Customer Reviews

Homeschool: An American History

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Well-written, the research in this book is great, and the incorporation of what I would call anecdotal historic trivia makes the book wonderfully approachable and applicable and accessible. The book is laid-out well and focused, and is a really fast read, which is an impressive feat when you're tackling such a potentially dry subject. The author, as noted, is a professor, and, if he teaches anything like he writes, his students are mighty fortunate.

My only complaint would have to be the cover. It belies the author's witty, congenial and accessible writing style.

This book was so much more than just the history of Homeschooling, to me it seemed to also be a great history of the American family as well. It's amazing how the American family, and educational system has changed so radically. I have a new understanding of how family worked at the beginning of our nation. This book also gives the reader a new understanding of the different thoughts and reasons for homeschooling in our current times. Not only did I glean a new understanding of the homeschooling world and it's history, the writing was extremely well thought out, well planned, easily understood,and poignant for a time when the face of homeschooling is on the verge of changing yet again.

So many books about homeschooling are filled with nothing but opinion or beliefs, it's been hard for me to find a book that takes a scholarly look at homeschooling with out showing a clear bias, Milton Gaither has done this and done this well. I would recommend this book to not only homeschoolers but also those that are in the business of education as well!

Homeschool: An American History may be the single most extensively researched and accessibly written resource of its kind on the market. Milton Gaither has done all the leg work for his readers in this thoughtful, subtly witty book, outlining with grace the nuanced developments within the "homeschooling movement" over several centuries of American educational experiments. I know of no other book supplying such an even-handed and objective treatment of a stream within education so often either demonized or deified.

You will find Gaither's writing engaging and streamlined, enriching his subject matter: a far cry from generic textbook style prose. This superb volume will be of indispensable use to those interested in the modern homeschooling movement, in American history, in educational theory and practice, or even in religion's influence within the political sphere. Petition your local library to carry a copy if you can't get it any other way!

I expected this to be just another rah-rah for homeschooling, and in a sense it is because its conclusions are very positive. But it comes to those conclusions using scholarly logic and interesting research, covering education from centuries ago up to the present. Although I am an active leader in homeschooling there was much that I didn't know until now. At times it was as pleasurable as a drilling at the dentist's office because I felt he was being "too fair"! Which is a compliment to Professor Gaither. If you want to broaden your perspective, as well as your knowledge, this book is for you.

The book is factual in content and engaging in style. As a veteran of 25 years of homeschooling, I would suggest it be read by all homeschooling families in order to gain perspective of the movement.