Beth's Library - Book List
Let me introduce you to some of my best friends…
Sometimes I can't wait to read a much-coveted book (books are like chocolate that way) and I just have to buy it! I thought it would be cool to provide you with instant gratification by becoming an Amazon.com affiliate and installing direct links to Amazon for all of our library's book titles.
Alas, not all cravings can be satiated quickly (Amazon ships in 24 hours!), so for all out-of-print books Amazon will try to find it for you through their many affiliates that deal in rare books. Don't despair; someone out there has it for sale!
And, last but certainly not least, is the autodidact's true ace, inter-library loan! If you don't mind a wait, order the book through your library's inter-library loan program. If you don't know how to order an ILL, read my succinct (ha!) explanation on this same page under inter-library loan.
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EDUCATION
Rousing Minds To Life, Ronald Tharp and Ronald Gallimore
This excellent book provides a rich technically critical look at current educational methodology and its effect on our country's youth. The authors present clear data supporting teacher use of alternatives to the tutorial pedagogy. The author's research is such a validation for any homeschool that utilizes the daily, minute-by-minute conversation of learning as its primary mode of educating.
The teacher-training chapters provide rich concrete instruction for the homeschooling parent who wants to get away from a tutorial or didactic habit of teaching. While the expirements and participants were all within the institutional setting, anyone can extrapolate from the authors' conclusions an approach that will revolutionize their homeschool.
Piaget For The Classroom Teacher, Barry J. Wadsworth
Excellent primer on Piagetian theory of childhood developmental stages. The reading chapter validates the late-reading theories of Raymond and Dorothy Moore as well as the unschooling approach of John Holt.
"Any blanket application of a reading program to children before formal operations begin to emerge (ages 9-10) is to be discouraged."
"The goal of reading instruction should not be to produce a six-year-old child who reads at 1st grade level…the goal (of reading instruction) is to produce adults who can red fluently, can enjoy reading, and can see some value in it."
Amen.
Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich
This is one of those whole-heartedly radical books that both alarms and inspires. Much of Illich's philosophy is personally distasteful to me because his rhetoric seems to lump all authority systems together and proclaim them all prisons of the human spirit. While I cannot agree with some of his more political/humanitarian philosophies, I do agree with his assertions that modern compulsory schooling is crippling the intellectual and creative potential of us all. This book is a bit weighty and kind of 60's-ish but excellent overall.
" Classroom attendance removes children from the everyday world of Western culture and plunges them into an environment far more primitive, magical and deadly serious. School could not create such an enclave within which the rules of ordinary reality are suspended, unless it physically incarcerated the young during many successive years on sacred territory."
I call it KID JAIL…
Learning All the Time, John Holt
The last work written by Holt, this book is a wonderful primer for any parent needing concrete ideas for directing their little one's learning without turning learning into "school." Holt's thoroughly organic approach to the acquisition of foundational skills such as arithmetic, phonics, spelling, etc. is fresh and simple. He fills 163 pages with a myriad of ways to create for your family a lifestyle of learning. Read this before you buy any curriculum or workbooks. Holt points out all of the ways that humans learn through real life and any parent can use his ideas. Wonderful book.
Instead of Education, John Holt
This unschooling classic is full of philosophical commentary about compulsory schooling and its effects on students, teachers, and society. Holt's theories are often anti-establishment. This may be off-putting for those traditionalists who value institutions in society but for most unschooling parents, the good outweighs the bad. When I read this book I was in the throes of massive self-doubt regarding my ability to guide Octavian's education. Post testing (WISC III) the summer of his twelfth year, I found myself deeply confused about Octavian's educational options and needs. Thankfully, Holt's book was just the tonic I required. Whew. We all need reminders of our deepest convictions sometimes. If you are an unschooling parent Holt is your man.
"…few children with any ideal range of choices would spend much of their time in a Math Lab or putting together a bunch of chicken bones."
Can you say artificially orchestrated educational setting?
Summerhill School, A. S. Neill
I loved this account of life at the famous unstructured school in Britain called Summerhill. Children there were never required to attend classes or participate in activities. Indeed, they were allowed to delve into the subjects of their own choosing rather than those chosen for them by well-meaning adults. Neill tells his lively tale and I imagine the scenes he describes as I read the words. This school seems to be all that I try to manufacture daily, but with less means. Read this book to prove to yourself or anyone else that children will learn because they want to. Traditionalists may find some of his moral ideas offensive. Consider yourself warned. Skip those chapters and you'll be fine.
Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go To School, Grace Llewellyn
Read this remarkable book that documents the lives of non-conforming teenagers who live productive lives of learning and discovery. A classic in the unschooling community, Llewellyn's book celebrates self-direction and usefulness in a handful of teens who present a wonderful contrast to the self-absorbed peer-dependent over-sexed teens that populate our country's high schools. The book is presented as eleven chapters, each telling one teen's story. Patrick Meehan, an artist, says, "Admittedly, 'homschooler' is a misnomer…Perhaps 'independently educated' would be more accurate, because after all, the way I have chosen is not a 'school' concept at all…"
"The thing I enjoy most about not being institutionalized is the way I can do things that interest me…" Tabitha Mountjoy
Out of the mouths of babes…………
The Day I Became An Autodidact, Kendall Hailey
What a great book. I loved the flowing way that Hailey presents the events of her life as an autodidact. She chose to graduate from high school one year early and stay at home to pursue self-directed studies. When her friends from school move on to college she faces their letters with aplomb and introspection, realizing that she can learn as much or more than they without leaving the four walls of her family's home.
Dumbing Us Down, John Taylor Gatto
"The children I teach are indifferent to the adult world. This defies the experience of thousands of years. A close study of what big people were up to was always the most exciting occupation of youth, but nobody wants the children to grow up these days, least of all the children: and who can blame them? Toys are us."
Oh, my gosh, this book is powerful. Gatto, a 26-year veteran of Manhattan schools writes an expose outlining the propaganda and hidden agendas of our public educational system. Designed to teach conformity, the public schools drain our children of their enthusiasm for learning, their creativity and most of all, their desire to know "why."
Blackboard Blackmail, Suzanne Clark
This book was written by a Christian woman who was sued by the NEA (National Education Association) for a letter she wrote to her local newspaper's editor. Responding to an article written by the director of the NEA and another supporter, Clark wrote her rebuttal by relying heavily on the NEA's own literature. Her letter exposed the real agenda of the NEA as indoctrination of American youth in the religion of humanism. They sued her for libel in the amount of $100,000. This book should be read by all Christian parents with children in the public school system. Clark's unbelievable story of her battle with the most powerful union in the country will give you pause.
The Unschooled Mind, Howard Gardner
"…young children in the United States are becoming literate in a literal sense; that is, they are mastering the rules of reading and writing…what is missing are not the decoding skills, but two other facets: the capacity to read for understanding and the desire to read at all."
Gardner examines the current models of education in use today and how they fail to produce children who really know anything. He compares the knowledge gained under an apprenticeship model with the institution's drive to train children to conform, perform, not ask real questions and simply regurgitate the "correct" answers. Gardner is sharp and highly respected among academicians. His rare candor marks him as an educational reformer who somehow manages to retain his vaunted status within the world of higher learning.
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