Radical Unschooling Journey

I did the internet equivalent of sticking my tongue out at the crowd of kids today.

Yahoo groups is a great place to find email groups of people with similar interests.  So last week I joined a few unschooling groups.  Most of them were positive environments, I felt welcome and  the conversations were full of people encouraging one another.

One group, however, seemed hell-bent on insulting one another at every turn, picking apart every word of each others posts.

These ladies are like lawyers and bill collectors with PMS.  I’ve never seen a group so focused on insulting each other.  Groups like this have turned a lot of people away from unschooling.  They are, in fact, one of the reasons I stopped trying to have unschooling friends back in 1999.

I mentioned the hostility to a peaceful unschooling friend, she’s an advocate for unschooling and very respectful of “where people are on the path.” She told me to go into the group with that apreciation and ignore the rude ones.  I couldn’t do it, though.

And I left in the lamest way.

Instead of simply bowing away silently, I sent a goodbye note.

If you’re new to netiquette, the goodbye note is perceived as “the sneakiest way to get the last word in.”  My note was peaceful, though.  I’m still shocked at some of the nasty things people were saying to one another.  I was very disappointed in them as adults, as unschoolers and as women.

If unschooling is to be a common thing in the US, there needs to be an attitude of appreciation for where others are on the path.  If we’re all acting from a position of loving acceptance, there can be no “blasting.”

I just couldn’t be in that negative environment anymore.  I was given some great links, though and I will share them with you.  Because that’s the nice thing to do.  I will spare you the nasty words that came with my copy, though.

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/

and

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Enjoy

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