John Holt on 'deschooling society,' 1971

Reason magazine, published by the libertarian, free-marketeers at The Cato Institute, has republished a piece from 1971 written by John Holt. His topic is "deschooling society," as put forth by Ivan Illich.

Holt was a close collaborator of Illich's and is widely recognized as the founding father of the home-schooling movement. In this piece, he sets out to interpret Illich's notion of deschooling. As Holt puts it, "we must dissolve the schools back into society. They seem to me to have precipitated or congealed—a little like a lump in a cream-of-wheat—and the thing we have to do is stir them back into the mix, so to speak." Holt also gives credit to Paul Goodman for informing his thinking.