Books about HE - beyond John holt!

[emmaagain]

To say "John Holt is a good starting point" (probably my own phrase on previous occasions) is a bit of a misnomer because, as others have pointed out recently, and rightly, he wrote Why Children Fail and How Children Learn in the 1960s, and a lot has changed since then.

More recently, however, a collection of his writings together with PAtrick Ferenga was issued under the title "Teach Your Own" (2003, not to be confused with Holt's 1981 book of the same title)

Other places HEers of the unschooling/ autonomous route would be likely to go are

Sandra Dodd's writings on unschooling
Mike Fortune Wood's writings about HE on he HE-UK website and in his paper journal (quarterly)
Jan Fortune Wood's Doing it Their Way
Terri Dowty Free Range Education
School is not compulsory (an education otherwise publication, lots of contributors)
John Taylor Gatto (though I've not read any myself)

I hope this list will be useful for some people, and also answer the accusation of "but you're basing it on 50 year old research!" which a glib "John Holt is a good starting point" invites

What did I miss?

Well, I like Charlotte Mason, and she's even older than 50 years!

For families who wish to home educate their child who has special needs, I would highly recommend;
Home Educating Our Autistic Spectrum Children: Paths are made by walking
By Terri Dowty

As an autonomous home educator i would highly recommend Grace Llewellyn's 'The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education'
It is an American book and written for the teens themselves but really opened my eyes to the possibilities we now had!

and what about Alan Thomas 'Educating Children at Home' and 'Educating Your Child at Home'

has anyone read this one?;
'Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School Tell Their Own Stories'
From Lowry House Pub
the customer review says;
"A great insight into the days of other teenage homeschoolers
Whether you're an unschooled teen, someone fed up with the system or a parent thinking about your child's future, check this book out. It will apply to the heart and soul of anyone and everyone. It gives you just a tiny taste of the possibilities facing kids without the restraints of school. As a free, homeschooled teen myself, it has given me a fresh outlook on new approaches to take. I highly recommend this book."

resurrecting old thread, sorry. But I feel strongly about Holt, he has not been bettered in HE circles IMO. . And criticising his educational theories because they are old doesn't work, especially when we are, rightly, teaching even older theories in schools on a daily basis-relativity, newtonian physics, evolution, a lot of stuff in chemistry, etc etc etc.

Holt wrote about 10 books iirc, and most of them are more philosophy of education along the lines of rousseau, illich and so forth. They argue against the whole institution of mass schooling.

His most interesting book imo is "escape from childhood" which makes the argument for children's rights, and is very much a product of the other civil rights movements of the day. But there are lots more. Freedom and beyond is a consideration of what autonomy means in practice. Never Too Late is about learning an instrument as an adult , but more broadly, the whole process of self teaching something that people tend to believe must be taught by experts. Etc.

I think the real problem is that in teacher training college esp, people only come across holt's first 2 books, you can be sure with around 90% certainty that people saying "oh holt wrote 50 years ago" are either teachers or got that opinion directly from a teacher. It really wouldn't occur to me in, say, economics, to just bradly dismiss Keynes because he was writing quite a long time ago, and his experiences were based in a very different economic climate. Holt's earlier books are more a product of the general school reform movement of the 60s (jonathan kozol, as neill to an extent, etc). He abandoned school reform ideas fairly quickly though and his later ones consider alternatives, but more generally the role of children in society, economics, etc.

No-one, afaik, has sucessfully argued against the crux of his books-that what and how to learn should be decided primarily by the learner.

Holt was a fascinating writer, and was way ahead of his time on things beyond education-environmental issues in particular.

(btw-emma-where have you vanished to?)

Well said!