Unschooling

This is the education my grandson is receiving.

First my daughter said that she wanted to home school him because her work and travel schedule are so erratic. This made sense to me. He's a bright, curious, cooperative boy and seems like a good candidate for home schooling.

Then DD said, well what we're really doing is called un-schooling. I had never heard of it. Whn I Googled I got info like this:

"This is also known as interest driven, child-led, natural, organic, eclectic, or self-directed learning. Lately, the term "unschooling" has come to be associated with the type of homeschooling that doesn't use a fixed curriculum. When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear. The advantage of this method is that it doesn't require you, the parent, to become someone else, i.e. a professional teacher pouring knowledge into child-vessels on a planned basis. Instead you live and learn together, pursuing questions and interests as they arise and using conventional schooling on an "on demand" basis, if at all. This is the way we learn before going to school and the way we learn when we leave school and enter the world of work."

I dunno. It sounds like dilettante learning to me. Maybe fine for KG, and maybe fine up until 3d grade or so. But after that? I think learning needs a direction. There's a lot of wonderful stuff you might never happen upon without a teacher providing some comprehensive introduction.

Evidently, unschooling is all the rage in home schooling circuits now.