Alternative Education

Alternative education is education that takes place outside conventional or traditional models. Homeschool is certainly ‘alternative education’ but the links below pushes the envelope a little further. Alternative education encompasses any means of support or approaches that assist learning away from mainstream education methodology. Broadly speaking, it may also combine home-based education (homeschooling) with more programmatic or structured learning in a resource centre, or even as part of a cooperative involving a few students and/or their families, or dispense with any structure (such as unschooling). Go to Wikipedia for more information.

Some links:

• Democratic Education: Online directory with a wealth of resources and links
  “Democratic education is an educational approach grounded in respect for human rights and a broad interpretation of learning, in which young people have the freedom to organize their daily activities, and in which there is equality and democratic decision-making among young people and adults.”
• The Education Revolution: Website of Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) founded in 1989 to advance learner-centered approaches to education.
• Why Waldorf Works: Developmentally appropriate, balanced approach to education that integrates the arts and academics for children from preschool through twelfth grade.
• The Natural Child Project: Drawn from John Holt’s education ideas which gave birth to the modern homeschooling movement
• Summerhill School: British boarding school run on democratic education principles, founded by Alexander Sutherland Neill who said that schools should fit the child and not the other way round.