For all its iconoclasm, and to the chagrin of some critics, unschooling is entirely legal. Every state has a set of standards that govern home-schooling, and which unschoolers must also obey -- though their interpretations of those guidelines are sometimes rather loose. But because levels of oversight differ enormously from state to state, it happens to be far easier to unschool in Oregon than in Pennsylvania. In New Mexico, Sandra Dodd has been able to unschool her three children from birth through their teen years, with little interference from the state. When her daughter Laurie was 11, Valerie Fitzenreiter discovered she could register with the Louisiana Board of Education as a "private school" and never reported in again.

In contrast, in New York, where the Joirises live, families submit an IHIP (individualized home instruction plan) each summer outlining the material they expect to cover in the coming months. New Yorkers also face periodic standards tests: every other year before the 4th grade, and annually after that. But for the Joiris family, at least, unschooling's unorthodox methods seem not to have been an academic handicap."The exams were never as scary as I expected," remembers Julian. "In seventh grade, he refused to study any math, and I was terrified he wouldn't pass," says Francoise. "But after Julian took the test, he said, 'It was fine. I only got one wrong.' And he was right; he did."

After talking to a dozen unschooling families and studying their blogs and message boards, I've found countless similar tales of sucess. But outside that small circle, even among liberal home-schoolers, unschooling still provokes uneasiness. Gail Paquette, a home-schooling mother of two and the founder of the Web site Hometaught.com, is one of unschooling's most vocal critics. "A child-led approach may develop the child's strengths but does nothing to develop his weaknesses and broaden his horizons," she writes. "I [mostly] disagree with the premise that children can teach themselves what they want to learn, when (and if) they want to learn it. Certainly children do learn some things on their own, but their often roundabout way of going at learning is not necessarily the best way."

Indeed, given the temptations and distractions of everyday life, is it unreasonable to wonder how much kids can really learn when just left up to their own devices? Conventional wisdom tells us that when not compelled to study the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic, the average kid will fritter away the day playing video games and flipping TV stations. And while unschoolers argue that that is an unfairly pessimistic take on children's curiosity and innate abilities, it would be hard for them to deny that their approach can lead to the acquisition of idiosyncratic skills. When she went off to her freshman year in college, Laurie Chancey was already a gifted computer programmer -- but struggled to get through a class in remedial math.

She is hardly alone. Dependent as it is on the changeable passions of a child, unschooling is replete with 10-year-olds who can explain the subtle differences between the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras but can't complete a multiplication table. In a make-or-break world where kids are measured by advanced-placement credits and varsity letters, if an interest can't be showcased on a résumé, is it a waste of time?

"Kids in traditional school spend a whole lot of time learning penmanship, and things like that don't really matter in the long run," counters Chancey, who is on her way to earning a Ph.D. in sociology from Louisiana State University. "I know it scares a lot of people to think of divorcing from the school system entirely, and lord knows, people have all sorts of odd reactions when I tell them about my background. But luckily, in my case, I'm succeeding in a very traditional way, so it's easy for me to say, 'Look at me, I did OK. This can't be all bad.'"

So while unschoolers aren't groomed their whole lives for Ivy League admissions, that doesn't mean they won't end up there anyway. Celine Joiris has been working as a volunteer at New York's War Resisters League and hopes to live and work in Paris for a few years before applying to Harvard. Julian has no immediate plans for college, but continues to study the concert violin and has steadily been attracting gigs as a magician. Somehow, without a battery of grades and tests to prove it, these kids know they are smart. Without their parents providing a map, they feel ready for the future. "As we get older, I think things are going to get less complicated," says Celine, with just a flicker of a smile. "I mean, at some point, people stop asking what grade you're in."

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