Indeed, while it is largely unschoolers' laissez-faire approach to learning that shocks the uninitiated, the most radical aspect of unschooling may not be the manner in which it approaches education, but the way it challenges parents to reimagine childhood. In "How Children Learn," published in 1967, John Holt wrote: "All I am saying is ... trust children. Nothing could be more simple -- or more difficult. Difficult, because to trust children we must trust ourselves -- and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted." Thirty years later, the belief that children are essentially capable creatures -- curious, independent and resilient -- is still at the heart of unschooling.

But since Holt wrote those words, American parenting has undergone a tectonic shift. "Good" parenting now seems to be a skill rather than an instinct, something learned not from trial and error, but from self-help authors, life coaches, psychologists, consultants and parenting experts. Whether it is "The Baby Whisperer" pledging to "solve all [parents'] problems," or Dr. Phil McGraw promising a "step-by-step plan for creating a phenomenal family," the prevailing sense is that the world is a demanding, dangerous place, tamed only by discipline and determined planning.

For parents fed up with the micromanagement of their children's lives, unschooling appeals because it disregards conventional wisdom about giftedness, age-appropriate learning, and competition. "There is a sense that the kind of intensive parenting we see increasingly among upper-middle-class families is something that is driving a large portion of people crazy ... and unschooling can be read as a kind of dissent toward that hyper organization," says Stevens. "So while in some ways it can be just as intensive as other approaches, at least it's on your own terms, and on your turf, and you're not beholden to the half-dozen organized activities you've enlisted your child in."

Despite the revolutionary tenor of their ideas, unschoolers claim they aren't zealots. Advocates insist that unschooling produces creative, unconventional kids, but even they acknowledge that such a life is not for everyone. Combing the Web, on message boards like the one at www.unschooling.com, it is not rare to see a message from a mother who writes, "My son is 10 years old and has been doing the unschooling method. His reading is advanced [but he's] struggling in math. I'm starting to worry he's learning nothing."

Laurie Chancey, now 25, was entirely unschooled until college -- and remembers how frightening the early years felt for her and her mother, Valerie Fitzenreiter. Living in rural Louisiana, they were true renegades, cut off from a larger unschooling network that exists on the coasts and under relentless criticism from family and neighbors. When Laurie was 6, a relative turned her in to the truancy board, prompting a series of threatening phone calls and angry letters. But Valerie, who went on to write an influential book about their experience, "The Unprocessed Child," remained unwavering. "Mom had been so bored in school and after reading 'Summerhill,' she decided she would unschool me before I was even born. It was amazing, but she just had this complete faith that I would learn what I needed to learn when I needed to learn it, in the face of everyone's opposition," says Laurie. "Finally, when I started to reach my mid-teens, other people could see that I wasn't an idiot and I'd be OK."

"I admit, when we started this 20 years ago, we were just a bunch of radicals on the Lower East Side -- writers, artists and musicians -- who thought that we knew our children better than the public schools," says Francoise Joiris, Celine and Julian's mother. But over time, she says, her motivations have taken on deeply personal meaning. "My father was a professor and often took me out of school to travel with him," she explains. Once, when they were living in Virginia, he volunteered to teach her classmates history at their home when the local teachers went on strike. "That experience was amazing," remembers Francoise. "And by the end, not one kid wanted to go back to school."

As a mother, she has tried to approach her own children's education with the same joy and freedom. "When we were little, we did a lot of workshops with friends," recalls Julian. "One friend's mother was a doctor and she would have a group of us over a few times a week to talk about science. The next year, she gave a Shakespeare workshop, and we read plays, acted them out, and made our own costumes." As small children, they often tagged along with their mother while she worked as a dog trainer for films and television. (Now Celine is herself an accomplished dog trainer and frequently competes in canine agility trials with Francoise and their two Norfolk terriers, Stamp and Fleet.)

Their days at home were loose and unstructured, filled with hours reading on the living room futon or playing homemade quiz games about Greek mythology and geography, calling off nations from a map. While occasionally Francoise nudged them in a certain direction, by suggesting a book or an activity they might enjoy, in the end she felt it was important that Celine and Julian call the shots. Since entering adolescence, both have been entirely in charge of their own schedules, attending tai chi classes twice a week and volunteering part-time as antiwar activists. Julian, a devoted member of the New York Assembly of the Society for Young Magicians, performs regularly around the city for other home-schooling groups. Still, both admit that some weeks pass in a blur, without anything to show for the hours. "There are times that I'll spend a bunch of days hanging around the house, bored," says Celine. "Then I start to feel guilty."

Indeed, despite her idealism, Francoise doesn't pretend her family has found utopia. Though they have been at it for 16 years, even Celine and Julian's father, Chris, a painter-turned-architect who didn't want to be interviewed, has had a hard time embracing the unpredictability of his children's future. "He supports it," says Francoise, "but I don't think there's one of us that hasn't at some point worried, what if my child still isn't reading at age 15?" In the end it often comes down to the strength of parents' convictions. "The real problem most people have," says Francoise, her face serious, "is that doing this requires too much faith in kids, too much work on the parents' part -- and no guarantees."

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