Unschooling Homeschooling - Pat Farenga

First, I want to share some homeschooling humor that was shared with me earlier today. This is from the Onion:

"WASHINGTON—According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home."

Next, I want to thank everyone who helped put on the OHEN conference in Tigard, OR on March 20. What a great time I had at the Oregon Home Education Network conference. It was a packed day for me – a keynote plus three workshops – but the camaraderie and energy that were present on-site made it an exciting day. Plus, the event ended with a professional magic show for all ages that left us amazed and upbeat, making it a unique experience for me because I especially enjoy magic performances. I had to get back to Boston to be at work on Monday, but I hope to visit Portland in a more leisurely manner some day. The “underground” tour of the city sounds pretty interesting.

My first two talks ran over their allotted time due to me departing from my written comments and technical difficulties. Arden, a tech-savvy teenager, and Pat Nystrom, a homeschooling dad, helped me keep the audio-visual aspects working throughout the day, but neither they, nor I, could figure out why all but one video played correctly in my presentations. Of course, that one video made the whole program crash and quit each time! I summarized the videos in my own words at the conference, but I’ve uploaded the Holt video here so you can hear John Holt himself talk about the differences between a question and a quiz.