Fight the Facebook Ban on Dr. Peter Gray’s Article about School

Children’s Mental Health Crises Plummet in Summer and Rise in the School Year . . .

Children's Rights, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaAugust 24, 2015Dr. Peter Gray, Danger of Back to School, Children's Mental Health, Facebook ban Comments

48 Translations of John Holt's Work and More to Come!

John Holt's books have been translated into over 48 languages, and I continue to field requests for more translations . . .

John Holt, Translations of HoltPatrick FarengaAugust 19, 2015John Holt Translations, foreign languagesComment

John Taylor Gatto Update

John Taylor Gatto continues to write and keep up with his blog despite his stroke, but he and his wife Janet continue to need our help . . .

John Taylor GattoPatrick FarengaAugust 7, 2015John Taylor Gatto, medical fund Comment

Unschooling Increases Its Global Reach

Unschooling and self-directed learning are gaining advocates around the globe . . .

Europe, Learner-centered curricula, School reform, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaAugust 6, 2015unschooling, Edu on Tour, Learning Cultures 3.0, unschooling the worldComment

Choosing Home: 20 Mothers Celebrate Staying Home, Raising Children, and Changing the World

"Insisting that both women and men must work in equally high paying and prestigious jobs to attain gender equality explicitly assumes that high paying jobs reflect the pinnacle of success and importance. We disagree. When mothers (and increasingly fathers) stay home—whether they earn a paycheck never, now, or in the future—they change the world for the better by raising and prioritizing children, cultivating family and community, and investing in the future . . ."

Book Review, Parenting, Homeschooling Current IssuesPatrick FarengaJune 23, 2015Choosing Home, Kerry McDonald, Rachel Chaney, Parenting Comment

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

The Art of Self-Directed Learning

Boles always moves from the theoretical to the practical in this book, and I enjoy how he doesn’t present learning as a series of boxes to check on a report card, but as an adventurous journey that shapes your life right now, not after graduation and you enter the “real world.”

Book Review, Learning and Teaching, Learner-centered curriculaPatrick FarengaApril 16, 2015books for unschooling, Blake Boles, self-directed learning Comment

The Self-Directed Learning Award

North Star celebrates self-directed learning in its local community with an annual award that goes to a publicly nominated person who did not complete high school (though they may hold a GED) and who “lives as a model of successful self-directed learning . . ."

Autodidact, College, Community, Homeschooling Current Issues, Jobs and Credentials, Learner-centered curriculaPatrick FarengaApril 6, 2015self-directed learning, North Star, graduationComment

Escaping the Education Caste System

Some Indian parents help their children cheat on exams to get ahead, and treat children harshly to make them study, in what they perceive as a dog-eat-dog world of education. Is conventional schooling the only way to help people learn and grow into good citizens?

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Parenting, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaApril 2, 2015School cheating, Schooling the World, education caste, Standardized testingComment

Homeschooling the Elementary School Years

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learner-centered curricula, Legal Issues, Public School Issues, Religion, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaMarch 22, 2015starting to homeschool, unschooling webinar, Homeschooling in AmericaComment

Volunteers Needed for GWS Proofreading Project

Join our team and help proofread over 4,400 pages about homeschooling history, unschooling's rise, and the moving personal stories that populate each issue of John Holt's Growing Without Schooling magazine.

Homeschooling Current Issues, Homeschooling History, New HoltGWS BooksPatrick FarengaMarch 20, 2015Growing Without Schooling, Volunteer, proofreadComment

An Unrelenting Focus on Education Mistakes Knowledge for Power

Striking comments and evidence from mainstream economists that increasing college graduation rates and getting better job training are diversions from the real work of finding work worth doing and getting paid fairly for it . . .

College, Jobs and Credentials, School reform, Technology and EducationPatrick FarengaMarch 6, 2015college not worth debt, Cost of College Degrees, employment, Social Change Comment

Starting to Homeschool

This series of starting to homeschool webinars presents homeschooling as a flexible, vibrant, and social way to learn with children. Homeschooling is an option open to anyone willing to try it. Even if your children are happy in school and you are satisfied with how your home and school work together, it is good to know what your modern educational options are as your family grows up.

Homeschooling, Learner-centered curricula, Learning Resources, Media Appearances, Parenting, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaFebruary 16, 2015starting to homeschool, unschooling, homeschooling, Pat FarengaComment

John Taylor Gatto Back in Business

John Taylor Gatto continues to improve from his stroke and has just revised his website . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learner-centered curricula, Learning and Teaching, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaFebruary 10, 2015John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down, Underground History of American Education Comment

Manifesto 15

"In a world consumed with uncertainty and a growing sense of the obsolescence of our education systems, how can we ensure the success of ourselves as individuals, our communities, and the planet? We need to evolve education."—From Manifesto 15.

School reform, Parenting, Learning and Teaching, Learner-centered curricula, Children's RightsPatrick FarengaJanuary 30, 2015Manifesto 15, Schooling, School reformComment

The Student Resistance Handbook

Cevin Soling, the filmmaker of The War on Kids, has written a new, brief, and powerful handbook that is bound to anger those who view children as a restive population in need of subjugation by educationists: The Student Resistance Handbook.

Patrick FarengaJanuary 13, 2015Comment

In Memory of Elsa Haas: An Individual Who Helped Many Homeschoolers

Elsa Haas was not a well-known figure in homeschooling/ unschooling circles, but she was a model of the power of the individual to affect large social changes . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Spain, Unschooling, ObituaryPatrick FarengaJanuary 2, 2015Elsa Haas, New York Homeschooling Comments

Bearing Witness

This collection of Gene Burkart's writing from his newspaper column and speeches is a moving and powerful testament to the need for people to create and sustain love and friendship in a world of over-reaching institutions that erode those values . . .

Book Review, Religion, Ivan Illich, CommunityPatrick FarengaDecember 19, 2014Eugene J. Burkart, Gene Burkart, Bearing Witness, Ivan IllichComment

John Holt GWS