by Rane Sessions, an unschooling parent My understanding about unschooling is that it is for people who believe and practice that children have natural curiosities and that they are allowed, aided and abetted in pursuing his/her own interests no matter how unusual or bizarre. I also understand that unschoolers generally tend to feel, think, practice the child as learner and teacher (parent) as supporters not transmitters. I understand unschooling to be a way of allowing children to find their own ways with little pressure to conform, and that knowledge starts within a context of a desire to learn, not being forced to learn. My interpretation of this led me to dismiss Sudbury Valley School type of education for my child, to decide not to do independent study at the local middle school and to find this list. My child has been part of the decision of how to home educate or private school. I understand that this is part of unschooling. I know that some people homeschool to protect their children from the real world. I thought this was a difference between homeschooling and unschooling. I understood that homeschooling could very well be duplicating school at home with additional stuff to learn or excluding stuff to learn. I understood that many homeschoolers opt to homeschool because the values taught in schools were against their personal beliefs - i.e. evolution and bible study or other religious outlooks on life. We chose unschooling as the way to go because we could send our son to school and have him learn from books like his spelling workbook, and that we can provide him with this type of education at home without classmates. But, we respect him as a being, and recognize that our public school does not. For these reasons we have always talked about things other people think shouldn’t be talked about with a child. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we have finally come to unschooling. My children don’t steal, smoke, do drugs, or find it justifiable to hurt another human being or not to care about this world and the things that are in it. They don’t do these things because they chose not to, and many of their classmates do. They did not make these choices because they were guarded from these subjects or were forbidden to do these things. Many of their agemates have been protected from "evil or bad" and so do "bad" secretly, and many more have been forbidden to do "bad" and sneak. I believe in openness and exposure. Not exposure to being told you may not think, you may not talk, you may not question, you may not know. They got that in school. If that was my point of view, then they would continue on in school.