We Have to Call it School

Black and white film portrait of the off beat Copenhagen unschool called Bagsværd Ny Lilleskole or The Little School. Filmed in 1972–74 by Holt Associates. John Holt the great pedagogue called it his dream school. It was one of the first Little Schools or Free Schools to appear in Denmark, a country with a long tradition of sponsoring alternatives to the public school system.

John Holt developed the notion that children learn best when the are learning what they want to learn. He also realized that this could not be accomplished in a traditional classroom setting. He started the magazine Growing Without Schooling and coined the term unschooling.