Home Education Magazine Sept-Oct, 2011 : Page 7

Homeschooling News & Info • Homeschooling and unschooling have continued to be featured frequently in the national media, and these articles and news stories are often reported and commented on at HEM’s popular Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/HomeEduca-tionMagazine • The National Home Education Net-work exists to encourage and facilitate the vital grassroots work of state and local homeschooling organizations and individu-als by providing information, fostering networking and promoting public relations on a national level. Because we believe there in strength in a diverse nework of home-schoolers, we support the freedom of all individual families to choose home educa-tion and to direct such education. ~NHEN Mission Statement. For more information about NHEN’s work for homeschooling families visit their newly revised web site: http://nhen.org • “Unschooling is a movement that turns conventional thinking about educa-tion upside down.” This was the introduction to a survey invitation pub-lished in September at Dr. Peter Gray’s Freedom to Learn blog for the magazine Psychology Today .” Dr. Gray, Research Professor of Psychol-ogy at Boston College, has written extensively on homeschooling and unschooling, and he states “Academic researchers have steered clear of any serious study of unschooling, just as they have steered clear of Sudbury model schools and all other innovations in education that deny the value of an imposed curriculum.” He notes, “I'd like to learn more about it and tell the world more about it, and for that reason I'm conducting a survey of unschooling families.” The survey , titled “What Is Unschooling? Invitation to a Survey,” was shared at Pat Farenga’s website (submissions were due in early October). Pat wrote: “I’ve met and worked with Peter several times, I have reviewed this survey, and I’m comfortable disseminating it.” The questions were fairly simple and basic, for more information visit Pat’s blog at http://patfarenga.com • Families on the Road (FOTR) is for families who are on the road fulltime, on extended road trips, or who are just day-dreaming about traveling. The FOTR web site is maintained by Kimberly Goza, and is constantly updated with the contributions of many traveling families who bring with them a wide variety of experiences and per-spectives. Kimberly has been traveling fulltime with her family (a.k.a. The Act!vated Storytellers) since 1992, promot-ing multicultural folktales with an activated flair! http://familiesontheroad.com • As mentioned above, we were thrilled to see Patrick Farenga, president of Holt Associates Inc., announce free public access homeedmag.com Home Education Magazine • September-October 2011 7

Jeanie B
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