Self-Directed Education
Resource Directory

Roland Meighan has researched and written about home-based education since 1977. “For about fifteen years, I was an educational double agent. Some of my time was spent in teacher education, preparing post-graduate students for a career in schools, and some spent researching and supporting families choosing to educate their children at home.”

Over the last thirty years, he has collected a considerable number of stories, case-files, from the experiences of home-based educating families. In this book he opens fifteen of his case-files. The files capture some of the variety, pathos, difficulties and excitement of the families who become ‘reluctant heretics’ and take charge of their own education. The contrast between school-based and home-based education has been likened to that of factory farming versus the free-range option.

All the case-files in this book are based on true incidents. Most names and most locations have been changed to avoid any possible embarrassment. The author has permitted himself some poetic license in the files, over the actual dialogue and the exact sequence of events.