Book cover of Deschooling

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Why read it?

1 author picked Deschooling as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

In the 1960s, radical educational thinkers in the Global North started to question why schools needed to exist at all.

Writers like John Holt, Ivan Illich, and Paul Goodman argued that we should separate ‘education’ from ‘schooling’. Although their views were different, they agreed on a basic set of ideas: children don’t learn much in school; schools are oppressive places, especially for working-class students; and often, they just exist to socialise children for the labour market.

As Holt wrote, "Children are subject peoples. School for them is a kind of jail." Lister’s Deschooling Society collects excerpts from these thinkers alongside…

If you love Deschooling...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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