Informal Education: A Resource List

Compiled by Emily Robin Jackson

Here's a brief list of educational resources for your family to explore.

AUTHORS AND LEADERS

Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
Hard Times (1854)
Dickens’s novel involves, among other things, an attack on the prevailing educational philosophy of his day, the cramming of factual information into children, the deadening routine of the classroom, including abuse and humiliation, and the lack of interest in the imaginative life of the child. Dickens’s novel opens as follows:

‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’ The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room.

Dennison, George
The Lives of Children: The Story of the First Street School (1969)
An experiment involving schooling children in a New York ghetto demonstrated that the teacher, in responding to a student, never just mediates facts but demonstrates concern with the life of the child. Dennison’s book is just one example of many studies done in the 1960s and early 1970s that emphasized a holistic approach to learning.

Dewey, John (1859–1952)
In School and Society (1889), Dewey wrote: “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” Active in philosophy, psychology, education, politics, and social thought, Dewey found many schools to be oppressive, and he sought to implement progressive reforms. He believed learning in school was a function of living within a social community and should help develop citizens in a democracy. He saw early academic learning as potentially cramping and deadening; observing American interest in the Prussian model of efficiency in schooling, Dewey was not convinced it would take hold in America. Dewey’s works include Schools of Tomorrow (1915), Democracy and Education (1916), and On Education (1940; essays published separately, 1897–1933). Online, see “My Pedagogic Creed” and the Center for Dewey Studies. Dewey and his wife also established an experimental school at the University of Chicago. For information, see Ida DePencier’s The History of the Laboratory School: The University of Chicago, 1896–1965 (1967).

Farenga, Patrick
Farenga worked closely with the author and teacher John Holt until Holt’s death in 1985. He is now president of Holt Associates Inc. The website provides information about Farenga’s speaking schedule, conferences, and numerous writings, including a revised and updated edition of Holt’s Teach Your Own (Delacorte 1981; rev. Perseus 2003). Farenga also provides business and personal consultations.

Ferrer y Guardia, Francisco (1859–1909)
Ferrer y Guardia was a freethinker, anarchist, and founder of the alternative Modern School in Spain. He also wrote The Origin and Ideals of the Modern School (1913). His execution stimulated the development of Modern Schools in Europe and the United States.