PRAISE FOR GWS

Here are just a few of the comments we've received about Grown Without Schooling:


" Entertaining, vulnerable, unpretentious. Grown Without Schooling offers fascinating insights about the transition from homeschooling to the working world, and it provides both reassurance and thoughtful guidance for the next generation of homeschoolers. Highly recommended!"
      -Grace Llewellyn, author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook and director of Not Back to School Camp

"Three thumbs up! Grown Without Schooling presents a profound homeschooling narrative."
      -Linda Dobson, author of the Homeschooling Book of Answers

"I loved it! The homeschoolers were so candid, so articulate, so honest about their feelings; it was such a very, very refreshing change from the 'look what great things my homeschooler has accomplished' thing that got going among a lot of us in the 80s and 90s. I found your video much, much more healthy, realistic and helpful."
      -Penny Barker, homeschooling mother since 1977 and cofounder of The Country School Farm

"I've sat through many videos about homeschooling, often with a bit of me in them, and I've never felt that they went beyond being amateur attempts at homeschooling propaganda. So, I started Grown Without Schooling with some trepidation—and I was completely blown away by it.
   All too often we read and hear about the fears and successes of homeschooling from the parents' point of view; Grown Without Schooling is a remarkable documentary that ties together the experiences of young children who were homeschooled to their lives as adults. Peter Kowalke interviews adults who were homeschooled from around the United States and provides us with a multitude of honest answers to the eternal questions homeschoolers face: Are they well socialized as adults? What do they do during their high school years? Do they get into College? If they don't go to college, what do they do? Do they settle into lives and work worth doing.
   Parents, teachers, teenagers, and anyone wondering how homeschooled children turn out as adults should watch this tape. Active homeschoolers will benefit from the candor of the interviewees and from the creative approaches to learning and living that the wide variety of interviews show us."
      -Patrick Farenga, author of Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling and president of Holt Associates

"Kudos for a job well done on the Grown Without Schooling documentary. I felt as if I got to know—if only briefly—the homeschoolers interviewed. I found especially interesting the varied paths they took to self-supporting, independent adulthoods. What a wide range of activities and environments they now find themselves in—everything from research in academia to public interest work to growing organic foods. Rather than glamorize and mythologize home education, these articulate grown homeschoolers faithfully detail the ups and downs of finding their way and making places for themselves in their communities. Above all, they show what an idiosyncratic yet joyful experience self-education can be. All homeschoolers should see this video!"
      -Cafi Cohen, author of Homeschooling: The Teen Years

" Grown Without Schooling is an interesting look back at the early days of the homeschooling movement. The video is very well done, and Peter Kowalke has included some fairly diverse voices. I particularly like that he placed contradictory remarks back to back, although I did notice that most of the grown homeschoolers in the video are secular unschoolers by philosophy. Overall, I highly recommend GWS to those interested in the history of homeschooling."
      -Mary Hood, Ph.D., author of The Relaxed Home Schooler

"I hope GWS is distributed widely."
      -Ron Miller, author and Executive Director of Paths of Learning magazine

"From true dissatisfaction to complete appreciation, the interviewees expressed the entire spectrum of what it feels like to be a homeschooler. This film should play a significant role in helping parents of homeschooled children learn the value of breaking free of traditional educational practices so that they can provide their children with a more meaningful and satisfactory education."
      -Alison McKee, author of Homeschooling Our Children, Unschooling Ourselves

"What is it like to grow up in the United States of America without going to school? Peter Kowalke's documentary offers ten answers to this question, challenging assumptions about both school and homeschooling in the process. This is not a sales pitch for homeschooling, but rather a thoughtful, realistic, personal look at the experience of living a bold, exuberant, and sometimes frightening educational experiment. These vivid portraits and reflective conversations have much to offer the committed homeschooling family, the skeptical friend or relative, the worried newcomer—and anyone who has ever wondered how it feels when every day is a ‘no school’ day."
      -Susannah Sheffer, author of A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls and former editor of Growing Without Schooling magazine