by Jens Peter de Pedro They say it takes a village to raise a child. I couldn’t agree more! So, let’s create that village for our children! Literally. Now. I dream of an unschooling …
What is Unschooling? Imagine Every Day is Saturday
You know what a typical day during summer recess looks like? Or a normal Saturday or Sunday morning? Now, imagine that all year long, every day. That’s unschooling. What does this look like in our …
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Living As If School Doesn’t Exist
by Wendy Priesnitz Schools sort, slot, categorize, package, and label. And they teach students that those activities are important. Most of us learned the lesson well. Even those of us who have …
What is (and isn’t) a democratic school?
The following post highlights the Fairhaven School in Maryland, a democratic school that offers young people the time and space to learn in a self-directed way. A democratic school is a school where …
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An Unschooling Story
The following is an excerpt from Ben Hewitt's new book, Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World. It is reprinted here with …
Public schools, public supermarkets
by Don McFadden Terry M. Moe, professor of political science at Stanford University, succinctly summarizes the history of our public school system in his 2008 paper Beyond the Free Market: The …
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How Schooling Harms Children
Most people alive today in our culture had the same schooling as their neighbors and friends, regardless of their differences in personalities and interests. They were grouped by age, told what …
A Vision for Education Transformation
by Stephen Dill Looking at most education reform efforts, it strikes me that most of them are modifications of the 20th Century system. I propose a 21st Century system based on these …
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Making Things, Making Community
by Will Macfarlane Parts and Crafts is located in a relatively unassuming storefront on the increasingly small "still-affordable" stretch of Somerville Avenue in Somerville, Mass. on the ground …
How We Became Unschoolers
by Kerry McDonald When my husband and I first committed to homeschooling when my oldest was just two-years-old, I thought for sure that by the time she was five we would be following an …
Five Ways to Transcend the School Mindset
by Laura Grace Weldon School-like instruction has been around less than a fraction of one percent of the time we humans have been on earth. Yet humanity has thrived. That’s because we’re all …
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Schools Can Create Stupidity
By Patrick Farenga The teacher and author John Holt wrote this letter to Mothering magazine in Spring 1983 that neatly sums up an often unrecognized problem caused by universal compulsory …