Recommended Reading

The following is a list of books which support the philosophy of Shenandoah Valley Community School. Titles in bold are available at the SVCS library. Titles marked with an * are available from the AERO bookstore.

Democratic schools

Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School*
by Daniel Greenberg

The Pursuit of Happiness: The Lives of Sudbury Valley Alumni*
by Daniel Greenberg, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Jason Lempka

Making It Up as We Go Along*
by Chris Mercogliano

The Sudbury Valley School Experience*
by Daniel Greenberg, Hanna Greenberg, Michael Greenberg, Laura Ransom, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Alan White

Teaching the Restless: One School's No-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn*
by Chris Mercogliano

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child-Rearing*
by A. S. Neill

How to Grow a School*
by Chris Mercogliano

Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education (DVD)*
a documentary by Bhawin Suchak and Jeff Root

Creating Learning Communities
edited by Ron Miller

No Homework and Recess All Day: How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education*
by Jerry Mintz

Parenting

Unconditional Parenting*
by Alfie Kohn

Punished by Rewards:The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes*
by Alfie Kohn

No Contest: The Case Against Competition*
by Alfie Kohn

In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness*
by Chris Mercogliano

Playful Parenting
by Lawrence J. Kohen

Homeschool/Unschool

The Teenage Liberation Handbook*
by Grace Llewelyn

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling*
by John Holt & Patrick Farenga

Learning All the Time
by John Holt

Theory/Philosophy

Last Child in the Woods*
by Richard Louv

Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn't Always Better*
by Matt Hern

Escape From Childhood
by John Holt

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life*
by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Teaching as a Subversive Activity
by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner

The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
by Neil Postman

Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business
edited by Alfie Kohn and Patrick Shannon

Kids Working It Out: Stories and Strategies for Making Peace in Our Schools
edited by Tricia S. Jones and Randy Compton

The Compassionate Classroom: Relationship Based Teaching and Learning*
by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson

The Exhausted School
edited by John Taylor Gatto

Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect our Children's Minds--and What We Can Do About It
by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D.

Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think--and What We Can Do About It
by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D.

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling*
by John Taylor Gatto