Are you a Christian? Do you homeschool your children without following a set curriculum? Do you disciple your children instead of schooling them? Do you identify as a Christian unschooler?If so, we’d love to get to know you! Please add your name and website homepage to the link list below and grab the Christian Unschoolers button to share on your own site!

So, if this is you then head over and join the list at Sparkling Adventures: Christian Unschoolers link up

Matthew asks:
I’m curious: What is the attitude of Christian unschoolers to religious education? Do you think it is important for children to be taught about religion, or do you think their moral and spiritual education should be self-directed?

I responded with the following:
A lot of it depends on who you talk to. I can’t speak for everyone else (though I know I do speak for most of the people here and in the yahoo group where born again Christians who unschool gather). In our case we, as a family, spend time reading the Bible together daily and pray about everything (from lost keys to the “big stuff”) as needed. It isn’t a “rule” it is just something we do together, just like eating together. We personally don’t do “religious education” as most people see it. No Sunday school though our oldest chooses to join her grandparents for church and Sunday school, and in our case we don’t even have formal worship. In fact, you may say that we personally are not “religious” (and I know most of my Christian unschooling friends aren’t either). Instead just like unschooling is a lifestyle of learning, we have a lifestyle of following God. Christianity as we see it is not a thing to do but a relationship, and our children naturally join in that relationship. If you are asking whether our children go and find their own religion, maybe Buddhism or whatever the latest trend is, no, most of us don’t allow for that just like someone who believes firmly in global warming and is sure that it is true and we need to do something about it would not allow their child to all the things that they feel are going to destroy the earth. We do however give them freedom to look into other religions, discuss them, and know about them.

On the other hand, our children have their own relationships with Christ and because of that they have the ultimate freedom to learn and grow. Christianity, that of the New Testament, is so much freer and akin to unschooling than most people realize. We are not called to follow a pile of rules, we are called to love Christ, who died for our sins and rose again because God loved us so much He was willing to give us freedom from our sins through His son. Our only real rule is to love the Lord our God with all our mind and all our heart, and to love our neighbor as our self. Everything else is extra. And each person is free to choose when and if they enter into a relationship with Christ and each grows in his or her own way and in his or her own time. And the same goes for our children and their relationship with Christ. Each grows and learns what they need, when they need it.

By now everyone knows about Good Morning America’s segment on unschooling .  The good news is that it has prompted some brilliant responses around the web.

For instance, How Monkey Learned to Read by Mrs M– a fellow Christian unschooler at I Changed my Name to Mommy.

And Jena wrote a brilliant article called Curious About Unschooling? over at Simple Homeschool

And my own response to the unschooling question, written well before this all came up (and which you all have likely already read) here.

And as a real quick side; I just stopped into the Christian Unschooling facebook group that I created last year and found that we have grown to 73 members!

There have been more in the last few weeks and if you have a link you want to share email me at gracedbychrist (at) gmail (dot) com or leave a comment.

A lovely photo journal of what looks like an incredible educational trip over at Growing Urban Wildflowers:
“…or, there and back again”

A great post about a duck and a boy over at Life-Led-Learning: Wild Duck Rescue

A review of a book series that I have never read but which we will definitely be checking out at Seeds and Dreams: Why We Love Gregor the Overlander

And a continuation of the discussion of Children’s Church over at Crunchy Christian Mom:
Children and church

And finally a great general unschooling article that I found to be an excellent reminder of how to keep the spark of interest alive: keeping the cart behind the horse

I know there are some others out there that I missed–if you see a great one post it in the comments please (including if it is your own).

Penny over at Seeds and Dreams just wrote about their recent experiences with the changes they have made to their homeschool style in happenings of life and love learning

Christy over at Growing Urban Wildflowers shared a wonderful specific experience that is the perfect illustration of how unschooling works and why in On Tying Bows.

I LOVE picture books, especially picture books that inspire me as an artist. My grandparents made sure we had tons of books growing up, subscribing to Scolastic books and the like for us from the momemnt we could hold a book in our hands. The thing is picture books didn’t inspire me to read. They inspired me to draw and paint, even now the favorite picture books from my childhood inspire me as an artist.

What inspired me to read were those great big books my mom put up high so I wouldn’t destroy them–books like Winnie-the-Pooh, Heidi, A.A. Milne’s poems, a couple Reader’s Digest anthologies for kids, a book of poetry with very few illustrations but designed for children, and several great big sets of vintage children’s books–short on pictures bu full of bits and pieces from wonderful children’s stories through the ages. I would often ask my mom to read to me from them as they were a mystery to me, these books with few pictures but so man words that were clearly designed for children.

Another thing that made me want to read was seeing her cuddled up on the couch, reading a novel. I would snuggle up to her, trying to get her attention. When that didn’t work I would look over her shoulder, trying to figure out what held her attention. To this day I still remember that wall of words and how I couldn’t understand what was so great about it. Every once in a while she would pause her reading to see what I wanted, and I would always ask, regardless of what I had originally wanted, where the pictures were and why she wanted to read a book without pictures. She would always reply, “because I enjoy a good story and like reading books.” Then she would return to reading and I would look over her shoulder, staring at the page trying to see if I could decipher any of the words on it, trying to make sense of the blur of squiggles. Sometimes, if it were a suitable book, she would take a moment to read aloud some bit that I would point out to her, asking what it said. It would be years before I would learn to read and enjoy it because I struggled with the way they taught reading in school–teaching words I didn’t care about, that didn’t follow any rules, reading stories that were stupid and pointless. It wasn’t until I was older and found books I wanted to read that my voracious appetite for reading developed, and never for the books that were supposed to read (except for The Scarlett Letter, which I loved and then got in trouble because I didn’t read it slowly with the class–1 chapter a week but instead read the whole thing in a night and then moved on to other books that I devoured.)

Nowadays I often read aloud to the kids from chapter books with no pictures–the kids know not to ask to see the pictures but one or all will sit by me, looking over my shoulder reading with me (or in Esther’s case, taking the book when I stop for the night and reading the rest on her own.) When I read to myself, Issac–my new reader, will often come cuddle next to me, looking over my shoulder, occasionally stopping me, reading a few words aloud, asking if he read it right, then asking me to reread the whole sentence together so he can hear how it is supposed to sound.

And I am thinking that, on the whole, that is a much better, way to learn to read.

I especially suggest you wander over to Life-Led Learning now as they are taking a trip, a long trip down the West Coast and are blogging the experience (The trip starts here.).  Cathi-Lynn is,  on a daily basis (well, pretty much), sharing their journey plus lots of extra information on what they find–so far they have seen multiple volcanoes, waterfalls, the ocean, even SETI.  I know my kids have enjoyed following them as they travel via the blog and I bet yours will too.