There has been some discussion lately about (and by!) teenaged life learners. All too often, teens are collectively discriminated against or looked down upon due to their supposed bad behavior, moodiness, etc., etc. However, I think much of that is due to the way they are treated in our society…and people’s expecta…tions of and respect for (or lack of) them. So we went digging in the archives to find this article from Life Learning’s September/October 2007 issue by the mother of two unschooled teens.

Ann Leadbetter had written a couple of previous articles in Life Learning about her unschooled daughters Kate and Molly. And when the decided to go to college, she updated us. In this article, she describes how they prepared for, applied to, got accepted by, and began to thrive at college…without having attended school.

And, in a sidebar, she comments on the myth that the teen years have to be unpleasant for families, with surly, rebellious young people straining to get away from parental influence. And she describes what many other life learning families have experienced (mine included): What we, in North America, experience as adolescence is quite different when young people are used  to interacting with and being respected by adults, rather than being age-segregated in disrespectful, coercive environments like schools.