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	*The magazine for homeschooling, unschooling, and life learning families*
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Life Learning - the book...

We've collected some of the best essays from the first six years (2002 to 2008) of Life Learning magazine in a book that describes both the philosophy and the experience of life learning/unschooling. It is a great introduction for those new to the idea, and a welcome friend for those who love Life Learning magazine. Order now.

Back Issue Index

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	November/December 2012 Re-educating the inner reluctant homeschooler; Unschooling as redemption; a young man describes his journey from school to self-education to college and back; Good reasons to skip college: what you could do instead with $20,000; John Taylor Gatto with why we need experience more than algebra; Novel writing and school's damaging priority paradigm; Dealing with bullying in the unschooling community
	September/October 2012 Going with the flow of learning, while everyone else is boxing it up; The Joy of a Reading Childhood; An interview with French grown unschooler, professional musician, and father André Stern; The value (or lack thereof) of praise; Trusting Children: personal memories of John Holt
	July/August 2012 The $120 Swim Lesson (allowing kids to quit lessons they don't like); an experience attending an unschooling conference; Reflections on a Day Dreamer; Science as a Subversive Activity; Slow Learning, Science, Nature, and Life; The Principle of Productive Failure
	May/June 2012 Living and Learning in a Multigenerational Home; It's Not Important What "Those Guys" Think; No Reading Pressure Here; Nonviolent Communication; Rocking the Boat Without Drowning Everybody; Bored? That's Okay; Homeschool Community; Socializing Remy; Learning by Making and Mending; The Threat of Living Outside the Norm
	March/April 2012 Deschooling a parent; Learning to write; The joy of linkages; Should do versus want to do; Who makes the choices? Do we need to know how kids learn? Understanding a parent's role in unschooling; How reading is like riding a bike
	January/February 2012 The gifts we give to children who live without school; Mental Disorder Or Survival Mechanism?; At Ease With All Ages; The Ladder of Unschooling Doubt; Will Computers Warp Their Brains?; Screen Time; I Believe in Libraries; Learning as a form of growth
	November/December 2011 Your child the photographer; Focusing like a child; Saving Brianna: transition from school and labels to successful unschooling; Permaculture learning: growing children and plants; The Essential Learning Debate: Are there subjects that must be learned?; Process over content; Chores: real work for real kids; No such thing as "unschooling failure"
	September/October 2011 Attachment parenting adolescent children; how much math is enough?; life learning history; when support groups go wrong; bullying by adults in support groups; what is an education?; expanding the "10,000 hour rule"; not back to school; challenging assumptions about life learning
	July/August 2011 Learning is not just academics; The Big Questions; Empathy is the Tenth Intelligence; allowing young people to live in the present rather than in the shadow of the future; supporting risk-taking as a foundation of learning and life; the dangers of fostering individuality rather than providing attachment; why it's better to learn to read later; making the world more friendly for children
	May/June 2011 Creativity, A Provisional Curriculum For When Walking is Taught at School (humor); unschooling "cures" ADHD; learning math in the real world; questioning socialization; the kindest mother in the world; imagination and the tooth fairy hoax; the mother crush
	March/April 2011 Worst case scenario: What would happen if the kids had to go to school; the guilty unschooler; dabbling, digging deep, and quitting: the real costs of parental pressure; the challenges and joys of living and learning with your children; children at work, or child labor?; taming the Tiger Mother; assumptions we make about children and learning; the perils of defining and measuring success for other people
	January/February 2011 Insights from a grown unschooler; playing, learning, and Nature Deficit Disorder; biomimicry model of learning; 83 things I learned from homeschooling; kids need independent time to muddle, not their parents meddling; the assumption that being home with kids is non-productive for women; joining your child's activities can stifle creativity and confidence; poems about the respect between an adult and a child
	November/December 2010 Audacious Learning; Making Peace With War Birds: when your child's interest doesn't interest you; Mothering and Writing; Unschooling is Forever: memoir of an adult unschooler; Answering the question: What Do You Do All Day; Being the Change: life learning families can help change the world; Ask Naomi Aldort: Should a Child Watch His Sibling's Birth?; Keeping Company: offering support and trust while providing space and encouraging independence
	September/October 2010 Relinquishing Control; Reading instruction as the plague of childhood; Learning on Bikes; Cooking With What's in the Bag - the CSA Model of Unschooling; Force Fed Learning; The Power to Control; Ask Naomi Aldort: The Myth of the Rude Child; Taking Possession of Our Lives and Learning; Book and Film Reviews
	July/August 2010 Preparing for the Future; Growing Wild; Unschooling in Columbia; The Conversation That Never Happens: Engaging with Non-Unschoolers; Can Unschooling Change the World?; How Life Learning Prepares Young People for Life in the New Economy; Eye-Opener: There are Other Ways to View the World Than by Reading; Keeping the World Whole; The Necessity of Shakespeare; Ask Naomi Aldort: No Training Wheels, Please; Book and CD Reviews
	May/June 2010 The Curriculum of Play (John Taylor Gatto); Climb, Swing & Snuggle: How active play prepares children to read; Unforeseen Benefits of Unschooling; Ask Naomi Aldort: Tantrums; Life for Mom After Life Learning; Apples & Oranges - A Dialogue About Competition; Competition and Learning; Books and Website Reviews
	March/April 2010 What Education Means, On the Cusp and Over, Feeling Confident in the Face of Family Criticism, Eighteen Superstitions in Education, The Hall of Mirrors (John Taylor Gatto), Who is My Child to Be?, And Some [unschooled kids] Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them: Shakespeare Through An Unschooling Lens, Book and CD Reviews
	January/February 2010 Learning to Think for Ourselves, The perils of "tape recorder learning", Walking Away, The Educator's Secret and Modern Stupidity, The Difference Between Schooling and Education, The Mother He Needs, For the Sake of Our Children, Waiting for the Train, College Without School, Family Reading Habits
	Issues from July/August 2008 through November/December 2009 were published in print and digitally as part of Natural Life Magazine.
	May/June 2008 Daring to Drop Out of High School, Prospering in the Real World, Culture & Community, Effective Communication, What You Don't Know Matters Most
	March/April 2008 When Unschooling Feels More Like Unparenting, A Four-Year-Old Teaches Herself to Read, Don't Worry About College by John Taylor Gatto, Learning About Life From Death, David Albert's Elements of Intelligence
	January/February 2008 Learning With Special Needs Children, Letting Go of Teachable Moments, Second Thoughts About High School, Where Curiosity Leads, Being a Real Worker in the Real World, Perfection is the Enemy of Excellence, Labels
	November/December 2007 Free School or No School?, Learning in the Real World, Honoring Unschooling Pioneer Nancy Plent, Redefining Success, Secret Spaces, A Grandmother Reflects on Unschooling, The Problems With Labels
	September/October 2007 Healing the Ugliness of a Schooled Society, Self-Reliance, Doing Their Best Naturally, The Educator's Dilemma, Going to College, Intervening With Other Parents, Adolescence Isn't Hard
	July/August 2007 What We Should Know, Living for the Future, Learning to Swim, Achieving Full Personhood, A Dad Learns Some Lessons from Unschooling, Does Early Learning in School Cause Corrupted Vision?, The Importance of Helping Teens Learn Responsibility, Pressure to Attend College
	May/June 2007 The Value of Unstructured Play, Understanding Children’s Perception of Time, Integrating into the Mainstream Adult World...or Not, Learning to Read, Interview With Life Learning’s Editor, The Case Against Teaching
	March/April 2007 What Really Matters with David H. Albert/Joyce Reed, Learning Informally by Alan Thomas, Looking at the Chaos of Learning, Is There a Writer in There?, Challenging Teachers to Become Self-Directed, Peer Pressure, Learning With the Simpsons
	January/February 2007 Fear of the TV Beast, The Many Subtle Faces of Authority, Are We Really Protecting Our Children? When They Grow Up, Unschooling Our Dog, Low Marks for Good Grades, Raising Peaceful Warriors
	November/December 2006 The Unschooling Grandparent, Giving Up the Gold Stars - an Unschooling Dad Searches for his Passion, The Labyrinth of Unschooling, Learning in a Democratic School, In Praise of Average, When Children Demean Each Other
	September/October 2006 Living the Language You Learn, A Single Mom Unschools (part 3), Following a Child's Lead, Studying Black Unschooling, When Adults Disagree, Bedtime Struggles, From Unschooling to the Corporate World
	July/August 2006 The Stress of Large Groups, Living Mindfully, A University Education From Life, Unlearning Literary Analysis, Children and Power, Emotional Intelligence, Learning Values Without Coercion, The Musical Child
	May/June 2006 A Young Child Learns From Life, An Unschooling Former Teacher Learns From Her Mistakes, Midwifing Deschooling Parents, What Really Matters?, There is no Right Way, Avoiding Stereotyping Kids, Saying No, Celebrating Choices
	March/April 2006 A Teen Goes to School, Whose Goal is it Anyway?, Homeschoolers Repopulate Communities, Replacing Non-Coercion With Positive Consent, Nurturing the Ability to Focus, A Second-Generation Homeschooling Mother
	January/February 2006 Learning to Build, Still Learning After All Those Years, Unintentional Learning in an Intentional Community, Single Parent Unschooling, Acts of Enclosure, Talking to Learn, Wanting to Go to School, Unschooled Adult Now Flourishes in Business
	November/December 2005 Living and Learning in the Real World and Following Rules, Studying for a PhD After Deschooling at Age 13, Expectations, Maximizing Creativity, Learning to Read Without Coercion, A Parent Confronts Her Control Issues in Order to Unschool
	September/October 2005 Not Attending College by John Taylor Gatto, The SelfDesign Learning Plan, The Frontier Spirit of the Heart, Learning Spanish in Costa Rica, Talking to Children About Death, Building an Autonomous Learning Environment, Writing a Test
	July/August 2005 Living Unschooling With Sandra Dodd, Education Fit for a Democracy, Becoming More Autonomous Parents and Educators, Dyslexia, More on Cleaning up the Mess, The Fear of Tears, 24-year-old Former Unschooler Graduates From College
	May/June 2005 Learning Life Skills, A Second Language, Learning From Lunch, Taking Risks and Breaking Rules, Children in Nature, The Gift of Dyslexia, When Your Toddler Drives You Nuts, Learners in Control, An Unschooled 20-year-old Gets a Job
	March/April 2005 An Unschooling Landscape, September Scholar, Resources for Learning by Living, Natural Fields of Vision, Nurturing Creativity, Some Educational Superstitions of Our Time, Who Should Clean Up the Mess?, The Right to be Odd.
	January/February 2005 Learning Math Without Being Taught, Careers in the Arts, Internal Rewards, Unschooling Humor, Nurturing Everyday Genius with John Taylor Gatto, Celebrating “Graduation”, Learning to Play Peacefully Together
	November/December 2004 Choosing to Participate, Seeking Peace and Finding Curiosity, Restructuring Education, Rules versus Principles, Slow to Get Ready to Go, Competitive Learning, The Learning Power of Laughter
	September/October 2004 Legacy for Grandchildren, Learning from Storytelling, Making History Live, Learning from Video Games, Learning Manners from Children, Why Parental Authority Doesn't Work
	July/August 2004 The Evolution of a Life Learner, Freedom or Control? The Right to Vote, Supporting Budding Independence, The Art of Educational Illusions, The Benefits of Boredom, The Family Bubble, Dr. Pat Montgomery
	May/June 2004 Living Science, The Unprocessed Child Goes to College, Natural Reading, Computers for Kids, Learning Self-Confidence, Resisting Consumerism, Why People Learn Best Outside of School, Roots and Shoots
	March/April 2004 Acquiring Reading, Discussion Circles, Learning Love of the Natural World, Parenting Under the Fire of Criticism, The Truth about ADHD, Spin-offs Not Outcomes, Interview With Grace Llewellyn, Beyond Academics, Learning Math from Life
	January/February 2004 Kids Learning on the Job, Mentors, Did Einstein’s Mommy Worry? The Benefits of Quitting, Staying Focused to Learn Mathematics, Socialization – All I Really Need to Know I Learned at Home, Keeping it in the Family
	November/December 2003 An Unschooler in School, Learning Creative Thinking, Safe at Home After 9/11, Learning Through Play, Single Parent Unschooling, A Question of Testing, The Myth of Experts
	September/October 2003 College Credit for Life Experiences, Why Testing Doesn't Work, How Children and Adults Define Learning, The Language of Learning, Learning to Swim, Trusting Little Minds With Big Subjects, What is Wrong with Curriculum-based Education
	July/August 2003 Special Needs Child, Patience to Teach Yourself a New Skill, A 15-year-old “Rises Out” of School, Deschooling a Parent, Dealing With Parental Anger, Letting Them Make Their Own Decisions, Learning Academics
	May/June 2003 Defining Education, Learning with the Scientist Who Found the Titanic, On the Road to Deschooling Myself, The Flow of Self-Directed Learning, Admitting to Uncertainty, Looking Past the Behavior, Unlearning Manners
	March/April 2003 Reading When You’re Ready, How Expectations Affect Our Learning, Learning About School, Unschooling With a Home Business, Ask Naomi Aldort: To Praise or Not to Praise Part 3, Beyond Common Sense Parenting, The Need to Inspire
	January/February 2003 When the Mentor Gets Mentored, Who Owns English?, Conversations With Adults Who Learned at Home, Drawing & Literacy, Combining Unschooling With Making a Living, Time tabling Autonomy, Find Balance, Ask Naomi Aldort: To Praise or Not to Praise Part 2
	November/December 2002 Supporting Self-Education, Learning Styles, Unschooling Walden Style, Master's Degree via Independent Study, Ask Naomi Aldort: To Praise or Not to Praise Part 1, Spelling With Color, Coercion Defeats Learning
	September/October 2002 An Unschooled Teen Builds a House, When Your Children Question Your Choices, Creating a Safe Reading Environment, How Home Educated Students Adjust to School, Graduate Skills Learned at Home, Sharing, Learning From Babies
	July/August 2002 What’s Right With Being Wrong, Are There Holes in Their Education?, Sharing Elder Knowledge, The Scribble Hypothesis, Visual Thinking Strategies, Helping Siblings Get Along, Pat Farenga on John Holt
	May/June 2002 Implicit Versus Explicit Learning, College & Unschooling, Young Adult Unschooling Success Stories, Profile of Storyteller Jay O’Callahan, Deschooling a Parent, Was Beethoven Social? Journaling
	March/April 2002 Rethinking Self-Education, Creating a Cooperative Learning Center, Learning Disabilities, Trusting Your Children to Learn, Learning to Write with Susannah Sheffer, Inspiration from John Taylor Gatto

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The term life learning refers to a form of homeschooling that trusts children and avoids the trappings of school. It is sometimes called unschooling, radical unschooling, or natural learning. Life learning children live and learn naturally, with the support of their families, based on their own interests and their own timetables, and without curriculum, tests, or grades. Go here, here and here for a more comprehensive explanation.

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