Teenage Liberation Handbook
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (ISBN 0-9629591-7-0 ) by Grace Llewellyn
From Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teenage_Liberation_Handbook
Description
'a book about unschooling. Inspired by John Holt's educational views, among others, the book encourages teenagers to leave full-time school and let their curiosity guide their learning. It includes suggestions and resources regarding traditional academic areas, as well as chapters about talking to parents, social life, college, and exploring the world.
Llewellyn, a former teacher now disillusioned with the education system, also discusses the many reasons why schools are not providing a positive learning environment, why the methods employed are not effective and why many young people are miserable there for much of the time. She provides a guide to living ones life in a way where we simply "absorb information from the world around us" rather than spending over 12 years in an institution learning from a distance." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teenage_Liberation_Handbook)
Commentary
From an author interview at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_5_33/ai_78575528
"Q: How does school damage kids?
A: People learn passivity. People are controlled and become accustomed to control. So it constricts people into not thinking for themselves, not making choices for themselves, and not imagining very large possibilities for themselves and for the world.
Q: How effectively can you work within the school system?
A: I think the system is harmful. It's a bad system. For a lot of people, the ideal situation is just to get out. But my views have shifted in the last 10 years. I see people as more powerful than I did then.
Q: So you don't see schools as quite as powerful?
A: I still see them as powerful and as causing a lot of harm. But I think the more aware [students] are of how the system operates, the more power they have to be the people they want to be. And if parents support their kids, that offsets a lot of the damage. For too many kids, school is telling them how they should behave and telling them that if they don't do well in school, then they're nothing.
Q: Are parents often indifferent to their children's education? Or do they trust that school will take care of everything?
A: In my experience, there really aren't many indifferent parents. There are a lot of parents who are tired or have really busy lives. In general, they are intimidated by the system and the only thing they know to do is to say, "Johnny, do your homework!" Or, "Danny, make sure you're getting good grades!" They feel that is the best parenting they know how to do. I often get letters from parents who say, "I know [the handbook] was written for teenagers, but after reading it I realized that I'd been living my whole adult life as if I was still terrified of my math teacher."
Q: Are there public policy changes that need to happen before unschooling can really take off?
A: We could do with a lot less emphasis on testing, and on a larger scale, I would stop making schools compulsory."
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_5_33/ai_78575528)