The Fringe of the Fringe

I forget sometimes when I use the term 'unschooling' that it is a weird, unknown term to many people outside the homeschooling circles I run in most of the time. Of course, it is weird and unknown to some of the people *inside* the homeschool circles I run in too! At a recent board meeting of VaHomeschoolers--the statewide homeschool group I work with--we were discussing how homeschoolers are on the fringe and since most (all?) of us on the board are unschoolers, I pointed out that we are the on the fringe of most homeschoolers--we are the fringe of the fringe. Academic rebels who have purposely placed ourselves outside the mainstream. It's funny because I was never outside the mainstream growing up. And even though I went to a radical college (Berkeley) I stayed pretty much in the mainstream (except for becoming a born again Christian :o) until I had kids. But as a mom, I began to slip out of the mainstream! I didn't have any interest in working anymore, I wanted to stay at home, breast feed, eventually homeschool and finally, I fell completely out of the mainstream altogether and began to unschool. lol So here I am in my own little eddy on the side of the river surrounding myself with morethanfine fringe-fringers like myself. Come on in the water's fine!