Take the fly out of my soup,
Shake the scorpion from my boots,
And get the government out of our schools!
 Separation of School and State

Are we becoming a nation of cannibals?
So you might conclude if you follow the link from Social Customs

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Copyright © 1996-98
LUDUS SANAE MENTIS

 
LIBERTARIAN UNSCHOOLING
http://ancienthistory.miningco.com

Major Unschooling Writers

JOHN HOLT

(1923-1985)
  • One of the founders of the modern homeschooling movement in the US.
  • Founder of Growing Without Schooling newsletter
  • Author of ten books:
    • How Children Learn
    • How Children Fail
    • The Underachieving School
    • What Do I Do Monday?
    • Freedom and Beyond
    • Escape from Childhood
    • Instead of Education
    • Learning All the Time
    • Never Too Late
    • Teach Your Own

John Holt originally referred to homeschooling as "unschooling."

Excerpts from John Holt's Writings

IT IS, IN FACT, NOTHING short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.
--Albert Einstein

GRACE LLEWELLYN

Author of Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go To School


My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.
--George Bernard Shaw
Teenage Liberation Handbook

Grace Llewellyn suggests ways for teens to "get a life" and in the process learn what they need--not by schooling in the home--but by unschooling.

Practical advice for parents, although the book is explicitly not for them.

Criteria for a Proper School, by GEM

  1. Children Will Not Be Allowed To Start School Until They Are At Least Nine Years Old.
  2. Children Will Not Be Subjected To More Than Two To Three Hours Of Formal Instruction Every Day.
  3. Classes Will Be Limited To Five Students Or Less.
  4. All Classes Will Be Geared To The Needs Of The Individual Child, Not To The Convenience Of The Teacher.
  5. No Subject Will Be Taught Out Of Context. All Subjects Must Have A Direct Bearing On A Child's Life, And Be Directly Related To Reality.
  6. Children Will Not Be Graded.
  7. Children Will Attend School For Three To Five Years. They Will Then Go Out Into The World And Pursue A Field Of Interest.
  8. Schools Will Be An Integral, Interconnected Part Of Community Life.
  9. Children Will Be Educated In Hardware Stores, Hospitals, Police Stations, Churches, Etc.
For more of the Gentle Wind School's philosophy

From State Education Fails The Test

by William Trench

In his excellent article, How you can profit from the school hoax, (World Market Perspective, Nov.'87), Richard J. Maybury lists the six characteristics that an "illiteracy mill" would have to have. I summarize them as follows:
  1. Curiosity is spontaneous and must be suppressed. Prohibit spontaneity and regiment learning so that children are taught things when the system decides, not when they want to learn them.
  2. Remove children from the adult world so that they are deprived of role models, and cannot learn by copying adults.
  3. Enact child labour laws so that anyone trying to escape from the illiteracy mill has nowhere else to go. No apprenticeship system means they won't be able to learn a trade by copying adults.
  4. Force children by law to attend, thereby making learning a job, a chore, an obligation; definitely not fun. Supplant curiosity by drudgery. Prison dulls the mind.
  5. Coercing the children also helps wipe out the teacher's desire to teach. It creates massive problems of motivation and discipline. Teachers commonly quit after a few years of attempting to combine the roles of entertainer and enforcer in an effort to get something done.
  6. Last but not least, everyone should be forced to pay for the mill no matter what their mill does to children's minds. And there are no refunds. If a child comes out of the system with his brain turned to mush, the parents should still be forced to pay, every year for the rest of their lives.
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