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areas: formal learning and socializing. Eventually, this
work led to an unexpected interest in homeschools."15
The Moores went on to write Home Grown Kids and Home-
Spun Schools, which were published in the 1980s. The books,
which are written from a Christian perspective but offer a
universal message for all interested parties, have sold
hundreds of thousands of copies and offer practical advice
to parents on how to succeed as home educators. The Moores
advocate a firm but gentle approach to home education that
balances study, chores, and work outside the home in an
atmosphere geared toward a child's particular developmental
needs.
The Influence of John Holt
During the 1960s and early 1970s, another voice emerged
in the public school debate, a voice for decentralizing
schools and returning greater autonomy to teachers and
parents. John Holt, an Ivy League graduate and a teacher in
alternative schools, was decrying the lack of humanity
toward schoolchildren, even in the most compassionate school
settings. Holt was also a critic of the compulsory nature
of schooling. He wrote,
To return once more to compulsory school in its
barest form, you will surely agree that if the
government told you that on one hundred and eighty
days of the year, for six or more hours a day, you
had to be at a particular place, and there do
whatever people told you to do, you would feel
that this was a gross violation of your civil
liberties.16
Holt, who had long advocated the reform of schools,
became increasingly frustrated that so few parents were
willing to work toward change within the system. Conse-
quently, after his own years as a classroom teacher, he
observed that well-meaning but overworked teachers, who
program children to recite right answers and discourage
self-directed learning, often retard children's natural
curiosity. He chronicled his litany of complaints in How
Children Fail.17
Holt came to view schools as places that produce obedi-
ent, but bland, citizens. He saw the child's daily grind of