Interview with Pat Farenga

One of the people, whom I would love to see visit Germany and talk about homeschooling and unschooling in particular is Pat Farenga. He took over the reins at Growing Without Schooling after John Holt died. One thing I would like to ask Pat is why John Holt felt that it was better to support the cause of unschooling rather than helping children learn at their own pace within the school system, and whether he had any opinions on the democratic schools.

Here is an interview with Pat. Some of his comments really jumped out at me, one of them being this :
I’m now concerned about our society deciding to support “womb to tomb education,” with all sorts of certificates and classes being required before we can join or do anything as adults. I see how this benefits educationists, but this benefit has the cost of undermining one’s “pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.” But, we seem, as a society, more willing than I ever thought to give up those pursuits in the name education. That ties in with what I was writing about the value of education.

I think this comment of Pat's addresses my question above :
Now, there are many niches to place your children in. But only homeschooling allows learning to be viewed as an embedded activity in the natural world of families and communities, rather than as a prdouct made by teaching children in a special place where nothing but learning is supposed to occur.