Product Description
An estimated 700,000 American children are now taught at home. This book tells teens how to take control of their lives and get a "real life." Young people can reclaim their natural ability to teach themselves and design a personalized education program. Grace Llewellyn explains the entire process, from making the decision to quit school, to discovering the learning opportunities available.
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Amazon.com Review
You won't find this book on a school library shelf--it's pure teenage anarchy. While many homeschooling authors hem and haw that learning at home isn't for everyone, this manifesto practically tells kids they're losers if they do otherwise. With the exception of a forwarding note to parents, this book is written entirely for teenagers, and the first 75 pages explain why school is a waste of time. Grace Llewellyn insists that people learn better when they are self-motivated and not confined by school walls. Instead of homeschooling, which connotes setting up a school at home, Llewellyn prefers "unschooling," a learning method with no structure or formal curriculum. There are tips here you won't hear from a school guidance counselor. Llewellyn urges kids to take a vacation--at least for a week--after quitting school to purge its influence. "Throw darts at a picture of your school" or "Make a bonfire of old worksheets," she advises. She spends an entire chapter on the gentle art of persuading parents that this is a good idea. Then she gets serious. Llewellyn urges teens to turn off the TV, get outside, and turn to their local libraries, museums, the Internet, and other resources for information. She devotes many chapters to books and suggestions for teaching yourself science, math, social sciences, English, foreign languages, and the arts. She also includes advice on jobs and getting into college, assuring teens that, contrary to what they've been told in school, they won't be flipping burgers for the rest of their days if they drop out. Llewellyn is a former middle-school English teacher, and she knows her audience well. Her formula for making the transition from traditional school to unschooling is accompanied by quotes on freedom and free thought from radical thinkers such as Steve Biko and Ralph Waldo Emerson. And Llewellyn is not above using slang. She capitalizes words to add emphasis, as in the "Mainstream American Suburbia-Think" she blames most schools for perpetuating. Some of her attempts to appeal to young minds ring a bit corny. She weaves through several chapters an allegory about a baby whose enthusiasm is squashed by a sterile, unnatural environment, and tells readers to "learn to be a human bean and not a mashed potato." But her underlying theme--think for yourself--should appeal to many teenagers. --Jodi Mailander Farrell
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 17 Years Too Late For Me.... ( kjwagner2000 )
I love this book. Would have been The Best Thing back in the day, but alas, it was published the same year I graduated high school, and I never heard of it until now.
This book is full of wild and vibrant ideas, I read it and I checked it out last week from the library for my own mom. While I may have gotten out of school 17 years ago, I have two little kids who are just at the right age to start school, and I find myself very reluctant to put them into that situation.
We all carry scars around from our school years, everyone has horror stories of what school was like. What if we could have stepped out of that? For so many people, they don't even realize that there could be a different option. The idea that this exists is beyond them.
This also opens a whole new world of what it means to homeschool. I always thought of it as a (yes, ultra-religious) kid sitting at the kitchen table while mom lectures and hands out worksheets. Ew! This book instead focuses on living in the world, not the school.
If this author is too flighty, so be it! After having bicycled across six different European countries, earned a college degree (graduating cum laude from a private, four-year university) and founding my own business, I think the author is truly onto something here. I think the criticisms of being too flighty probably translate into the criticism of "not knowing your place." Thank goodness so many people in the world have the fire to go after what their passions dictate, and not what everyone else dictates.
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 weak, effeminate, lacks seriousness ( tojo931 )
I thought the author was a bit immature. I found the author's lack of seriousness to be a serious conflict to my real interest in accomplishing something in the world via educating myself. The author is a wanderer who wants to follow ever passion that comes her way.
The real issue with quitting school is discipline and purpose. If you don't have a lot of both then it seems foolish and could easily end up in vain. The author does not advise caution nor does she provide a voice of reason and wisdom.
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 good resource
Read this book with the idea that whether or not you agree with everything, it will provide many opportunities for reflection. The author seems out-of-touch, a bit, with the current generation. Her ideals and opinions about "school" sometimes come off as flaky. For example, she's disappointed that someone would leave public school for another way to meet school requirements. Even though that person is just fine with that, her disappointment is over not choosing her definition of "unschooling"--as if they still don't get how brain washed they are.
Bottom line, if one has reservations about the public/traditional education offered, this book might be just the needed inspiration to seek an alternative. The second part is especially useful. Use it as a resource, but don't overlook others. If you are seeking validation to challenging the institution of school, there are other better written books.
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 AUTHOR NEEDS TO GROW UP A BIT... ( rplareow )
This is not an educator calling for change, this is a self-centered child that wants licentiousness, not liberty. She thinks all kids are able to be free. She forgets the debt they owe to the past. Everything we have today, material and otherwise, is due to the efforts of our ancestors, for better or for worse. When we are infants, we are helpless, so our parents feed us and take care of us. Because of these facts, we should not grow up, as the author suggests, to do anything we want. Instead, we should learn so that we can claim the liberty to contribute to society in the manner we choose, without being subserviant to any person, idea, or substance. This is a different concept, entirely. The author justs wants to say, "to hell with everything, it is all about me." This is immature. Take the experimentation with drugs, for example. That is not freedom. When you become addicted, then you are still a slave. The author wants freedom (licentiousness), BUT SHE NEGLECTS HER RESPONSIBILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS that we ALL owe as a debt to the past. This is the difference - being free to do what you want, versus being free to satisfy obligations and responsibilities in you own way, not the way dictated by someone else, such as a governmental bureaucrat.
I agree that the school system is beyond fixing. I believe in educating yourself. However, due to inexperience, you need the guidance of a mentor. A good mentor will give you access to the best thinking of the past, while still allowing you to do the work of educating yourself. No man is an island unto himself, but this author would have everyone running around doing whatever they wanted. As I said, we owe a debt to the past, and that debt is satisfied by having the liberty to reach your fullest potential in a manner of your choosing, not to experiment with drugs and become a burden on society. If education were of the mentor type, we might have less people dependent on welfare and government for their needs.
This author's writings suggest a child-like being who is self-centered, irresponsible, immature, and without character. Therefore, she has no business telling other children how to live their lives. I am all for freedom, but only if one is adult enough to know that our ancestors gave us that freedom, so we must use it to become self-reliant, productive, and decent people who are indeed able to think for themselves. They would not be slaves to anybody or anything (like drugs).
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Excellent!! Truly Excellent!!
I love this book! I unschool my two children - ages 14 & 11. The author has fabulous ideas and speaks in a voice that rings true at my house! I have read many sections aloud to the kids and have seen both of them reading bits and pieces themselves. The Teenage Liberation Handbook is inspiring and life affirming -- I highly recommend it!
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