The unschooling philosophy, is, at its core
Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned
While one can and should argue with such things, (for example, I think strong foundations in reason, logic, music, language (including reading), and various learning methodologies are all incredibly important bits of knowledge, core skills), the ultimate goal doesn't seem either bad or unreasonable. Especially when you're considering it in comparison to, you know, the grade school system we have now.
The problem with unschooling is that it's the same thing we all did as kids, run around, play, explore, with-or-without parents. But, rather than complementing traditional learning, it replaces it.
Except thats not what the article you just linked describes.
I used to fart around doing all that for 8 hours a day, plus school. Is farting around for 14 hours a day really optimal? Plus it has a complete dicky name.
Of course not - that simply means its just as easy to do this poorly as it is to do "traditional" schooling poorly, if not more so. It doesn't mean the concept is worthless, or even bad. And also, those who actually go on to do great things? They aren't going to spend 14 hours a day wasting time. I know I certainly couldn't, as a kid. I learned more and did more on the weekends than I ever did during the week at school. The biggest problem wasn't even the time spent in school, but that the time spent in school was the BEST time to do stuff. Evenings are dark and worthless, school got out around 3:30, take away maybe half an hour to get home, and you've got an hour or two until it's too dark to get anything done. That's barely enough time to get into a good project or get to somewhere interesting, forget learning anything while you're at it.
Evenings were always spent reading or, less commonly, drawing or playing video games, because lets be honest what else are you going to do? It would have been a nice time for schooling though, as I wouldn't have spent the whole class staring longingly out the window wishing I could go and DO something or learn something or just move.
Actually this was coined in the 1970's and they're basing their child-rearing on a 1978 book ... debunked 30+ year old social theories are the latest thing in this household.
It's strange that you bring this up while arguing for the debunked 200+ year old social theories of "traditional" institutional education.
Most of the goods things I know and do, I learned outside of school - literature, art, music, politics, coding, engineering, construction, cooking.
What did school teach me, exactly? Well - it taught me not to try too hard, act too smart, or do too well, or you'll be punished. It taught me not I could put things off until later with no ill effects. It taught me it was safe to ignore authority figures and do whatever I wanted, because there would never be consequences. It taught me I could not trust my peers, or my mentors, to encourage, support, or even accept my desire to learn. It taught me that you could do your job poorly and still become the boss as long as you knew the right people. (a teacher I had for two years who was then principle, despite never having taught anyone a single thing in either of his two classes. Literally.) It taught me, most of all, that I did not have to work hard to achieve results, because putting in the bare minimum would always be enough to do well, and further effort would not be rewarded.
School had benefits too - well, high school did anyways. It was nice to meet people, and it was fun to see how much I could get away with.