important. i tell you everyone says how important small business is we do not have enough people walking the talk for. >> to watch the ss program visit booktv.org search for carol roth of the title of her book the war on small business. >> and want to show you know the cover of this new book, unschooled is called raising curious well educated children outside the conventional classroom. it's written by kerri mcdonald. before we get into the substance of the book, tell us a little bit about yourself. >> sure, it's great to be with you today. i'm a senior education scholar the foundation for economic education. celebrating her 75th year the free-market think tank. scholar at the cato institute and as you mentioned the

author of t unschooled spring of 2019 that had quite a bit of renewed interest over the past year plus given shutdowns in the upsurge in interest in homeschooling and alternative schools particularly again withna school shutdowns in the delayed reopening plans per. >> on a practical level have you been a teacher in the classroom urge you have children or school aged? >> so i am a homeschool mom myself. i have four children who have never been schools in the range age fromm seven -- 14. the book does tiant some of that personal experience. i travel the country and writing the book visit others homeschooling families. learning centers and other school alternatives our families looking for something

different something more customized to their children's education. it had the traditional school environment my background is in economics education policy at harvard. that's really where i became interested in freedom and alternatives to school and educational entrepreneurship. coming up with new learning models for new ways to meet the demand the parents have. >> is that your children have beenen c homeschooled is there a difference? >> the difference is that homeschooling and un- schooling are both alternatives to school outside of a conventional classroom. with un- schooling it's focused think of un- schooling

is changing education including split home methods homeschooling instead of the stereotypical version of homeschooling rate might have a parent sitting on a kitchen table the textbook instead of replicating school at home i challenge that a little bit in this book the practice we do not need to replicate school at home even homeschooling models i encourage children's national curiosity and creativity. and as a parent connect their interest and passions in your kids naturally have two available community resources and base it around them. >> host: how do you get to the basics of teaching math and reading literacy to children in the unschooled environment? >> i'm talk about that very clearly in the book. it's every parent's responsibility to make sure

their children are highly educated. i would argue that's true whether your children are in school or not in school. parents need to make sure their students are learning and being educated. and un- schooling there is so much more family involvement in education because parents are clued in to their children's area of interest it is easier to then connect to those resources and build upon the knowledge the children have their natural curiosity to discover. i go through the book talking about how to approach reading and math through an un- schooling approach. i think it's important to mention unschooled are not anti- curriculum or anti- dietrich traditional learning it's just s the idea it's student directed his instead of top down. i find many unschooled children will gravitate to a

curriculum many unschooled her's and taking community college classes in the high school years. in fact a survey done homeschoolers by doctor peter gray who was a professor and un- schooling advocate he and his colleague gina riley discovered most un- schoolers did spend time during their high school years taking committee college classes often getting an associates degree the same age their peers or get a high school diploma and then being able to enroll in a four-year e university transferring this credit saving quite a bit of money. that's an approach with skyrocketing tuition rates at universities. >> host: seems like the homeschool and the unschooled have grown exponentially in the last 20 years. is that saying something about public l education?

>> homeschooling has grown tremendously over the past couple of decades you are right through the first year the u.s. department of education began tracking homeschoolers was 1998 at the time 855. that number stored to about 2 million just under 2 million in 2016. then over the past year we have seen a stripling of the homeschool rate from that pre-pandemic level the u.s. census bureau report released in february more than 11% of the overall school age population is being homeschooled which is over 5 million students that is tremendous growth. one of the things the u.s. census bureau found in particular it's being driven in large part by black homeschooling family to

fivefold increase for march 2020 through the. that just ended black homeschooling families now in overrepresentation. more than 60% identify to black is about 15% of the general school population. >> was that sending the message about public schools? >> there frustrated about delayed school reopening. the overall growth in homeschooling for a more

personalized education the u.s. department of education view that from 2012 and 2016 shows the number one reason parents are choosing to home school is about the environment of other schools including bullying, negative. of thing.that sort the number two motivator was a desire for academic excellence. that is somewhat of a reflection on the conventional o school system the sense of caparenting to help guide their children's education and give them a more robust education they may not bee getting elsewhere for. >> and unschooled to use the term coercive schooling what is that mean? >> coercive schooling is sort of this idea that we are compelling students to be in school through compulsory schooling laws as well as

through the top down measures subject at this time in this way with a very little customization. in fact are going to double down on standardization of learning in the last couple of decades in 2001 and that's over the past couple of decades. the "new york times" came out that in-depth article on homeschooling a couple of years f ago they found some of the biggest roles in some families is happening in urban secular families who are particularly turned off by the growing standardization of common core curriculum the push for academic standards at younger ages expecting kindergartners to be reading it's turned off a lot of parents.

this idea of injecting education with more freedoms and consents over coercion and conformity. >> what is been the role of technology andlo furthering homeschooled and unschooled? >> there are so many online resources unconventional schoolchildren i think it's going to be pumping at the district level is incredible private learning online learning program homeschoolers continue to rely on other families discovered over the past year something like con academy the nonprofit organization thatof is a leader in online free learning that he has done for the math

curriculum. i think more families discovered them this year. there is this high quality online researchers and other schooling alternatives more accessible to more families but. >> you touched on this earlier you talked about natural learning could you expand on that a little bit? >> the idea is young children are naturally curious, exuberant, creative they are always asking why. and it really eager to explore and discover their world. as i mentioned, peter gray was a forge of my book, these natural drives for learning and discovery don't magically turn themselves off when they turn five or six years old. we turn them off with our coercive system of school pretty idea of un- schooling separating education from

schooling schooling is one method of education but certainly not the only one and arguably not the best one with the reality of the 21st century, the idea you cannot shut off the natural drives for learning discovery creativity and curiosity. instead allow those drives to flourish. we think about the needs of the 21st century where we are increasingly computing and coexisting with robots and machines. things like creativity curiosity originality ingenuityy, and so often those are the qualities that diminished in a coercive system natural human drives

for discovery and learning. there are so critical now more than ever. >> alright what is the downside to un- schooling? >> you know, i think there is a true upside. i think this is thehe moment families arere discovering that conventional schooling is not meeting their needs has not met the needs of many families over the past a year. now more than ever families are looking for alternatives. it has soared over the past year parents are back in the driver's side they have been re- empowered. >> kerri mcdonagh is the author of this book unschooled raising curious well educated children outside the

conventional classroom. thank you for joining us on book tv. >> great to be with you, peter thanks. >> here is a look at some the most notable books of 2021. according to harvard university history professor looks at three generations of black women originally given by a mother to her daughter malcolm gladwell examines precision bombing during world war ii. historian mark oppenheimer reports on the aftermath of the true shooting in pittsburgh and on the local community. peter burkett looks at the lives of the men behind terrorist attacks.

find your programs at booktv.org. just type the author's name in the search bar at the top of the page. >> you are watching tv. for complete television schedule visit booktv.org. you can also follow along behind the scenes on social media @booktv on twitter,er, instagram and facebook. seventy-second nationalme book award coming with the random house building. have wi-fi that won't quit and in 5g. that my friend is true l.a. ship. okay kidding aside, as you can all see the pandemic is making this the second fully virtual. >> get that charles barkley plays the other nba?