The Future of Education Interview

Tomorrow, September 11, 2012, I'll be interviewed at 8PM by Steve Hargadon at The Future of Education. This is a free online event, and listeners will be able to send questions via text to Steve to ask me. A recording of the show will be available for free download after the show.

Steve and I plan to discuss John Holt's work as an educator and how John came to be one of homeschooling's earliest and most important advocates. I hope you'll join us and contribute to the conversation!

Stop Stealing Dreams Panel Discussion Now Online

Last night I participated in the Stop Stealing Dreams discussion, moderated by Steve Hargadon. It was an interesting, fast-moving discussion that covered lots of ground. You can listen to it here:

http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/stopstealingdreams.mp3

The War on Kids: A Free Screening at Harvard University

I'll be hosting a free screening of Cevin Soling's documentary The War on Kids this coming Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 7PM. 

The free screening is at the Harvard Science Center - Hall D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA.

There will be Q&A with the director after the screening.

If you're in the area, drop in, enjoy the show, and join in the discussion. It is sure to be lively!

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

Tiger Mom versus Unschooling Dad!

Such is the sensational premise of tonight's episode of Extreme Parenting on the Dr. Drew Pinsky Show.

A TV producer called me at 1:15 PM yesterday and asked if I could be a guest on the Dr. Drew Pinsky Show at 5:15 PM to discuss unschooling. It turns out that the segment is titled Extreme Parenting and juxtaposes a “Tiger Mom” family with an unschooling family. I taped my short bit last night via a remote hookup. I couldn't see anyone I was addressing; I just had an earphone to let me know what the panel was saying and I looked into two white lights, a camera, and a sound booth. It was a very shallow "conversation" and I had to be encouraged by a director's voice in my ear to "jump right in" and start talking since the others were talking over me and I was being polite and listening. The panelists were pretty clueless about unschooling and uninterested in learning more about it. Of course, that didn’t stop them from expressing strong opinions against unschooling.

Lisa Cottrell-Bentley and her family were the subjects of a video that is shown during the segment, but it isn't clear to me if the entire video will play on the show or just the short bit I heard through my earpiece last night (about a minute long). From what I heard, at least this video segment is objective. It will be interesting to see how much of the video is shown.

The producer also asked me for family photos, and I sent some I had on my computer ASAP. Now I'm wondering how they'll be used during the segment. My family may carve me up for Thanksgiving tomorrow if they feel the photos and show put them in a bad light!

I have over thirty years of helping people unschool and unschooling our family, yet unschooling is still being presented by the media as a recent "crazy" idea where the children rule the roost and hapless parents do nothing but provide benign neglect. Not one question about John Holt, the educational basis for unschooling, or about other data about unschooling. As I learned again last night, TV is more interested in generating heat than light on a subject.

The Dr. Drew Pinsky Show airs tonight, 11/23/11, at 9PM EST on the HLN network