New data shows homeschooling is now America’s fastest-growing form of education. What’s behind this growth?

In Freedom and Beyond, John Holt writes, “Another consequence of defining education as schooling is that as we put more and more of our educational resources into schools, we have less and less left over for those institutions that are truly open and educative and in which more and more people might learn for themselves.” This conference had little to say about education models that aren’t like school, but it’s a start.

A criticism of homeschooling is that we are experimenting on our children and their futures by not doing what school does. John Holt, in the above photo, is with his fifth-grade students at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School. He’s an example of a teacher who changed his ideas about schooling by experimenting with his students.

If you have a teenage homeschooler or unschooler and you want to know what opportunities and resources and options are available for them, put this book in their hands. If you have a teen who is floundering in high school, put this book in their hands. If you have parents and adults questioning your sanity for allowing your teen to quit school for independent studies, put this book in their hands. If you haven’t read this book and you have or work with teenagers who don’t enjoy school, get this book.

Unschoolers tend to believe that the most important issues of our lives deserve our personal attention, and that our personal attention, in turn, is naturally drawn to what is important—if it’s not schooled out of us. John Holt had precious little tolerance for easy answers—for curricula which would automatically make us healthy, wealthy, and wise; for experts who grew frustrated when asked for examples; and for Big Science Business Government who wrested from people their ability to educate, feed, or physic themselves.

Amidst the remarkable singing, dancing, and music in the movie are the critical responses of people at the concert to the US putting a man on the moon, which occurred during the concert. One commenter at the concert made a point that rang particularly true to me: “You could have spent that money on earth and made a whole lot of people much better.”

That’s often how I feel about our never-ending school reform efforts: more technology, bigger schools, more testing, more theories and schemes about making children learn what schools determine they need to know so they can become the workers that science, business, and government want. Instead of focusing on the perceived future needs of science, business, and government, why not focus that money on improving the actual needs of local neighborhoods, family healthcare, salaries, and wages?

We sold Herman Daly’s book Steady-State Economics for several years in the John Holt Book and Music store. Though never a popular seller, John insisted on keeping it in the catalog. As time passes, I see more and more why John Holt wanted more people to know about this book and how hard it is for human-scale solutions to take hold in a world possessed by the massive consumption of goods and services as the best way for society to prosper.

The emphasis on doing school like we always have during the pandemic has caused childrens’ health and safety to be severely affected. Schools could have helped families by shifting their focus from the needs of the academic schedule to the real-world needs of children to socialize, explore, play, and exercise…