One comment on unschooling.
The lack of a rigorous treatment of some subjects REALLY hurt me once I got into academia and then into industry. Being an autodidact is fine, but at some point, if one is serious about learning, one MUST become rigorous. One idea must lead to another and then to another and all the connections must be on a firm foundation AND one must know the minutiae and the underpinnings of ideas as well as seeking out and dealing with criticisms.
To really explore a subject or develop a technical, social, or business case, one must critically wrestle with difficult ideas and recapitulate very hard expositions. This is much, much more difficult than just going though a textbook, which is really just a spoonfeeding, but a necessary one.
And one must often develop a textbook-like work to provide training for operators or to codify the knowledge so that results are repeatable. The training of doctors and airline pilots depends heavily and without exception on the orderly accumulation knowlege. Even the basics of life - farming - are heavily dependent on codified knowledge.
I understand the intent of unschooling, but I am not sure the end goal ( a vital analytic and joyful mind ) is realistic without the introduction and adherence to rigor at some point in the process.
