Joys of radically unschooling......

Anne, the list owner of shinewithunschooling (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shinewithunschooling/?yguid=281150272) asked this question the other day on her list:

"What did you *used* to think was True (but is not)?"

I answered this question in a round about way, maybe writing more about "what I never thought was true for", rather then what i used to think was true....
This is what I wrote:


I think for me it is how kathrynn grasps hold of her passions and just moves so effortlessly because on an inner force inside herself..... this simply AMAZES me.
Like when she woke up one day about a month ago and sat on the floor and started writing out math equations in crayon on a pice of paper..... I looked at her, wondering WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?!?!? And it came from with in her.... an innate desire to learn and process and figure out her world, which involved numbers! How amazingly natural it was for her.... how i never would have thought that would be something a 6 yo would do for fun!

How today when we went to her "quilting" class, which is more like a sewing class and she spent time after class to continue working on her own projects on the machine.... after all the other kid were done and packed up..... and she declared today that she would be a sewing astronaut bc she has a new found passion for sewing on the sewing machine, and an old passion for space....... :)

Anything and everything has potential to be a passion for her.... the world is her oyster.... and she tastes and dabbles and just loves the buffet that life has for her to try out.......

Living this radical unschooling life, has led me to understand how much passion can exist in a being, who is free to be who she wants to be.......
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I think that last sentence says it all.... I never understood the passion that can exist in kids...
And this passion can show itself in all kinds of ways- in sports, in quiet solitude, in art, in watching tv or movies, in music, in PLAY! I think more then anything, those passions are alive from moment to moment. Because I do not (to the best of my ability!!!! hey, i'm not perfect yet!!) squash, shame or limit Kathrynn's exploration of her world, she continues to move through the world with these passions.
Maybe its just coincidence- maybe i just have a kid full of passion! I'm sure that's partly the case. AND I think that her uninhibited movement through the world keeps those passions alive and truly accessible to her. In either case, I know one thing is true...... I love this unschooling journey we are on! :)