Fresh words for the 30th Anniversary Edition
From Leo Babauta
Leo is the author and blogger behind Zen Habits.
This handbook shook up my family’s views of learning and life, and gifted us with liberating and exhilarating new ways of experiencing our unschooling journey. Its refreshing rebellious philosophy is infused into our lives to this day. This is a must-read for anyone who is considering the grand adventure of unschooling.
From Kenneth Danford
Ken is the co-founder of North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens and Liberated Learners, author of Learning is Natural, School is Optional: The North Star Approach to Offering Teens a Head Start on Life, and a former public school teacher.
Three pivotal events divide my life into “Before” and “After” moments: 1) meeting my wife, 2) becoming a parent, and 3) reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook.
Before reading this book, I was a teacher committed to reforming schools by working my way up the system, presumably to someday become the Secretary of Education. After reading it, I was derailed into leaving the system to start a program that would help all of my students use the wisdom and lifestyle described in these pages. My life changed because of this book, clearly for the better. I know that I am one of many people—teens, parents, teachers, activists—who can make that statement with utter certainty.
When we started North Star, we used this book to swear in our first Board of Directors! I have personally ordered hundreds of copies of this book and handed them out to young people in western Massachusetts, so if you are searching for an old edition, you might head out here to improve your chances of securing one.
Upon skimming this latest addition, I am struck by how valuable the “handbook” sections are for people of all ages. There is so much to learn and do, and so many ways to pursue our interests. Grace lays out specific resources along with an empowering attitude to seizing the moment to learn right now! I propose this book be handed out to all adults embarking on retirement just as much as it might be shared with teens who are seeking another way to live. This book is a gift to everyone with a spark of curiosity and some time on their hands.
What else is there to say? I read this book in one night at age 30, and I felt the vision that has become my adult professional life of North Star and Liberated Learners. Thank you, Grace, and I wish more readers will find their own lives challenged and disrupted in creative ways as I have experienced.
From Joel Hammon
Joel is the co-founder of Princeton Learning Cooperative and Liberated Learners, the author of The Teacher Liberation Handbook: How to Leave School and Create a Place Where You and Young People Can Thrive, and a former public school teacher.
When I was a disillusioned public school teacher, a chance encounter with The Teenage Liberation Handbook changed my life. It gave me hope that a better and more meaningful life was possible for the young people I worked with – and for me too. This book is a great starting point for teens (and their parents) who suspect they could learn more and live better without school.
From Kerry McDonald
Kerry is the author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, a senior education fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, and a regular contributor to Forbes.
Grace Llewellyn inspired many teenagers, and their parents, to let go of a schooled mindset and embrace the freedom of life without school. In this spectacular, updated edition of The Teenage Liberation Handbook, we are inspired all over again by her wisdom and work over the past 30 years.
From Akilah S. Richards
Akilah is an Unschooling Organizer, an Audio Nerd, the author of Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work, and the host of Fare of the Free Child podcast.
I’m keeping this on my upstairs bookshelf, which is sacred space for me! I love that this version of Grace’s book speaks to some of the non-romantic realities of unschooling. She touches on the potential loneliness and depression, the missing elements of schooling that (some) children or their families might need and love, the often pervasively White and often dogmatic dominant unschooling culture, and so many of the things that render unschooling so much more of a layered lifestyle practice than it is a commitment to a freedom-oriented type of education. I encourage the slow drinking in of this book, not because it will answer all the questions, or even because it covers everything about liberation-centered approaches to childhood and teenage years. I encourage you to get into Teenage Liberation Handbook because Grace offers plenty of madd question-askin’ opportunities, and plenty of invitations to challenge what you thought you knew about the purpose and power of education, so that you can be a liberation zone for a young person in your life. I also LOVE that I could open this book and start reading anywhere; linear reading can be so boring! The chapter on The Glorious Generalist is my (right now) fave, and it was one example of places all throughout this book where I wanted to highlight every freakin’ thing and then spend months meandering through each highlight. Overall, I’m feeling this resource, and I’m glad Grace and Blake decided to go deep here.
From Jay Silver
Jay Silver, PhD, is the founder and CEO of MakeyMakey.
At MIT, grad students pass The Teenage Liberation Handbook around in secret to set our minds free from institutional thinking. Without it, I would not be the founder of a successful electronics company. It lit me on fire, and my learning went from regimented to an out-of-control fire hose. In fact, I assigned readings from this book to my own MIT grad students—in teaching “invention literacy,” self-directed learning is essential to a hacker mindset: a way of exploring knowledge and possibilities beyond the path. And whenever I plan an electronics or coding workshop, I refer to The Teenage Liberation Handbook to consider issues around consent, respect, and empowerment in education.
From Patrick Farenga
Patrick Farenga is the co-author of Teach Your Own and publisher of Growing Without Schooling magazine.
30 years ago, I cheered loudly when the Teenage Liberation Handbook was published and have recommended it to families ever since. This new, updated edition provides parents and teenagers with the best ideas and proven strategies for helping teenagers find their place in the world without attending conventional schooling. The Teenage Liberation Handbook is an evergreen resource for enabling self-directed education.
Praise for previous editions
is on this page.