quote of the day and more on unschooling

"Everything you've been taught is someone else's thought... Go ahead and create your own."

I found this quote today but it didn't say who it was by. I was thinking about how true this is and how unschooling opens up an environment for children to constantly create their own thoughts. Yes, it's important to explore other peoples' thoughts and ideas but it's more important to create your own. With unschooling there is so much freedom to think.

I see it in Jude, the unhindered ability to come up with his own ideas and think outside the box. For instance, we just had a book fest with our unschooling group where the kids were encouraged to come up with some sort of little project to tell the other kids what their favorite book is. I asked Jude what he wanted to do. His first idea was to make his own book to show the other children, which he proceeded to tell me about in a very long drawn out daydreamy kind of way. When I was in school I would never have thought to make my own book. I would have done exactly what the teacher said to do in a way that would please him or her so that I would get a good grade.

The ease at which Jude can come up with creative ideas and different ways of doing things always amazes me. I wonder if I was once that way as a child, if years of public school and following directions just took it out of me. I'm just now, in my late twenties, beginning to realize that I don't have to do things according to other people's expectations.

Our world is changing. We need to be raising children who can think creatively and solve problems. Life does not have multiple choice answers so why should education?