Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection, Volume 1(1 Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection)

After years of working to change schools from within--testifying before Congress and addressing audiences around the world about how to make schools better places for children--John Holt founded Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1977 to support self-directed education and learning outside of school. Each issue is a lively exchange among readers and Holt, packed with useful advice, resource recommendations, and all sorts of legal, pedagogical, and parenting ideas from people who pioneered the homeschooling/unschooling movement. John Holt (1923-1985) is the author of How Children Learn and How Children Fail, which together have sold over a million and a half copies, and eight other books about children and learning. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Once a leading figure in school reform, John Holt became increasingly interested in how children learn outside of school. The magazine he founded, Growing Without Schooling (GWS), reflects his philosophy, which he called unschooling. GWS was published from 1977 to 2001 and is the first magazine devoted to homeschooling and self-directed education.

About the Author :
I have come to believe that a person's schooling is as much a part of his private business as his politics or religion, and that no one should be required to answer questions about it. May I say instead that most of what I know I did not learn in school, and indeed was not even 'taught.'-John Holt John Holt (1927-1985) was a fifth-grade teacher who gained fame in the 1960s as an insightful school critic, then again in the late 1970s as a founder of the homeschooling movement. Holt's first books, How Children Fail and How Children Learn, have been in print for over 50 years and combined have sold nearly 2 million copies. Holt's later books explored alternatives to school that could be implemented or that existed for people to use now. In 1977 Holt founded the first magazine about learning outside school and homeschooling, Growing Without Schooling, published until 2001. Holt presents learning as a constant human endeavor and throughout his work he shows how education can be envisioned as a way to support self-directed education-from changing classroom practices to support for learning among one's family and local community. To learn more about John Holt visit wwwJohnHoltGWS.com. Patrick Farenga is a leading authority on homeschooling who brings more than 37 years of fieldwork, advocacy, and personal experience (he and his wife homeschooled their three daughters, now grown women) to help parents and children learn in their own ways. Farenga is a writer and education activist who addresses academic and general audiences about working with children, not on children, to help them learn. Farenga worked closely with one of the founders of the modern homeschooling movement, the late author and teacher John Holt, as well as with many of the key figures in homeschooling, such as Dr. Raymond Moore and Ivan Illich. Farenga continues Holt's work and published Growing Without Schooling magazine (GWS) from 1985 until it stopped in 2001. GWS was the nation's first periodical about learning without going to school, started by Holt in 1977. Farenga speaks as a homeschooling expert at education conferences around the world-such as in Colombia, Ireland, France, England, Canada, and Italy-as well as on commercial radio and television talk shows in the United States (The Today Show, Good Morning America) and abroad. Farenga writes about homeschooling for a number of publications and operates the John Holt/Growing Without Schooling website, www.johnholtgws.com. He is also a founding member of the nonprofit Alliance for Self-Directed Education (self-directed.org). Carlo Ricci is a full Professor at the Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, Graduate Studies. He founded and edits the Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning (JUAL). He has published a number of books and articles. His research interests include Unschooling; Homeschooling; Holistic Education; Self-determined Learning; Free Schools; Democratic Schools; Online Learning; Technology and Learning; Play; Natural Learning; Curiosity; Willed Learning; the Willed Curriculum; and Healthy Living.

Review :
"[John Holt's] little magazine, Growing Without Schooling, was the most useful guide a teacher could ever read. As time passed I began to change my views of homeschooling. I'm still first and foremost working to preserve public education but homeschoolers can be our allies in devising what truly powerful schooling could be like."--Deborah Meier, renowned educator, founder of the small schools movement, MacArthur Fellow, and Professor at New York University, Deborah Meier taught in public schools for over four decades. She is the author of The Power of Their Ideas and Keeping School.