Clark Aldrich's Unschooling Rules is the best book I know of for explaining how unschooling fits into the modern educational landscape -and why unschooling is superior to schooling, by the way. If you visit my old newsletter website at http://www.parental-intelligence.com and type 'unschooling' into the search box you'll get 154 results including a number of excellent articles on the topic.

My wife and I pulled our son out of the school system here in Australia when he was seven (2002) because he'd become chronically unhappy with the school experience. When we decided he would be educated at home, we didn't want to mimic school-style education, since that was what our son had objected to, so what we did was simply revert to the free and easy lifestyle he'd had before he started school (I hadn't heard of the term 'unschooling' at the time). For the next nine years - me being the at-home parent - my son and I spent a great amount of our lives together playing videogames and having long meandering conversations that included a ton of googling (we did have a social life and get fresh air and exercise as well of course). My son's a young adult now, a charming young man, far smarter and competent than I am, and more importantly an enthusiastic learner for life. In a world where learning opportunities are online and mobile, and practically ubiquitous, and I can connect to all human knowledge through a handheld device I carry around in my pocket, I personally believe that the geographically located, congregational, curriculum-based, grade system of mass education we know so well and may love or otherwise has had its day.