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.
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 MoreA new report encourages states to promote homeschooling as a viable option to families. Citing research and the current political situation, this is a good summary of homeschooling from an education policy perspective.
Read MoreMy thoughts on an article in the Journal of Philosophy of Education that discusses, among other interesting things, the uneasy relationships between homeschooling and mainstream schooling.
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 MoreAudio, video, blogs, and research about grown homeschoolers is updated and a new page about them is added to the site.
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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Many American homeschoolers are probably unfamiliar with Dr. Roland Meighan, who died on January 20, 2014, but he was an important and wonderful person whose work should be more widely known. Roland admired the work of John Holt and he reached out to me in the mid 1980s, offering his help to spread the word about alternatives to school . . .
Read MoreA call for homeschoolers, ages 13 to 18, to participate in a research study about their civic and moral development during their high school years.
Read MoreAlison Gopnick's research into how children learn supports so many of the observations John Holt wrote about, especially his chapter from Learning All the Time, "Young Children as Research Scientists."
The latest U.S. Dept. of Education study of the number of homeschoolers in America shows continuing growth, though the rate of growth is slowing . . .
Read MoreMeaningful relationships with adults and honoring sleep patterns are two factors for success in life that are neglected in just about all school reforms. Photo: Kids and adults at the first Holt/Growing Without Schooling picnic in 1986.
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