All you really need to know about "unschooling"

All you really need to know about "unschooling"I got a chuckle out of a front-page article in the Sunday New York Times about "unschooling" (No School, and the Child Chooses What to Learn.)

On weekdays, during what are normal school hours for most students, the.. children do what they want. One recent afternoon, time passed loudly, and without order or lessons, in their home...As the number of children who are home-schooled grows — an estimated 1.1 million nationwide — some parents like Ms. Walter are opting for what is perhaps the most extreme application of the movement’s ideas. They are “unschooling” their children, a philosophy that is broadly defined by its rejection of the basic foundations of conventional education, including not only the schoolhouse but also classes, curriculums and textbooks...

What kind of parent would be foolish enough to choose this path for their kids? There's a clue later in the article:

Ms. Walter, a natural-childbirth instructor, has had to assuage tense feeling from some of her peers.

Natural childbirth can be a wonderful experience when everything works out well. The natural childbirth advocates have some valid criticisms of the medical system, and unschoolers have some valid criticisms of the education system.When natural birth advocates include a rigid insistence on home birth and a rejection of OBs, results can be devastating when things go wrong. I'm willing to bet the unschoolers are going to cause society plenty of problems.