A Little Way of Homeschooling: Thirteen Families Discover Catholic Unschooling is an interesting work. It simultaneously provides the more rigorous and analytic exploration of unschooling that I was looking for after reading Radical Unschooling and tries to answer a question that had never crossed my mind: "Can a Catholic home/unschool?"
What Suzie Andres calls "The Little Way of unschooling", I have been referring to as "the Tao of family life" for a while now. The proper application of effort in the proper area of life. Too much, and you break something, too little and nothing gets accomplished. In the case of education and developing healthy relationships within the family, it requires a lot of focus and self-knowledge, unschooling seems to be an excellent method of discerning the proper application of effort.
What Suzie Andres calls "The Little Way of unschooling", I have been referring to as "the Tao of family life" for a while now. The proper application of effort in the proper area of life. Too much, and you break something, too little and nothing gets accomplished. In the case of education and developing healthy relationships within the family, it requires a lot of focus and self-knowledge, unschooling seems to be an excellent method of discerning the proper application of effort.
I know I have been writing about primarily Catholic issues a fair amount lately, but pagan or atheist readers could easily take this book and exchange out references to trusting God to believing in the all-present life force or whatever or trusting in humanity and still get the same results.
Where I was already pretty much sold on unschooling before reading Radical Unschooling, my wife was suspicious before reading the book and then doubly so after reading that book. In the interest of helping me out and giving my ideas a chance, she sought out this book herself at the library. Now, she's almost totally sold on the idea, and I have the reading list in the back of the book to help me find more resources that may be directed more towards people such as myself.
I would strongly recommend that Catholics with children should read The Little Way of Homeschooling, even if they are happy with whatever schooling situation they are currently in. If non-Catholics are pursuing unschooling, this resource may still be useful, but they may want to read Dayna Martin (if they are of a freedom-minded persuasion) or John Holt.
Where I was already pretty much sold on unschooling before reading Radical Unschooling, my wife was suspicious before reading the book and then doubly so after reading that book. In the interest of helping me out and giving my ideas a chance, she sought out this book herself at the library. Now, she's almost totally sold on the idea, and I have the reading list in the back of the book to help me find more resources that may be directed more towards people such as myself.
I would strongly recommend that Catholics with children should read The Little Way of Homeschooling, even if they are happy with whatever schooling situation they are currently in. If non-Catholics are pursuing unschooling, this resource may still be useful, but they may want to read Dayna Martin (if they are of a freedom-minded persuasion) or John Holt.
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