[Firebird Rising]

Leslie, I'm coming back to this because I hope I didn't offend you and want to further clarify.

I firmly believe that, in unschooling, there is facilitating in the way that Charlotte Mason would agree with. Exposure is absolutely key in both types of schooling. With Charlotte Mason, there is more of a framework. With unschooling, I feel that as parents allowing to our children to have this type of learning environment, we still have responsibility to provide variety and require our children and ourselves to grow beyond our knowledge. Using the books and readings that amblesideonline lists, is a way to GIVE our children the idea of wings. Allowing them to fly beyond that is where the two schooling worlds separate and further personal-interest study can either be schooling (as per unschooling) or free-time pursuit (as per Charlotte Mason).

With the Charlotte Mason model of nature appreciation for children, many of the early activities DO become delight-driven/unschooled and promote a love that can later be structured, if needed, or left, depending on the personality of the child. For instance, on a nature walk with my three year old, I show him oak tree leaves and lichen. He seems uninterested. The next day, while out on a walk, he begins his exploration with, "Will we see leaves?" I tell him we will. "Will they be oak leaves?" I tell him that we will see some oak leaves. He picks up an oak leaf and names it. Then picks up another leaf, not an oak leaf. "What's this one?" "I don't know. Shall we find out?" "Yes." So we take the leaf home and look in our identifying book and learn the name.

I'm not a believer in a pure radical unschooling model because I do feel that children need some sort of established structure, something that helps them bend to a direction they would not naturally travel without guidance. I see a direct link between parents who lack self-discipline having children who lack self-discipline. I also see parents who have self-discipline with kids that do NOT. I believe the latter example is where a failure to communicate and address this absence of self-discipline occurs. I think the Charlotte Mason model comes into play to prevent such a problem by way of making things such as poetry a part of daily life to foster appreciation, encouraging fluency in another language to expose children to cultures they may not otherwise pursue or even be aware of, etc.

I really hope this is making sense. I keep re-reading it and thinking it might be a little abstract :/

Leslie, to answer your question, I find that radical unschooling (where children have no guidance or imposition of self-discipline in study) and simple unschooling (when children are both delight driven and intentionally exposed to encourage further study as well as consciously guided through the things that they not pick up naturally) often get lumped into a box together. I find them distinctly different. The division of time that you mention several times in your paragraph as far as the specific activities one uses as "school" time versus "free time" is what made me say what I said. My view of schooling is that LIFE is school, not just the interests of my child at the moment, but both the simple unobstructive guidance I provide towards certain subjects and the time I allow a child to wander and explore on their own. I don't divide the time up into "school" and "no school" time frames AND I don't label what we do during the day as "school" even though some might think it is. It is somewhat delight-driven, somewhat unfocused, but still facilitated towards many of the ideals of Charlotte Mason as stated on ambleside.

Maybe a better term for what I do is "eclectic" if it has to be labeled. I consider it unschooling but maybe others wouldn't.

And, I believe that location has much to do with how one perceives/records "schooltime" as well. I look forward to moving out of California because of the homeschooling laws but I have yet to study some of the states we've considered. In Nebraska, where I was introduced to the two homeschool families, there are very relaxed laws and neither family was doing much in the way of submitting records for approval of their program.

Again, Leslie, maybe my words are wrong, but my intent is warm and I hold a deep amount of respect for the work done on Ambleside. I am grateful to my friends for introducing me to the idea of bringing this type of structure into my children's learning environment.

Jen D.

PS: YES, my oldest child is a 3 year old and I may be beyond naive since I haven't been through it yet. Over the last 4 years, I have held a keen interest in child psychology, schooling and learning styles. I am also the child of two generations of teachers on both sides of my family and have observed student/teacher interactions with interest since I was young.