Legendary Learning

One of the most popular books we sold through the John Holt Book and Music Store was by Nancy and Malcolm Plent, “An ‘A’ in Life: Famous Homeschoolers.” Nancy and Mac published various editions of this book during the 15 years or so that we sold it and I know many people found support and inspiration from knowing that people as diverse as Agatha Christie, George S. Patton, and Gloria Steinman were homeschooled. That book has been out of print for some time but Jamie McMilllin has created a successor:
Legendary Learning: The Famous Homeschoolers' Guide to Self-Directed Excellence.

Ms.McMillin does more than describe the biographies of famous people; she also describes the richness of homeschooling, including unschooling, so this book is also an overview of the homeschooling landscape by an eclectic homeschooler. No commitment to any one philosophy or idea about education is fully endorsed or described—openness to experimentation is the focus of McMillmin’s approach—but enough information is provided so if an approach is interesting to you, you will be able to easily get more information about it from the book’s well-done references.

Legendary Learning: The Famous Homeschoolers' Guide to Self-Directed Excellence is an interesting amalgam of biography and opinion. Rather than present each person’s educational biography and life accomplishments as separate entries, McMilllin uses their lives to connect how they learned things in their own ways to how homeschoolers today, and people in general, learn things. Here is an example:

Timing is everything. The famous homeschoolers I studied seemed to learn much more when they were ready and motivated for personal reasons. Naturalist John Muir had been drilled in arithmetic at a young age, but claimed he never really understood it until he taught himself as a teenager. After the age of twelve, Thomas Edison taught himself everything he needed to run his various businesses and experiments. When fifteen-year-old Teddy Roosevelt was preparing for the Harvard Entrance Exams, he was behind in required math skills but soon caught up with the help of his tutor.

There are many more current examples in homeschool books about kids who were able to learn four years worth of elementary mathematics in just a short period of time when they were older and motivated. My son Jesse . . . is one example. He absolutely hated math textbooks, but was happy to play all sorts of math games (including computer games). Finally at the age of twelve, he conceded that he didn’t recognize some of the math concepts his school friends were talking about so he wanted to catch up. He had also decided by then that he wanted to go to college and knew from family discussions that he would probably need to take an SAT test. So we selected a curriculum together and he buckled down—without any harassment on my part. He didn’t like math any better than before, but he learned quickly (and pulled down a respectable score on the SAT too!). Timing is everything.

I think this book is best for people considering homeschooling or who are just getting started with it, particularly the many bits of advice McMillin gives for living and learning with your children. But everyone will enjoy the many insightful quotes from famous people about learning that are peppered throughout the pages, such as these:

“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”—Leonardo Da Vinci

“The years teach much that the days never know.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Creativity, not science, lies at the leading edge of the evolution of the human species; that is the delightful and beautiful paradox.”—Robin King

Research and Interviews Focused on Unschooling

Peter Gray has completed all three phases of his research about the benefits, reasons, and challenges of unschooling at Psychology Today. It is good to have this information available, as it will be eye-opening to those who think unschooling is just unparenting, though to long-time unschoolers none of it is really news. For instance, according to this research, the biggest challenge for unschoolers is defending their choice to unschool to friends, family, and the general public. Talk about the more things change the more they stay the same—in the first issue of GWS, August 1977, there’s a story, “What To Tell the Neighbors.”

Dr. Gray puts a very positive spin on his research by following it with an interview with Kate Fridkis, an adult who was unschooled. Kate is 25 and lives and works in Manhattan. The interview is titled, “Meet Kate Fridkis, Who Skipped K-12 and is Neither Weird nor Homeless.” I urge you to read her interview, and then to check out this piece by another grown unschooler that was inspired by reading Kate’s interview.

Emma Rosloff is a 23-year-old writer who worked in the restaurant business until recently. Emma writes about moving in and out of school, unschooling and how it helped her, and why she has, so far, decided not to go to college. I want to share this thought that Emma leaves with:  

The majority of the servers I worked with at my breakfast job had college degrees they weren’t doing anything with (and I was their boss).

. . . Again, not trying to put down going to college, either as a route to a career or just for the sake of the experience. Not at all. Just trying to advocate a kid having enough of a sense of their own interests and abilities to make that choice for themselves, and to be informed when they do.

Twitter Chats for Homeschoolers

If you are looking for online support for homeschooling and you enjoy using Twitter, here's a good article about Twitter chats you can engage in.

Essential Twitter Chats for Homeschoolers

New Issue of Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning is Available

The current issue of the Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning (JUAL) is now available on-line for free.

It can be found at JUAL (click on New Issue).

JUAL seeks to bring together an international community of scholars exploring the topic of unschooling and alternative learning, which espouses learner-centered democratic approaches to learning. JUAL is also a space to reveal the limitations of mainstream schooling.

The Vatican Comes Out in Support of Homeschooling

As homeschooling grows the pushback from educationists (professional educators who feel mandatory education is necessary for everyone’s salvation) is getting stronger. There is concern that children learning at home won’t find their place in our modern economy because their parents aren’t teaching them math properly, or that homeschoolers are creating an “I got mine, you get yours” tribal culture that undermines democracy, and so on. Of course, such handwringing by educationists neglects the vast numbers of homeschoolers who have been active for decades in our economy and democracy, as well as the large numbers of children in school who do not learn math, or families who send their children to exclusive private schools and colleges so they will be with “their peers,” and not the general public.

It is fascinating, therefore, to read an affirmation from the leaders of the Catholic Church for institutional and governmental respect for people to choose when, where, how, and from whom they will learn. A Statement by the Holy See Delegation of the United Nations (April 24, 2012) claims the

delegation has noticed a disconcerting trend, namely, the desire on the part of some to downplay the role of parents in the upbringing of their children, as if to suggest somehow that it is not the role of parents, but that of the State. In this regard it is important that the natural and thus essential relationship between parents and their children be affirmed and supported, not undermined.

 The Statement largely reaffirms Catholic Church teachings, so it is quite specific about defining the family as an “indissoluble union between man and woman,” supporting greater investments in education to enroll more children in school, and ensuring obedience: “Parents must cooperate closely with teachers, who, on their part, must collaborate with parents.” What’s the difference between “must cooperate closely” and “must collaborate?” There seems to be an unequal footing that keeps teachers firmly in the driver’s seat in this formulation, but we’ll only know how this works out in practice over time.

However, for Catholics and non-Catholics, this section caught my attention not just because of the questions it begs, but also because of its support for homeschooling:

As affirmed in international law, States are called to have respect for the freedom of parents to choose for their children schools, other than those established by the public authorities, to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions which equally applies to their right to make judgments on moral issues regarding their children (cf., e.g., UDHR, Article 26, 3, ICESCR, Article 13, 3, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, Article 12, 4). There are about 250,000 Catholic schools around the world. The Catholic school assists parents who have the right and duty to choose schools inclusive of homeschooling, and they must possess the freedom to do so, which in turn, must be respected and facilitated by the State. Parents must cooperate closely with teachers, who, on their part, must collaborate with parents.

By linking homeschools to private schools, the Vatican affirms the importance of choice in education as being more than just choosing how to learn to read, write, and calculate. The Vatican ends this statement with a paragraph that I find echoes the unschooling ethos in particular, namely that the learner should be at the center of all “development concerns” (“development,” as Illich so often notes, is an incredibly loaded term, but I’ll save that for another day) and that young people should be recognized for their contributions to society.

An authentic rights based approach to development places the human person, bearing within him or her infinite and divine inspirations, at the center of all development concerns, and thus respects the nature of the family, the role of parents, including their religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds, and affirms the contribution that young people can and do make to their community and society (cf., ICPD Programme of Action, Chapter II). The more the countries recognize this, the more they will be able to put into place policies and programmes that advance the overall wellbeing of all persons.

It is good for homeschooling to have a powerful, international ally that supports diverse religious, ethical, and cultural backgrounds as a model to strengthen society, rather than the economy-driven, one-size-fits-all (unless you can afford a better one), educationist model. Homeschooling, as this Statement shows, creates mixed alliances that we should build and nurture as best we can, because the juggernaut of mandatory continuing education as a requirement for participating in society shows no signs of stopping anywhere in the world.

To read the Statement in its entirety, click on this link.