Your recent article and cartoon about unschooling misrepresented the family and unschoolers everywhere. Unlike what the Mook article/cartoon depicts, the scientific-minded young 9-year-old speaks of things that some adults may not be able to grasp.

Both of the parents in the Jan. 17 article hold upper-level degrees. Wendy Weirick is a former teacher with the Department of Defense, while Kirk works for U.S. Army Special Operations.

Unschooling is not about raising dumb, lazy, TV-watching, Nintendo-playing couch potatoes. Unschooling, for so many families, is teaching by means of nurturing the children's individual talents/interests and molding these into a non-traditional method of learning.

Presently the Burtons' son, along with many activities, attends hands-on field trips, he is in a nanotechnology class (which Wendy herself teaches), and although not by textbook, Mack is learning around the clock.

Since unschooling becomes an all-day learning experience, the unschoolers that I know actually work harder in a lot of ways than a traditional homeschooling parent.

The families cook together, while the child measures and converts measurements. A shopping trip turns out to be a full math lesson, where the children not only make the list, but also get the groceries and pay for them. They are also converting ounces to pounds, liters to gallons, etc. Even the actual trip to the store can be spent calculating the distance and converting the miles to kilometers.

Unschooled kids are astute, talented, and ready for anything.

Karola Richardson

Pinehurst