Category: john holt
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Conscious homeschooling
What is unschooling? That question has been debated among homeschoolers for years, but what’s happened recently is something I never would have predicted. The word “unschooling,” originally coined by John Holt in the 1970s, has come to be applied to free schools and alternative schools, or, if you will, unschooling schools. That’s reflected in an…
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Revisiting ‘Growing Without Schooling’
Today, I spent my morning on Memory Lane. In the process of going through stuff, I gathered a pile of old Growing Without Schooling magazines dating from about 1991 to 2001. Oh, what a delight to skim through them and recognize the names of so many contributors, see pictures of dear friends and their children…
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‘Unschoolers’ in the news
We’ve been getting some great feedback since Unschoolers came out on March 30. First, Patrick Farenga mentioned us in a nice review of fiction inspired by unschooling and John Holt specifically. Then we chatted with Kristen Tea for a piece in Mothering. Michelle Ristuccia wrote a great review for the summer issue of Learning Tangent. Sophia…
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Should kids be allowed to vote?
Recently, I’ve been reading Escape from Childhood by John Holt. It’s considered his most radical book, and indeed, to the contemporary ear, his proposals sound a bit wacky. His basic proposal is “that the rights, privileges, duties, responsibilities of adult citizens be made available to any young person, of whatever age, who wants to make…
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Inspired by John Holt
Last week I attended a homeschooling book group discussion about The Legacy of John Holt. We were fortunate to have Pat Farenga in attendance. He shared stories about John Holt the person — his ideas, his journey, his quirks, and his commitment to his beliefs. The meeting inspired me to read Holt titles I haven’t…
A Potluck Life 