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I can't really educate you on it, but I had a cousin that was essentially unschooled. From my perspective, it seemed like one big fail. I would be shocked if he got into college. I understand why it sounds appealing, and in theory it's an okay idea, but I value other aspects of more traditional education more.

My sister was largely unschooled through high school. They landed there because she was really good at keeping her education well rounded with little outside input as to what she should be doing. Her parameters were to keep things that were suited to a portfolio and work towards being prepared to take college entrance exams. This worked really well for her, she learned most everything else other high schoolers would have been taught but often in the context of literature and museums, both of which she loves. For math I believe she would work backwards from an SAT prep book, she would work until she got confused and then seek out other resources to help her. She would go through spurts though- months would go by and her math studies would be limited to sales at the Gap but that seemed to work for her. Often she would assign herself a project and then work out from there, a photo a day project led her to learning the chemistry behind developing, US history through photographs etc.

I would imagine you are probably looking at the early years side of things but I thought I would chime in anyway. For what it's worth she is in college now and has a 4.0. To this day she is one of those people who dabbles in everything happily and can hold an intelligent conversation on many things. I am sure personality plays a big role but I think being given that freedom really helped her grow in that respect.

Yep, I was unschooled. I don't have time to tell you about it right this second, but I promise I'll come back and post later!

I will say - it only works if you lay the right groundwork at a young age. The child needs to have a love of learning instilled in them and a good foundation of study skills and self-motivation in order to get a good outcome.

It bothers me to no end when parents just abandon their children to their own devices and call it "unschooling". That's not unschooling, that's laziness. When it's done right, it can have fantastic outcomes.

And btw, getting into college was no problem at all for me.

i didn't, but i had a few friends who were. all are quite successful adults now. this is a great book if you are looking for more information about it
http://www.amazon.com/The-Unschooled-Mind-Children-Schools/dp/0465024386