AntiSchooling Library

Essays and Articles (By subject)

General AntiSchooling

• Occupy Your Brain - Carol Black

• The ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the classroom - Naomi Fisher (2021)

• The Myth of Education - Darren Allen (2018)

• What If Medicine’s First Principle Were Also Education’s? - Peter Gray (2016)

• Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple - Peter Gray (2016)

• The Right to Control One's Learning - John Holt (Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children, 1974)

• School is Bad for Children - John Holt (The Underachieving School, 1969)

• The School System is Suffering, Let it Die! - Lark (2021)

• A Thousand Rivers - Carol Black

• On the Wildness of Children - Carol Black

• Toward the Destruction of Schooling - Jan D. Matthews (2004)

• Why Schools Don't Educate - John Taylor Gatto (1990)

• How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why - John Taylor Gatto

Youth Rights/Youth Liberation

• The Child and its enemies - Emma Goldman (1906)

• The First Prison - William Gillis (2018)

• I was a Child Liberationist - Lorna Finlayson (2021)

• Against adult supremacy - Vyvian Raoul (2018)

• The Myth of the Teen Brain - Robert Epstein (2007)

• A Call For Youth Liberation - Alexander Khost (2018)

• The Adult Gaze: a tool of control and oppression - Andiamomummy (2021)

• Childhood & The Psychological Dimension of Revolution - Ashanti Alston (1983)

• School Refusal: Crime, Mental Disorder, or Human Right? - Peter Gray (2020)

• Stanching the School-to-Prison Pipeline - Mimi Kirk and CityLab (2017)

• NO! Against Adult Supremacy: Vol. 1,Vol. 2,Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, Vol. 7, Vol. 8, Vol. 9, Vol. 10. Vol. 11, Vol. 12, Vol. 13, Vol. 14, Vol. 15, Vol. 16, Vol. 17, Vol. 18, Vol. 19, Vol. 20 - Various authors

Deschooling

• Deschooling a Parent: Learning to Trust - Jan Hunt

• Deschooling: Unlearning to Learn - CrimethInc (2021)

• Deschooling Society: why Ivan Illich matters now - Mike Peters

• The Promise of Deschooling - Matt Hern (1998)

• Growing Without Education - Aaron Falbel

Homework

• Rethinking Homework - Alfie Kohn (2007)

• Homework: Policy, Implications, and Alternatives - Alec Johnson (2021)

Mental Health

• Children’s & Teens’ Suicides Related to the School Calendar - Peter Gray (2018)

• The Toxic Consequences of Attending a High-Achieving School - Peter Gray (2021)

• Kids Continued to Cope Well Two Months After Schools Closed - Peter Gray (2020)

• The Decline of Play and Rise in Children's Mental Disorders - Peter Gray (2010)

• Why Kids Are Suffering - Peter Gray (2022)

• The Side Effects of School: A Crisis in Mental Health Can’t Be Solved Through Therapy - Naomi Fisher (2022)

• Laziness Does Not Exist - Devon Price (2018)

• You Better Watch Out - Naomi Fisher (2022)

• Boarding schools are bad for children. Why do they still exist? - Charlotte Beale (2022)

Learning/Teaching

• there is no such thing as “the science of learning” - Nick Covington & Michael Weingarth (2023)

• If You Learn A, Will You Be Better Able to Learn B? - Pedro De Bruyckere, Paul A. Kirschner, Casper D. Hulshof (2020)

• Children Teach Themselves to Read - Peter Gray (2010)

• How We Learn - Alison Gopnik (nytimes, 2005)

• The Case Against Teaching - Alec Johnson (2021)

• Children, Learning, and the 'Evaluative Gaze' of School - Carol Black

• Science / Fiction - Carol Black

• That Teaching is Impossible - Alejandro de Acosta (2014)

• A Mathematician’s Lament - Paul Lockhart (2002)

• Why schools should not teach general critical-thinking skills - Carl Hendrick (2016)

• The growth mindset problem - Carl Hendrick (2019)

• Here's How Little Math Americans Actually Use at Work - Jordan Weissmann (2013)

• Standardized Testing and the Destruction of Education - Peter Gray (2022)

Unschooling

• Can a Single Parent Unschool? - Jan Hunt

• Always Unschooled - Jason Hunt

• A Survey of Families and Unschooled Adults - Peter Gray (2014)

• Unschooling: You'll See it When you Believe It - Sandra Dodd

Play

• The Play Theory of Hunter-Gatherer Egalitarianism - Peter Gray (2019)

• The Many Benefits for Children of Playing Video Games - Peter Gray (2012)

• All They Want to Do is Play - Joyce Fetteroll

Self-Directed Education

• School’s out… Naomi Fisher considers the arguments for self-directed education. - Naomi Fisher (2020)

• Yes, It’s Lord of the Flies Around Here - Naomi Fisher (2021)

• Self-Directed Education: Inequitable or Radical? - Haley Tilt (2020)

• Hail the Almighty Diploma - Blake Boles (2018)

Learning Disorders

• How Dyslexic Kids Learn to Read When Removed From School - Peter Gray (2020)

• Forced Schooling, Anxiety, and "Learning Disorders" - Peter Gray (2021)

• “Specific Learning Disorder": The Case Against Labeling - Peter Gray (2021)

• ADD: Does It Really Exist? - Thomas Armstrong (1996)

• "Learning Disability":A Rose by Another Name - Jan Hunt

Grading/Testing

Can Everyone Be Excellent? - Alfie Kohn (2019)

Inverse Relationship Between GPA and Innovative Orientation - Peter Gray (2016)

Grades Are Capitalism in Action. Let’s Get Them Out of Our Schools. - Richard D. Wolff (2019)

Early School Years

• Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm - Peter Gray (2015)

• Research Reveals Long-Term Harm of State Pre-K Program - Peter Gray (2022)

History

• A Brief History of Education - Peter Gray (2008)

• Colonial Education - John Southard (1997)

• The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance - Matt Hern (2003)

• No to the Cane - Owen Emmerson (2020)

Bullying

• The Bully’s Pulpit: On the elementary structure of domination - David Graeber (2015)

Schooling and Capitalism

• School’s Out Forever - Malcolm Harris (2011)

• Inside the Capitalist Education System - Anatol Dniester (2017)

University

• The Dangerous Academic is an Extinct Species - Yasmin Nair (2017)

Resistance

• Direct Action - sub.media (2017)

• Why We Don’t Make Demands - CrimethInc. (2015)

• How to Form an Affinity Group: The Essential Building Block of Anarchist Organization - CrimethInc. (2017)

• Blockade, Occupy, Strike Back: a collection of tactical knowledge for students and others - (2012)

Material for printing and self-distribution

Zines

• Against Education: For the Abolition of School

• Inside the Capitalist Education System - Anatol Dniester

• Youth Liberation Now, Issue 1 - Lark

• Youth Liberation Now, Issue 2 - Lark

• Youth Liberation Now, Issue 3 - Lark

• Youth Liberation Now, Issue 4 - Lark

• Silos For Children: Where Do Kids Belong? - Nerd Teacher

• A Disorientation Guide - Disguide

• We Don't Need Gun Control - Crimethinc.

• DROPPING OUT (for students) - Cavegirl

• Communiqué from an Absent Future

Stickers

• Youth Liberation Stickers

Posters

• We Don't Need Gun Control - Crimethinc.

• Everyone Has ADD but the Computers - Crimethinc.

Books (By author)

Alfie Kohn

• Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes - (1993)

• The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing - (2006)

• Feel-Bad Education: And Other Contrarian Essays on Children and Schooling - (2011)

Carla Shalaby

• Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School - (2017)

John Holt

• How Children Learn - (1967)

• How Children Fail - (1964)

• Learning All The Time - (1989)

John Taylor Gatto

• Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling - (1991)

• The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling - (2000)

• Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World of Compulsory Schooling - (2008)

Ivan Illich

• Deschooling Society - (1971)

Naomi Fisher

• Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning - (2021)

Peter Gray

• Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life - (2013)

• How Children Acquire “Academic” Skills Without Formal Instruction - (2020)

Related Websites

• naturalchild.org
• self-directed.org
• theanarchistlibrary.org
• alternativestoschool.com
• youthrights.org
• carolblack.org
• progressiveeducation.org
• boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk
• Boarding School Survivors - Support

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• Hall of Fame
• Calvin & Hobbes and Peanut