And it's truly no surprise. Being Evergreen Alumni and having non-standard views on parenting, learning, and life, this path seems to have flowed seamlessly into our lives.
I've added a list of Unschooling sites down below for my own sake as well as for those who might be interested in what the whole idea of unschooling is.
In pulling my daughter out of school, I've already had many people ask me, "why would you take your kid out of school when the schools in Los Alamos are so good?"
To start with, we just happen to have a child who is not willing to be coerced into a situation she is uncomfortable with, and the situation she was most uncomfortable with was school. If she were like most other kids, we may never have found ourselves in this part of the world. But in many ways I can be thankful that she is different and that we can embark upon this journey of something radical and adventurous. And what an interesting journey it shall be...
Besides, are Los Alamos schools really so good? I went to Los Alamos schools 20+ years ago, and sure I had a good teacher or two. But I don't think I began any real passionate learning until I got to college. I mostly just cruised it, and did what I needed to do to get through the day to day.
LA Schools at this point seemed to have fallen under the spell of testing and more testing, homework and more homework.
I think John Holt said it best:
"What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out."
—John Holt, Teach Your Own
