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Categories
Schools, co-ops, resource centers, and social programs that bring people together with the intention of supporting SDE.
Organizations and groups that advocate SDE and support SDE practitioners, facilitators, and/or community organizers.
Online and in-person events that promote, or are likely of interest to, SDE practitioners.
Recommended books, videos, websites, blogs, podcasts, research, news, and other SDE information sources.
Service providers who have SDE-related knowledge and/or who serve with respect for the needs and values of those engaged in SDE.
Resources to support SDE-aligned collective liberation and anti-oppression.
Opportunities for work that support families practicing SDE.
Resources for which no other category is applicable.
Information & Media
Recommended books, videos, websites, blogs, podcasts, research, news, and other SDE information sources.
Non-Fiction Books
Books about SDE, in theory and in practice.
Naomi Fisher
‘If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system – think again’
Bryn Purdy
Bryn Purdy, who visited and was invited to work at Summerhill in the ’60s, presents, analyzes, and provides counterpoints on the canon of Neillian beliefs: child empowerment, child democracy, sexual ethics, religion, and the relevance of learning.
Chris Shute
This book takes the work of Alice Miller a step further and discusses how her beliefs about parenting techniques can also be projected upon the work of teachers and other professionals working with children and young people.
Fiona Carnie
Among the multiple alternatives presented in this work, specific chapters are dedicated to democratic and free schools such as Summerhill and Sands in the UK, and a basic framework for starting your own small school.
Nina Bascia, Esther Sokolov Fine, Malcolm Levin
This work documents the progress of alternative schooling in Canada’s public school system, with chapters focused specifically on Self-Directed democratic schools.
Francisco Ferrer • Edited by Mark Bray and Robert H. Haworth
Part martyr, part visionary, Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School Movement he created have continued to preoccupy educational reformers and political activists despite or because of Ferrer’s execution by a repressive Spanish government in 1909.
Edited by Robert H. Haworth
Important and challenging issues in the area of anarchism and education are presented in this history of egalitarian and free-school practices.
Liza Kleinman & Brook Gideon
In this fresh and funny middle-reader novel, the author deftly explores, with poise and insight, the growing unschooling movement as well as the challenges of moving to a new home, making friends, and finding room for differences within a family.
Alfie Kohn
This book challenges the widely accepted premises that the teacher must be in control of the classroom & that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the adult’s expectation – and with that, the very idea of classroom management.
Jan Fortune-Wood
Bound to be Free explores the myth that compulsory education is free education, arguing that in fact institutionalized education is detrimental to our freedom and autonomy, whether as children, parents or members of society.
Mike Fortune-Wood
The current trend to medicalize or demonize children who refuse to go to school will only add to society’s problems as well as damaging the individual. Far from leading to disaster, removing children from school can become a life-enhancing decision.
Naomi Fisher
Naomi Fisher looks at the research, theory and practice of self-directed education and shows what education can look like when it’s nothing like school.
Roland Meighan
The good, the bad, the ugly and the counter-productive, and why home-based educating families have found one fit for a democracy.
Paul Goodman
A 1964 precursor to Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society, addressing in separate chapters the problems of primary, secondary, and college-level education, as well as the educational establishment’s detrimental effect on society.
Chris Shute
This book demonstrates how compulsory schooling, with its apparatus of imposed discipline and control, is dangerous to the mental health and social development of children, and is in fact the cause of many social problems which it claims to cure.
Edited by Ron Miller
Bringing together real-world information & innovative theoretical thinking on the present & future state of education, from homeschooling & distance learning to autodidactics & learning clubs, a world of true learning communities is envisioned here.
Ivan Illich
Schools have failed our individual needs, supporting false and misleading notions of ‘progress’ and development, fostered by the belief that ever-increasing production, consumption and profit are proper yardsticks for measuring.
Jan Fortune-Wood
An overview of the philosophies of autonomous learning, questioning the prevailing mythology of essential, age-related, ‘balanced’ education and the relevance of school models of compulsory, age-related socialization.
Cole Summers
A book about his journey through entrepreneurial unschooling that led him through an early path of conquering devastating setbacks on the way to his accomplishments.
John Taylor Gatto
Thirty years in New York City’s public schools led John Taylor Gatto to the sad conclusion that compulsory schooling does little but teach young people to follow orders like cogs in an industrial machine.
Chris Shute
A pertinent book about Edmond Holmes, who supervised the first National Curriculum over 100 years ago. On his retirement he wrote a damning critique where he criticized his own work for the last 30 years, condemning how the NC had debased teaching.
Ellen Rowland
As the debate continues on how to improve our failed education system, the author delves into what it’s like to live, learn, and parent without it.
Edited by Matt Hern
A collection of deschooling pieces, with contributors Ivan Illich, Emma Goldman, John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Grace Llewellyn, Leo Tolstoy, Vinoba Bhave, Gustava Esteva, Madhu Prakash, David Guterson, Zoë Readhead, Pat Farenga and many more.
Matt Hern
Is institutionalizing our children for six hours a day, five days a week, for twelve years really the best we can do? And how did we get to this point where we assume that’s a defensible idea?
Daniel Greenberg
This best-selling description of the school is bursting with the excitement of life at Sudbury Valley. Free at Last is also chock-full of stories that illustrate the many unique features of this highly original model.
Laura Grace Weldon
With data from neurologists, child development specialists, anthropologists, educators, historians and business innovators, this book turns many current assumptions about school-based education upside down.
Peter Gray
Developmental psychologist (and ASDE co-founder) Peter Gray argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development.
John Holt
John Holt’s brilliant and evocative 1972 Freedom and Beyond marks a significant turn in thinking about schools, when it began to become clear to many that ‘schools’ and ‘schooling,’ would be unable to hold the great forces of learning.
Elizabeth Byrne Ferm
Elizabeth Byrne Ferm (1857-1944), principal of the Modern School at Stelton NJ, a utopian-anarchist colony, proposes an educative practice distinct from pedagogy, one where the task of the educator is to get out of the way of the self-directed child.
A. S. Neill
The headmaster of Summerhill answers parents’ questions on a variety of topics associated with rearing children.
Carl Rust
This book challenges basic assumptions of traditional education and offers suggestions for ways to allow children more freedom, more agency, and more control over their own education.
Julie Polanco
A book on unschooling, written from a Biblical Christian perspective.
Paul Goodman
A 1960 runaway bestseller on “the disgrace of the Organized System, of semimonopolies, government, advertisers etc. & the disaffection of the growing generation,” which inspired much of the ’60s youth resistance.
John Holt and various authors
These issues have Holt’s direct correspondence with families that were homeschooling families with a variety of approaches, their growth, legal challenges, and sharing of resources. His book reviews at the end of each issue are great.
Alison McKee
McKee guides us between her roles as classroom teacher & homeschooling parent as awareness gradually emerges that edu. & schooling are very different things. A clear examination of what children need & why even well meaning schools can’t supply it.
John Holt
An enduring million-selling classic, including insights into how children investigate the world, into the perennial problems of classroom learning, grading, testing, and into the role of the trust and authority in every learning situation.
John Holt
“Learning is as natural as breathing.” In this delightful yet profound book, John Holt looks at how we learn to talk, to read, to count, and to reason, and how we can nurture and encourage these natural abilities in our children.
Chris Mercogliano
Virtually every arena of kids’ experience is now subject to some form of outside control. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, this book is a clear and compelling plea to save childhood.
John Holt
Holt’s most direct and radical challenge to the educational status quo and a call to parents to save their children from schools of all kinds, laying out the foundation for unschooling as the vital path to self-directed learning and a creative life.
Roland Meighan
Challenging the often held notion that Holt’s work was romantic and impractical within the context of compulsory schooling, enabling readers to appreciate the view that individuals outside the education system can change what is happening within it.
Chris Shute
Joy Baker believed that she could do a better job of educating her children than the State could, in spite of its good intentions. Chris Shute tells the story of her bitter encounters with the Authorities and eventual win of freedom for her children.
Lehla Eldridge and Anthony Eldridge Rogers
How one family abandoned traditional education, embraced the freedom of childhood, self directed learning and play to better prepare their children for a rapidly changing future.
John Holt
The essence of John Holt’s insight into learning and small children is captured here. This delightful book shows how children learn to read, write, & count in their everyday life at home, and how adults can respect & encourage this wonderful process
Roland Meighan
Fifteen stories — case-files — from the experiences of home-based educating families, collected over the course of thirty years by Roland Meighan.
Kenneth Danford
In telling the story of North Star’s beginnings, Ken Danford offers inspiration and guidance for how to support young people to leave school and improve their lives through self-directed learning.
Mark McCaig
Fairhaven is a Sudbury School in Maryland and McCaig is one of the founders. He writes briefly of its history, organization, and life inside the school. Quote “Students at Fairhaven do one thing more than any other- they decide.”
Mark W. Novak
This book is an ethnographic study of one of Canada’s publicly funded, Self-Directed learning environments in the 1970’s.
Chris Mercogliano
Making It Up as We Go Along is the story of the Albany Free School, a school based on real freedom, real community, real democratic principles, and real affection between teachers and students.
A collection of Youth Liberation writing, originally published online by Stinney Distro.
Luís Gustavo Guadalupe Silveira
Coletânea de artigos em Português sobre o Modelo Sudbury de Educação escritos por pessoas envolvidas com o cotidiano de espaços Sudbury. [Collection of articles in Portuguese on Sudbury Model of Education by groups involved with Sudbury spaces.]
Paulo Freire
Arguing that ‘education is freedom’, Paulo Freire’s radical international classic contends that traditional teaching styles keep the poor powerless by treating them as passive, silent recipients of knowledge.
Alfie Kohn
A landmark psychological critique of basic motivational strategy, this book attacks the strategy of dangling incentives in front of people to affect their behavior.
Akilah S. Richards
Richards examines the ways that her relationships to blackness, decolonization, and healing work all combine to form relationships and enable community-healing strategies rooted in an unschooling practice.
Harriet Pattison
Through the analysis of parents’ experiences and reflections this book begins work on the construction of alternative representations of what happens when a child learns to read.
Rachel Rainbolt
This book offers a natural learning path for gentle parents who dream of living fully in joy and connection with their children while giving them all they need to be successful, with eight secrets to living a fulfilling unschooling life.
Wendy Priesnitz
An alternative to the academically mediocre, often violent, unmotivating, passive education that characterizes so many public school classrooms.
Everett Reimer
The result of a conversation with Ivan Illich, a book on the societal problems inherent in having institutional schools, intellectually and emotionally enslaving children and giving them an institutional mindset akin to what criminals get in prison.
Alfie Kohn
In this collection of provocative articles and blog posts, Alfie Kohn challenges the conventional wisdom about topics ranging from how low-income children are taught to whether American schools have really fallen behind those in other countries.
Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis
Two economists argue that education is used by the bourgeoisie to control the workforce. They reject the notion that there are equal opportunities for all, because schools reproduce existing social inequalities.
Brent Cameron
SelfDesign is a philosophy and practice based in the belief that children are natural learners.
Daniel Greenberg and Mimsy Sadofsky
This is a basic introduction to the complex process of starting a school. It analyzes various steps that fifteen founding groups have taken to get their schools off the ground and allow them to thrive in the early years.
The Purple Thistle Centre, Matt Hern
Stay Solid! provides essential support for radically inclined teens who believe that it’s possible for all of us to hang on to our values and build a life we believe in.
Jean Proffitt Nunnally
Jean Nunnally details her family’s journey of self-directed learning from discovery to practice to success. Her honest stories of meeting doubts, challenges, and fears are both compelling and inspiring.
Alexander Sutherland Neill
Originally published in 1960, Summerhill became an instant bestseller and a classic volume of education for an entire generation.
John Holt and Pat Farenga
A classic text on teaching children at home, updated in 2003 to reflect new laws, new lifestyles, and the growing new generation of homeschooling parents.
Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner
A no-holds-barred assault on outdated teaching methods — with dramatic and practical proposals on how education can be made relevant to today’s world.
Chris Mercogliano
In Teaching the Restless, Mercogliano issues an urgent call for a shift in how our society perceives hyperactive children—away from theories of faulty brain chemistry and toward an understanding of children’s lives.
Blake Boles
A collection of 23 stories and insights, offering practical advice and inspiration to become a more motivated and self-guided learner.
Bryan Caplan
This explosive, well-researched book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students’ skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity―in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee.
George Dennison
A look at the short life of First Street School; a New York City free school in the mid-1960’s.
Paul Avrich
Based on extensive interviews with former pupils and teachers, this Pulitzer Prize-nominated work is a seminal and important investigation into the potential of educational alternatives.
Daniel Greenberg, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Jason Lempka
What becomes of students who attended Sudbury Valley as they pursue their lives as adults? This book explores the lives of students who spent their formative years at the school, examining in depth their values, their character, and their careers.
Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner
Inspiring many students in the ’70s to stop complaining about the state of education and do something about it.
Cevin Soling
The Student Resistance Handbook provides children with information on how they can effectively fight back against their school and work towards abolishing this abusive and oppressive institution.
Joel Hammon
A guide about how to leave school and create a place where you and young people can thrive.
Grace Llewellyn
This book tells teens how to take control of their lives and get a “real life.” Young people can reclaim their natural ability to teach themselves and design a personalized education program.
Crystal Byrd Farmer
This no-nonsense, provocative, humorous, and accessible guide is for all well-meaning people leading progressive organizations who acknowledge the need for diversity but don’t know where to start.
Valerie Fitzenreiter
A work of nonfiction about a child raised with no coercion and no curriculum.
Carlo Ricci
A deep, thoughtful, intellectual look into unschooling. Dives into aspects of unschooling that are not often discussed, provides detailed real-life examples of the ideas, and ties the points together with intelligent conclusions.
Jen Schwartz
Trusting Children is an anthology that shares the perspectives from different Sudbury model schools on issues of trusting children and trusting the model.
Alfie Kohn
This book presents a provocative challenge to the conventional wisdom of raising children.
Kerry McDonald
A primer on Unschooling and the origins of the self-directed education movement, with answers to many frequently asked questions and tons of references for further research and reading.
Judy Arnall
This book explores the path of 30 unschooled kids who went to college and university and outlines how unschooling fits with brain and child development learning stages. It is full of evidence-based material.
Gina Riley
Academic text exploring Unschooling.
Iris Chen
Iris Chen shares her journey of leaving behind authoritarian tiger parenting to embrace a respectful, relational way of raising children and supporting them in self-directed learning.
John Holt
When teachers listened to Holt’s talks, or wrote him letters as hundreds did, invariably they would say something like: “I understand what you’re saying, but what can I do about this in my own classroom? What do I do on Monday?”
Pam Laricchia
How do children learn without school? Will it work for us? How do I get started?
Jim Rietmulder
The first comprehensive guide to democratic schooling, where kids practice life in a self-governed society—empowered as voters, bound by laws, challenged by choice, supported by community, and driven by nature.
Layla AbdelRahim
Layla AbdelRahim, an anthropologist, writes about people’s attitudes towards humans and nonhumans, expressed through dominance and violence, and the large role schools play in this.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In his pioneering treatise on education, the great French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) presents concepts that had a significant influence on the development of pedagogy in the eighteenth century.
Fiction Books
Books with SDE themes, or featuring characters that practice SDE.
Set in Key West, Rigged (Hazel Smack) is SDE-focused fiction intended for unschooled, homeschooled, or conventionally schooled tweens and teens, with themes including love, family, intergenerational friendship, and coming-of-age under capitalism.
Film & Video
SDE-themed movies, documentaries, videos, and TV/web series.
Year one at the Teddy McArdle Free School in Little Falls, New Jersey, where all classes are voluntary and rules are determined by vote. Approaching the Elephant is a vivid portrait of unfettered childhood and human relationships.
A documentary that explores the theme of trusting children and their development, and invites us to question our learning paradigms and options.
Class Dismissed showcases a growing trend in alternative education strategies that are working for many families across America.
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
A renowned rap that highlights the fallacy that conventional schooling teaches students valuable life skills needed for the professional world.
A documentary series about self-directed education, made by two teenage unschoolers.
From website: “I want to support unschoolers to create homes that are based on joy and trust and to nurture community that is truly regenerative. Self-directed learning is a transformative movement and I’m here...to equip you to show up for it.”
Schooling the World takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply disturbing look at the effects of modern education on the world’s last sustainable indigenous cultures. Available free online.
Schools of Trust is a German film about Self-Directed Education.
Self-Directed Education Tidbits – from a grown unschooler involved in the movement.
A documentary exploring the lives of several adults who chose to follow a self-directed path of learning.
Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own — and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?
Joel Hammon talks about his decision to quit his job as a high school teacher and how creating self-directed education centers can improve the lives of teachers and their students.
Exposing the many ways the public schools system has failed children and America’s future by robbing students of all freedoms, largely due to irrational fears.
Alice has been unschooling her four sons for the past seven years. This journey has helped her reconnect to things which are important to her: the environment, being outdoors, being quiet.
Berkshire Freedom Academy is the Berkshires first self-directed education center and community hub for all branches of the homeschooling umbrella but with a focus on self-direction.
This guide explores making the decision whether to attend college or not, how to choose one, the application process, how to keep your self-directed values in college, and more.
Deschooling: Moving Through and Beyond Our Schoolishness, is a mini zine by Hannah Mack (they/them) of quotes and prompts for inspiration, reflection, and healing in our deschooling journeys.
Originally run by Professor Roland Meighan, EHP has been publishing since 1984 on the general topic of questioning the dogma of the educational establishment. EHP also markets books produced by the Education Now Cooperative (founded in 1980).
Established in 2005, Hilltown Families is a community-based education network which highlights the embedded learning found throughout Western Massachusetts, making the information accessible online to self-directed and life-long learners wanting to g
Part One of a two-part SDE Facilitator series; explores what an SDE facilitator is, what they do, where to find jobs, and signs that becoming an SDE facilitator might not be a good fit.
LEAVE SCHOOL is a mobile app that teaches young people how to thrive without school.
Part Two of a two-part SDE Facilitator series.
The Unschool Files Community Zine, an accessible, gritty, handmade zine that is currently publishing quarterly with the help of the volunteer Zine Team. It features the art, poetry, essays, recipes and musings of unschoolers around the world.
A mini zine by Hannah Mack (they/them) of mad question askin’ (inspired by Akilah S. Richards @fareofthefreechild) for collective reimagining of the purpose and function of schools in society.
Podcasts & Radio Shows
SDE-focused audio content sources.
(Note: Audiobooks are included in "Books".)
Blog and podcast exploring creative and ethical living, revillaging, conscious parenting, home education and nature connection.
Features interviews with graduates of Alpine Valley School, which follows the Sudbury model of education. Also includes discussions of the school’s unique philosophy, and ways to get involved.
Alternative Education Resource Organization founder, Jerry Mintz, talks with people about different facets of learner-centered education.
From a long-time unschooling mom to three now-adult children: Unschooling fascinates me as much today as it did when we got started back in 2002, and each week on the podcast my guests and I dive deep into unschooling and living joyfully with our fam
A weekly-published podcast community centering Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color in liberatory living and learning practices.
Interviews with self-directed learners, innovative educators, and young people blazing their own paths through life. Hosted by Blake Boles; Formerly the Real Education Podcast.
A husband-wife podcast about gentle parenting, family life, and self-directed education.
Radical Learning Talks is a bi-weekly podcast focused on radically shifting the way we think about education, learning, community and what it means to build equitable relationships.
Conversations on the intersection of liberation, community, parenting, deschooling, decolonization
ASDE member Rachel Rainbolt is the host of this podcast, inviting listeners to gather around a virtual campfire and share meaningful conversations with inspiring and insightful friends around Gentle Parenting, Unschooling, and Simple Living.
All about radical unschooling. (It’s not as scary or as wild as some people make out!) Join me as I share ideas, stories, homeschool record-keeping tips and resources for living an unschooling life of unconditional love.
a podcast that celebrates and examines the many ways folks live life without school with an evolving intersectional lens
Join Esther Jones, a mindful parenting coach and unschooling mother-of-three, as she takes a look at the many opportunities for reflection that naturally arise in an unschooling home.
Episodes cover many frequently asked questions and objections to Self-Directed Education and unschooling.
Unschooling conversations with Heidi Steel and guests, discussing life and learning from an Unschooling perspective.
We are three mamas, unschoolers, regular people, and revolutionaries in the many small moments, pulling together threads from our diverse experiences around living authentically with children and rejecting the school model of relationship.
Research & Journals
Scientific and academic research related to SDE.
David Gribble
A discussion of ways to improve research on democratic schools and other informal educational environments.
Michael K. Ponton, Christine T. Schuette, and Gary J. Confessore
This article promotes self-efficacy and agency for children to help them develop into Self-Directed learners.
Alan Thomas
A brief introduction to legal challenges against Self-Directed Education in schools and home.
Christopher P. Niemiec, Richard M. Ryan
This article presents an overview of self-determination theory (SDT) and reviews its applications to educational practice.
Peter Gray
In this article, Peter Gray describes seven principles of how individuals learn to read without formal schooling.
Peter Gray & David Chanoff
A follow-up study of the graduates of the Sudbury Valley School, a democratically administered primary and secondary school that supports Self-Directed Education.
Gina Riley
This study assesses whether homeschooled young adults’ needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness are better satisfied as compared to young adults who were not homeschooled.
Charlie Moreno-Romero
This article analyzes democratic education from the perspective of the education for social justice. An introduction to education for Social Justice is followed by an analysis of a democratic school in Spain.
Donald A. Berg, Jennifer Henderlong Corpus
Research study using Self-Determination Theory as a framework for understanding motivation in a Self-Directed learning community and a home school resource center.
Aimee Ferraro
This article describes the evaluation of a temporary, immersive learning community for Self-Directed teen learners, Project World School (PWS), which was based on a new, pedagogical approach to learning called worldschooling.
Gina Riley
Through interviews with twenty eight unschooled adults, the author explores how reading can be learned naturally, without adult intervention; and how this may effect later motivation for reading, writing, and other academic endeavors.
Whitney Sherman
Dr. Sherman utilizes research surrounding multiple theories of motivation to defend the practices of Self-Directed Education in unschooling.
Matthias Hoffman
In this essay the roots of Free Alternative Schools (FAS) are depicted and their history in Germany over the last 40 years is sketched.
Leo J. Fahey
Leo J. Fahey identifies five aspects that he argues are fundamental to a democratic education: self-direction, emotional readiness, student choice, learning to learn, and community self-governance.
Peter Gray & Gina Riley
This peer reviewed research article summarizes the unschooling experiences of 75 adults who were unschoolers for at least the years that would have been their last two years of high school.
Gina Riley & Peter Gray
A sample of 75 adults, who had been unschooled for at least the years that would have been their last two years of high school, answered questions about their subsequent pursuits of higher education and careers.
Carlo Ricci
This narrative examines how the author’s young child learns basic skills without being directly taught to do so.
Karl Wheatley
A professor of Early Childhood Education describes how his children learned to read without formal instruction.
E. D. Woodford
Looking at Unschooling through the lens of indigenous living and learning.
Aravinda Pillalamarri
The author, speaking on unschooling, seeks to help us redefine and reclaim the concept of curriculum as an internal path toward learning.
Viola Huang
This article investigates the question: In what ways and to what extent can alternative models of education support the development of democratic skills in children?
Daniel Greenberg & Mimsy Sadofsky
This book describes a study conducted in 1991 to determine what became of Sudbury students after they left.
Deb O’Rourke
This article gathers arguments that support play as not only a pleasure but a necessity for growth, learning, and mental health in children.
Marc-Alexandre Prud'Homme
This ethnographic work examines democracy in action, at a free school in Canada, and highlights the skills learned that promote good citizenship and self-confidence.
David Gribble
A short exploration of democratic alternative schools around the world.
Rebecca Zellner Grunzke
This dissertation compares the childrearing practices of parents whose children are engaged in unschooling, homeschooling, or traditional schooling.
Michael Maser
My PhD research illuminates the subjective nature of (human) learning and advocates for personalized/personalizing learning.
Peter Gray
Hunter-gatherer cultures promoted the playful side of their human nature, which made possible their cooperative, egalitarian ways of living.
Peter Gray & Jay Feldman
A qualitative study of self-directed age mixing between adolescents (ages 12–19) and young children (ages 4–11) at a democratic school.
Donna Harel Kirschner
An ethnographic study of the unschooling movement, through a countercultural lens.
Alison Gopnik
New theoretical ideas and empirical research show that very young children’s learning and thinking are strikingly similar to much learning and thinking in science. These discoveries have implications for early childhood education and policy.
Peter Gray
Written for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, this in-depth article provides a comprehensive overview of SDE, from its evolutionary origins to its modern expressions.
Jennifer Schwartz
This study examines the experiences of twenty three students, in two different Sudbury model schools, and the correlation between freedom and student attitudes about school.
Lucy Guglielmino, Elizabeth Gray, Kim_Le Arvary, Joe Asen, Donna Goldstein, Fran Kamin, Monica Nicoll, Nancy Patrick, Krista Shellabarger, Deborah Snowberger
A look at notable, Self-Directed individuals, and their contributions to society.
Benjamin Riley
This article discusses five ways in which the concepts of creativity and Self-Directed Education overlap.
Helen E. Lees
This interview address key problems facing the alternative education movement.
Carlo Ricci, Kristin Simpson
This resource is an introductory guide for starting a new school based on the author’s experiences of forming a Sudbury model school in Canada.
Judy L Arnall
This survey details thirty children who unschooled from 3 to 12 years and were all accepted to colleges, universities and tech schools. 12 of the 30 went into STEM careers (4 in Engineering).
Ana Mettler and Mary Korte
This article highlights the successes and challenges of developing Self-Directed learning environments for K-12 students within publicly funded school systems.
Christine R. Traxler
Subtitled “Why the Sudbury Model of Education Should Be Taken Seriously,” this essay by a public high school English teacher challenges the dominant model of education.
Christine Traxler
Public high school English teacher Christine R. Traxler challenges the dominant model of education and discusses why the Sudbury model is a much more compelling model for all children.
Peter Gray & Gina Riley
232 unschooling families answered questions about their reasons for unschooling, the path that led them to unschooling, and the major benefits and challenges of unschooling for their family.
Kristan Morrison
This article explores the question of what gives parents the courage to reject conventional schooling and choose the educational path of unschooling for their children.
Gina Riley
This article explores Self-Determination Theory, Cognitive Evaluation Theory, and intrinsic motivation as they apply to home education.
Noah Romero
This paper outlines the theoretical, pedagogical, and philosophical framework for critical unschooling.
Lorena Sanchez Tyson
The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of autonomy in the context of education and analyze the complex features of unschooling, a particular movement within the home-based education paradigm.
Pam Laricchia
A parent demonstrates how allowing her children to deeply immerse themselves in their passions, especially controversial ones like video games and fandom, can lead to a diverse set of learning outcomes and experiences.
Michael Jodah
This article is a brief, personal narrative of how the author found his way to unschooling through The Teenage Liberation Handbook.
Kristan A. Morrison
Research on Unschooling families and whether or how they experience a social justice curriculum.
Gina Riley
This study describes the experiences of an unschooling family in Hong Kong, where alternative forms of education are discouraged.
Kellie Rolstad & Kathleen Kesson
Authors compare their experiences of unschooling in the 1980s with what it is like to unschool now, in an era when our society has come to distrust children more than ever.
David Gribble
If children are to grow up to be responsible adults who contribute to the development of an ideal society, they need to feel able to ask questions of their own rather than simply learning the answers to other people’s questions.
Gina Riley
A review and analysis of five retreats organized by Project World School in 2016, based on pre- and post-experience questionnaires filled out by the participants.
Emma Emily de Wit, Daniel Eagles, Barbara Regeer
This article illustrates how issues such as parental experiences, culture, and concerns over mental health caused three Indian families to unschool their children and looks at their experiences with the practice of unschooling.
Websites, Blogs & News
Online sources of SDE-related information and support.
Blog and podcast exploring creative and ethical living, revillaging, conscious parenting, home education and nature connection.
Facebook support group which offers opportunities for gatherings, including a book club, for unschooling families in the Douglas County area of Colorado.
generationOn inspires, equips and mobilizes people to take action that is changing the world. They envision a world in which everyone has discovered their power to make a difference, creating healthy communities in vibrant, participatory societies.
Growing Without Schooling was founded by the late author/teacher John Holt in 1977 to support unschooling and self-directed education and it continues today as a website and source of information about learning at home and in one’s community.
A free website that shares long-form profiles of grown unschoolers, ages 20-99, in their own words.
Group for anyone who is a homeschooled student in China or interested in homeschooling in China. Let’s share our experience, make friends, help each others and start a community!
News and community for homeschoolers in India
Somos un grupo de familias que educamos a nuestros hijos sin escuela en la Comunidad de Madrid.
A blog by a grown unschooler exploring the intersections between self-directed lifelong learning, youth rights, respectful parenting, and social justice.
Facebook group. Support for the beautiful LGBTQ Unschoolers!
Community learning resource network, built to support Self-Directed Education on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
Discover unschooling and fully embrace a life of learning.
“Oyna Yap Boz” is a project advocating for child-led play and self-directed education. It is a non-profit project that works on translating and creating documents about SDE and organizing child-led play events.
A once-a-week newsletter for those interested in reflecting on their parenting and moving towards, or deepening their practice in, a more partnership-based, relationship-based way of being with your young people.
A website where people can download pdfs of Peter’s academic articles, can find out about his books, and access some of his recorded talks.
A blog that supports parents in their deschooling process
Información e inspiración sobre educación no tradicional y disruptiva; unschooling, natural learning, self centered education, y otras variantes.
Apoyo con información y experiencias de vida sobre el Radical Unschooling en español.
A place where we can share written articles and read-alouds, where we can build an audience and network of folks who are interested in and passionate about Self-Directed Education.
Support site for kids who hate school. Encourages them to consider SDE if possible.
We’re happy to share that our blog is officially up and running! The first series of posts dives into a question we’re often asked—What is Sudbury?
A collection of resources for Texas homeschoolers: Homeschooling laws, TX unschooling groups, videos, other websites & blogs, unschooling conferences, colleges & transcripts, and discussion forums.
Tons of SDE resources including: transcript walkthrough, breakdown by subject, PA homeschooling guide, their “curriculum” by “grade”, and “homeschooling for working moms”
Welcome guide & community for homeschoolers and unschoolers on the Danish island Bornholm. Meetup group: https://www.facebook.com/Bornholms-Frie-Familieklub-110726500723675
We’re here to help you learn about unschooling, get support in switching to unschooling, or share your experience unschooling your neurodivergent and/or disabled child.
A discussion group for Australian parents who are unschooling, or are considering unschooling their kids. We will discuss unschooling philosophy and how to become better unschooling parents as we help each other with the deschooling process.
Hola colegas y amigos apasionados/interesados por/en la desescolarización radical. Es juntos como aprendemos. Por eso un grupo en el que todos podamos compartir.
Learning all the time, everywhere, naturally, unconditionally and happily.
Information, support and advocacy for self-directed learning in the home.
We are an online community of families based in the UAE, and are passionate advocates of self-directed education and life learning.
This page is a celebration of all things unschooling. Join our friendly community and gain support and comfort on your learning adventure.
Gathering together information about unschooling and people who share the values of unschooling in Ukraine.
Pour les familles pratiquant l’unschooling en France/ en français ou s’y intéressant :)
Nơi kết nối những người quan tâm đến Unschooling.
Over een gezin dat de jonge mens vertrouwt in zijn/haar leerproces
Heb je interesse om unschooling te kunnen gebruiken, of ben je er al door geïnspireerd en er volop mee bezig in jullie leven? Dan is deze groep wellicht iets voor je!
Blog and social media pages dedicated to exploring peaceful parenting, unschooling, and decolonization from an Asian American lens.
Ultimate worldschoolers online destination, filled with tons of valuable resources, interviews, how-tos, mini courses, articles, reflections and incredible insights, sourced from within our community.
A facebook home for Westman Homeschoolers! A place to share links, info, books/resources and local activities!
Blog highlighting neurodivergent unschooling and autonomous existence, conversation, and practices from the perspectives and experiences of my queer family of color. Where joy, reflection, play and ease are absolutes in our living liberation work.
Lifelong Unschooling, Authentic Attunement, & Neurodiversity: Margaret Love Bennett, MFA artist & single parent blogs about the process of life.
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