The Father of Homeschooling

Although this system (public schools) always had its detractors, school reformers became more vocal in the mid-1960s, criticizing what they considered an overly restrictive, lock-step method of teaching.

John Holt emerged as the father of the modern home-school movement. Holt, a former teacher, began by urging more freedom within the classroom and ended up promoting home schooling. He believed schools were too large, inflexible and bureaucratic to be sensitive to individual children’s needs and interests, and that this led many children to struggle needlessly. Just as disturbing, he said, children often lost their zest for learning when forced to fit into the narrow confines of the conventional classroom.