For those orderly folks who have life all neatly arranged in their heads, who do more accepting than questioning, unschooling is a disturbing thing.

Some people can't leave school because they're carrying it around like a snail and his shell. They live there, still. School became an ingrown, hard part of them. They still define themselves by their school failures and successes.

When a child’s life is full of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, textures, people and places, he will learn. When he feels safe and loved, he will learn. When parents begin to recover from their own ideas of what learning should look like (what they remember from school), then they begin a new life of natural learning, too.

Stop thinking schoolishly. Stop acting teacherishly. Stop talking about learning as though it's separate from life.

People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering What the heck is this!?