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Growing Without Schooling:
A Record Of A Grassroots Movement
Author:
John Caldwell Holt
Reviewed By: Akram A. Jaouni
Growing Without
Schooling: A Record of a Grassroots Movement is a compilation
of the first 12 budding issues of the newsletter ‘Growing Without
Schooling.’ These Newsletters were published between 1977-1979 in
an effort to promote ‘unschooling’, a term used by GWS to aid definition
of education reform. Unschooling, From a legal perspective, this
term refers to the “changing the laws to make schools non-compulsory and
to take away from them their power to grade, rank, and label people i.e.
to make lasting official public judgments about them.” (P.17) |
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The beginning of
each new issue offers the publisher’s updates and
pertinent news regarding the ‘Unschooling’
movement, in addition to data concerning the newsletter such as
distribution, subscription information and publication developments.
Following these brief updates comes a profusion of insightful ‘tidbits’
or pieces of information compiled by the publisher and written by
seemingly wise everyday people. The issues covered include
letters, stories, informed opinions, and narratives on just about
anything ranging from social change in issue #1 to court ruling in issue
#11. All such cultural excerpts being evidence and indicators of
the need for education reform and unschooling.
In a nutshell, ‘Growing Without
Schooling’, outlines the grass roots movement of education
reform under several broad categories among others not listed here.
The categories are scattered throughout the issues in easily digestible
portions making the reading quite entertaining and informative. Among
the major categories are the following:
• Legal
Concerns - The sections
concerning this category include court rulings; the need for
lawyers, beating the system, legal strategies, state laws and a letter
to a legislature. These pieces stress the legal tone of
‘Unschooling, what is required in the movement and issues concerning
it. |
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• Homeschooling Methods
- Like the previous category, this category circumscribes an
important element of education reform, the question of how to educate
alternatively. Subjects covered in this category include serious
teaching, how much teaching is enough, learning specific subjects such
as choral reading, teacher ‘skills’, home-school guidelines, stories
about home schooling and so on. This provides a vital additional
guideline to the unschooling effort, in turn aiding the unschooling
movement.
•
Things learned
Outside of Conventional School - In a less formal manner, the
necessity of experiential, community and individual learning are
stressed in ‘Growing Without Schooling’. |
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The reason being implied that conventional
schooling simply does not emphasize this important type of learning so
vital to everyday living. For example, there are contributions
from writers concerning Growing up in Denmark, breeding worms in cities,
working through Math problems without the answers and playing guns for
emotional health/as an emotional outlet for a kid in an unhappy home.
•
Movement efforts and
information - Also included in the topics are letters and
writing pieces about the unschooling movement. As with other
movements, keeping abreast of developments, issues and concerns is
vital to the momentum of such a cause in fear of losing concern,
knowledge and understanding of such a movement. GWS does well in
adding topics such as success stories from various States, unschooling
in Holland, local groups, information on unschooled children such as
how certain parent's home-schooling efforts succeeded.
All in all, Growing Without Schooling is indeed a
record of a Grass Roots Movement. It gathers and
collects information about an alternative means to education and
documents it in the classic information archive known as a book.
This is no regular book however, it is no novel, not a textbook, nor a
journal or a collection of articles. GWS is a compilation of
wisdom about a type of education that is simply not adequately
addressed by some major school systems. It is therefore a
priceless record of knowledge not to be underestimated or
under-acknowledged by conventional knowledge systems.
Growing Without Schooling: A
Record Of A Grassroots Movement by John Caldwell Holt. Pub. Date:
February 1997. Publisher: Holt Associates. ISDN: 0913677108
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