Libertarian Education

CWC's report of the first public children's meetings in Karnataka

Extracts from a book by David Mearns and Brian Thorne on Carl Rogers' approach to counselling, rewritten to illustrate an approach to education.

Some reflections after a year of working with education in freedom. Land of Treasure is a free nursery school in Łodz, Poland.

Ola Matyska

The Indian organisation, Shikshantar, runs a campaign against academic qualifications. They have published many relevant stories. 

Circus Kaos is not a typical circus – it doesn't have any animals and its artists come under the Youth Protection Act.

Ruth Schleicher

A model of an educational philosophy adapted, with permission, from a diagram by Lynne Smith.

Harry Potter is defended against the critics who accept The Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials as serious literature.

David Gribble

A teacher at Bishop's Park College, in Clacton, writes about the inspiration he found there.

Mark Curtis

The School I'd Like

The Guardian newspaper asked the questions, and children answered them.

 Catherine Burke and Ian Grosvenor

Too Much, too soon: Early Learning and the Erosion of Childhood

An OpenEYE publication edited by Richard House

The Ragged University is a new and rapidly growing initiative in the UK.

Alex Dunedin

This article is an extract from Jürg Jegge's book Dummheit ist lernbar (Stupidity is learnable).

Jürg Jegge

The December Newsletter from Hope Flowers School, in Bethlehem.

A letter announcing that the Indian organisation, Concerned for Working Children, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Coole Schule, the Austrian association of school students, gives up on politics.

As an undiagnosed autistic, Maurice Frank suffered severely at school from being classified as gifted and talented. 

Pat Edwards, of Tamariki School in Christchurch, New Zealand, describes one particular kind of learning outside the classroom.

Pat Edwards

Booroobin, as small Sudbury school in Australia, joins the list of free schools threatened by government action.

A new website, which instead of praising libertarian education, goes into the attack.

David Gribble

Alan was one of the victims of the raising of the school-leaving age in 1972. His experience has contemporary relevance.

Alan Nettleton

A brief introduction to the recent founded English Secondary Students' Association.

David Gribble

Extracts from Tolstoy's writing about his school at Yasnaya Polyana

A description of the new European Democratic Education Community.

Zsa-Zsa Shea

What happened when three retired teachers spent two days in a modern primary school.

Tony Brown, Michael Foot and Peter Holt

Leonard Turton

An address to The first EUDEC (European Democratic Education Conference) which was held at the University of Leipzig in 2008. 

An interesting new school has been started by Russian immigrants in Sinai, Egypt

Katerina Perkhova

An ex-pupil tells of her own experiences at the school and describes the effect it had on her life.

Jenny Auster

A selection of startling suggestions from the TES website.

Some entries for the English Secondary Students' Association competition for videos suggesting improvements to schools. 

Comments on the NASUWT's position statement in which they justify their anxiety about current development of student voice in British Schools.

 A brief account of the work already done by Change the Future, a new attempt to make the voice of young people heard. 

Luke Flegg

A new definition of a loosely defined term.

Ian Cunningham

Children have moral perceptions which atrophy with age. 

David Gribble: review by Richard Seebohm

Akira Potter has been a pupil at two free schools in Japan, and at Summerhill. He describes his experiences.

Akira Potter

Details of the 2013 IDEC and Eudec Conferences.

Research into School Councils

Two views of the London Secondary Schools Action Research Project on school councils. 

What happened when twenty disaffected young people were given specialist teaching by experts.

'Schooling not only reproduces society fundamentally as it is, but also ...'

Clive Harber

Adapted from reflections in the report by P. J. Lolichen

Thirty-five visionaries in education tell their own stories.

Edited by Jerry Mintz and Carlo Ricci

A review of five DVDs about democratic initiatives in different countries.

Positive and negative reactions to the new English Education and Skills Bill

A description of a visit to William Booth by David Gribble, and a brief summary of the contested report by Ofsted in January 2011.

David Gribble

Children need to play out of doors, so why not sometimes close your street to cars?

A film by Alice Ferguson and Amy Rose

Edited extracts from the report by P. J. Lolichen of the CWC (The Concerned for Working Children) on their 2005 research into access and mobility.

People say Summerhill methods will only work with children from the wealthy, liberal middle class. Bryn Purdy’s experience proves the opposite.

(Children's rights fighters)

Krätzä is a group of people in Berlin who are concerned about children's rights, and are working for fundamental chang

Nigel Wright responds to Jenny Auster's article published on this site in May last year, and Jenny Auster replies.

An open letter from the Executive Director of the Indian organisation, the Concerned for Working Children (CWC)

Damodar Acharya

An account of what must be the most widespread liberalisation of education anywhere in the world.

Amukta Mahapatra

A song for any child-friendly school condemned by Ofsted

A psychotherapist tries rewarding bad behaviour to cure it.

Renee Sadler

Only a small number can imagine a different way to do things.

Richard Fransham

In Falko Peschel's classes, children really want to learn.

An ex-student from Sands School describes the development of democracy in another school.

Why, when bilingualism is so highly valued, are immigrant languages ignored?

Christine Hélot

David Gribble visited the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School, Chicago.

Richard Musgrove

A new experience for someone used to introducing democratic meetings to older groups

Jerry Mintz

A new teacher at Sands School describes his impressions.

Martin Roberts

A philosophical argument for a type of education which has long relied only on personal feeling and practical experience.

Gert J. J. Biesta

Recent research into education based on children's rights in state schools in Hampshire, England

Derry Hannam

A new book is planned by ex-students of Michael Duane's celebrated school.

Two versions of an article about Brooklyn Free School which give very different impressions

A response to Peter Higginson's article

James Bar Bowen

Just to keep you up-to-date.

An account of Tubelsky's school

The International Democratic Education Conference planned for Korea met an unexpected problem.

A sample article from Turning Points, a book published earlier this year in the USA, which is an anthology of responses to four specific questions.

A letter in support of an application to found a democratic school in Croatia.

Derry Hannam 

Pédagogie Nomade is a democratically run school in Belgium that is under threat.

 An extract from the prospectus of the proposed Netzwerkschule in Berlln

Dhruba Ghimire is workiing to improve the lives of Nepali women through education.

Echo Zang

We master what we practise. So what do we want to practise?

Trevanion Grenfell

In his book, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Jacques Rancière sets out the radical theory that is the core of most of his later work.

Stefan Szczelkun

An email correspondence between Luke Flegg, an ex-pupil of Sands School, and Moe Zimmerberg, staff member at the Tutorial School, New Mexico.

The speech delivered by Danielle Souness, of Room 13, at the Artworks Conference in the Tate Modern, when she was twelve years old.

An article from the Süddeutsche Zeitung about the  2011 IDEC, hosted by Sands School, in Devon. 

Simone Kosog

A pupil at a free school confronts parental anxiety.

Krischan Müller

A year-eight pupil at George Mitchell School in Leyton describes some of the innovations there.

Sylvia Lim

Downloadable files of the first three LTA bulletins.

Extracts from a correspondence that first appeared on the IDEC listserve.

The story of a project for helping unemployed young people to learn circus skills.

Alice Finbow

Edge Learner Forums aim to promote vocational qualifications and bring them up to an equal status with academic learning. In fact they do much more.

A report on IDEC 2012 in Puerto Rico, and an announcement about EUDEC 2012, to be held in Freiburg at the end of July.

This book consists of fifteen articles compiled some years ago from interviews with former pupils of Summerhill.

Semco is a business in Brazil where everyone decides what work to do, when to do it and how much to be paid. Now they have started a school.

The University of the Third Age, established to offer further education to the over forty-fives is healthily anti-authoritarian.

Martyn Everett

An ex-pupil from a free school in Vienna describes a life of extraordinarily varied learning.

Sirna David

Tamariki is a democratic school funded by the government. This teachers’ guide expresses their philosophy in a way acceptable to bureaucrats.

A former Summerhill houseparent, writes about his impressions of the school.

Matthew Appleton

Sammy Kunina has a passionately libertarian approach to parenting.

Sammy Kunina 

Richard Layard and Judy Dunn

A Free School Meets the Exam System

Kapriole, a free school in Bad Würtemberg, takes its first exams.

These are the lives of the London children who the rest of us prefer to despise, evict, punish or ignore.

Camila Batmanghelidjh

The Government puts teachers and young people into boxes. How can we escape?

Tania Hales-Richardson

Two new online journals are being launched this year.

An account of a visit to Butterflies, the organisation for street and working children in New Delhi.

Jerry Mintz

Have you ever wondered what it is really like at Eton? Some of the privileges are described here.

David Gribble

Seliba Sa Boithuto provides learners with a quiet, comfortable place to learn, materials such as books, pamphlets, computers and videos, and tutors