A while ago we had a little girl over to play at our house and she told Rutger and Stijn that she had problems doing math at school. Rutger and Stijn felt sorry for her and immediately offered to help her. They started asking her all sorts of math questions and the little girl tried hard to come up with the right answers. For both of them this was the natural thing to do; our boys asked the questions like a teacher would and the little girl tried to come up with the right answers like a student would. When I thought about it some more it made sense to me that my children felt so comfortable teaching their friend about math. As un-schoolers they are their own teacher; everything they know they’ve taught themselves and that’s why they feel that they really own their knowledge. When you own your knowledge you’ll feel confident enough to share it with and explain it to others. A few weeks later a similar incident occurred; it had been snowing and Stijn had been outside with his snowboard for days. We have a little hill in our backyard and after a lot of practicing he was finally able to snowboard down hill without falling. One of our neighbors stopped by and asked us if we were taking a break from our school program. I explained to her that snowboarding and all other snow fun was a part of our ‘program’. She then told me that she and her family had been to the ski slopes in the weekend and that her daughter had had a lesson from a professional snowboard instructor. Stijn, who overheard our conversation, asked her if her daughter really knew how to snowboard now. That wasn’t the case though; her daughter had realized that she wanted to try something else instead since snowboarding was too hard for her. "If she changes her mind" Stijn said "I’ll be happy to give her a few lessons." Then he took his board and climbed the hill again. Whether it’s math or snowboarding, when you learn it all by yourself it’s a very empowering experience. When a teacher teaches you something he is the one that owns the knowledge or skills and he is the one who decides whether or not you succeed in meeting his expectations. Best case scenario you get a good grade or praise and you feel relieved. You can be a really good student but you’re still a student. Un-schoolers, on the contrary, are their own teachers; they don’t have to meet anyone’s expectations but they often exceed their own.