find myself going through panic mode about once a year. That's when I really lean on my friends here and start pulling out all the great books that led me to unschooling.

What usually pulls me out of that fear is my own kids. They will say something or start a new project on their own that blows me away. I then realize they are not only on track but truly remarkable. Watching my children and their friends learn is such a free way is fascinating.

I like you am very grateful for the women and men that have led me to unschooling. I have realized over time that we all have different degrees of comfort in how we unschool and there is no one size fits all type of unschooling. But the one similarity seems to be a great respect and trust for the learning process.

When given that OK to learn something as deep as you possibly want or simply to put it away for a later date, the learning is like no other learning I have witnessed (with the exception of kids that have not entered the school system yet).

For some reason we give that gift to our kids up to kindergarden and then feel that kind of freedom is somehow dangerous. Like implementing structure is what a child needs to be well behaved, have the academic basics, learn to fit in to society, and be normal what ever that means. (Eeeek)