Ok. ContactMaya I just noticed you're not homeschooling. Possibly then you have not heard of these guys-the Harding family, who wrote The Brainy Bunch
. I am not just going on the article but the other stuff I've heard, reviews of their books, etc. I appreciate that their article makes them come across as borderline unschoolers who just somehow produced exceptional kids. That's not the impression I've got from their other stuff.
They are right wing fundamentalist Christians who basically think that homeschooling has to be done in a fundamentalist religious, right wing, context or your kids will turn out, and I quote, "evil.". I'm really personally uncomfortable with this kind of judgement, especially given that its leveled at kids. At the end of the day their are homeschooling in order to keep their kids away from kids like mine.
Basically, my understanding is that, rather than high school, they sent their kids through community college as an alternative, and they specialised very early, and consequently, their kids did well in their specialism. I'm not sure why that would be surprising. I think many teenagers would be capable of early college, if that's all they did. The reason teenagers don't tend to go to college early is partly that they don't usually specialise. That's where their secret lies, IMO.
So this ISN'T the story of a family who chose unschooling and found themselves with these kids who had an early college education. From everything I can work out, its the story of a results focused, religion focused family who used structured homeschooling and selectively used, for example, community college (in just the way UK kids use our distance learning university) to supplement their learning once the kids hit the teenage years. And yeah, power to them. But I don't think there's anything new, or surprising, in their message. Its very possible to hothouse a kid. That's known. What a lot more exciting IMO is what happens if you really, genuinely, give kids educational freedom (and support).
I'd recommend Homeschooling For Excellence by the Colfaxes as a much more interesting book about how to borderline unschool and yet produce exceptional kids (main advice: goat farm)