Can I get one more in on the dead horse??
(Nice to "meet" you Minnie! We're homeschoolers too!)
Most of the most-radical unschoolers I've met -- the ones that don't want my textbook cooties rubbing off on them -- aren't actually concerned about textbook bias as much as they are about spoiling the joy of natural discovery. They don't want their kids to be told anything they might discover on their own. And actually thinking back, when their kids do discover something the parents don't always seem to have ~any~ kind of concern for the bias in what they've discovered.... I'm remembering a particularly badly-done history fair project... eek! Anyway I can appreciate the joy of discovery, but I think at least in our situation there's been plenty to discover (and plenty of joy) without being excessive about it.
There was one mom here who was bemoaning her DS's test scores (required standardized testing for homeschoolers aged 7-16 in NC) because he had done all the math problems as addition. Not because he couldn't understand math, but he had never seen a minus sign and didn't know what it meant. Not that I think it's really a huge deal in the long run, and she knew he understood subtracting in "real life," but I don't completely see the point of going out of your way to avoid the topic until he discovers it himself. I know with DS he would have been furious to find out that I knew all about minus signs and never mentioned it.
So we'll go with "eclectic" here too
I think our style would actually be best described as "collaborative"... We're not completely child-led and not completely mom-led, but we work together, and our route mostly comes out of our best areas of overlap.
Anyway, welcome!
