From the beginning Benjamin (now 14) has marched to another drummer. He did not read with any success until he was 9 …

“The essence of what’s wrong with school is this thing called instruction … Because it’s an unnatural way of learning. It carries with it the idea that knowledge is fragmentary, and that you learn by being taught. This is true irrespective of the social structure of school – even in a school without classes or age-distinctions, for example, if your concept is that knowledge has to be dispensed, you have a fundamentally wrong concept, and of course it’s a concept that is essential to contemporary school.”

Two upcoming unschooling presentations at the Learning Planet Festival and a request for women to participate in a study about unschooling.

“I told him one evening that I was unable to read a book to him because of a headache. He said, “Well, you just rest and I’ll read a book to you.” He proceeded to read an entire book flawlessly, at a level of more difficulty than I would have guessed he had been able to read. Thus it sometimes happens in the natural course of living with a child that we receive more direct and specific information about his progress.”

This brief but illuminating passage by George Dennison is a good example of his deep thought and writing. John often said and wrote that The Lives of Children by George Dennison was one of the most moving and insightful books about education he ever read.

John Holt sometimes used his Sony Walkman cassette recorder to tape his public talks, and this one, on April 29, 1985, turned out to be his last. The sound quality deteriorated a lot on this tape, so I had it remastered successfully and I hope you enjoy the audio. John was dealing with cancer during this talk and he died on Sept. 14, 1985. Nonetheless, John continued to share and explain his ideas about education in an amiable manner at this event, enjoying his interactions with the children and adults, and making some off-hand comments about Shakespeare and other educational topics that will infuriate some and tickle others.

By stories Frank Lord does not mean fiction. He means real, true-life stories, sometimes only a few sentences long, but that have relevance to a given situation. These stories can be about comfort, empathy, achievement, failure, industriousness, illness, good health; any topic, really, that allows us to reveal our past to our children in a nurturing manner.

Most educators would not recommend learning how to care for farm animals, raise food, mend fences, and so on as a well-rounded education. Nonetheless, this is not an uncommon theme in the pages of Growing Without Schooling magazine.

There have always been some conventional and alternative schoolteachers who view John Holt’s work as a hopeful path for education. I hope that more will follow as declining enrollments, absenteeism, and public malaise about education have not been staunched by increasing standards, intensive instruction, and longer school days.

The fundamental educational problem of our time is to find ways to help children grow into adults who have no wish to do harm. We must recognize that traditional education, far from having ever solved this problem, has never tried to solve it. Indeed, its efforts have, if anything, been in exactly the opposite direction …

Educators often criticize unschoolers for having no structure since they are learner-directed, and unschoolers often criticize conventional schools for having too much structure and being authoritarian. But is this classification really useful?

I really don’t like the label, “Late Readers,” as it supposes there is a proper age or grade when reading should occur. Learning to read competently can happen in many ways and stages of life, not just in third grade, the usual cut-off for determining if you are a “late reader”

This video is a tribute to the groundbreaking work of John Holt, celebrating his amazing book "Learning All The Time."

Children learn to read on their own and with help, but finding the right balance depends on many factors besides their age and grade in school.

The conference opened with a panel discussion, “What’s the growth potential of emerging models?” The bottom line is the growth potential is strong, especially from the growing number of parents and educators seeking alternatives to conventional schooling, with the recent strong rise in the number of homeschoolers leading the list of “education consumers” these schools and businesses seek.

Every year ASDE runs a couple of fundraisers to help keep us going and growing—this season we are hoping the community will enjoy the perks of donating to ASDE, and seeing Young People PIE ADULTS IN THE FACE (all consensual, of course... because consent is cool).

Learn more about this free, 4-day, online Summit, including how to win a VIP Pass for access to live coaching and support for learning at home with your children.

A recent article in the UK Guardian cites successful unschoolers, but the overall tone is that children are being harmed or neglected because of unschooling. Unschooling isn’t just about leaving your child alone to figure things out, as these stories show.

As school starts for millions of children around the world those who prefer to help their children learn at home and in their communities, or in alternative schools, can find solace in Albert Einstein’s summation of modern education.

Too often parents and teachers want to let children know they approve of what the child is doing, and by doing so they ruin the “learning moment” for the child. Keeping our egos out of our children’s learning is hard to do, but worth doing, as it can help children develop a stronger sense of self, as these letters show.