There's a discussion about unschooling teens on one of the message boards I host and I thought I'd copy one of my comments here, not so much since it mentions Ray, but because it gives a good sense of my "attitude" about unschooling in general and why I think its valuble.

If you're interested in reading more on the subject of unschooling with teenagers, here's a link to a massive site with tons of information:
http://sandradodd.com/teen/


"rebekah byson" wrote:
>> My hope is to raise my boys in as conscientious a way as possible that they
> will be much more open to other worldviews and have some interest in
> whatever surroundings they find themselves.

The last phrase, there, really jumps out at me - so many teens, especially kids who don't drive or have access to transportation, are in "whatever situations they find themselves" - they don't have much say in whether or not they're going to be in those situations, period. At best, they "have permission" to do something they want to do. So its totally natural that they wouldn't take much interest in those surroundings, much of the time, would spend their time withdrawing into things they can choose - talking with friends or playing games, or whatever.

There are a lot of ways that Ray still doesn't have a whole lot of control over his world. We're down to one decent car and one ratty old truck that leaks oil, so his world's smaller than any of us would like it to be, right now. But even so, he has a lot of choice about where he's going to go and what he's going to do there. Because he can choose them, he's interested in his surroundings. He's able to be "present". When he doesn't have a sense of autonomy, he's not nearly as present. How can he be?

> [my friend's] teen daughter was conventionally parented and schooled and he complains
> at times about her lack of listening and being open to other cultures or
> lifestyles. I have had this girl at my house several times and she is lovely
> but does have the dull blankness that I see in teens. Her cellphone and
> ipod being much more interesting to her then anything we "lame"adults are
> talking about.

She's spent years being told that her passions are inappropriate -that's the worst message of conventional parenting, imnsho. Children, even very young children, can be very passionate people, but conventional wisdom says that's bad - nobody, outside unschoolers, even uses the word passion wrt children. They "get sucked into" something. They "become obsessed". They "get addicted".They are allowed to love academics and sports, but even then - passion? Its a dirty word applied to children.

So their lives get broken up into schedules and play time and screen time and cleanup time and dinner time and family time. They don't*get* to be passionate, even in secret, not even in the privacy of their own minds bc they must speak when spoken to and answer the question and "be a part of the family" and "what do you mean "nothing" what have you been doing?"

The biggest thing learning about radical unschooling has done for me is to allow me to see my kids as passionate people. That one thing lets me reframe everything else - Everything Else becomes a question of how I'm going to go about supporting these passionate people I live with.