Susannah Sheffer

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Susannah Sheffer
Occupations
  • Author
  • Editor
  • Activist
Website Personal website

Susannah Sheffer is an author, editor, and activist, focusing on issues of education, prisons, and the death penalty. She is a leader in the unschooling, deschooling, and homeschooling movement. [1] She served on the board of Holt Associates, edited the newsletter Growing Without Schooling (GWS) for many years, and edited the book A Life Worth Living: Selected Letters of John Holt. [2] [3] [4] She is currently a staff member of North Star, an alternative to middle school and high school in Massachusetts. [5]

Her books include A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls, Writing Because We Love To: Homeschoolers at Work, In a Dark Time: A Prisoner's Struggle for Healing and Change, and Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experiences of Capital Defense Attorneys. She has also published numerous articles, essays, and book chapters on related issues. [6]

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Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an online teacher, many homeschool families use less formal, more personalized and individualized methods of learning that are not always found in schools. The actual practice of homeschooling can vary. The spectrum ranges from highly structured forms based on traditional school lessons to more open, free forms such as unschooling, which is a lesson- and curriculum-free implementation of homeschooling. Some families who initially attended a school go through a deschool phase to break away from school habits and prepare for homeschooling. While "homeschooling" is the term commonly used in North America, "home education" is primarily used in Europe and many Commonwealth countries. Homeschooling should not be confused with distance education, which generally refers to the arrangement where the student is educated by and conforms to the requirements of an online school, rather than being educated independently and unrestrictedly by their parents or by themselves.

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References

  1. Lewin, Tamar (November 29, 1995). "In Home Schooling, A New Type of Student". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  2. Growing without Schooling in Hern, M. (Ed.). (2008). Everywhere all the time: A new deschooling reader. AK Press.
  3. "Reflections". Growing Without Schooling. 143: 2. November–December 2001.
  4. Publishers Weekly review of A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls, Sept 4, 1005, https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780867093575
  5. "PEOPLE — North Star". North Star. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  6. "SusannahSheffer". SusannahSheffer. Retrieved 2018-12-02.