Harvard University’s ongoing 7-week conference, the “Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling” continues as I write this. Yesterday’s event, “Is child abuse greater at school or homeschool?” was a surprisingly frank session.
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I spoke at a conference in Calgary, Alberta last month and learned that some school boards there cooperate with homeschoolers and help with reimbursements for educational expenses. It’s an interesting model for schools and homeschoolers.
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This is about more than just saving money: when the internet is a place where anyone, anywhere, can set up a website to talk about their passion and interact with like-minded people, and where anyone with an internet connection can find them, self-directed learning can take us anywhere … If we can't save net neutrality, young people who want to take charge of their own education will find that the internet has been turned into just another place where someone else decides what they can read, watch, and listen to …
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August 28, 2018, is the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Though not present, John Holt supported the students and was highly critical of the police. John adds some thoughtful commentary and advice about being careful not to turn just anger into blind hate in this previously unpublished piece.
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If schools aren’t able or obligated to teach some children to read why can’t we create publicly funded alternatives to school for those children? Self-directed learning challenges Horace Mann’s assumption about the need to compel school attendance: Freedom does not necessarily result in ignorance.
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“Hard cases make bad law” and tomorrow’s hearing of a homeschooling bill in the California legislature is a prime example.
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Now, there’s no doubt that homeschooling is a choice, but for me and other homeschoolers I know, it was not a choice of schools, it was a choice for our family to avoid the rat race of school: its busy work and pressure for labels, grades, class status, and homework. Our choice was not to go to school and to not turn our home into a school—and that’s a choice I never read about in the school choice literature . . .
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Children's rights are not a conversation starter in most circles, but this recent interview I did goes there in-depth.
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Trying to break the cycle of child abuse seems like a gargantuan task, not just because all sorts of experts, institutions, laws, and religious beliefs encourage and support corporal punishment but also because the majority of adults don’t think children are capable of having deep thoughts and feelings . . .
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Empowering children to question authority and become active citizens rather than passive students is not high on the agendas of religious and educational institutions, since they consider physical and psychological punishments to be necessary components of their teaching processes. This is why I’m writing about the Protect Children Project—its primary purpose is to end corporal punishment in school—and they have declared May 15, 2014, as Protect Children Day.
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After outlining the general issues the March 7, 2014, Congressional Quarterly Researcher report looks in depth at three key questions:
1. Should governments oversee home schooling more strictly?
2. Is home schooling academically superior to public schooling?
3. Can home schooling help the public school system?
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On a tactical level, it seems futile to think by signing an online petition about the laws of a country where I am not a citizen that I will somehow help shape that country’s laws. However, on a strategic level, I can see how all these actions are important and linked . . .
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Eight legislators in France have decided homeschooling is dangerous and should be tightly regulated to prevent the mental, ideological, or religious conditioning of children. This is done without much, if any, evidence being produced to support this claim . . .
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"You don’t learn to love freedom by being a slave." This and many other juicy quotes by John Holt and author/psychologist Richard Farson are in this interview from 1974 about children's rights. Read about the interview and listen to it here . . .
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People think research about the efficacy of schooling proves that our national well-being, personal advancement, and intellectual abilities are deeply connected to attending school. A new article argues that research about the efficacy of education is deeply flawed and prevents us from creating better solutions for helping children learn. . .
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Homeschooler's Anonymous has created a petition to the Home School Legal Defense Association: ". . . As former homeschool students, homeschooling parents, and community allies, we demand that HSLDA takes a stand against child abuse and neglect in homeschooling families."
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A report on the Alternatives to Compulsory Education Conference on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.
A homeschooler volunteering at the local library during school hours. This is just one of the many opportunities you can help children use in lieu of classroom seat-time. Read to learn more about the Alternatives to Compulsory Education Conference on April 27, 2013 at Harvard University.