I discovered this essay on another unschooling blog. I'm sorry I missed this on NPR's This I Believe series. I've often thought an essay about unschooling would be great. Not that this is, necessarily, but it's the first one I've heard of that came close.
Gloria Steinem's This I Believe essay states in part:
"I didn't go to school until I was 12 or so. My parents thought that traveling in a house trailer was as enlightening as sitting in a classroom, so I escaped being taught some of the typical lessons of my generation: for instance, that this country was "discovered" when the first white man set foot on it, that boys and girls were practically different species, that Europe deserved more textbook space than Africa and Asia combined.
Instead, I grew up seeing with my own eyes, following my curiosity, falling in love with books, and growing up mostly around grown-ups -- which, except for the books, was the way kids were raised for most of human history."