Unschooling Ourselves (a lot about James)

Today I had to meet James (my husband) at the office. He filed a 6 month extension for our 2005 taxes, and the time is almost up. He absolutely HATES numbers, and wanted my help. I like number crunching, and do most of the business finances myself. I have never had any kind of training, I just enjoy working with numbers, and am learning while doing.... Practise what you preach, right? :)
I had no idea what to expect. Doing taxes sounded daunting to me, but I barged into it with bravado. Turns out there wasn't much to it at all, the accountant handles a lot of the dirty work. James just couldn't even get his brain functioning in the numbers mode enough to fully figure out what the accountant needed. His brain is so full already of all the other aspects and pressures of the business that I am happy to help him in this area.
On the way to the office I heard this country song that I liked the words to. (I'm not a big country person, but man, have you listened to the radio lately? It sucks! You have to flip through the channels forever to find anything interesting!)
So, I'm this analytical person, right, and I can't just listen to music for the melody like James can... so I'm listening to the words of this country song, and agreeing with it. It said something like:

You can't learn to drive until you get behind the wheel,
You can't learn to pray till you're afraid of what you feel...

Basically the message was that until you actually live life doing real things, you haven't really lived. It reminded me of unschooling, and also of us starting a business that we weren't familiar with. Flying by the seat of your pants, learning as you do... That's a real education. Not the college "education" where you don't actually get out into the adult world until you're like 25 years old... Then - you start your real education.
So, when James started telling me how he feels bad about not seeing all these things he should have done before, I told him about the song... I said, how can you blame yourself for not seeing these things when it's your first time in this kind of a business? And he jumped in with both feet, not looking back, to head it up! He's getting an education in advertising the real way! No degree required. And funny enough, people with degrees in marketing and graphic design look up to him and respect his opinion because he's confident, and does his best. And it usually turns out great. These people have no idea that he just starting messing around with graphic design/advertising about a year ago, and has had no college "education" in it.
What can I say? I'm proud of my man for his accomplishments. His accomplishments of having the gusto to just get out there and do it. To take charge in a new environment, and have a can do attitude. I'm proud that my kids have such a great man for a dad. A good example of how to learn while living.... unschooling himself through life!