Reasons

There are times, I struggle to find the words that portray my thoughts and feelings about why I chose to unschool. Sometimes it is easier than others, and sometimes I stumble across someone that says it much better than I. Below, I have copied, (with permission) a message from Melissa, posted to an unschooling listserv, after the question had been asked, **What do you hope to gain from unschooling?**

Thanks for posing this question and giving me the impetus to reflect
on this. On one level, what I hoped to gain by unschooling was for
us to have the chance to be together in an unpressured and loving
environment and not to miss out on each other's lives - I really
like my family and like spending time with us all together. There is
a deeper gain I'm hoping for though. We have only come to
unschooling in the past year and my eldest daughter spent 6 months
at school in 2002. I was so dismayed to find the public school
system, which I had not until then questioned, was brainwashing my
daughter. The school preached tolerance and diversity but in fact
its overiding philosophy taught that the rights and welfare of the
group was more important than any of the individuals in its 'care'.
This really disturbed me. Since I found out about the Holocaust when
I was a pre-teen, I had spent time thinking about how it comes about
that humans can abdicate their responsibility to think and act well,
and make a fascist or totalitarian state function in all their
horror. Yes, a long way from lining up for morning assembly or
singing the school song or reciting the school anthem, but at the
far end of that spectrum.  What I want for myself and my family is
to preserve our freedom from indoctrination as much as possible - to
create and preserve intellectual, artistic, emotional freedoms.  I'm
sure I am only doing a halfway good job of it so far as my own
deschooling is very much a work in progress. I try to take a long
term view. If I do an OK job with my kids, they may find it easier
to unschool their kids and so on, until the freedom to think, to do,
to feel, to speak come naturally and assume their proper importance
despite what the 'majority' think about it or demand.
Hey, hope that wasn't too much of a waffle. As I said, I also just
really like being with my kids and doing stuff together, and I think
its nice if kids grow up knowing they are liked by their parents as
well as loved.
Melissa.