Customer Reviews

Everywhere All the Time: A New Deschooling Reader

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If you are a parent, child, or progressive youth ally searching for holistic alternatives to the right-wing, bureaucratic, authoritarian school system, look no further, as this is simply one of the most inspiring and informative anthologies on the deschooling movement you will find. Not only does it include many thought-provoking essays by familiar activists and intellectuals like Emma Goldman, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Illich, Grace Llewellyn, and John Taylor Gatto, it also includes some brilliant writings by some lesser known deschooling activists, as well as some fascinating interviews with unschooled children themselves. While many of the perspectives are those of homeschoolers, there are also many writings by folks involved in establishing directly democratic, community-based, egalitarian educational cooperatives called free schools. I especially enjoyed the essay about the Purple Thistle Center, a DIY radical youth center in Canada organized by kids. A truly multicultural anthology, this book provides an international array of viewpoints from alternative-to-school experimenters in England, Israel, Turkey, Thailand, India, Mali, the United States, and Canada. As such, this is really a very beautiful and exciting book, one I would encourage everyone to read.

If you're interested in children's liberation, I'd also suggest reading these other excellent books as well:
The Modern School Movement by Paul Avrich,
My Mother Wears Combat Boots by Jessica Mills,
and The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn

this is an important resource for any parent or educator who wants to think outside-the-organized-education-box. it's not the end resource, but it points you in the direction of where you might want to research further. very very helpful. even if you don't plan on unschooling or homeschooling, these essays can provide intention around how you treat your child's education process at home.

Public education can be a wonderful thing, if it's done right . . . "Everywhere All the Time: A New Deschooling Reader" sets out to offer readers and parents alternatives to the traditional public education system and its problems. Scholarly dissecting modern education and what it does wrong, it does not leave any established alternative, such as private or home-schooling, completely untouched in its criticism. "Everywhere All the Time" is well worth reading for anyone who questions the value of modern education.