Due to the pandemic, homeschooling is heating up and getting attention all over the world, and some of the attention is unwelcome. In France, homeschooling is close to being abolished this month, as Germany and Sweden have already done. In the United States, homeschooling has doubled in size this year and all sorts of things are brewing here as a result, too…
Read MoreNews and reports about learning without going to school from Belgium and Colombia. Life Without School–A Plea To Unschool Our Learning is a new title written by two Belgian authors, and Colombian researchers explore the economics of homeschooling/unschooling in their country and the characteristics of a really alternative school.
Read MoreIn conjunction with this week’s free, online homeschooling conference that I co-chair with Steve Hargadon, last night the Alternative Education Film Festival started. We launched the film festival with La Educacion Prohibida, a wonderful documentary about alternative education in Spanish-speaking countries (with English subtitles), directed by German Doin. Steve and I interviewed German last night and you can view it here . . .
Read MoreAfter 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 . . .
Read MoreEight 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 . . .
Read MoreThis is the complete episode of John Holt and two homeschooling families contending with a fairly hostile audience (one person is so mean in their comments about one of the homeschooled children that Donahue cuts her off!). Though it is from 1981, I think all the criticisms, responses, and issues are pretty much the same today despite the continued growth of homeschooling. What do you think?
Read MoreRecent national news about homeschooling.
Homeschooling is spreading around the world, but it is facing serious challenges from institutions and governments that prefer a single, compulsory, standardized education system for processing everyone.
Read MoreDay Farenga at the Eiffel Tower, July 4. Did that really happen?
Read MorePat Farenga interviews Wes Beach about how his work in school led to his strong support for homeschooling; little-known ways that homeschoolers and other nontraditional learners use to gain access to community college courses; gifted children; and many stories about how Wes helped overcome educational peevishness about people’s learning.
Read MoreLisa Nielsen, director of digital literacy and citizenship for NYC schools, co-author of Teaching Generation Text: Using Cellphones to Enhance Learning, is unfairly criticized by the NY Post for her support of homeschooling and other heresies against the religion of school. I chose that language because the label attached to the photo here, copied from the Post online, calls this photo "heretic1." Who will be the Post's heretic 2?
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