Home schooling is usually more structured following inspiration from a traditional curriculum. Unschooling can be structured too, but is usually looser and more

Home schooling is usually more structured following inspiration from a traditional curriculum. Unschooling can be structured too, but is usually looser and more responsive. Wikipedia has an article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling It's controversial because of several factors, of course. There's the worry that parents, no matter how smart, interesting and committed to their kids, may not be the best at teaching them things. There's the worry that an organized curriculum provides a shared social vocabulary that unschooled kids may lack. There's worries about social interactions with other kids that might be lacking, and so on. There may be a kind of adverse selection effect, where people inclined to pull their kids out of school may have the most to lose by doing it. So it is worth thinking carefully about the objections and talking about the particular situation with trusted parties to make sure it's the right choice.