There are no democratic schools here in SA, so we created our own home/unschool democratic environment. All the kids get together twice a week to hang out. We have an amazing young woman, who is gifted herself, who started studying teaching then after meeting my kids chose to not complete her studies and she is the facilitator for the group. The kids set the rules, they choose what to do with their days. Ariel offers and suggests activities but nothing is compulsory. So the kids who want to read go sit and read together, the kids who want to build lego do so. others climb trees and others get creative. The ebb and flow is incredible to witness. Our core group is about 10 - 12 kids, aged 2 - 12 and it is amazing! they are creating their own play based on the LORAX movie to put on next year April or thereabouts. They have allowed even the little ones to input for script, music, costumes etc. I love that the 11/12 year olds are truly accepting of my 5 year old reading Asterix with them - they teach him to play soccer and cricket and allow him full access when they build lego, forts or anything else. They invite him to their parties and they attended his with great delight.
The parents are around at times to model desired behaviour - mostly in terms of dealing with conflict, guidance for those who want to learn something a parent may have skills in etc.
We intend on expanding on this in the next year or two and eventually offering a full-time environment "school". I am busy creating a learning resource centre and this will provide the formalised external exams that some of the kids may want to do.
In my personal opinion this is the ideal "inclusive" model of learning - kids being allowed to go as fast or as slow as they want as they choose to do so.
