After having quit college as a senior unable to declare a major, I traveled to the western US. I began "de-schooling", and new ways of thinking resulted. I include it here as an example of my own struggle to find my place in this world, even after a childhood of schooling and a few years of college.

"...I had always lived from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. I had never heard of the disadvantages, much less the detriments, of formal schooling, so I had no logical explanation for why I was feeling completely lost in a great big world which was supposed to be full of opportunities. I felt stuck in time, as if I had no past and no future. I felt guilty and disappointed in myself that after fifteen years of formal education I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I had tasted the joy of freedom that came from leaving college; I knew there had to be a deeper answer to living life in a fulfilling way, where the substance of it was something to grow on. I am not talking about spiritual fulfillment, but in living life usefully, as a worthy and needed human being. I had given over 12,000 hours of my life to school, and I decided that I deserved to step back, take time out and evaluate my choices.

I chose pathways that allowed me to explore and also financially support myself. This was fairly easy since it was just me. I waitressed; house-sat a small ranch with a variety of animals and cared for four children ages 6-14 (it was here that I also befriended a wild mustang horse); was a PBX operator; worked intensively one year at a crisis center and drug/suicide hotline where I was given the Volunteer of the Year award; worked in a plant nursery and flower shop; was hired as cashier for a health food store where I became an expert with medicinal herbs; studied child psychology on my own, mostly through reading.

These experiences along with many others so changed and empowered me, so helped me to know who I was and what was important to me, that the thought of ever going back to school seemed self-defeating. The fact is, many years later I did take a college course, but only because it was specific to a goal I was trying to reach, and I felt that this course would help me "polish up" on the skills I was working on, and it did.

The pathway of anyone's life is a chain of cause and effect. What we do at any given moment is like planting seeds that will sprout in one way or another. When we live from the inside-out, trusting what we know is right for ourselves, the way may have bumps and obstacles, but that is the way of growing. We are all very aware of what growing pains are, and venturing into the unknown is simply a process of shedding light onto a shadowed place. This is what we do as unschoolers. We live, absorb, digest and create, all from the inside-out.

It is said that peace on earth begins with ourselves; we must be true to who we are, know who we are, in order to effect change. It is an osmosis, and again, cause and effect. By living honestly we inspire those around us to be comfortable with doing the same; and this causes a chain reaction. The seeds we plant, the choices we make, help us carve a path all our own, and very importantly, they help us identify along the way the people and situations we want to become involved with--- we can make choices that are good for us and our families.

Here is what I consider the greatest problem teenagers face: making choices that empower and sustain them, that propel them to further growth and sense of purpose. The teenage years clearly reflect how school leaves children completely unprepared for living authentic and fulfilling adult lives.

...Unschooling requires a shift of thinking away from the mainstream approach of mass traditional schooling. We are going against the grain of a deeply rooted institution which is really a very set way of life in our culture. This way of life has determined the state of the family, how we parent, how we view children. It is all pervading in our day-to-day living. As a result of institutionalizing children, separating them from interaction with adults and children younger and older than themselves, keeping them from being a natural and useful part of the living world around them, expecting them to hunger for the tasteless, anemic food that school forces them to eat--- all this and more creates a cultural and personal situation that is no different from the separation of nobility and peasantry of old.