Call me crazy, but letting kids school themselves sounds like a bad idea.
This sounds like the kind of crap they teach in ed schools.
This sounds like what they are given in a public school. Bad idea......
I thnk what this overlooks is that only children with certain types of learning styles will do well in this environment. The gifted child with the ability to teach himself may thrive - but others require a more structured learning experience. I like the idea of "unschooling" in principle, since it's essentially what I did for myself while learning nothing of consequence in school during my final eight years or so. But it won't work for all children.
Did you ever wonder why young kids are so eager to learn stuff, and public-schooled teenagers have to be bribed / threatened / cajoled?
Is it possible, just possible, that schooling, as it exists now, crushes the desire to learns stuff out of you?
We homeshcool and maybe I can shed a little light here. A child seems to learn a lot better when they are interested in a subject. For instance, our daughter is nuts over the prairie days and settlers. You can let her take off on this subject and bring in aspects of each traditional school subject in relation to this topic. For example, reading is accomplished by reading materials related to the subject. History is a given - but so is civics and geography. You can teach math using this as a backdrop in creating examples. You can teach literature by using books about the period in history. Grammer and spelling can be taught using examples from this area of interest.
The idea is to break down the structure and give a little more freedom to teach what needs to be learned by using areas of interest of the child. Another type of unschooling that we have used in unit studies. We used the Little House books as a basis for unit studies. Once again, we were able to teach a variety of subjects using the books as a backdrop.
I hope this makes sense. But, it has been very effective for us to use a curriculum for each child that has a lot of room for what interests each child. It's just easier to teach an interest kid.
Letting kids direct themselves IS a bad idea. That's why they have parents. De-schooling is bogus; when kids are pulled out and safely ensconced in homeschooling/ their homes, they will detox naturally. As you feed them the Real Food of learning.
I won't call you crazy but be ready to get flamed.