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.
Read MoreUnschoolers 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.
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I have two strong impressions after viewing the movie Unschooled. One because I personally know Peter Bergson and the second because of my experience advocating for unschooling and self-directed education.
I went to the screening already knowing that Peter was upset with his portrayal in the film and with the film’s over-riding narrative of “kindly white person saves inner-city minority youths.” . . .
Read MoreI think homeschooling is getting a bad rap during the pandemic. Parents are pulling their hair out trying to teach their children at home and cursing homeschooling as a result. However, participating in daily classroom lessons sent from school to do at home is *remote learning*, not homeschooling. This is why many homeschoolers use the word *unschooling* to describe what they do: learning at home doesn’t have to occur only at home nor resemble learning in school.
Read MoreJohn Taylor Gatto, a famous schoolteacher and author, died last week. I knew him first as a writer and ally of unschooling, and eventually got to know him as a friend. John Gatto passed away on Oct. 25, 2018, and I want to share some of my memories of him. I took this photo of John in a dressing room at Carnegie Hall before he took the stage for his event, The Exhausted School.
Read MoreAugust 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.
Read MoreToday’s vision of education isn’t about morals, citizenship, personal development, or social cohesion: it’s about sorting the winners and losers in a race for jobs. Here are more life-affirming visions of education than social Darwinism.
Read MoreSteve 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.
Read MoreAfter news of the Parkland gun massacre came out, “Jack Kingston, a former United States representative from Georgia and a regular CNN commentator, asked, “Do we really think—and I say this sincerely—do we really think 17-year-olds on their own are going to plan a nationwide rally?” Why can’t we just support and encourage these young people in their single, clear goal of banning assault weapons instead of assimilating their effort into the conventional, adult-driven, conservative/liberal battle narrative?
Read MoreSince 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.
Read MoreIt 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 . . .
Read MoreHolt's most political book, Freedom and Beyond is also a very practical and useful book for parents and anyone who works with children because it explores in detail many of the tensions caused by giving freedom. Partners who argue over the value of self-directed learning, who worry about discipline, and so on will find that Holt presents both sides of these tensions and notes they will never go away . . .
Read MoreNow, 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 . . .
Read MoreI often encounter fake news as a reason the election went the way it did. But I’m more upset by the real news accounts and analysis of the election results that claim, in short, this election was the triumph of the less educated over the educated—the idiocracy wins!
Read More"Informal or spontaneous learning is often far more effective than formal learning." If you agree with this position, please share this video with your friends and let us know your thoughts, or join the Alliance: http://www.self-directed.org
Read MoreIt is all too easy, particularly in election years, to forget that homeschooling is a wide-ranging social movement, not a party-specific political movement . . .
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 MoreFrom 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 . . .
Read MoreShilpa 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 . . .
Read MorePeople may criticize you for it, but strong evidence continues to emerge that letting your teenager sleep late and do their tasks and learning when they're well rested is a biologically and educationally sound practice. The problem is, school schedules and adult expectations undermine people who want to do this—unless you are homeschooling!
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