Not until I started reading and trying to put into practise everything I could find on the subject of Natural Learning or Unschooling did I realise just how thoroughly the systems we've grown up with at school have stayed stuck in my head, and probably in most of our collective unsconsciousnesses.

The first schooling myth that keeps popping up in my mind is that I have to get my kids to do an excessive amount of bookwork before I can believe (or prove) that they've mastered a subject to my satisfaction. Last week I got hold of what I thought looked like quite an interesting text book on Australian History and asked Logan to read the section and complete the exercises about bushrangers. He did, but not without a bit of grumbling and his "I hate this" face that I remember so well from last year. "What's up?" I asked him. "I honestly thought you'd find this interesting."

"It's OK," he said, "but we've done bushrangers."

I was mystified for a moment. "When have we done bushrangers?"

"You know, on our holiday."

Then the penny clicked. Two years ago, when Blake was just a tiny baby, we went on a great caravan holiday up the centre of our great country and then back down the east coast. On the way up, we'd visited the basement of an old hotel in the town of Forbes where the bushranger Ben Hall used to meet his friends and they'd discuss their plans. The atmosphere felt very eerie and thick with gloom. Logan walked around and read the plaques on the walls about the history of the individual outlaws along with me and Andrew. Then when we hopped back into the car, we had a good discussion about the fact that there was no Social Security or other government welfare payments back in the 1800s, so young men might have felt as if turning to a life of crime was the only way they could support themselves. Later, I read aloud a book to the family called "Midnite" by Randolph Stowe. It's a comic parody about the life of a young bushranger. Finally, Logan watched the movie "Ned Kelly" starring Heath Ledger. So I can understand why he thinks his education on the subject of bushrangers is complete. Perhaps it is. The idea that he has do bookwork to prove it is just my idea.

Thinking back to my own youth, I have to admit that I learned more from my own personal reading and research about topics of my choice than I did from school lessons. I remember a mini series called "North and South" that got me fascinated about the American Civil War. At school we only learned Australian history until Year 12 level, so I used the library to do my own personal research, which I would have done whether or not I'd been at school.

The second myth I've been trying to push out of head is the one that says we have to sit down for long blocks of time if we want to learn about a particular subject. But I've done things such as walking in the playground with the kids, noticing a particular bird and telling them what sort it is and where they like to live. They've noticed that the seagulls and cormorants at the beach are different to the more colourful parakeets, black and white magpies and honey suckers we get in the Hills. So Natural History gets learned and remembered during leisure times. It's just my own brain that tells me I should be making them sit down for blocks of 45 minutes to learn History or Science, because that's the way I'd been brought up to do it at school.

It's been fun but very challenging to put to rest my old programmed ideas, and I have to say, the kids are very helpful at making me remember, because of their reactions when I get too "schoolish" again. And I really think they've been learning more than they did last year when I used to behave like a school teacher.