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The following speakers will be theming their presentations around the question: “If you could design a new paradigm of education, how would it look?” - Yumna Hussen, student and TEDxYouth speaker on reimagining education; - Iris Chen, parenting coach, blogger and author of Untigering - Becky Carlzon, co-author of 'Powering Up Children' and co-creator of Learning Pioneers and PressPlay; - Charlotte Church, singer/song-writer, activist and founder of her own democratic/self-directed learning community, The Awen Project. - Je'anna L Clements, learning community founder and author of several books including ‘Help, My Kid Hates School!’, will be speaking alongside Sifaan Zavahir, a democratic school founder and children’s rights activist. - Dr James Mannion, TEDx speaker, host of the Rethinking Education podcast and co-author of ‘Fear is the Mind Killer’; - Dr Naomi Fisher, clinical psychologist and author of several books including, 'Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning'; - Kate Robinson, co-author of book "Imagine if... 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Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/throw-a-pie-in-my-face-for-self-directed-education monthly 0.5 2024-09-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/131fceed-e82f-41b9-ac0f-46d72886c76a/BBD7B3A2-566B-47D5-94D0-DDB23CDFFE86.png Pat's Blog - Throw A Pie in My Face for Self-Directed Education - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/b5e4939a-d9cf-4deb-8b4a-f7703821b2a0/49094ECB-6CA4-4ED2-AD85-EF67C5908AF7.png Pat's Blog - Throw A Pie in My Face for Self-Directed Education - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/the-happy-resilient-family-summit monthly 0.5 2024-09-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/0ce2f1c3-dd06-4d2e-9099-244b58921e46/Happy+Resilient+Family+Summit.jpg Pat's Blog - 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Students Grade U.S. Schools in Gallup Poll - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/whose-fault monthly 0.5 2024-06-27 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/children-grow-from-dependence-to-independence monthly 0.5 2024-06-11 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/college-degree-no-longer-necessary-for-good-jobs monthly 0.5 2024-06-04 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/homeschooler-gets-phd-at-17 monthly 0.5 2024-05-28 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/the-mathematics-of-the-ordinary monthly 0.5 2024-05-16 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/exploiting-children monthly 0.5 2024-05-09 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/new-additions-to-johnholtgwscom monthly 0.5 2024-05-01 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/free-choice-is-not-random monthly 0.5 2024-04-24 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/how-much-parental-direction monthly 0.5 2024-04-09 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/school-is-bad-for-children monthly 0.5 2024-04-05 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/no-formal-education-no-problem monthly 0.5 2024-05-08 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/lost-and-found-in-translation monthly 0.5 2024-03-13 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/child-likes-unschooling-but-still-feels-left-out monthly 0.5 2024-03-06 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/how-can-children-know-what-they-need-to-learn monthly 0.5 2024-02-28 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/the-cart-and-the-horse monthly 0.5 2024-02-21 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/why-do-i-need-to-do-this monthly 0.5 2024-02-15 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/what-is-deschooling-about monthly 0.5 2024-02-08 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/welcome-to-the-new-website monthly 0.5 2024-01-22 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/when-school-makes-freedom-just-a-motivational-device monthly 0.5 2024-01-31 https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/rigged-uncovering-strengths-friendships monthly 0.5 2023-08-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1691142484559-FBS0DPD3I6DTXKNYGS5N/Rigged%2Bbook%2Bcover.jpg Pat's Blog - Rigged: Uncovering Strengths & Friendships - Rigged: Uncovering Strengths, Friendships, And A Teen's Difficult Journey To Maturity Rigged is a new young adult novel about a teen, Fisher Haskins, and his search for friendship and direction that school in the Florida Keys doesn’t give him. He does, however, take pride in his work washing boats and his knowledge of fishing. As the narrator of the story, Fisher also impresses us with his self-awareness, his stifling fears, and the struggles in his head, heart, and body. His dad, a popular captain of a fishing boat for tourists, died in a car accident the year before the story starts and Fisher and his mom are still trying to sort out all their feelings about him and his legacy. The characters are drawn largely through dialog, which makes for lively exchanges. But it is Fisher’s unspoken thoughts and feelings that move the story into deeper emotional territory, such as his angst of being a nice guy but perceived by his peers as dumb because he doesn’t do well in school: Every person in the room stares at me. Maybe I have a reputation for being sort of stupid, but not for being in trouble. Never. I barely even talk at school unless I absolutely have to. Fisher’s dad was an alcoholic and he, his mother, and their friends all seek ways to reconcile his Dad’s good nature with his bad habit after he dies. While describing the characters and scenery of the Keys, Fisher also provides us with his insight, a talent he develops in stages throughout the book. While Fisher feels that life is rigged against him, and the various incidents he experiences support that interpretation, he doesn’t give up and rail against his plight. He takes comfort and pride in his boat-washing work, discusses issues about his life with friends who work in the boatyard, and uses his imagination to solve the various problems he encounters. Dad also used to complain about all that time it takes sit around making weighted rigs for fishing the next day, and all the time wasted rigging during the trip. I knew there had to be a better solution than the unweighted pin rigs fishermen so much time cussing over. So, when I was nine, I came up with an idea for a new kind of weighted rig that would be reusable and quicker to attach than the crappy ones made with egg sinkers. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/obedience monthly 0.5 2023-08-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1691143209829-S8LGJ4NO80KK293QREHO/American%2BFlag%2Band%2BChristian%2BCross.jpg Pat's Blog - Obedience I spoke at a homeschooling conference in Vancouver, British Columbia in the 1990s and I followed a Christian curriculum writer from Texas. I arrived about 15 minutes early and listened to her closing lines while her final slide filled the large screen behind her. It was a photo of a medieval tapestry depicting a king on a throne in the center, with all the courtiers, knights, and peasants before him on their knees, bowing their heads. The word OBEDIENCE was superimposed over the image. The room was full and the audience enjoyed the presentation, which ended on this authoritarian note to strong applause. I became nervous about giving my talk following this one, since mine was about unschooling—questioning authority and allowing children, and ourselves, to explore and learn about the world in our own ways. I didn’t have nearly as many people stay for my talk and since I never sold a curriculum, just books and materials about how you can develop your own curriculum based on what you and your children are interested in, and subscriptions to Growing Without Schooling (GWS) magazine, so my vendor table was sparsely attended. I also did my best to create a safe space for people to discuss how you don’t have to turn your home into a conventional school in order to help your children learn and grow into competent adults. Me and my colleagues at GWS noted how personally difficult it was for us to be invited to present our views about educating children to groups that largely didn’t want us there. We went because some free-thinking, independent families within those groups invited us there, perhaps to make arguments for unschooling to their friends that they couldn’t. There were often speakers telling the audience how thick a switch to fashion in order to punish disobedient children, how the government would abolish homeschooling, and how America is a Christian nation that needs to be retaken from non-Christian interests. We were the small counterweight that spoke to those who were open to hearing about unschooling—working with children, not on children, to help them learn and grow. We kept our politics to ourselves as much as possible because we were invited guests, but it was not easy. At a luncheon for a North Carolina homeschooling conference, I was excoriated just for being from Massachusetts, which had recently legalized gay marriage. A man at the head of the table never introduced himself but launched an enthusiastic tirade at me against the liberal politics of Massachusetts. No one challenged him or his manners and I didn’t want to raise the temperature further by defending gay marriage, since I’d already raised their animosity with my speech encouraging self-directed learning, so I remained silent. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/teenage-liberation-handbook monthly 0.5 2023-08-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/ebf27199-1b53-4c63-99c1-7db9b05af1e6/Teen%2BLib%2B2022%2Bsmall%2Bcover.jpg Pat's Blog - The 30th Anniversary Of The Teenage Liberation Handbook - Teenage Liberation Handbook A new, updated, third edition of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education came out in 2021 and I’m so glad to be able to read it now. Family and health issues have slowed me down in recent years and I’ve got a pile of books and magazines that keeps growing as a result. However, when I go through that pile I discover some gems and the 30th anniversary edition of Teen Lib is one. If you have a teenage homeschooler or unschooler and you want to know what opportunities and resources and options are available for them, put this book in their hands. If you have a teen who is floundering in high school, put this book in their hands. If you have parents and adults questioning your sanity for allowing your teen to quit school for independent studies, put this book in their hands. If you haven’t read this book and you have or work with teenagers who don’t enjoy school, get this book. Grace Llewellyn enlisted the editing help of Blake Boles (author of several books about unschooled teens and higher education—and who will be speaking in MA at the Macomber Center on Monday, Jan. 23 at 5pm), and they refreshed the book with new writing and updates to it’s considerable resource recommendations. I’m also struck by Grace’s openness about her own growth in this edition. It is very interesting to read how her opinions about school have been tempered over the years from the many people who corresponded or connected with her through her work with self-directed education. She writes: … in 1991 I felt that the unschooling movement was a tiny, brave David to the Goliath of the System. When I first set out to write The Teenage Liberation Handbook, there was absolutely no one in my life who shared my perspective. I thought I needed to shout to be heard, and shout I did. … … Unschooling is still a tiny movement compared to schooling, but that reality no longer fuels my perspective. At this point I’d rather be part of the Michelle Obama club, doing my best to go high rather than low. Self-righteousness can be alienating and life-sapping, and parts of this book originally leaned in that direction. That said, I know there were readers who, themselves young and powerless, felt affirmed and even comforted by the angsty, punkish flavor to the older editions. In toning down some of my language, I certainly haven’t meant to withdraw support. I hope it’s still obvious that I’m in your corner if you’re stuck in school when you yearn to be doing something else with your precious time. I think this new edition of The Teenage Liberation Handbook will inspire another generation of teenagers to seek their own ways to use or forgo conventional school, find work worth doing, and create lives worth living. You can get the book at Amazon and other retailers. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/subtlety monthly 0.5 2023-08-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1691143892436-ZAS87EKVRP8Z6Y0LOVSW/Home%2BGrown%2Bcover.jpg Pat's Blog - Subtlety This is a guest post by John Young, that complements the previous post, Moondoggle. Why this extraordinary bias against what already exists, in favor of stuff that is in many cases not even on the drawing boards? I offer an explanation. Most of these scientists work for an organization which I will call Big Science Business Government. SGB. All one thing, not three separate groups, and least of all three competing groups. All of these people, whether corporate executives or Physics professors or Washington bureaucrats, want to see SGB, or SBG, get even bigger and stronger. This is why they don't like forms of energy that lend themselves to individual, or small-scale, or community action. —From John Holt's letter to Nelson (Bud) Talbott, 8/3/1975 in A Life Worth Living: Selected Letters of John Holt Unschoolers tend to believe that the most important issues of our lives deserve our personal attention, and that our personal attention, in turn, is naturally drawn to what is important—if it’s not schooled out of us. John Holt had precious little tolerance for easy answers—for curricula which would automatically make us healthy, wealthy, and wise; for experts who grew frustrated when asked for examples; and for Big Science Business Government who wrested from people their ability to educate, feed, or physic themselves. For as wise as his first book has proven to be about the failures of schooling, Holt wrote of it: “This book is the rough and partial record of a search for answers to these questions.” Wisdom born of humility—made of journals and memos—that could never have been born any other way. Subtlety is required when approaching the goods and services of Big Science Business Government (SBG). What SBGs design, market, and sell surely range in worth from very good to very bad, and Holt is frankly contending that the majority of what they produce tends toward the bad side, or else could have been better produced at or near home. For certain complicated and arguably beneficial items which no cottage industry can produce, more subtlety is required in our approach. In general, a measure of distrust is a good thing as we evaluate what these SBGs produce, since even everyday solutions which have served us for thousands of years are ditched in a rush toward new science and new sales. I wish to discuss a recent example of where accepted science and SBG have evidently been wrong and then relay this to an even weedier topic. I imagine that this will ring true to many unschoolers since we reject the common credo that learning needs to be structured, categorized, and graded. This recent example of bad science, I contend, is that of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which are especially pertinent here, since these are commonly touted in schools. If school-science calls a bad thing good (that is, changing the millennia-old DNA of a crop to withstand heavier doses of petrochemical pesticides because pesticides reduce human labor), then how might we approach other very charged topics? https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/moondoggle monthly 0.5 2023-08-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/b12261a4-1329-4c58-b0fc-e8971aa1e7e4/Summer_of_Soul_2021.jpg Pat's Blog - Moondoggle Summer of Soul is my favorite concert movie; I’ve enjoyed watching it many times. It has incredible musical performances and backstage stories by many great acts, as well as brilliant editing. The more I watch it the more I find its narrative about the context in which this series of six concerts occurred in Harlem, NY in 1969 is just as interesting as the music: the fight for civil rights, Vietnam, the US moon landing. Amidst the remarkable singing, dancing, and music in the movie are the critical responses of people at the concert to the US putting a man on the moon, which occurred during the concert. One commenter at the concert made a point that rang particularly true to me: “You could have spent that money on earth and made a whole lot of people much better.” That’s often how I feel about our never-ending school reform efforts: more technology, bigger schools, more testing, more theories and schemes about making children learn what schools determine they need to know so they can become the workers that science, business, and government want. Instead of focusing on the perceived future needs of science, business, and government, why not focus that money on improving the actual needs of local neighborhoods, family healthcare, salaries, and wages? Teflon, computers, and other product spin-offs and social benefits (such as sparking youth’s interest in science) are cited as the bonuses citizens received from the space program, but their creation could have occurred in any number of ways as markets and society sought them over time. But science, business, and government decided winning the space race against Russia was more important than ameliorating poverty, healthcare, and housing. Thought not widely known, John Holt was a critic of the US Space Program; he once appeared on network TV to express his position. In What Do I Do Monday? John examines different types of writing, and notes the type of writing that makes us feel mystified and manipulated: “These people do not use words to get us to do something, but to tell us in different ways that it makes no difference what we do, that we don’t count. … We are conned into thinking that we are exploring space when we see on our TV sets a picture of men walking on the moon; but space is not the sea, it is not for you and me.” An article in The Atlantic (Sept. 12, 2012), “Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program,” provides an overview of the resistance that existed then. The article opens this way: Today, we recall the speech John F. Kennedy made 50 years ago as the beginning of a glorious and inexorable process in which the nation united behind the goal of a manned lunar landing even as the presidency swapped between parties. Time has tidied things up. Polls both by USA Today and Gallup have shown support for the moon landing has increased the farther we've gotten away from it. 77 percent of people in 1989 thought the moon landing was worth it; only 47 percent felt that way in 1979. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/steady-state-economics-and-homeschooling monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1691144761804-ZQWH3HR4I4IY2V6D5NJ7/SteadyStateEconomics%2Bcover.jpg Pat's Blog - Steady-State Economics And Homeschooling When I started work at John Holt’s company, I was sometimes surprised by the books he chose to sell in his catalog book business. He added books about business, nuclear warfare, and economics that opened my eyes to other ways of viewing social issues and what is possible besides following the well-trod paths of conventional thinking. I was reminded of this when I read the obituary of Herman Daly. We sold Daly’s book Steady-State Economics for several years; though never a popular seller, John insisted on keeping it in the catalog. The NY Times describes Daly’s work this way: Herman Daly, who for more than 50 years argued that the economic gospel of growth as synonymous with prosperity and progress was fundamentally, and dangerously, flawed because it ignored its associated costs, especially the depletion of natural resources and the pollution it engenders, died on Oct. 28 in Richmond, Va. He was 84. John and Daly had something in common—they were ahead of their time. Though mainstream educators shunned Holt’s work in homeschooling, it was greeted warmly by parents and some alternative educators, much like Daly’s work. The Times writes. … Although he was branded a heretic for his theories — or, worse, ignored — among traditional economists, he had plenty of adherents, who saw him as prophetic for anticipating climate change’s increasingly harmful impact and the vast sums of money needed to address it. Such propositions might seem simple, but arguing against economic growth, Dr. Daly wrote … was like poking “a big hornets’ nest with a short stick.” “It rudely upsets a very large and comfortable consensus,” he added. It can be disheartening to realize, again, that many of the ecological and social problems we face today were called out and solutions offered over 40 years ago, but they were ignored in favor of doubling down on existing efforts. From schooling to the environment, Holt sought and promoted solutions that honored human-scale efforts to make things better, in line with the economist E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful ideas, another book John liked and sold. John wrote in GWS 36: … this country as a whole is going to have to begin to give some serious thought to some things that already interest many homeschoolers but have so far not been of the slightest interest to schools—economy, efficiency, thrift. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Things like that. No child can be said any more to go into the world and the future even moderately prepared who has not learned, perhaps among many other things, how to live healthily, productively, and happily on very little money, how to do for herself or himself a great many things that most of us now only think of paying others to do. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/back-to-unschool monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/a9a753cc-a514-4af2-ae3c-80026312309c/open-air-school-3b03677u.jpg Pat's Blog - Back To Unschool The pandemic has at least doubled the number of families who are homeschooling to around six percent of the school-age population, but even that increase pales before the 94 percent of students who remain enrolled in a school system that calls for reform every few years yet remains much the same as it always has. Rather than change school to fit our pandemic response in creative ways, school made us change our homes into remote conventional schools. Schools could have helped families by shifting their focus from the needs of the academic schedule to the real-world needs of children to socialize, explore, play, and exercise. Europe was hit by Covid before the United States and, particularly in Scandinavia, it was noted that children didn’t spread the virus as much as adults and schools could open if they used more outdoors activities. But our schools prefer classroom instruction at the expense of all the other modes of teaching and learning available, a trend that accelerated years ago when public schools began reducing time for lunch, recess, art, and physical education to increase classroom instruction time. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/as-the-year-ends monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/2d9efd25-c56c-4eca-a047-dd70e371d76f/Face%2Bto%2BFace%2BTransparent.jpg Pat's Blog - As The Year Ends... As 2021 draws to a close the inevitable slew of Top 10 lists appears, a marketing tactic that has become so ubiquitous that now, for the first time to my knowledge, there is a top list of unschooling blogs—Top 40 Unschooling Blogs and Websites. Another sign that unschooling is speaking to a wider audience is my latest contribution to Porch.com, a home improvement site, for Part 2 of Easy Tips and Advice from the Experts to Handle Homeschooling. And I’ll take this opportunity to plug my new book, Teach Your Own, in the spirit of marketing. But more important, as the year ends and we consider where we’ve been this year and ponder what the future holds, I want to share my deepest appreciation to all of you who support unschooling and have helped my work and website over the decades. I hope to get more engaged online in 2022, publish the next volumes in the Growing Without Schooling series, and to meet more friends and allies who want all families to have the choice to guide their children through real-world learning. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/youth-conference-do-nothing-parenting-and-teach-your-own-news monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/0c0248aa-3be8-46a0-9a80-9f952dc48a38/AEROx%2BYouth%2BRights%2BConference%2B2021.jpg Pat's Blog - Youth Conference, Do-Nothing Parenting, And Teach Your Own News There are some new events I want to make you aware of, and to let you know that I re-recorded and posted my speech about the new edition of Teach Your Own at the Alliance for Self-Directed Education that I presented on Sept. 28 (see below for link). AEROx YOUTH CONFERENCE: Nov. 6 & 7. A two-day, virtual AEROx conference that is a youth-led and facilitated event where people of all ages from around the globe will connect to uplift youth voices and work together to address the major issues of our generation. 21 & under come free, there's a pay what you can option and full adult registration option. REGISTER: www.aeroconference.org DO-NOTHING PARENTING: Jinan Kodapully is offering a unique workshop, Do-Nothing Parenting. It is aimed at parents and grandparents of children below 7 years, and would-be parents. Jinan writes, "Parenting, as a deliberate and stressful activity, is what prompted the term ‘do-nothing parenting’ the way ‘do-nothing farming’ was in response to the toxic farming that we established in the 20th century. My main inputs come from years of being with indigenous communities where neither 'parenting' nor teaching happens. But learning does happen choicelessly as learning is the nature of life." For more information: http://ekfoundation.in/do-nothing-parenting/ UNSCHOOL ADVENTURES: Blake Boles has announced some new homestay and exchange opportunities for self-directed teenagers who are ready to travel across the world on their own. https://www.unschooladventures.com/exchange/?fbclid=IwAR2r8WIfzrjnefKWmDrNQ5i8AsI42mD4FZudjodbRM9XdiA5IeJlpH8Gt7M Teach Your Own is available for sale and can be found or ordered in local bookstores or online. When we started the online session for Teach Your Own we were so surprised by the large turnout and old friends who appeared that we forgot to record the session and just started talking. You can listen and watch my post-event recording of my speech on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RDzxifYBgdk During the question and answer session, I was asked about homeschooling in Mexico and South America and I couldn't remember the names of the groups I wanted to mention. Here they are, as well as other resources on the topics of self-directed education outside of the USA. The University de la Tierra https://unitierraoax.org/english/ Modelos De Auto-Organizacion Del Aprendizaje, Educacion Autodirigida, y Educaciones Sin Escuela started on September 13 and continues to November 10. This event is presented online. For more information: Programa de Extensión y Educación Continua Facultad de Ciencias Humanas | Sede Bogotá Universidad Nacional de Colombia 316 5000 Ext.16294 Escaping Education: Living as Learning within Grassroots Cultures, by Madhu Siri Prakash and Gustavo Esteva. This important book explores education through the lens of those who are the social majority on our planet: the uneducated, the undereducated, and the illiterate, challenging the idea that education is a universal good and human right. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/teach-your-own-the-indispensable-guide-to-living-and-learning-with-children-at-home monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/879007e5-5d0a-4573-a418-b04d28931292/TYO%2B2021%2B2x3%2BFront%2BCover.jpg Pat's Blog - Teach Your Own: The Indispensable Guide To Living And Learning With Children At Home One of my first tasks when I volunteered at Holt Associates/Growing Without Schooling was to unpack the hardcover copies of John Holt’s newest book, Teach Your Own, and put them on the office shelves. This Fall marks Teach Your Own’s 40th anniversary in print and my 40th anniversary working in the homeschooling/alternative education movement. I had no idea in 1981 that I’d devote myself to this work, particularly since I didn’t even finish Teach Your Own when I first read it. When I told Peggy Durkee, John’s office manager, that I couldn’t get my head around Teach Your Own—parents teaching their own children? Letting children figure things out on their own?—she suggested I read his first book, How Children Fail, to see where he was coming from. Grounded in the classroom and expressing how students feel and act when being instructed, How Children Fail gave me common ground to see where John was coming from. I identified with his descriptions of students blustering their way through confusing lectures, misunderstood instructions, and unfair tests, and it gave me a foothold into John’s thought and my own experiences of school. I read a few more of his books before I can say read and understood Teach Your Own, and when I did it’s message about how adults can trust children to learn instead of policing them to learn made sense. But John went well beyond trying to make schools more humane institutions for children–he encouraged more institutions and public areas for children to access instead of just the school silo. He eventually stopped advising parents to form small, alternative schools and urged them to unschool—to create clubs around shared interests and other social experiences instead of getting bogged down with the administration and politics of funding and operating a school. When John died in 1985 he didn’t think homeschooling would grow to more than 2% of the school-age population; in this pandemic time, the conservative estimate is that about 6% of students will be homeschooled in 2021. The delta variant may cause an increase in homeschooling well beyond 6%, but regardless of how much growth occurs, there is no doubt homeschooling has crossed into a new level of acceptance for families since the pandemic. With my colleagues at Holt Associates, particularly Donna Richoux, Susannah Sheffer, and Meredith Collins, the subsequent editors of Growing Without Schooling (GWS) magazine after John died, I helped nurture and grow homeschooling over the years. My work as ad manager and then publisher of GWS led me to speak at education conferences and to the media about homeschooling and unschooling and to meet an incredible array of families who choose to nurture learning over schooling. I treasure the friendships I’ve made through my work and homeschooling our children, and I look forward to seeing self-directed education continue to grow, generation after generation. Please note the new edition's revised title: Teach Your Own: The Indispensable Guide to Living and Learning with Children at Home. It will be available in stores on September 28. You can preorder a copy at Amazon. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/steady-state-economics-and-homeschooling-yj7yz-t8lzg-arkw7-txfh2-k2xaa monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/4b916fe8-00c8-47cb-bbff-e37044e54ece/Serious%2BRed%2Bhead%2Bgirl.jpg Pat's Blog - Is Child Abuse Greater At School Or Homeschool? Harvard University’s ongoing 7-week conference, the “Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling” continues as I write this. You can sign up to watch the past and upcoming sessions here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/taubman/programs-research/pepg/events/future-homeschooling. Yesterday’s event focused on whether child abuse is greater at homeschool or school and it was a surprisingly frank session. The event was sparked last year when Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard law professor, called for a ban on homeschooling due to its potential to hide child abuse. The panelists and commentators for this session firmly said there is no need for further regulation of homeschooling on child abuse grounds based on all the data they had. We also learned that there is very little data that is accessible to researchers from public and private schools, police records, and other reporters of child abuse, so we don’t have a good accounting for the bullying, suicides, and other abuse-related factors that children face in school. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/homeschooling-is-heating-up-everywhere monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/3cac010c-9f8d-4ae0-b477-44c5cb27c814/argumentaire-inter-assos.jpg Pat's Blog - Homeschooling Is Heating Up Everywhere The educational and political suppression of homeschooling around the world has been attempted for years, with some countries, like Germany and Sweden, banning it outright. Now France is close doing the same, using the same rationale as Germany and Sweden: homeschooling creates a parallel society that undermines democracy. This is an unproven assumption, particularly since homeschooling has a strong record of its children actively participating in society as government employees, teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and so on. Compulsory attendance in government schools does not automatically create a unified society, as illustrated by the ongoing strife Germany and Sweden have over immigrants and the variety of private schools they allow to operate, so these actions are much more about political agendas than education. You can read French homeschoolers response to their situation in this press release. It is written by a cooperative of French homeschooling groups that are fighting the bill. In the United States the rise in homeschooling over the years has often resulted in laws and regulations that clearly separate homeschools from private schools in most states. But the increase in homeschooling in response to COVID-19 has given this issue more salience. If two families pay a teacher to regularly work with their children in their homes is that considered an unlicensed private school? Do hybrid schools deserve public funding? There is a bill in WI to create "microschools," which totally blurs the lines between private and home schools. Homeschooling should remain a distinct practice from private schooling, as the Wisconsin Homeschooling Parents Association ably argues. The latest bit of attention that homeschooling is receiving comes from Harvard University. You can register (it's free) to livestream its 6-week program, The Post-Pandemic Future of Homeschooling, here. The program starts May 6. Not all the heat and attention is worrisome. I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of companies that are completely unrelated to conventional schooling that are contacting JohnHoltGWS.com for information about homeschooling for their customers, or to have their content on the HoltGWS site. I have many concerns about paid advertising and posts on my site. However, I am happy to spread the word about homeschooling, so I contributed a short piece about how homeschoolers create grades and transcripts for Porch.com, a home improvement site. As the education and political establishments continue to push back on homeschooling, more parents are independently organizing homeschooling at the local level. A mother in Canada, Phyllis Thompson, and I had a long conversation that she taped as part of her free online event, "How to Thrive While Homeschooling." Phyllis has a good motto: "We don't have to be perfect, we just need to try." This is a good thought to hold as we move into the uncertain future. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/the-hidden-curriculum-and-systemic-racism monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/eb322e70-14a8-4ad1-b1ee-b08dfe63e966/Slave%2Bauctioin.jpg Pat's Blog - The Hidden Curriculum And Systemic Racism The hidden curriculum of school is a well-known concept to all who delve into alternative education and its history. I first learned about it when I started work at Growing Without Schooling magazine in 1981 and educators continue to write about it. The hidden curriculum is not what is taught in school, but what we learn through our experience of school. Our school attendance conditions us to accept unspoken assumptions about the meritocracy of school, such as if you fail it is your fault, not school’s; a school degree is important for everyone, but degrees from wealthier schools are more important than others. Recognizing this in my own schooling and in my experience raising three daughters, I didn’t have to struggle with the concepts that schooling was not the same as education and that learning is ultimately the result of the activity of the learner, not the teacher. However, I’m humbled to learn that I never recognized the hidden curriculum outside of school settings until Black Lives Matter called my attention to structural racism. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/unschooled-a-movie-review monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/4b9bd4b1-bd63-4b00-837e-1cb8365e0b60/Unschooled%2BTitle.png Pat's Blog - Unschooled: A Movie Review I have two strong impressions after viewing the movie Unschooled. One because I personally know Peter Bergson and the second because of my experience advocating for unschooling and self-directed education. I went to the screening already knowing that Peter was upset with his portrayal in the film and it's over-riding narrative of “kindly white person saves inner-city minority youths.” And I see why Peter is upset: by focusing on him and the pushback he receives as he grows the Natural Creativity Center the film diminishes the case that children can be trusted to learn on their own, which has always been the purpose of Peter’s work. Peter Gray sums it up well in this section of his FB post about the film : "However, for people who are seeing this as their only exposure to Self-Directed Education, it can give the wrong impression. The focus of the film was on how Peter Bergson and the other adult facilitators very patiently and lovingly helped these young people come out of their shells. But normally that is not how SDE works. If this film had focused on younger children or on teens who had been less harmed to begin with, the role of adult staff would have been much less and the focus could have been more on the ingenuity and abilities of the kids, not the staff." https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/dont-let-school-scare-youchildren-are-learning-all-the-time monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/6ef56cef-d328-49d4-af6b-356f97ba7cfa/TYO%2BSmall.jpg Pat's Blog - Don't Let School Scare You—Children Are Learning All The Time NOTE: This is my first blog post in nearly a year. In that time my two younger brothers and my mother-in-law passed away, I got my dad into a nursing home and mom into assisted living, and I developed my own medical issues, which are now on the mend. I'm glad to be back! I think homeschooling is getting a bad rap during the pandemic. Parents are pulling their hair out trying to teach their children at home and cursing homeschooling as a result. However, participating in daily classroom lessons sent from school to do at home is remote learning, not homeschooling. However, for most of the public, homeschooling is simply doing school at home and now that perception is further primed by our school’s need to supply conventional schoolwork through the internet. This is why many homeschoolers use the word unschooling to describe what they do: learning at home doesn’t have to occur only at home nor resemble learning in school. Experienced homeschoolers and those who study education alternatives know you don’t need to use grades, standardized test regimens, and school’s seat-time metrics to judge how well a child is learning. You know because the child can demonstrate knowledge and mastery of topics by performing and documenting their ability to do the science, history, math, and so on. Homeschoolers see how reading, writing, science, and math are integrated and learned outside of school settings—often in the course of participating in the tasks of daily life. (Fixing things, cleaning, cooking, using the computer, and so on.) Children want to join us in our efforts to make things, do things, learn things, and we can invite them. If there are things children want to learn that parents can’t help with, they find school classes, outside help from friends or relatives, online courses, books, videos, or tutors to help them. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/new-translations-of-holt-books monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/283ff3e4-ab18-40a5-930e-52d62c4dc2f0/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-04-26%2Bat%2B4.36.59%2BPM.png Pat's Blog - New Translations Of Holt Books Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children is now available in Spanish thanks to a new publisher, Utero Libros. Utero is also going to translate and publish What Do I Do Monday? and Freedom and Beyond in the near future. Learning All the Time is now available in Romanian from the publisher Editora Trei. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/opportunities-for-teens monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/4e870eed-775a-4a22-a90b-326e3ff54adc/Screen%2BShot%2B2019-04-28%2Bat%2B11.55.25%2BAM.png Pat's Blog - Opportunities For Teens I’ve been working on various editing and publishing projects not related to unschooling over the past eight weeks, and now that I turn my attention back to it I find a lot of interesting news and events to share with you. In addition to the state and local unschooling conferences I’ll start this series of posts with other events that families and unschooled teens can participate in and travel to this summer. Education Transformation Jam 2019 YES! connects, inspires, and collaborates with young and intergenerational leaders for thriving, just and balanced ways of life for all. This is a unique opportunity to co-learn, co-create and JAM with a diversity of folks from around the US and beyond, who are transforming education in dynamic and meaningful ways. REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May, 1, 2019. The 2019 Education Transformation Jam is July 8–14 in Twin Cities,MN To register: https://www.yesworld.org/edjam2019/ AERO Blake Boles and Kerry McDonald, author of Unschooled are among the many fine presenters this weekend in Portland, OR, June 26 to 30. To register: https://www.aeroconference.org/ https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/beyond-single-issue-homeschooling-politics monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/7061836b-7d8b-4aa1-a50c-e9de2b65249a/220px-Pink_triangle.svg.png Pat's Blog - Beyond Single-Issue Homeschooling Politics My support for single-issue politics makes me comfortable working with others who seek to keep homeschooling in a positive public light and avoid undue government regulation, and it makes me keep my personal politics and religious beliefs to myself as much as I can. However, there are issues facing us today that are larger than any single educational or regulatory issue homeschoolers face, namely racism and intolerance of people unlike ourselves. These issues need to be called out by all who support a free and just society The BBC reports, “Hate crimes in the US rose 17% in 2017, the third straight year that incidents of bias-motivated attacks have grown, according to the FBI. … Crimes against Jewish Americans saw a notable increase of 37% over 2016. Jews have long been the highest targeted religion, as the acting attorney general noted in his statement.” The Washington Post reports, “Crimes motivated by race or ethnicity bias are consistently the most common type of reported hate crime, and African Americans are the most targeted group, representing 23 percent of all hate crimes reported in major cities in 2017. Jews are consistently the most targeted religious group, and represented 19 percent of all hate crimes reported in major cities in 2017. … The primary targets, however, vary widely by metropolitan area, tending to correlate with local demographics, Levin said. For instance, in New York, home to the largest urban Jewish community in the country, the most commonly reported hate crimes targeted Jews. In the District of Columbia, home to one of the largest LGBTQ communities in the country, anti-sexual orientation crimes topped the list.” While I was aware of the rise in hate crimes from national news, until recently I was not aware of how it has become okay for unschoolers to post hateful commentary about the LGBTQ community. The lack of empathy and understanding towards transgender people, in particular, is very disappointing to read. People whose sexual orientation is unconventional often find their school social lives to be difficult, if not dangerous, and to make them feel unwelcome in unschooling is wrong. Particularly in this time when hatred of “others” is rising all around us, it will take extra effort to build homeschooling communities based on hope and trust in one another rather than on shame and fear. This is not easy to do, but if we can agree to work on our homeschooling issues despite our differences, there is hope we can work on our hateful issues too. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/sudbury-valley-school-and-unschoolers-we-are-closer-than-you-think monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/cfd8f09d-194b-4785-8fbf-750085257592/SVS%2BUnschooling%2BGraphic%2Bfor%2Bpost.jpg Pat's Blog - Sudbury Valley School And Unschoolers: We Are Closer Than You Think Greenberg’s frustration being associated with unschooling is hard for me to understand because, though unschooling is not a school and Sudbury Valley is a school, there are many common denominators in our motives and goals. I met and spoke with Dan Greenberg several times over the years and he was quite clear that he thinks homeschooling makes parents and children too dependent on each other (“When will they learn to leave mommy?”), so I was not surprised that he writes so negatively about unschooling in his essay. My first reaction was to refute his arguments point by point. However, I now think it is better to talk about the relationship between SVS and unschooling in order to get past this divide. In 1991, Growing Without Schooling (GWS, issue 81) started selling Dan’s book [Free At Last] and published a review of it (reproduced at the end of this post). That same year Dan and I were fellow speakers at John Gatto’s event at Carnegie Hall, The Exhausted School, along with other alternatives to conventional schooling. Around this time, Dan contacted me because we were selling many copies of Free At Last and, since John Holt died in 1985, he wanted to learn more about Holt Associates/GWS. We had an enjoyable lunch, and though Dan made it clear he didn’t care for homeschooling he didn’t have a problem with our audience being inspired by his book, and we continued to sell it for many years. When SVS published a study of how its graduates turned out, we sold that book too. https://www.johnholtgws.com/pats-blog/my-friend-john-gatto monthly 0.5 2023-08-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/091622d1-c8b0-407e-8952-3654265ac68f/Gatto%2Bat%2BCarnegie%2BHall.jpg Pat's Blog - My Friend, John Gatto John Taylor Gatto was a famous schoolteacher and writer whose essays and books asked people to question how and why schools operate as they do. He passed away on Oct. 25, 2018. My favorite writings by Gatto are the ones about how, as a teacher, he helped individual students learn and grow by working with their interests and strengths. They are powerful to read and continue to influence many people, young and old, to try alternatives such as homeschooling, unschooling, and alternative schools. There will be plenty written about John Taylor Gatto’s literary legacy, but today I’m remembering Gatto as my friend and colleague in this weird and fascinating world of self-directed education. Here are some memories of him that I have. I first learned about Gatto in 1991 when a friend called me at the Holt office and said I had to find and read John Gatto’s acceptance speech as NY City Teacher of the Year, “The Psychopathic School.” (This is the second essay in John’s first book, Dumbing Us Down). He told me that Gatto was an award-winning public school teacher whose acceptance speech will surprise me because he mentions homeschooling positively in it. In those days, any mainstream educator speaking positively about homeschooling was important news to our community, and to have an award-winning, public school teacher citing homeschooling as a positive force for society and the schools as a psychopathic one was big news. When I read that speech and felt its probing anger towards school and John’s strong support for alternatives to school I sent him a few copies of Growing Without Schooling (GWS) magazine, our book catalog, and a letter. John replied with a phone call to me, and we hit it off very quickly. I invited John to speak at our next GWS conference and he gladly accepted. 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Pat - The Foundations of Unschooling I’ve been involved in unschooling since 1981, when I joined John Holt, and I published the magazine he founded, Growing Without Schooling, from his death in 1985 until 2001, when it ceased publication. We unschooled our girls, who are now ages 23, 27, and 30. I was asked to talk about the foundation and research that supports unschooling, so I need to start with that unusual word, unschooling. Many of you are at this event because you are already familiar with the term, but for those of you who aren’t, unschooling is a term first coined by the John Holt to mean learning and teaching that does not resemble school learning and teaching. I broadly define unschooling as allowing your children as much freedom to explore the world around them in their own ways as you can comfortably bear; I see unschooling in the light of partnership, not in the light of the dominance of a child’s wishes over a parents’ or vice versa. The freedom for anyone, young or old, to choose why, what, when, how, and from whom to learn things is a key element in John Holt’s work. In short, if you don’t have the freedom to choose what to think about then you are in mental slavery; of course, we can choose to subordinate ourselves to a teacher (the master–pupil relationship) in order to accomplish or learn something, but that relationship only works well if the student wants to learn that subject or work with that teacher. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/62c5d1aa-7f78-4f95-9d5a-800d1658a679/LATT%2BSlide%2Bfor%2BFoundations.jpg Writing by Pat - The Foundations of Unschooling Further, Holt said louder and more often than most educators then and now that children are far better at learning than we give them credit for. After years of being a conventional schoolteacher, a hard grader, a professional who worked in exclusive private schools, John Holt developed a philosophy of education based on his personal observations, reading, experiences, and conversations with children, as well with adults who did not use grades, bribes, threats, punishment, or other forms of control to make children learn. He put these thoughts into action in his classrooms—he was fired more than once to due his “noisy” classrooms and minimalist attitude towards grading. He eventually got his ideas into print, and there John Holt hit a nerve and became, without a teaching credential or graduate degree, a public intellectual and bestselling author. His books have been translated into over 41 languages and his first two books, How Children Fail and How Children Learn have sold over 1 and half million copies. Eight of his ten books are still currently in print, 31 years after his death. What John observed and thought about over his years of teaching was this: I teach, but the students don’t learn. Why? I urge you to read How Children Fail and How Children Learn to get the full story, but here it is in short: John worked in high-powered private schools and he decided that it was fear of failure, fear of appearing stupid, fear of criticism from children and adults, the overall fear many feel in school that inhibits learning and leads children and adults to create what John called the charade of learning in school. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/b458f4ad-3fbb-4ad3-ac25-39771ce6bc1f/Double-Edged%2BSword%2Bof%2BPedagogy%2Barticle.jpg Writing by Pat - The Foundations of Unschooling The high-stakes testing, rigorous curriculum, and no child left behind academic regime has caused arts, playtime, exercise, and other so-called frills of education to be disregarded in education, and provides authoritarian parents with plenty of support for keeping children's noses to the grindstone at ever earlier ages and for longer periods of schooling. As the researchers note, children learn from both spontaneous exploration and explicit instruction, but educators and policymakers have succeeded in making explicit instruction the norm. The change is not without serious side effects on children—the loss of curiosity that spurs intrinsic motivation, personal discovery, and the sense of mastery one gets from that knowledge. Ivan Illich, in Deschooling Society, wrote about what he called the “paradoxical counterproductivity” of modern institutions and education in particular; Holt agreed but used more common language to describe it: Holt wrote, "Schools are places where children learn to be stupid." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/6f8bc249-0731-444a-997c-f393938f4b33/image-asset.jpeg Writing by Pat - The Foundations of Unschooling Dr. Peter Gray spoke at your conference last year, and I’m honored to say we have been colleagues for several years now. Peter’s work with how children learn through play is vitally important and he is inspired by John Holt’s work—John wrote a lot about the value of children’s fantasy play and play in general, and he advised unschoolers to always let their children play as much as they wanted to. Peter Gray’s book is titled, Free To Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Betters Students for Life. Peter joins many educators who have written on this topic, but he brings his expertise as a research professor in psychology to the table. In his book Peter notes, too, how so-called primitive people allow children to live and learn informally while the adults do their own things and how effective this method is. 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A black and white photo of a group of young boys in matching sports uniforms, posed with crossed arms around a basketball, in front of a brick fireplace with two pillar-like structures, in a vintage style. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/db43baf6-2ce6-44c5-a387-e9ed57b07906/JH%2BUSS%2BBarbero+%281%29.jpg Who Was John Holt? A group of sailors and young men posing on a submarine. Lieutenant John Holt, fresh out of college, is standing on the right. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/9ab82d6a-eb92-484c-90b7-200b0fb426d3/John%2BHolt%2Bby%2BKelly%2BWise+%281%29.jpg Who Was John Holt? Black and white photo of John Holt , around 1981, standing on a small set of stairs outside a building, leaning on a handrail. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/5e7f50d2-7421-4080-b18f-2548fd735b59/JH%2Bplaying%2BCello%2Blike%2Ba%2BViolin+%281%29.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt joking, holding his cello like a violin. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/34de984e-6c26-4319-8184-e53704a0c147/JH%2BLATT%2BShot.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt sitting outdoors with his knee bent, wearing a sweater over a collared shirt. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/cee3ad0c-8750-4c25-9403-af814d5182fa/JH%2Bcolor%2Bearly%2B80%27s384.50%25.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt standing outdoors, holding a glass. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/2b9e8fd7-87a7-4a04-af50-a73c89de3902/JH%2Bplaying%2Bhis%2BTravielo.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt tuning a cello in a living room with large windows and houseplants. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1c96d47c-572f-402a-b08b-0fe2c61ade58/John%2C%2BPeggy%2C%2BDonna.jpg Who Was John Holt? Donna Richoux, Peggy Durkee, and John Holt at the Holt Associates office on Boylston St. in Boston. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/68d0f0b2-1fbd-4801-a00e-282cac9fd75e/JH%2Bat%2BOriginal%2BHolt%2B308%2Boffice.jpg Who Was John Holt? A color photo of John Holt working in his office. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/1249c097-d809-4f56-abc0-1e919d4b7e68/JH%2Band%2BWallace%2BFamily.jpg Who Was John Holt? A black and white photo of a family of five standing and sitting outside a house with white siding, in front of an open door. There is a woman sitting on the ground with a soccer ball nearby, and two children standing on the porch. An adult man leans against the wall to the right. The scene appears to be from the 1970s or 1980s. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/99812933-03f6-4616-a37d-9f8c9df72c59/JH%2Bin%2Bfront%2Bof%2BHoltGWS%2Bdoor.jpg Who Was John Holt? A black-and-white photograph of John Holt standing indoors in front of a wall with text that reads "HOLT ASSOC., INC. GROWING SCHOOLING." The man is wearing a suit jacket, a shirt, and a patterned tie, and has a serious expression. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/e7af2f25-386e-444c-987a-f63ebb3604aa/JH%2BQuartet.png Who Was John Holt? John Holt playing cello with his string quartet in a classroom. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/05df76d0-ea9f-45ee-817a-1ce26bda0feb/JH%2Bwith%2Bchild%2Bin%2Blap.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt sitting in a brown armchair with a young girl on his lap, in a room with wooden bookshelves and patterned wallpaper. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/96ed1020-fef7-4f42-b36e-f3e9e8b9b310/JH%2BEarly%2B60s.jpg Who Was John Holt? Black and white photo of John Holt, dressed in a collared shirt and tie, wearing a textured blazer, looking down thoughtfully. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/dafd7715-9143-4d00-b470-fd48a7836958/JH%2BRefusing%2BDegree%2Bat%2BWelsley.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt giving a radical commencement speech at Wesleyan University, 1970. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/d406e935-93d2-4014-a58f-3d6365b2c841/Young%2BJH%2BEvergreen%2BCollege%2C%2BWA+%281%29.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt at a podium, speaking with one arm extended outward, against a curtain backdrop. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/37ce1332-2b43-4d8a-aae7-53da1b738ca4/JH%2Bspeaking%2Bon%2Bbeach%2C%2BApril%2B1970.jpg Who Was John Holt? A large group of people gathered on a beach, sitting and standing while listening to John Holt speak. Author George Dennison is seated to Holt's right. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/2b683fc9-d74a-468e-a1b4-253e36e5839e/JH%2Bearly%2B70s381.jpg Who Was John Holt? Author John Holt, resting his chin on his hand, looking thoughtful. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/d3aaebdb-b541-427d-ae77-d48e7be4a4f0/JH%2Band%2BKids196.jpg Who Was John Holt? John Holt explaining something to four children watching intently. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64cb23130a03b62e7c64f702/e28c1bb8-3173-4b75-b2b3-aaebd2f2ff2a/JH%2BAugust%2B1965.jpg Who Was John Holt? 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