Former high school physics teacher and startup entrepreneur Jim Flannery provides teens with an overview of self-directed education, including insights directly from unschoolers and attendees of self-directed learning centers, while offering a model for how young people can connect to start their own learning centers.
LEAVE SCHOOL: what teachers can't tell you is the perfect read for any adolescent looking to pursue an education outside of the conventional school system. LEAVE SCHOOL begins with Flannery sharing his own experiences, both as a student and as a teacher, before providing an introduction to the concepts of self-directed education and a style of homeschooling called "unschooling". LEAVE SCHOOL then shifts its focus toward helping teenagers to connect with other youth who also learn without school, providing detailed descriptions of several existing models of self-directed learning centers, including Sudbury Schools, democratic free schools, Liberated Learners Centers, and Agile Learning Centers. LEAVE SCHOOL concludes with Flannery's broadcasting of an ambitious model for zero-tuition youth-initiated self-directed learning centers that aims to address the lack of existing self-directed learning centers.
