Resources

SUGGESTED READING

John Holt: Teach Your Own, How Children Learn, Escape From Childhood, Learning All The Time, A Life Worth Living, Instead of Education, Never Too Late, Freedom and Beyond
Thomas Armstrong: In Their own Way and The Myth of the A.D.D. Child
Polly Berien Berends: Whole Child, Whole Parent and Gently Lead
David and Micki Colfax: Homeschooling For Excellence and Hard Times In Paradise
Linda Dobson: The Art Of Education and The Homeschooling Book of Answers and more
Patrick Farenga:The Beginner’s Guide to Homeschooling and Teenage Homeschoolers: College or Not?
John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down and The Guerrilla Curriculum
Mary Griffith: The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom
Susan and Larry Kaseman: Taking Charge Through Homeschooling
Agnes Leistico: I Learn Better By Teaching Myself and Still Teaching Ourselves
Grace Llewellyn: The Teenage Liberation Handbook and Real Lives
Susannah Sheffer, Ed.: Everyone Is Able: Exploding The Myth Of Learning Disabilities
Matt Hern, Ed.: Deschooling Our Lives
Daniel Greenberg: Free At Last
David Guterson: Family Matters
Alfie Kohn: Punished By Rewards
Jean Liedloff: The Continuum Concept
Alison Stallibrass: The Self-respecting Child
Charles J. Sykes: Dumbing Down Our Kids
Nancy Wallace: Better Than School and Child’s Work
Cafi Cohen: Homeschoolers' College Admissions Handbook
Jan Hunt: The Natural Child, Parenting from the Heart
Luz Shosie and Ned Vare: Smarting Us Up, the undumbing of America
Laura Grace Weldon: Free Range Learning


NEWSLETTERS

Home Education Magazine - PO Box 1083, Tonasket WA 98855 1-800-236-3278 http://www.homeedmag.com
Unschooling.com -- Free online newsletter http://www.unschooling.com
Life Learning: the international magazine of self-directed learning PO Box 112, Niagara Falls NY 14304-0112 1-800-215-9574 www.lifelearningmagazine.com


CATALOGS

*Home Education Press PO Box 1083, Tonasket WA 98855 1-800-236-3278 http://www.homeedmag.com
*John Holt’s Book Store/FUN Books, 1688 Belhaven Woods Ct. Pasadena, MD 21122-3727
*These free catalogs also include lists of resources, support groups, helpful organizations, and answers to frequently asked questions. Very helpful. Support them if you can.
http://www.amightygirl.com    hundreds of books, etc. featuring strong women and girls


ORGANIZATIONS AND RESOURCES

National Home Education Legal Defense: Attorney Deborah Stevenson (860)354-3590 http://nheld.com/
Ct Homeschool Network info@cthomeschoolnetwork.org
Eli Whitney Museum: 915 Whitney Av. Hamden CT 06517 203-777-1833
National Home Education Network PO Box 41067, Long Beach, CA 90853 http://www.nhen.org
WPKN Radio: 89.5 FM, 244 University Av. Bridgeport CT 06601 203-576-4895 http://www.wpkn.org
The Alliance for the Separation of School and State: 1071 N Fulton St,
Fresno, CA 93728 559/499-1776 voice www.schoolandstate.org


ON THE INTERNET

Ned’s blog: http://school-is-hell.blogspot.com/
Legal information: www.nheld.com
CT Homeschool Network http://www.cthomeschoolnetwork.org
CT Shoreline Homeschoolers www.shorelinehomeschoolers.org
Discussion and support for unschoolers in MA, VT, NH, ME, RI and CT http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewEnglandUnschooling/
CT Homeschoolers Inclusive has an email list with announcements & activities:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CTHomeschoolersInclusive/
CT homeschoolers discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CTHomeEducators/
Unschooling: http://www.unschooling.com

Unschooling CT Facebook page

http://www.livingjoyfully
www.sandradodd.com/unschooling

http://northeastunschoolingconference.com/

 Ned Vare: The School Wars, a series of columns in our local newspaper: http://homepage.mac.com/luzshosie22/TheSchoolWars/Menu4.html
I Am What I Am, Anne Ohman http://www.livingjoyfully.ca/anneo/anne_o.htm
Greater New Haven Homeschoolers: Subscribe: GNHH-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
finding local and state groups: http://www.homeedmag.com/wlcm_groups.html
Parenting from the heart: http://www.naturalchild.org
John Holt: www.holtgws.com
Nedvarecelebration.blogspot.com
 Khan Academy. http://www.khanacademy.org/   over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history.   free   
http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/
Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.     http://oyc.yale.edu/

get lucky!

What is Unschooling?

Unschooling is trusting the learner to be in charge of his or her own learning. It is not a method of instruction we use on our children, but a process we adults go through to unlearn the lessons and undo the effects of our years of schooling.


Schooling taught us that learning only happens in a certain place and time, under the direction and/or force of a teacher, expert, or other authority.


Unschooling ourselves restores our child-like curiosity. It encourages us to trust that we are all learning all the time and that we are the experts when it comes to choosing what, when, how, where, how much and with whom we learn.


Schooling taught us that our interests were unimportant, disruptive, a waste of time, just play, not “the real world.”


Unschooling frees us to follow our interests wherever they lead. As John Holt said in Instead of Education: “We learn something from everything we do, and everything that happens to us or is done to us.... It is the quality of our experiences, the satisfaction, excitement, or joy that we get or fail to get from them, that will determine how those experiences change us--in short, what we learn.... (O)ur most rapid, efficient, far-reaching, useful, and permanent learning comes from our doing things that we ourselves have decided to do, and ... in doing such things we often need very little help or none at all.”


Schooling taught us that experts know when everyone should learn to read, write, do arithmetic. If we didn't fit into their schedule, the experts labeled us slow or dyslexic, ADD, ODD, ADHD, defiant or learning disabled.


Unschooling reassures us that we all learn and grow in our own way, at our own pace, and there is no hurry, no getting behind. At the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, no one is ever told to stop what they're doing and learn to read, do math (or anything else), yet all the students learn to read, write and calculate. Some ask for help, some teach themselves in mysterious ways. Some start to read when they are four, some when they're twelve, but by the time they're sixteen, nobody can tell who learned “early” and who learned “late.”


Schooling taught us that learning means sitting still, being quiet, obeying the rules no matter how stupid or harmful or unfair they are. And if we couldn't or wouldn't sit still we were “motivated,” coaxed, bribed, coerced, punished, shamed, even drugged into submission.


Unschooling allows coloring outside the lines. Learning is active, passionate, sometimes sociable, noisy and messy, sometimes lonely, silent and invisible. Learning happens all the time -- even while we're sleeping. All living beings want, need, and love to learn! It's almost impossible to stop learning, but we can slow it down by coaxing, bribing, coercion, punishment, etc.


Schooling prevented us from being responsible for our own living and learning, forced us to depend on experts, authorities, rules and regulations to make us do the right thing. This is a tough one to unlearn because nobody ever says it in so many words -- it is simply the underlying assumption of the schooling business.


Unschooling respects and honors our intelligence and our virtue. We were all born with the desire and the ability to learn what we need to know in order to be contributing members of our family and our society. Unschooling is unleashing, unfurling, unbinding our innate ability to choose for ourselves the ideas and activities that foster lifelong learning and growth.


John Taylor Gatto, New York City and State Teacher of the Year, said, “I don't think the world can afford well-schooled children anymore, whether they come from the factories of government, of church, or of private industry. We need a different kind of man and woman to tackle the future, the kind of young people who accept the obligations of living joyfully and with responsibility.”


Because most of us were so well schooled, we sometimes need a little help from our friends to unschool ourselves. Unschoolers Unlimited publishes an occasional email newsletter and mailing list so we can stay in touch and encourage each other. We send out a free information packet by email. Send to:nedvare@ntplx.net. We hold informal family gatherings so we can get together to play, socialize, share ideas, information, inspiration and good food. We hope you'll join us.