Young, Smart, Influential at 17 and Homeschooled

Javier Fernandez-Han was recently named by Forbes Magazine as “one of the most influential people in the nation under 30 in the energy industry;” he invented a process that “uses algae to turn sewage into fuel.” A local news feature about him and his award notes:

Javier is home schooled, something his parents decided to do because of their own educational experiences.

"At least for me, I came out of college pretty much useless. You give me a test, I can take it, but who's going to pay me to take a test?" Javier's father, Peter, said.

As more parents reflect on their schooling I hope they, too, will consider homeschooling an option—not because homeschooling is a better type of school, but because it can be a totally different educational experience than school.

If you look through the Forbe’s Energy list there are four people who are 19 or younger, which is pretty inspiring (I wish there were more information about their efforts; you get no feeling about hard it was for them to get their ideas off the ground and be taken seriously). It appears from the text that three of them were in high school when they developed their new ideas, so one can’t claim it is homeschooling that makes a difference for young inventors.

However, one can claim that homeschooling did not diminish the chances of this young man succeeding as an inventor. On the video attached to the local news story the announcer says, “The parents wanted to empower their children to make a difference in the world no matter how old they are.” Javier’s parents reiterate this point eloquently in the video, and I think it is an important point for any adult who works with children. All too often, adults have nothing but the lowest expectations about what children will do other than “have fun and cause trouble” if they are given freedom to learn. But it doesn’t have to be this way; there are other ways of relating to and living with children besides just educating them to do as you say.

 There are many ways to succeed in life, but our culture’s infatuation with human-made systems makes it seem that only by graduating from a school system can you even begin to think about becoming successful. Don’t tell these Forbes winners though—three of them haven’t graduated from high school yet and the fourth has decided to forgo college!

I can’t say that the other three students greatly benefitted from a standard high school laboratory and science curriculum, but I can say those things are not decisive factors for being a successful inventor. Just ask Javier Fernandez-Han.

We've Got to Be That Light

Dr. Jeff Goldstein of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education contacted me about helping him to spread the word about an inspirational video he made based on a keynote address he presented to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) National Conference in San Francisco. He wrote,

 

I received the comment below from YouTube on 11/30/11 from a homeschool mom that was touched by the video. It really got me thinking deeply about the vital importance of homeschooling, and homeschool moms and dads, as a fundamental element of national education. I think the video might be a wonderful thank you for homeschoolers.

 Here is the homeschooling mother’s comment he is referring to:

As a homeschooling mother, I am a teacher of one child. It is very challenging, but also full of the freedom to teach the way she needs. However, I miss the inspiration and support that school teachers get from the school system. Your video brought me to tears, because it gave me that inspiration that I need, in my isolation. I also loved the groove of the musicalization of your speech; it was very artful. I'll be sharing this with all the homeschooling moms I know. Thank you.

The powerful institutions that control schooling refuse to cooperate or otherwise support homeschooling (see the NEA resolution, section B-82), but there are individuals and smaller groups within those places who nonetheless reach out and consider homeschoolers allies and not enemies (and vice versa). In this spirit, here is Dr. Jeff’s video.

Joy in Learning

Joy in learning is rarely addressed as far as conventional compulsory education goes; however, words like “expectations,” “accountability,” and “rigor” have accumulated around education like flies to fruit; now we pay more attention to the flies than the fruit! It also seems that parents have lost trust in the value of children’s play, with pressures mounting to put children, at ever-younger ages, into controlled education environments in the hope it will make them successful adults. In the name of academic achievement we are depriving our children of the vast quantities of quiet time and personal interactions with other people that are needed to create a self, learn how to solve their own problems, master their emotions, and participate well in group settings. These things can’t be easily structured into a state or national curriculum and that is probably why schools discount them. However, homeschooling allows you and your children to own your schedules, so you have the time to appreciate and leverage your children’s natural tendency to play and learn. I hope the stories and articles in this issue help you feel how desirable it is to remain playful through all our life.

The HoltGWS Newsletter 2 is free.

Class Dismissed Fundraiser

This film is still being made, but everything I’ve read and seen about it so far makes it seem worth supporting. Here is what the director wrote to me:

 

About Class Dismissed:
 
All across America, parents are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the state of public education, and a growing number are choosing to pull their children out of school and seek alternative ways to educate them.
 
The current state of our educational system requires us to assess the purpose of schooling, confront long-standing assumptions about education and seek out developments that will better serve the future. We live in a time where education is under siege from every angle; under-staffing, teacher layoffs, overcrowded classrooms, budget cuts, over-testing and failing grades.
 
Class Dismissed will focus on the topic of education, specifically the validity of home education as an alternative to the industrial school model. The film will examine the numerous approaches to home learning, exploring both its history and recent growth. There are many choices when it comes to teaching our children, and Class Dismissed will ask some big questions:
 
·      What does it mean to be educated?
·      Is it possible to get a great education without attending school?
·      What happens to children who never go to traditional school?
·      Can learning outside of a traditional classroom really provide a nurturing and   educationally rich ground for children to grow and blossom?

Class Dismissed will challenge its viewers to take a fresh look at what it means to be educated, and offer up a radical new way of thinking about the process of education.
 
To learn more and to find out how you can be involved, visit our website at www.homeschoolfilm.com.
 
Many thanks,
Jeremy Stuart and the Class Dismissed Team

Nancy Plent: An 'A' in Life

What a crazy Thanksgiving holiday this was for my family and me. At the last minute I was asked to appear on national TV to talk about unschooling on the Dr. Drew Pinsky show. As you can see, it is a strange interview/discussion. I sat in a room, alone, facing two lights and a video camera and participated via remote hookup with the other participants. All I could do was listen to the other people on the show; I couldn’t see any faces or video that they were showing. As I was listening and waiting for a moment to speak a director or producer said into my ear, “Just jump in”; I did, and it was a free for all. However, they cleaned the tape up and edited it for airing the next day so it seems much more organized and focused than the actual taping was. I wish I had a better closing statement, but I had no idea I was going to be given the last word. 

After taping that show and watching it the next night, we cooked a Thanksgiving meal to bring to New York for my family, since my mom was too sick to come to Boston for Thanksgiving at our house. I also learned, about a week earlier, that my old friend Nancy Plent, the founder of the Unschoolers Network of New Jersey, was in hospice care. Unfortunately, I learned over this weekend that Nancy actually died on Thanksgiving Day.

I’ve been thinking about Nancy, Mac, and Eric Plent a lot since then. I stayed at their house a few times, and I worked with Nancy on many homeschooling issues and events from the early 1980s until 2001. Indeed, a quick search through the back issues of Growing Without Schooling magazine notes 85 instances of Nancy Plent appearing in GWS. Nancy ran an organic food store for many years, in addition to operating the Unschoolers Network, and she was always interested in learning and trying new things, which is how she came across John Holt’s work (more on that below).

In addition to her advocacy for homeschooling and unschooling in the New Jersey legislature and at the local district level, Nancy pioneered two concepts for homeschooling books that have been imitated many times: her book “An ‘A’ in Life: Famous Homeschoolers” (we sold this title for many years in the John Holt Bookstore catalog) and her “Living is Learning Curriculum Guides” for unschoolers. Both of these were first composed in the 1980s and were handmade by Nancy and Mac. Many imitators, some quite slick, have followed.

Oddly, as I looked over Nancy’s writing in GWS, it is Nancy Plent’s words about John Holt when he died that made me smile and remember Nancy herself vividly. Nancy enjoyed going to a particular restaurant after she did a conference at Brookdale Community College (we did conferences elsewhere together, but this was her preferred venue), and I know I always looked forward to our post-conference meal. We would break down how the event went, which workshops worked well, who were good vendors to work with, etc. Nancy’s knees would be bothering her, she’d be exhausted from the event, and she would inevitably say, “This is probably the last conference I do . . . “ Of course, Nancy always seemed to find the energy to “put on just one more conference.” We are all glad she did!

Nancy’s husband, Mac, told me the back-story to what you are about to read. Nancy was always a fan of John Holt’s work, but she had never contacted John. Knowing this, Mac called John, introduced himself and his family as homeschoolers-to-be, and asked if John would do him a favor and speak with Nancy on her birthday. Nancy mentions this in her appreciation of John Holt:

... I first "met" John Holt through a phone call on my birthday in 1977. We had just learned that GWS #1 had been published, and were very excited . . . My awe soon vanished as John chatted pleasantly with me for several minutes. When I asked him what he could tell me about the legalities of homeschooling in New Jersey, he replied, "Why, nothing. We were hoping you folks would tell us'" It was my first inkling that we were going to have a colleague in John, rather than a guru feeding us directives.

. . . His observations cut to the heart of things, one of the reasons why his opinions were so valued. In the early days, we had carefully (and nervously) cultivated a dignified, serious image with the press. Then we came across some families handling things in what we considered a flamboyant manner, almost gleefully daring the school to give them a hard time so they could "go public" and show them up . We felt sure they would come across in TV or news stories as irresponsible, and therefore would get a lot of media attention. While we were concerned, we also felt we couldn't tell others what to do. John's answer was simple. "You can't pretend to the media that there are no nuts in this thing, because there before their eyes IS one. Just trust in your own good works to speak for themselves and don't worry about what others do."

Another time when John asked how a particular workshop had gone, I moaned that some people had let us down, failing to get things ready that they had promised. I sighed and guessed that next time I'd just have to do it all myself if I wanted to see it done. John listened carefully to my woes and launched into a story about Gandhi, the gist of which was that you have to trust people "until they become trustworthy."

But the time that defines the man most clearly to me is a walk we took to the top of a hill one year at the Homesteaders Festival. John was a great walking companion. I usually drive people crazy once in a woods or meadow, pointing out things I notice. John was right in there with me, and we interrupted each other a dozen times to point out wildflowers or small creatures darting past. When we reached the top and turned to look out over the view, John scanned the hills and murmured "A thousand shades of green" as his eyes swept the trees on the hills beyond us. He said it again before we walked down, an almost involuntary expression of wonder at the magnificence and complexity of nature's midsummer show. He stopped often to feel the warm sun or admire the scene below us. I noticed later that he did this often in other settings, too, particularly where little children played nearby. He never missed a word of conversation he was in, but his eyes followed children as they played, and he smiled a lot. His enjoyment of the world was quite contagious. I thought about him daily this fall, and tried to make time often to enjoy the lovely days, wishing, in the way we do when someone we love dies, that I could enjoy it twice as much to make up for him not being able to . . .

John Gatto, who Nancy often used as a conference speaker, is recovering from a stroke as I write this, and I’m really struck by the feeling that a chapter I am part of is ending in the homeschooling movement as we continue to lose folks, publications, and their memories and associations. However, I’m excited that a new chapter is being written, too, and that I am a part of it. I hope, like Nancy, that I will enjoy every day twice as much to make up for her no longer being able to do so.