Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book Of Homeschooling [Paperback]

John Holt (Author), Pat Farenga (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 15, 2003

Today more than one and a half million children are being taught at home by their own parents. In this expanded edition of the book that helped launch the whole movement, Pat Farenga has distilled John Holt's timeless understanding of the ways children come to understand the world and added up-to-the-moment practical advice. Rather than proposing that parents turn their homes into miniature schools, Holt and Farenga demonstrate how ordinary parents can help children grow as social, active learners. Chapters on living with children, "serious play," children and work, and learning difficulties will be of interest to all parents, whether home schooling or not, as well as to teachers. This new edition is supplemented with financial and legal advice as well as a guide to cooperating with schools and facing the common objections to home schooling.Teach Your Own not only has all the vital information necessary to be the bible for parents teaching their own children, it also conveys John Holt's wise and passionate belief in every child's ability to learn from the world that has made his wonderful books into enduring classics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An expansion and revision of the homeschoolers' bible, written by the late, outspoken Massachusetts education reformer John Holt." -- Boston Globe Magazine 03/21/04

"For many parents this book is an indispensable handbook for educating their children at home." -- Austin Family July, 2003

"[An] enduring homeschooling classic...A landmark work...This book is indispensable." -- Home Schooling Today December 2003

About the Author

John Holt (1927-1985), one of this country’s leading educational and social critics, was the author of ten influential books which have been translated into fourteen languages. Known both as a passionate reformer and as ”the gentle voice of reason” (Life magazine), John Holt offers insights into the nature of learning that are more relevant today than ever before. Pat Farenga, writer and president of Holt Associates, lectures all over the country and is the father of three home-schooled daughters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738206946
• ISBN-13: 978-0738206943
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

147 of 151 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How People Learn March 17, 2004

By Artist

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Do you remember what they taught you at school? Me neither. I learned to read very early on, mostly at home, and I still remember some math, but only because I balance my checkbook and know when I'm getting correct change at the market. All those years, isolated from the real world in the artificial environment of school, sitting at a desk all day with 30 of my same age peers, how was I to learn about what an actual life in the world is like, or about what I wanted to do with mine? I remember learning to take tests. Now I never take them. A lot of it was pleasant enough, some of it was not, most of it was boring, and somehow I never noticed that I was mostly wasting my time.

Now I know better having read John Holt, a sweet, caring man and a wonderful writer. He's radical, but he never rants. He persuades, gently, eloquently. He learns through years of careful, loving observation and by trial and error and he shares that with you in a way that makes it seem as though he's one of your oldest, most comfortable friends. He reminds you of what you went through in school. He makes sense. He's fun to read. And you know he's right as you read him, because we have all gone to school.

110 of 115 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A treatise from the "granddaddy" of homeschooling May 28, 2000

By MFS

Format:Paperback

In this unofficial treatise for the homeschooling movement, John Holt, longtime private school teacher, maintains that the traditional classroom model no longer works and may, in fact, ruin kids for learning. He exhorts parents to challenge the conventional wisdom and be their children's teachers. You don't need to be a homeschooler to benefit from Holt's books; you simply need to care about children and education and to have uttered, if only once, "There's got to be a better way."

97 of 102 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Disapointing April 10, 2009

By C. kendall

Format:Paperback

This is an totally new version of a classic book. Instead of the classic work of Holt, much of it is a 'commentary' by the new author.

I didn't like the 'new' version. I bought this to learn from Holt, not read someone's 'commentary." I grew frustrated that instead of letting me read what Holt wrote, there was a ton of the new author stating "Holt said in Teach your own...."

Also, I didn't like that Farenga cut out big chunks of the book. ie he decided that we didn't 'need' to know about the histories of court rulings, and in one instance took the parent testimonials that Holt had used in one section the original book and added 'more modern
testimonials."

I got so frustrated that I bought a used copy of the original from Amazon. I got it yesterday and have read almost all of it. The original is really great.

The 'new' version reads as if was written by someone who really doesn't like unschooling.

I would recomend the 'classic' version!