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Research and Support for Different Ways of Learning and Teaching
(This material is from Pat Farenga's blog and seminars. Some older homeschooling research is located on the 1991 Homeschooling Research page.)
Unschooling/homeschooling is a great way to help children learn, but not everyone can, should, or wants to homeschool. However, it is pretty obvious that universal compulsory schooling inhibits different approaches to learning, limits teaching methods, and increases costs through ever-increasing demands for credentials and higher grades. For educationists, it appears the ultimate goal is to put us all in school and test us from womb to tomb, placing us in a society where test scores decide our roles. Here are research and alternatives from around the world to this scenario. As always, I welcome your suggestions for additions to this list. —PF
Research Specifically About Unschooled Children
• The Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning published by the Schulich School of Education, Graduate Studies, Nipissing University, Ontario, Canada.
• Thomas, Alan and Harriet Pattison. How Children Learn at Home. (Continuum Books, 2007) Buy now
In particular, How Children Learn at Home studies how being a child who learns to read at an older age than in school is not a problem, and confirms other research and observations about children who learn on different schedules than in school (see for instance, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Better Late Than Early Buy now
• Another book by Dr. Alan Thomas, Educating Children at Home (Continuum, 2005) Buy now
• Unschooling Media: Participatory Practices among Progressive Homeschoolers by Vanessa Bertozzi.
First-Hand Accounts of College Admissions for Unschoolers:
• Mickey and David Colfax Keynote at the GWS 20th Anniversary Conference.
The keynote is about how children learn through work, but the Colfax's speak about college admissions for unschoolers, too.
• Grown Homeschoolers Panels, 1997 (video).
• Grown Homeschoolers Panel 2005 (audio only).
This panel was moderated by Sara-Beth Matilsky (25), a grown homeschooler who did not go to college and "did other things that homeschooling made possible."
Homeschoolers and College Admissions
• Teenage Homeschoolers: College or Not?
Self-Directed Learning Outcomes
• Superintendent Louis Benezet’s math experiment. He abolished math studies from the seventh grade down and had the children read, recite, and reason instead. When they learned math, they did very well.
• The 8-Year Study by Wilford Aiken. A high-quality, long-term study of the effects that attending an alternative high school had upon college success. Shows there are many paths for college success.
• Studies of adults who were homeschooled have been done by J. Gary Knowles, Brian Ray, and Julie Webb.
• Studies of the graduates of alternative schools:
Summerhill School (UK)
Sudbury Valley School (US)
Jefferson County Open School (US)
Authors
Thomas Armstrong
Armstrong details the importance of allowing children time and space to play and figure things out in their own ways. He also describes how to use multiple intelligences in everyday practice, both at home and in school, and why we need to be extremely careful about labelling learning difficulties in exuberant children with the slippery concept of "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). His most recent work is Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences. Buy now
John Taylor Gatto
Gatto, an award-winning New York City public school teacher, is highly skeptical of academia's claim that only education can level the playing field for the poor and others to participate in the fruits of our democratic republic. Gatto, citing lots of history and personal experience, has decided our schools are intentionally dumbing us down to accept whatever the captains of capitalism want to get from conventional schools. Gatto's writing will, at the least, make you rethink why school is, for so many people, an empty ritual. You can watch and listen to John's speech, Weapons of Mass Instruction, in its entirety to learn more about him and his work.
Gray is a retired research professor of psychology at Boston College who currently write for Psychology Today. He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology; published articles on innovative teaching methods and alternative approaches to education. His current research and writing focuses primarily on children's natural ways of learning and the life-long value of play.
Alfie Kohn
One of the best researchers and writers about how schools and parents can change their standard responses to helping children learn.
Some books about teachers and schools that learn without fixed curriculum
• Making It Up As We Go Along, Chris Mercogliano Buy now
• Free At Last, Dan Greenberg Buy now
• The Way it Spozed To Be, Jim Herndon Buy now
• The Open Classroom, Herb Kohl Buy now
• The Lives of Children, George Dennison Buy now
• Totto Chan: The Little Girl in the Window, Tetsuko Kutoyanagi Buy now
• A Different Kind of Teacher, John Taylor Gatto Buy now
• Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto Buy now
• We Have To Call It School. A documentary film about Danish schools.
• Organic Education: Teaching without Failure, Marietta Johnson Buy now
Organizations that support self-directed learning
United Kingdom
Personalized Education Now
A publication and website by Roland and Janet Meighan, my favorite education heretics.
Education Heretics
A great source of publications and research that challenges the stale conventional wisdom that we are getting dumber and the world is getting more complicated, so we all need to be in school for as long as we can pay for it.
Informal Education
Devoted to the study of informal learning for adults and recent school graduates. One article specifically addresses homeschooling.
India
Shikshantar
Creating learning societies, rebuilding communities, deschooling/unschooling in India. Some fascinating educational activism. Inspiring work.
The United States of America
AERO
The Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 to advance learner-centered approaches to education.
IDEA
Institute for Democratic Education in America wants to ensure that all young people can engage meaningfully with their education and gain the tools to build a just, democratic, and sustainable world.
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