This was very educational and easy to read. Many of the ideas are something that can be implemented in your home whether you homeschool or not.

I believe this book will be thought-provoking for anyone who has even mild interest in homeschooling or unschooling, or for anyone questioning the efficacy of the American education system. It felt very similar to Wendell Berry's "The Unsettling of America", but instead of being about agriculture, it is primarily about education and how human beings learn. Holt seems to present ample evidence and good arguments for other forms of school beyond the "public or private?' decision. Since the pandemic, I think many parents have questioned how effective our current education system is; Holt opens the readers eyes to other forms of education & suggests we abandon the 'one size fits all' approach. I found myself very intrigued by many of his ideas and many of the stories from parents. This is a book I will return to as my children reach schooling age to aid in my decisions surrounding their education.

Thank you to netgalley for providing a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

The words of one of the earliest proponents of homeschooling, John Holt were profound. In 1981, his book, Teach Your Own was no doubt considered controversial, now it is almost prophetic. Holt, a former public-school educator himself began to look at how children are educated, the rigid and unbending world of “schooling” and encouraged parents to do the unthinkable, take their children out of school and educate them at home. And so began the homeschool movement, that thirty years later has become almost mainstream.

While homeschooling one’s own children is not uncommon these days it was until 2020 still considered, “odd” or “different” in some communities. Those of us raised in public schools could not fathom what having our children at home all day would look like and how any normal parent could emulate the learning environment of a school. According to John Holt, we don’t need to. He encourages learning by exploration, by doing, and by encouraging a child to do more of what they are good at. His theory is that they will learn what they need to as they need to.

Test scores, if you consider them important, have proved his theory is correct. There is little difference in the scores for homeschoolers vs. public school educated children and if they are disaggregated in specific ways homeschool children excel. Test scores don’t measure the maturity, depth of thought, or love of learning in a child. If you talk to children from both groups, you will find homeschoolers have some strengths public school children do not. In some ways, our factory model takes away from natural growth. Holt emphasizes these things in his book.

The pandemic that wrecked school schedules and upended public education still echoes. Amazingly children learned at home for at least a year in some places, longer in others. The effects of this year have been profound. Parents are homeschooling now in record numbers; many more are planning to and others considering the option. After witnessing firsthand, the rigid, boring, unrelatable lessons from public schools, examining textbooks that are fraught with error and bias, seeing their children bored and glassy-eyed from computer lessons, parents are now looking for viable options. Homeschooling and various hybrid options are now everywhere and the support systems for parents who choose this option are springing up nationwide.

A good place to start the journey for parents who are considering homeschooling is with this new updated edition of John Holt’s work. The new edition due out in September 2021 has been updated since the pandemic. It contains work from his magazine, no longer in publication but once a support system for parents, and new information from co-writer and collaborator of Holt’s earlier work, Pat Farenga. Since Holt’s death in the 1980s Farenga has led much of the work to encourage and assist parents with homeschooling.

If you are beginning the thought process of homeschooling your children or working with those that do, I strongly encourage you to read this book. You will find the encouragement of someone with similar ideas and theories about children and how they learn. You will find answers to questions that you have about the whole process of homeschooling and should find relief from the issues that are causing you pause and stress.

Public school has a place in our society but it can learn much from the homeschool movement. If you are a parent that has children in public school and are not interested in homeschooling your children I also encourage you to read this book. It will stir something in you regarding schooling and have you thinking about many things you have not previously questioned about your own education and that of your child. If you are a public-school educator explore the thoughts and ideas presented by Holt and others, they will make your classroom a better place for all children. I consider this an important book for all interested in learning either at home or institutionally. It is as profound and timely now as it was in 1981. #TeachYourOwn#NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was happy to see this book had been updated to accommodate our new normal during a pandemic. It did address some of the specific challenges of homeschool (or schooling at all) in a crisis, but overall the book just didn’t provide much guidance or answers. It was a great read, but more as a commentary on homeschooling and less of a guidebook. Will still happily recommend this to all of our homeschool coop parents!

Education is one of the most important topics of our time. Whether it is due to delayed in person school, mask and vaccine mandates, or controversial curriculum, more and more parents are turning to educating at home to have the freedom and flexibility to direct their child's education. For these reasons, I had high hopes that Teach Your Own would be an engaging and relevant book that really spoke to the needs of those who are seeking educational alternatives or to learn more about homeschooling. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed.

The book started off interesting as I learned more about John Holt and his educational philosophy and the history of the homeschool movement. Then at some point the book jumped to a bunch of narrative stories. Even with the subheadings that accompanied the narratives, it was not always clear why they were in the book. Essentially it seemed like at about a quarter of the way through the book it went from an informative nonfiction for someone wanting to learn more about the pedagogy of homeschool to a light summer read. It was also not always clear what writings were John Holt's or Pat Farenga's. While the book may have eventually refocused to more serious and practical topics like teaching students with learning difficulties and disabilities or homeschooling work-life balance as referenced in the description, at that point I was already lost as a reader and did not feel inclined to continue pressing on in the book.