My Friends Will Think I Am Crazy

The past couple of days this post has been swimming around in my brain. I don't know how to tell all my homeschool peeps that we are now unschooling. In the homeschool world alot of adults view "unschooling" as a dirty word. We have tried the traditional, structured method for 6 years and it just isn't working. I asked myself, "Do I continue to force information and work on a child that doesn't care about it and doesn't remember any of it or do I let her start charting her own course". There are many things that she is passionate about - drawing, computer work, drama, and peforming. Our form of unschooling will not be the radical kind that you read alot about. She will have guidelines of what she needs to accomplish in a day, a week, a month. But she will be able to chose just what subjects and materials and how much. Over the years I have researched alot about unschooling and it had always intrigued me. There is so much we do on a daily basis that doesn't usually get counted as school. Like conversations about anything and everything, jazzercise classes, gardening and preserving food, chicken care, documentaries and television programs, games played. It is all educational. I think the only subject that will be daily and she will have no choice in is math. We will continue to use Teaching Textbooks. So there you go, we have come out of the closet, we are now unschoolers/independent learners/very relaxed homeschooling. Whatever you want to call it.