Gender
Male
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Location
Medford, MA
Birthday:
March 23
School / Work Affiliation
Homeschooling, Unschooling
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patfarenga
About Me
Patrick Farenga is a writer and education activist who worked closely with the author and teacher John Holt, until Holt’s death in 1985. He is the president of HoltGWS LLC. and was the publisher of Growing Without Schooling magazine (GWS) from 1985 until it stopped publishing in 2001. GWS was the nation’s first periodical about homeschooling, started by Holt in 1977. The Farengas unschooled their daughters, now aged 25, 22, and 19. Unschooling is a word created by Holt to describe how people learn in the world without using conventional school techniques and materials. Farenga speaks as a homeschooling expert at education conferences around the world, as well as on commercial radio and television talk shows. His media appearances include The Today Show, Good Morning America, Voice of America, Geraldo, Learning Matters, CNN’s Parenting Today, The Dr. Drew Pinsky Show, and Fox and Friends. In addition to writing for GWS for twenty years, Farenga’s books include Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling (Perseus) and The Beginner’s Guide to Homeschooling; articles about homeschooling and democratic education (Encounter Magazine, Summer 2011); and essays about unschooling in a number of publications such as Un Mundo Por Aprender (University of Colombia, Bogota, 2011), and the entries about homeschooling for the International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd Edition (Elsevier, 2010) and the online edition of Encyclopedia Britannica (2012, forthcoming).
