Thanks for all of the answers, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I didn't want it to sound bad. I just guess I had a completely wrong idea of how unschooling worked after seeing that video.
I have no doubt that journalists following me around could make me look like a neglectful, horrible mother, or mother of the year, depending on how they were inclined. I'm neither. Journalism isn't always about truth, it's often about a good story.
However, even though I do consider myself an unschooler, I am really enjoying this thread because it has made me more comfortable about what I do. The more permissive side of radical unschooling gets much more of a run, and it is lovely to hear it's still unschooling if I have a structure and rules in my house!
For my family, I also feel that it's ok to use some curriculum. John Holt described curriculum as guide books, and I liked that because it made me free to use/not use as I saw fit. I don't have to go every place mentioned in a guide book, or miss things just because they aren't in my guidebook, but if the book has some great stuff in it, and I'm enjoying it - why not?
It was a real eye opener for me when I was teaching and I saw how "hit and miss' the school education actually was. We like to pretend it's all neat, but really it's not. (That's one of the reasons there is so much repetition.) Unschooling just acknowledges that, and builds on it.
Thanks for finding it GreenGully!
