Support for Unschooling in the strangest places.

I want to encourage all unschoolers, whatever their religious ilk, to read Called Out of Darkness by Anne Rice. It is her spiritual memoir. However, she spends alot of time on how she was educated and she feels very strongly that school was not the place that her education truly occurred. She referred to school, in the book, as a prison. She talks, at length, about how she was not a reader, and actually struggled with reading most of her life. However, she took in the most valuable information she ever received through the myriad sensous experiences in life: stained glass windows and statues at church, conversations with her mother, stories told by teachers and friends, poetry, art, music, films, radio shows etc...

As a Catholic convert, I picked up the book to read about her re-version to Catholicism. I also love her novels and was curious as to whether Called Out of Darkness would cover her writing history. The book doesn't disappoint on either of those counts. However, I was overwhelmingly surprised, and quite vindicated, to read that as famous and voluminous an author as she is, she was never really a reader, and when she finally did tackle reading novels, it came to her late. One doesn't need to be a reader to be a writer. I loved that she found school a waste of her precious time, and truly believes she learned little there. I really encourage all homeschoolers and especially unschoolers to read this book. It is quite illuminating on all sorts of levels.

Peace,