Growing Without Schooling: A Record of a Grassroots Movement, Vol. 1: August 1977 - December 1979 - Softcover

Holt, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0913677108 ISBN 13: 9780913677100

Publisher: Holt Associates, 1997

Synopsis

John Holt promoted the homeschooling movement (which he originally called "unschooling") when he published the first issue of GWS in August 1977. Here, for the first time under once cover, are the first twelve issues of GWS, fully indexed and organized to help you browse or research its vast archive of ideas about how adults and children can learn together in their homes and communities. These first issues are particularly important because they contain much writing by Holt (he edited and contributed to every issue in this volume) about the how and why of unschooling that is not published anywhere else, as well as hundreds of firsthand accounts by unschooling's earliest practitioners that resonate with even more meaning today.

Learning Music News From CA
And N.J.
A Baby
Capable Children
Abe's Baby
M and the Stove
A Girl Skating
Choral Reading
Let's Read
Gnomes
Cousteau Society
The Flyer

Issue No. 4
Radcliffe Statement
Batting Practice
To the ACLU
Testing in the Schools
From Florida
Beating the System
From L
To a Dean
From a Teacher
Motive
On Saying "No"
A Single Parent
A Reply
Addition
Ann Replies
Rub-On Letters
Teachers' "Skills"
Calculators
Politics Of Schooling
An Important Decision
A Poster
Newsstand Sales
Secrecy

Issue No. 5
A Learning Exchanger
The Child Finders
What They're Selling
Fan Letter
Time of Our Own
From Oregon
Nobody Sees Backwards
Teacher Story
Reading Readiness
On Class Bias
No Comment
From a Mother
Access to D.C.
From Julia
To a Reader
From a Father
A Reply
The Therapeutic State
A Speech Defect
Research
Skinner's Gun
School Story
A Legal Strategy
The J-Bomb
In a Boat
Children of Film
News Item

Issue No. 6
Equivalent
Einstein Said
From A Parent
The Child Takers
Good News From Vt.
Doctor
No Comment
The World at Two
A Family Game
Life in School
Her Own Money
An Adventure
Greenleaf
Teaching Without School
A City as Teacher
News Item
Facts and Theories
Jobs, Careers, Work
Finding True Work
A Slow Start
Remedial
From Art Harris
No Comment
Reading Problems
On Reading
Thirty Hours
Multiplication, Etc.
Abstractions
Teaching
Useful Resources
Why School?
Good Reasons
And Real Ones
School Story
Books Av. Here
Good News

Issue No. 7
Help Needed
Ruling From Iowa
A Landmark Case
Legal Strategies
Fractions
The Social Life
No Comment
Good News From Mo.
School Story
Sensible Phonics
Teaching
More On "No"
Starting a School
Parents' Rights
The World at Two (Cont.)
Scientists
A Self-Teacher
N.Y. Law
Politics Of Knowledge
An "Ignorant" Man
Finding Out
Credentials
On Learning
Useful Book
Textbooks
Tree Planters
A Record

Issue No. 8
New Records
A Good Invention
From Ky.
Unschoolers
A Needed Law
Sherlock's Triumph
Electricity
On "Infinity"
From Newark
A Shelter School
On "Religious Belief"
From Quebec
Learning a Language
On Understanding
Seatwork
Government Property
The Schools Confess
Smoking
Growing With Trees
Reply
The Work Ethic
Children and Play
Sports
A Homemade Fable
Pig In The Bed
Typing
A Case Lost
What Can We Learn?
A Case Won
The Ruling
Legal Procedures
Ask Your Library
A Teacher Writes
Learning Exchanges
Volunteers Needed
New Books On Our List
Old Favorite

Issue No. 9
Coming Lectures
Good News
Reminder
A Discovery
Child Artist
Scientists
Requiem
Smokescreen
Einstein's Questions
"Testing" Adults
On An Island
Reading Game
Money
GWS Local Chapters
Truth Leaks Out
Helpers
Why Schools Began
A Wonderful Book
Those Voices
Word Game
Grammar
Worms
Home-Builder Schools
College at Home
Schools and Jobs
Friendly Prof.
A Useful School
Summer Work
The Crowded Court
On Evaluation
A Place for Doing Things
Learning Disabilities
To an Editor
The Law Summed Up
Texas Law
Judge Greaney's Ruling
Let's Use It
School Or Club?
Home School Guides
Math By Discovery
Tidbit From Manas
A Private Reader
S. R. C. In Paperback
Many Thanks

Issue No. 10
Coming Lectures
Change In Group Subs
News From N.H.
And Providence, R.I.
In The Woods
Calvert News
Growing In Denmark
And In Canada
From A Mother
A Book Of Free Things
Books and Guns
Child Publishers
And Volunteers
Photos
They Don't Know
"Good Teaching"
Helping Learners
From The Northwest
A Book On Tests
Why She Left
A Father Writes
Looking At Babies
On N.H. Guidelines
Bad Scene
The Magic Gun
Book Bargains
New Books Here
Maps
Our Pentagon Paper

Issue No. 11
Coming Lectures
From a Working Mother
Success Story: Cape Cod
Unschooling Survey
An Unschooled Special Child
Typing Help Available
Writing a "Curriculum"
The "Social Life"
Success Story: Indiana
The Violin at Two
Auto Expert at Seven
...And a Computer Expert
Calvert Ad
A Good Idea
Ruling in Va.
Parents' School
Growing in Canada
Trying Out School
Games
Problem Solved
New Age Articles
Calvert Books Wanted
New Books Available Here

Issue No. 12
A Holiday Greeting
Coming Lectures
Local Groups
Good News From Wisc.
Writing First
Unschooled Children
NJ Center
Research
Home Study School
Helpful
News From Ill.
Letter to Schools
Ky. Ruling
News From Nc
A Troubled Unschooler
More on 'Equivalent'
Minimizing School
World of 'Weepuls'
Cops 'N Robbers
Reading Poetry
Learning to Type
Game Ideas
Teaching Chemistry
Science Resources
Ski Adventure
Capable
Exploring Work
News About Tests
And Test Info
Her Own Decision
Boot Camp
They Have a Choice
Tenn. Report
Unschooling in Holland
Success Story: Ark.
Legislative Approach
New Books Available Here
Index

About this title

About the Author

John Holt (1923-1985) is the influential author of How Children Fail, How Children Learn, and Learning All the Time. A lecturer, visiting professor of education at Harvard Univ. and Univ. of California, Berkeley, and amateur musician (his book Never Too Late describes how he learned the cello in his fifties), John Holt founded Growing Without Schooling in 1977 as a way to help parents and children learn together outside of the obstacles conventional schooling poses to them. His work continues today as Growing Without Schooling celebrates its 23rd year of publication, and homeschooling has grown to encompass more than one million children in the United States alone.

From the Back Cover

John Holt, the author of eleven books about schools and learning, including the bestsellers How Children Learn and How Children Fail, promoted the homeschooling movementwhich he originally called unschoolingwhen he published the first issue of GWS in August 1977. Here, for the first time under one cover, are the first twelve issues of GWS, fully indexed and organized to help you browse or research its vast archive of ideas about how adults and children can learn together in their homes and communities. These first issues are particularly important because they contain much writing by Holt about the how and why of unschooling that is not published anywhere else, as well as hundreds of firsthand accounts by unschoolings earliest practitioners that resonate with even more meaning today.

It is not what we teach children but how we treat them that determines what type of people they will become, Holt once told me. This is why unschooling is as much about social change as it is about school reform: unschooling is about creating or reclaiming places and events for adults and children of all ages to live and learn together. Certainly there may be places and times when one wants to learn in traditional school settings; unschooling isnt about denying access to school to anyone, but rather, about being able to choose to learn in a school when one needs, or wants, to do so. But children learning this way will choose to play all day and never do any serious learning, some will argue. The response to that criticism is spread throughout the pages of GWS, and crystallized in these first twelve issues.

From the Introduction by Patrick Farenga

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From GWS #9, May, 1979. Written by John Holt. We might add a little extra spice to this game by making some surprise sentences, in which we don't know until the last word whether the sentence is true or false. Thus: "Grandma's house is covered with spots," or "Our house is full of elephants," or "We are riding in a green boat," etc. And it might be fun to have the children contribute words to the sentences as we make them up.

What Follows Are Excerpts From The First Issue Of Growing Without Schooling. John Holt, editor.
Issue No. 1
August, 1977

GWS will come out whenever we have enough material to make an interesting issue. This may at first be only three or four times a year. Later, as more people read it and send in material, it may come out as often as six times a year.

GWS will not be much concerned with schools, even alternative or free schools, except as they may enable people to keep their children out of school by 1) calling their own home a school, or 2) enrolling their children, as some have already, in schools near or far which then approve a home study program. We will, however, be looking for ways in which people who want or need them can get school tickets, credits, certificates, degrees, diplomas, etc., without having to spend time in school. And we will be very interested, as the schools and schools of education do not seem to be, in the act and art of teaching, that is, all the ways in which people, of all ages, in or out of school, can more effectively share information, ideas, and skills.

On Social Change

In starting this newsletter, we are putting into practice a nickel and dime theory about social change, which is that important and lasting social change always comes slowly, and only when people change their lives, not just their political beliefs or parties. It is a process that takes place over a period of time. At one moment in history, with respect to a certain matter, 99% of a society think and act one way; 1% think and act very differently. Some time later, that 1% minority becomes 2%, then 5%, then 10, 20, 30, until someday it becomes the dominant majority, and the social change has taken place. Some may ask, "When did this social change take place?" or "When did it begin?" There is no answer to these questions, except perhaps to say that any social change begins the first time one person thinks of it.

A School Story

In his wonderful book How to Survive in Your Native Land (Bantam paperback available from GWS) James Herndon writes:

In September of 1967 I looked through the cumulative folders we were going to have in our class for the coming year, that is to say, the next Monday. I read what I already knew: the first grader with the testable high IQ, the remarked bright student, leader, reads at third-grade-level, headed for the big time; and the fourth grader with low-average capability, IQ 89, lazy kid, must-be-pushed-to-achieve, reads-at-second-grade-level, discipline problem, parents cooperative.

The first grader and the fourth grader are the same kid.

I read this once to a group of school administrators. I asked them if they had kids like that, and if so how many, in their schools or school systems. None of them knew. I asked if any of them had ever checked through their files to see whether they had some kids like that. None of them had.

Edition details

• Publisher: Holt Associates
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0913677108
• ISBN 13: 9780913677100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 262