Posts Tagged ‘homeschooling movement’
Resource for Canadian Life Learners
We've just added a new website to the Life Media family. Called LifeLearning.ca, it is an up-to-date and comprehensive resource for Canadian home-based educators. There are lists of home-based learning books by Canadian authors, links to information about legalities in all the provinces and territories, a list of - and, in some cases, links to [...]
Victory for Home Education in England
The British government's plans for a series of oppressive regulations on home education are all washed up today. And home educators there are rejoicing, albeit with caution. The nasty requirements for unsupervised and unannounced interviews with home educated children, and security checks and registration for home educating parents have been [...]
There’s No Right Way…So Let’s Lose the Insults
For many years, I have taken it for granted that people know what the term “unschooling” means. Truthfully, I really haven’t paid much attention, since I dislike the word…and labels in general. Since many people seem attached to it, I just happily play along, using it when necessary – as a web keyword, for instance – and quietly [...]
Beginnings: It Hasn’t Shut Me Up
As part of the process of writing a memoir called It Hasn’t Shut Me Up (my 10th book, to be published when it’s done), I’ve been examining the roots of my radicalism – especially as it relates to education. Like most other people, my upbringing and my schooling in the 1950s and ‘60s taught me to accept what I was told by my parents, my [...]
What’s Wrong With the Schooling Mentality
The marketplace of ideas has become monopolized by corporations and institutions, and our coercion-based education system is used to create a society of consumers rather than one of thinkers. For almost twenty years (since he resigned from teaching while he was New York State Teacher of the Year), John Taylor Gatto has been writing and [...]
Unschooling, Radical Unschooling, or Something Else?
Most life learners don’t like to label their children – whether it’s using the alphabet soup provided by those who would drug children into submissive behavior or by means of school-style grades. So I’m always amused and disturbed in equal parts when the debate begins about what to call this sort of child-led, non-coercive, lifestyle that [...]
Wanted: Unschooling Quotes by Women
A few years ago, I was approached by a woman who wanted to write my life history as a woman homeschooling advocate as her PhD thesis. While doing her MA research, she had been struck by the lack of women's voices in the academic literature. She did write that thesis as a contribution to the literature, and there are now a number of other women [...]
It’s Not Progressive to Force Regulation by a Dinosaur
There’s been an earnest new academic journal article published entitled "The Harms of Homeschooling." (Note, January 2010: I have removed the link to this article for now due to difficulties downloading the file.) Author Robin L West attacks the lack of regulation of homeschooling (she doesn't mention or indicate that she understands [...]
Fight the Government, Not Each Other
Many readers of this blog will be aware of what’s been happening regarding homeschooling in the UK over the past six months. We hope to publish an article in Life Learning documenting the situation. But for now, see my posts at my personal blog Challenging Assumptions for background: June, July and October, or do a google search for more [...]