Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection: Volume 3 PDF
Preview Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection: Volume 3
Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection Vol. 3, 1982 to 1984 John C. Holt, editor and founder Series Edited by Patrick Farenga and Carlo Ricci Growing Without Schooling: The Complete Collection Vol. 3, 1982 to 1984 John C. Holt, editor (1977 to 1985) and founder Series edited by Patrick Farenga and Carlo Ricci Printed in the United States of America HoltGWS LLC, 13 Hume Avenue, Medford, MA 02155 Cover design by Stephen Tedesco Book layout and design by Patrick Farenga Copyright © 2019 HoltGWS LLC All rights reserved. ISBN-13: 978-1-7321885-2-5 Acknowledgments This collection—just like the original issues of GWS—would not be possible without the volunteer efforts of many people. The following people helped scan, retype, edit, and layout each of the 141 issues of GWS; we are very grateful for your help and diligence to see this massive project (over 6,000 pages!) to completion. Hafidha Acuay Tane Akamatsu C. Tane Akamatsu Qubsa Ali Amy Andrews Ellen Behm Christine Behnen Anne Bolger Joey Breiannis Courtney Anne Brewer Jeff Brinson Sarah Brooks Shannon Butler Jeff Cappleman Amanda Carvalho Jess Clausen Michelle Cloutier Jason Corcoran Oliver & Teresa Costes Jesse Cull Malcolm Dow Angie Drake Emma Draper Nate Dvorak Amy Edwards Meghan Edwards Sheila Etches Dawn Evans Nada Fakhro Michelle Feather Aaron Fewkes Donna Garstin Maddie Gillespie Emily Gonyer Harman Singh Goraya Elaine Greenwood Sandra Gurton Tracy Hall Cindy Harasen Brooke Haugh Renée Herbert Amanda Hewitt Adrian Hill Dagmar Hoffmeier Emma Howitt Viola Huang Greg Huneault Chris Hunt Laura Johnson Kirsten Jork Deborah Joyce Janine Kam-Lal Juliet Kemp Barbara Klapperich Senn Heidi Klein Dr. Marianne Kuzujanakis Friedmund Labmann Oleg Legusov Rob Lennox Jane Levicki Karen MacKay Natasha Mansouri Gabrielle Martell Tara McGoey Amy Milstein Kristan Morrison Kristiina Myllymäki Kathyann Natkie Karugia Ndirangu Katherine Norman Jean Nunnally Jessica Nurmsoo Deb O’Rourke Mercedes Oli Dana Pelletier Krista Tucker Petrick Hussam Qasem Stephanie Quigley Colleen Raja Marian S. Remple Rocco Ricci Gina Riley, Ph.D Babette Rossj Pabloi Sepulveda Rosso Aleksandra Serebrenik Thérèse Shere Francesca Silvester Melissa Silvestri Tatiana Yvette Smith Robin Stevens Nina Sutcliffe Kathryn Szrodecki Dr. Gudrun Taresch Dagmar Tatomir Jennifer G. Taus Stephen Tedesco Karen Thiel Tosh Tipler Tracey Verney Chun Wah Chiu Anna Maria Wesener Introduction By Patrick Farenga When I first arrived at Growing Without Schooling (GWS) magazine in 1981 I thought it would be a steppingstone for me to another job in the magazine industry; instead, it became a focus of my life’s work. Being around people who not only criticized school methods but actually took action to help their children learn and grow in ways that schools will not or cannot proved exciting to me. From kindergarten to college, every educational precept was challenged and alternatives presented and I eventually realized that John Holt was creating something new and different in the world of education that I wanted to be part of. Unlike most schools and corporations, John did not want or encourage slavish devotion to an institutional mission as the primary purpose of one’s life. John encouraged everyone, including me, to focus on our interests and concerns that engaged us, no matter how big or small, rather than to always put our own development aside in favor of proving to school officials that we can focus on their interests and concerns. In formatting and editing these issues for digital readers I realized what an incredible individual and group effort GWS was and still is. John Holt almost single-handedly wrote many of the first ten issues and much of his thinking generated some incredibly thoughtful and brave responses. I say “brave” because simply saying you were homeschooling in those days often led to severe personal and public criticism or a court appearance, as you can readily read in this volume. You can see a grassroots movement developing its reach, finding allies and resources, defending its right to exist in the face of bigger, more organized, and well-funded opposition, and celebrating the unique power to learn and grow that is in each of us. A note about GWS issue dates and style: John Holt didn’t want to date the issues of GWS because he felt they contained much timeless material about children and learning, so he decided that a simple number system—GWS 1, GWS 2, etc.—was more useful. When we reached a certain number of subscribers the postal service required us to print the date of publication in each issue, so starting with GWS 31 there are accurate publication dates. But we can only guess at the dates of some of the early issues based on the references we see and the fact that Holt only published when he had enough material, not because it was a certain date. It wasn’t until associate editor Donna Richoux came on board (see GWS 11) that GWS maintained a steady bimonthly publishing schedule. While we wanted to make this volume as easy to read as possible by using standard spelling conventions, the abbreviations and other shorthand John and readers used to write and comment in the issues is preserved. We feel it helps give you a sense of all the activity and new ideas Holt and others were sharing in those days. The GWS Directory, where people listed their contact info and the ages of their children, is not reproduced in these volumes, but you can see from the many references it receives in the issues that networking was an important function of GWS. I had a lot of misgivings about doing this project at first. Accurately collecting, editing, and formatting the more than six thousand pages of the original, single-spaced GWS articles is an enormous undertaking that I long avoided due to the amount of time and effort it required not just by me, but by anyone who joined. I am grateful that Carlo is persistent and over the course of several conversations he showed me that volunteers, good will, and using some of the graduate students at the school where he teaches, Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, were good, low-tech ways to tame the thousands of pages printed during GWS’ 24 years. The manual labor involved was enormous—every issue was essentially retyped—and I am grateful to every typist and proofreader who helped us create this collection. This is the first of many volumes of Growing Without Schooling; I look forward to sharing them all and hearing back about what you think about parents and children directing their own learning without conventional schooling. Homeschooling has grown tremendously since Holt published GWS 1 in August 1977; Holt estimated there might have been perhaps 25,000 children being homeschooled in the late 1970s; there are now nearly 2 million children being taught outside of school and in their local communities by their parents. How did this wild growth happen? The answer is right in your hands. —Patrick Farenga By Carlo Ricci First, I need to thank all of the volunteers, which includes technical experts who created solutions for us, since they all helped make this enormous project possible. Although, republishing all of the issues of Growing Without Schooling seems simple enough, the task required thousands and thousands of human hours and some ingenious technical mastery. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that a lot of the work was tedious, time consuming, and took a whole team of us (including over 100 volunteers) over 5 years, so far, to get to where we are today. For many of us GWS remains one of the most inspirational and important windows into unschooling, self-determination, and willed learning. The insights gleaned by reading GWS are seminal. Years after it was last published, the legend of GWS remains ubiquitous. I believe that GWS is still the turning point for many. For this reason, I hoped that reprinting the issues in volumes to make it accessible would be a great service. So in 2011, I emailed Pat Farenga to ask if he is interested in republishing GWS. Of course, he was. However, he warned me that they tried to do this before, and after putting out one volume containing 12 of the 141 issues, they realized that the task was enormous and required too many people hours to complete. With the good fortune and hope in newer technology to assist us, we decided to move forward. Initially, Pat, Stephen Tedesco (without his technical expertise, I am not sure if we could have pulled this off. Early into the project Stephen had to leave and we were sad to see him go), and I thought we would tackle this project. It quickly became clear that if it was left to the three of us, this project could not be completed. The hours required to do what needed to be done were far too many for three people, no matter how committed, to complete. In short, the first step required that we either retype every single issue, or that we follow Stephen’s technical solution which converted a hard copy of the document into a digital document so that we could manipulate the text. We decided to follow Stephen’s solution. Regardless, because of the format of the original issues, converting the issues into a digital document was still very time-consuming, and required heavy proofreading and editing, since the conversion resulted in an error-filled
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