Sudbury Valley School and Unschoolers: We Are Closer Than You Think

Dan Greenberg, a founder of the Subury Valley School, writes “Sudbury Valley Schools and unschooling have NOTHING in common.” I write why we have much more in common than Greenberg claims.

Alternative schooling, Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Parenting, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaJanuary 29, 2019Dan Greenberg, Sudbury Valley School, Unschooling, Pat FarengaComment

Schools and Homeschoolers: Unequal When Threatened with Court over Student Deficiencies

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.

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Legal IssuesPatrick FarengaJuly 10, 2018right to education, education in the US ConstitutionComment

Take the Game of School Survey

Steve Hargadon’s survey is inspired by the book The Game of School, and it is a deep dive past the usual questions of school efficiency towards more qualitative questions about parents’ and students’ frustrations, fears, anger, hopes and dreams, and opportunities regarding school.

Learning and Teaching, School reform, Public School IssuesPatrick FarengaMay 25, 2018game of school, Steve Hargadon, School researchComment

Technology That Gives Students Agency, Not Instruction

Sitting in a classroom or at home in front of a teaching machine is hardly a major advancement for a child’s social, physical, and mental growth. Our 19th century school assumptions about how learning happens bind us to an industrial model of the school as a knowledge factory, rather than a model of people as active learners. The photo on this post is from an article about the history of B.F. Skinner and his teaching machine by Audrey Watters.

Alternative schooling, Community, Learning and Teaching, Technology and EducationPatrick FarengaNovember 29, 2017technology, student agency, public education Comments

What Causes More Anxiety in Children: School or a Smartphone?

Since the dawn of time children were an integral part of adult daily life, for better or worse, but since the Industrial Revolution we've deliberately kept them out of adult society to focus them on school instruction, school schedules, and school awards.

Alternative schooling, Children's Rights, Learning and Teaching, School reformPatrick FarengaOctober 27, 2017anxiety, depression, teenagers, Schooling Comments

The Teacher Liberation Handbook: How to Leave School and Create a Place Where You and Young People Can Thrive

This is a great resource for anyone thinking about what we can do besides replicate conventional school practices and schools.

Alternative schooling, Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and TeachingPatrick FarengaSeptember 25, 2017Learning centers, Teacher Liberation Handook, Joel Hammon, Princeton Learning CenterComment

Self-Directed Education and Late Bloomers

It seems that every discussion about education assumes the primary goal of lower educational institutions is to get people into higher educational institutions. But there are better ways of thinking of one’s learning besides as a means to get a checkbox ticked on an application—after all, learning never stops, it ebbs and flows in intensity over your life . . .

Learning and Teaching, School reformPatrick FarengaApril 8, 2017Never Too Late, late bloomers, Dr. John Goodenough, geniuses Comment

Special Tips for Your Homeschool Journey

Montessori’s ideas are being adapted by some to meet the growth of the homeschooling movement and the organizer of the Montessori Homeschool Online Conference asked me to talk about some general principles I’ve learned as a homeschooling advocate . . .

Parenting, Learning and Teaching, Learner-centered curricula, Growing Without Schooling, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaJanuary 6, 2017Montessori, unschooling, homeschool conference Comment

Being and Becoming

The movie’s exploration of how children and adults learn and grow together without following conventional school and child-rearing practices is vivid. Indeed, its celebration of childbirth and parenthood at the start of the film sets a beautiful tone for why parents might want to continue this type of holistic family life as opposed to conventional, fractured work/school/family schedules.

Parenting, Unschooling, Learning and Teaching, Homeschooling FilmsPatrick FarengaOctober 8, 2016unschooling, Clara Bellar, Being and Becoming, Class dismissed Comments

Why I Support the Alliance for Self-Directed Education

We want ASDE to be a self-sustaining and steady voice in support of self-directed education in this time of intense technological and bureaucratic surveillance and control of our lives and learning. We want self-directed education to be seen as normative, rather than alternative, in the public discourse about education . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learner-centered curricula, Learning and Teaching, Unschooling, ASDEPatrick FarengaSeptember 28, 2016self-directed learning, self-directed education, ASDE, Dr. Peter Gray, Alternatives to Compulsory Schooling, unschooling Comments

Coercing Children Without Meaning To

"Many of us may coerce without meaning to.

"The question is, what kind of influence do we exercise over other people, what kind of open or hidden pressure do we put on them, what chance do we give them to say No, what do they risk if they do say it? . . ."

Parenting, Learning and Teaching, John HoltPatrick FarengaSeptember 7, 2016Freedom and Beyond, Coericion Comment

Homeschooling is a Social Movement

It is all too easy, particularly in election years, to forget that homeschooling is a wide-ranging social movement, not a party-specific political movement . . .

Alternative schooling, Community, Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Parenting, School reformPatrick FarengaApril 22, 2016Homeschooling, Social Movement, FBI, Prevent Progam UK, WI Parents AssociationComment

You Do Not Need a PhD to Look at a Child and to Think About What He is Doing

From John Holt's reply to Dr. Jerome Bruner's letter to the NY Review of Books: "The proper business of the intellectual is to make complicated ideas more simple, not simple ideas more complicated; to make the real world more comprehensible, not less so." Read more about this sharp exchange . . .

Book Review, John Holt, Learning and Teaching, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaJanuary 28, 2016Dr. Jerome Bruner, John Holt, NY Review of Books, Toward a Theory of InstructionComment

Education Disruptors on Two Continents: Shilpa and Manish Jain

Shilpa and Manish Jain are grassroots education activists located in the United States and India, respectively. This spring each is putting on a unique event that approaches vast educational change at a personal, empowering level . . .

Community, Homeschooling Current Issues, Learner-centered curricula, Learning and Teaching, School reformPatrick FarengaJanuary 26, 2016Shilpa Jain, Manish Jain, Shikshantar, Hack the Education System Fellowship, YES! Education Jam Comment

Parents' Concerns about Their Children's Futures

The questions from parents that Blake responded to at his talk are the same ones myself and others in homeschooling for the past 30+ years also asked when we started—childrearing issues don't differ from previous generations as much as our external circumstances do—and I feel obligated to pass those answers forward . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Parenting, Technology and Education, videogamesPatrick FarengaDecember 15, 2015Blake Boles, Parenting, homeschooling, unschooling Comments

Starting to Homeschool with Pat Farenga

Over the last few months we created this series of six videos, handouts, and a private member's forum to help you start and continue homeschooling in your own way. I wrote a new book, How to Report Unschooling to School Officials, as a capstone to this project (you can get the book separately). But you can get a special price on the complete package . . .

Unschooling, Learning and Teaching, Learner-centered curricula, Homeschooling, high schoolPatrick FarengaOctober 15, 2015starting to homeschool, unschooling, unschooling webinarComment

In Remembrance: John Holt

September 14, 2015, marks the 30th anniversary of John Holt’s death and I’ve been conflicted as to what to write about it . . . As I thought about this anniversary I went through various books and files for inspiration and I came across the documentary slide show we created for the Growing Without Schooling 20th anniversary conference in 1997 . . .

Homeschooling Films, John Holt, Learning and Teaching, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaSeptember 15, 2015John Holt, John Holt video, A Life Worth Living videoComment

Join the Education Jam

The second annual Education Jam is happening in Burlington, VT, this August . . .

Alternative schooling, Learning and TeachingPatrick FarengaMay 5, 2015Education Jam, Shilpa Jain, Yes!Comment

Starting to Homeschool and Chat with Pat

This photo shows our living room during a typical day of homeschooling. I'll talk about how moments like this add up to powerful learning and enhanced self-esteem for children in my next Starting to Homeschool webinar . . .

Unschooling, Parenting, Learner-centered curricula, Learning and Teaching, CommunityPatrick FarengaApril 28, 2015starting to homeschool, Elsa HaasComment

John Gatto and Starting to Homeschool Webinar Updates

John Gatto wants to answer your questions, and Pat Farenga is moving the Starting to Homeschool Webinar to a new date.

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and TeachingPatrick FarengaApril 22, 2015John Taylor Gatto, starting to homeschoolComment