The 13th annual, international Rethinking Education Conference was held at the Marriot Solana in Westlake, Texas. The conference is designed to foster communication, enrichment, inspiration, motivation and networking for unschooling families. Unschooling is often lumped into the “homeschooling” category, but proponents of unschooling contest that it is an entirely different ball game. Indeed, the denim-skirt meter was close to zero.

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Instead, photographers, actors and actresses, farmers, painters, world travelers, web designers, political analysts, musicians and business owners showed up. With their parents, of course, since they’re all school-aged.

The annual conference is unlike any other gathering. Free-spirited families from all over the world descend upon the hotel to “Rethink Everything” including education, health care, sustainability, child discipline, elder care, spirituality, economics and nutrition. Speakers presented radical perspectives on everything from raising children without rules to raising families without jobs or western medicine. Central to the unschooling philosophy is that everyone makes their own decisions and that children don’t need to be trained how to live their own life, they just need to do it.

Throughout the hotel, printed quotes about freedom, education, parenting, love and success were tacked up in bathroom stalls, elevators and anywhere else they might inspire someone. The conference is designed to empower families. Veteran unschoolers were on hand with their grown children, so visitors and newcomers could see that “They turned out normal.” Normal isn’t a goal of unschooling, though. Many of these parents aren’t the slightest bit concerned with test scores, state standards or fitting in socially. It’s a tenet of unschooling that the children’s interests and preferences guide their education, instead of a list of tasks and requirements.

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