this list is a forum for former unschoolers and homeschoolers of any religious, philosophical or political persuasion. Discuss your 'unconventional' upbringing and the ways in which it's shaped your life. What was your experience? Do you plan to home/unschool your children? How are you living now? How are you continuing to learn?

An interview with John Holt from 1980 from The Mother Earth News. Holt discussed his own schooling experiences, how he discovered the key to real learning, and how the idea of homeschooling developed. He also discussed some concerns that parents new to the idea of homeschooling have. There is a short description of some of the legal issues that homeschoolers have faced and where the homeschooling movement is headed.

A wonderful list of things that can lead to math learning.

So what on earth is natural learning? Isn't all learning natural? What would you do different if you were following a natural learning approach? How can I pursue natural learning?

Unschooling is an educational approach, an attitude towards learning. It refers to the ways in which we use books, materials, and experiences to learn and grow. The type of underlying structure you have inside yourself, your goals, value system, discipline, whether you watch TV or call parents by their first names, whether you use a patriarchal, democratic, or any other type of family structure, are not unschooling issues; they are parenting issues. Whether unschoolers or not, every parent must deal with these issues. Homeschoolers can agree on matters of how children learn and can even share a similar homeschooling style without agreeing on all of those personal issues; Christians can be unschoolers.

A look at how taking a break from the house for a day doesn't mean a break from learning.

A mother of an exceptional child discusses why homeschooling is the right choice for their family. A personal look at the joys of learning and growing together through an unschooling philosophy of life.

A list designed for those new to the philosophy of unschooling. Ask experienced unschoolers all those niggling questions, and find out how unschooling works in real families. If you're familiar with John Holt's work, but unsure of how to begin or what an unschooling day really looks like, this is a place for you to discuss, question, ponder, and become deeply familiar with natural learning and how it affects our entire lives. From parenting issues to learning from the whole wide world and beyond, come explore the issues that unschooling families have dealt with in the past and how to get beyond "school-think" to a joyful unschooling lifestyle.!

A list for unschoolers who are interested in moving towards a sustainable lifestyle. Topics for discussion may include how sustainability and unschooling complement each other, and how we resolve conflicting values.

A new study from Concordia University and Mount Allison University has found that homeschooling -- as long as it's structured or follows a curriculum -- can provide kids with an academic edge. "Structured homeschooling may offer opportunities for academic performance beyond those typically experienced in public schools," says first author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia Department of Education, noting this is among the first nonpartisan studies to investigate home education versus public schooling.

Unschooling is a word coined by negating the idea of schooling; it starts off with a negative definition. What, specifically, is it about schools that unschoolers want to do without?

A look at unschooling as a philosophy of life from an African-American perspective.

A look at using an unschooling approach with children who are highly sensitive and out of sync.

Many experts claim to know how to teach a child, but do they know how to educate him? Perhaps professionalism is a form of religion too. It takes a lot of faith to believe that removing children from their parents and making them serve time under an authoritarian regimen in a formal institution is somehow going to prepare them to love and serve their fellow man and live a peaceful and prosperous life. But mothers know.

This is a companion list to the website UnSchoolers Online. It is a safe place to openly discuss anything related to unschooling and our children.

This group is for unschoolers in the midwest to offer support to other life learning families and to organize activities.

Iowans Dedicated to Educational Alternatives (IDEA) is an unschooling homeschool group that supports families in Iowa and surrounding areas. The families in this support group come from many different religions, ethnic backgrounds and walks of life.

This discussion list is the companion communications forum for the Unschooling.com website.

One of the most important duties of parents is to help their children to discover and pursue new interests, retaining the love of learning that is almost universal in young children and almost universally extinct in conventionally educated adults. Standardised curricula, and the stultifying educational hoops that schoolchildren have to jump through, sabotage this aim. This can cause trouble for parents who have to satisfy other people ... that they are educating their children properly. Under pressure, they may slide into a "homeschooling" mentality that distorts and damages their children's education.

The goal of this list is to simplify the dissemination of unschooling information from informal get-togethers to scheduled events. This is also an excellent venue to easily organize group discounts for activities and events whether attending as a group or individual families. Unschoolers and very relaxed homeschoolers from western Iowa and other parts of Nebraska are welcome to join.

This essay was written for the Harper's Magazine forum, "School on a Hill." John Taylor Gatto discusses how public education cripples our kids and why.