Growing Without Schooling

After working to change schools from within—testifying before Congress and addressing audiences around the world about how to make schools better places for children—John Holt founded Growing Without Schooling (GWS) magazine. GWS was published from 1977 to 2001 and is the first magazine devoted to homeschooling and self-directed education. Each issue is a lively exchange among readers and Holt, packed with useful advice, resource recommendations, and all sorts of legal, pedagogical, and parenting ideas from people who pioneered what we now call homeschooling. Volume 3 covers a period when homeschooling was getting more local, national, and international media attention and the growth of the movement comes alive in these pages. Holt's long essay in GWS 32, "Our Legal Situation," addresses this growth and offers surprising advice to those who want to overturn compulsory school laws—don't do it. Parents correspond about letting their homeschooled children try school, other parents write in about a museum run by kids, self-taught musicians, and famous unschoolers, to name a few of the many evergreen topics printed in GWS. John Holt (1923–1985) is the author of How Children Learn and How Children Fail (which have been in print for over 50 years, and together have sold over a million and a half copies) and eight other books about children and learning. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. Once a leading figure in school reform, John Holt became increasingly interested in how children learn outside of school. The magazine he founded, Growing Without Schooling, reflects his education philosophy, which he called unschooling.