Welcome,

For over 25 years I have enjoyed helping people succeed at learning outside of school by applying John Holt's ideas, often referred to as unschooling, to their situations. A goal of this site is to show you ways to overcome obstacles to learning besides more intensive conventional schooling. The received wisdom of our time is that school is the best place for children to be for social, academic, and political reasons. I question this conventional wisdom by offering other ways and means for children and adults to learn and grow in our society.

I will also update this site with material from my Teach Your Own seminars, as well as from other sources, so please check back regularly and tell your friends to visit here too!

Best wishes,

Pat Farenga

PS: I offer private consultations about homeschooling by telephone and occasionally in person when possible.

August 12, 2008: It’s with great sadness that I write about the death of Nancy Wallace, one of homeschooling’s earliest and most popular writers and a dear friend of John Holt. Nancy’s writing appears throughout many of the early issues of Growing Without Schooling magazine and her descriptions of the positive ways her family found to cope with the insecurities she and her family faced in the days before homeschooling support was widespread inspired many families to also homeschool. Nancy was a quiet but determined woman whose prose was full of gentle insight. John Holt always looked forward to his visits with the Wallace family as he especially enjoyed hearing the Wallace children, Ishmael and Vita, play music. On the cover of his book Never Too Late is a photo of John playing cello with young Vita playing violin next to him. Ishmael and Vita, now accomplished adult musicians, can be reached through their website, www.orfeoduo.com. They will perform a free concert in memory of Nancy on September 28, 2008 at 1PM at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 521 W. 126th Street in Manhattan... Click here to continue