Unschooling is...

• Blissing wildly...blazing your own trail.
• Living LIFE out-of-the-box.
• Valuing relationships over content.
• Questioning authority.
• Refusing to be cogs in a socially-engineered world.
• Unadulterated learning.
• Educere (latin root of 'educate'): to draw out something hidden, latent, or reserved.
• Undivided wholeness.
• Experiential wisdom.
• Without inflicted (including self-inflicted) limitations.
• Pure consciousness. Pure attention.
• Proprioceptive learning.
• A Handmade Life.
• Finding work worth doing & a life worth living.
• Learning without Weapons of Mass Instruction (J.T. Gatto)
• Everything that public school has tried to be, but never could be, just by nature of itself.
• The ability to take life at the speed that fits us.
• Learning what you are interested in and realizing that almost all of life is INTERESTING.
• Living a Big Life!
• The same kind of learning babies do.
• The same kind of learning adults do.
• Active parenting.
• Active listening.
• Salting the oats. ("You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make
him drink; but you can salt the oats." credit to July/Aug 2003 HEM)
• Naturally-motivated.
• Descriptive of the relationship between parent & child.
• The way we would live if there were no such thing as "school."
• Respect for natural talents, curiosities, interests, & passions.
• Being your own author instead of living someone else's story.
• Learning/teaching by example.
• Learning as lifestyle.
• A way of approaching the world every day.
• Curiosity valued.
• Parent as guide or coach, rather than "teacher."
• Mentoring & real life experience valued.
• Maiutic (to lead/midwife knowledge out through questioning).
• Elenctic (criticism, doubting, testing of accepted beliefs).
• Aporia (inducing a state of perplexity).
• Strewing the path.
• Not waiting in line for lunch.
• Time to pursue your passions.
• FUN.
• Learnin' whatcha want to!
• Living each day to its fullest - and enjoying the moment.
• Learning naturally - with a joyful spirit.
• Being with the people you love.
• No Child Left Behind....No, REALLY!!!
• A GRANFALLOON.
• Trusting yourself to find what you need to know and what makes you happy in the fullness of life.
• The best way to understand the REAL WORLD!
• Random.
• Freedom.
• FUN!
• Joy & ease.
• Being away from the rat trap.
• Following your bliss.
• Liberation from compulsory academia.
• Exploration.
• Studying U.S. Government in pajamas with a cat in your lap and a cup of tea :-)
• Learning from life, the way it was meant to be learned :-)
• HERE! (and there)
• Timeless
• Lots of snuggling in the a.m.
• Lots of audio tapes in the p.m.
• Life. Because life and learning are the same thing. Unschooling is knowing this....and living it!
• Trusting in spirit within you and your child.
• Being who you are.
• Sleeping late, staying up late. (Or getting up early and retiring with the sun.)
• A lesson in clarifying reality and finding your heart's dance & then doing it. LOVE.
• Taking a 5 month trip through the country in an RV, with the whole family.
• Pooping without permission.
• Going to Europe during off-season.
• Watching the stars at a campfire on a "school night."
• More time with friends!
• Taking care of the present - to better take care of the future.
• Life.
• Molding yourself instead of being molded
• Breaking the mold and being
• Using awareness and
  developing abilities
  to make choices
  and decisions
  
  (instead of
  being told who
  and what to be
  and when
  and where to be
  and what to think
  and how to think
  and that what
  you think is wrong)
  
  WHEW!