





Libertarian Education aims to enable people of all ages to realise their innate potential without the constraints of imposed authority...
Alex Bloom: Introduction and Part 1 Freedom From Michael Fielding
Alex Bloom: Introduction and Part 1 Freedom From Michael Fielding
School of thought: The New Education Between the Wars:
a forthcoming film
Joanna Grudzinksa
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
Other Education: The Journal of Education Alternatives, is a new, on-line academic magazine edited from the University of Stirling.
James Bar Bowen
As an undiagnosed autistic, Maurice Frank suffered severely at school from being classified as gifted and talented.
Human Scale Education, which has been running since 1985, has had a grant from the Paul Hamlyn Trust. How are they going to use it?
Some extracts from a blog, describing extraordinary official attitudes.
Jenny Collins
Lib Ed's range of activity has been declining over the last few years, indicating a need for new blood.
Local youth was incurring the age-old ire of its despairing elders in a small Derbyshire town.
Bryn Purdy
The Student Voice Team from the Phoenix Education Trust describe their new projects.
The Student Voice Team
An ex-pupil from a free school in Vienna describes a life of extraordinarily varied learning.
Sirna David
Children need to play out of doors, so why not sometimes close your street to cars?
A film by Alice Ferguson and Amy Rose
A report on IDEC 2012 in Puerto Rico, and an announcement about EUDEC 2012, to be held in Freiburg at the end of July.
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.
An article originally published in the Sudbury Valley School Journal, revealing surprising similarities between Sudbury Valley and Pixar.
Mark Bell
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.
Gerard Mathot tells how Seliba Sa Boithuto grew from his own schooling and his early experiences as a teacher and as a trainer of teachers.
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.
Arvind Gupta is an Indian scientist who has developed fascinating ways of teaching science using only the cheapest materials and household rubbish.
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
Edited by Mark Vaughan with contributions by Zoë Neill Readhead, Tim Brighouse and Ian Stronach
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
An email discussion between Milan Rai and David Gribble
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
An account of a school in Alsace where languages are taught in a different way
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.
Anyone who has passed through the regular graduations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it ...
William Hazlitt
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.
Bonaventure – an Alternative School in France
Michael Gerard
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.
Leonard Turton describes his delightful and important work within a state school in Canada.
Leonard Turton
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
When Maria, who had been home-educated in Austria and Turkey, was considering a career, she took a placement in a school.
Maria Kopta
A brief introduction to the recent founded English Secondary Students' Association.
David Gribble
Extracts from Tolstoy's writing about his school at Yasnaya Polyana
It is to be expected that education in China today should be centrally controlled and authoritarian. Cireena Simcox has experience to prove it.
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
A translation of the charter of the Freinet movement in France
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
A reaction to the article 'Die, Die, Die' and the 'Teachers' Advice' article in the January posting.
James Bar Bowen
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.
This article about the Bulger case was originally published in Issue 12 of The Journal of Personalised Education Now.
Christopher Shute
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.
Is the government review of home education another attempt to control or silence educational diversity?
Derry Hannam
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
An examination of leadership, personalisation and high performance schooling
Michael Fielding
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
Room 13 is a pupil-run studio in a primary school in Scotland. It has exhibited at Tate Modern, but it is remarkable for much more than its art.
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.
IDEC stands for International Democratic Education Conference. It has been happening for twelve years now, and you ought to know about it.
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
A personal story of recovery after a period of despair as a student in a conventional school.
Rachel Roberts
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
Amukta Mahapatra describes Neel Bagh, founded by David Horsburgh in 1972, the inspiration for many prominent Indian educators.
Amukta Mahapatra
A review of five DVDs about democratic initiatives in different countries.
Positive and negative reactions to the new English Education and Skills Bill
Alex Bloom: Introduction and Part 1 Freedom From Michael Fielding
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
Robin Alexander's lecture at the conference on Childhood, Wellbeing and Primary Education organised by the General Teaching Council for England.
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.
The Lycée Autogéré de Paris is a self-governing state school that has been running since 1982.
Heike Freire
(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.
This obituary for the great Russian teacher is translated from his school's website.
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
Peter Higginson
A song for any child-friendly school condemned by Ofsted
A psychotherapist tries rewarding bad behaviour to cure it.
Renee Sadler
An extract from the NGO alternative report on the UK implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Only a small number can imagine a different way to do things.
Richard Fransham
In Falko Peschel's classes, children really want to learn.
Professor Lynn Davies, Dr Christopher Williams and Hiromi Yamashita with Ko Man-Hing
An ex-student from Sands School describes the development of democracy in another school.
Rachel RobertsWhy, when bilingualism is so highly valued, are immigrant languages ignored?
Christine Hélot
We probably all know a little about the Little Commonwealth (1913 - 1918). This book fills in some of the gaps.
Judith Stinton
David Gribble visited the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School, Chicago.
Richard Musgrove
Annie Quick is sure that she is not the only person whose memories of citizenship classes are less than inspiring.
Annie Quick
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
An anonymous poem from the 1990s
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
Leonard Turton
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
Lib Ed's range of activity has been declining over the last few years, indicating a need for new blood.
A response to Peter Higginson's article
James Bar Bowen
Just to keep you up-to-date.
Eva Ibbotson
Tally, who is eleven, is sent to a progressive boarding-school away from London in 1939.
An account of Tubelsky's school
The International Democratic Education Conference planned for Korea met an unexpected problem.
Stories of some of Bryn Purdy’s ex-pupils which demonstrate the success of his approach.
Bryn Purdy
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
A new student teacher's unexpected response to the demand for an essay.
Lucy Golston
Pédagogie Nomade is a democratically run school in Belgium that is under threat.
An extract from the prospectus of the proposed Netzwerkschule in Berlln
School of thought: The New Education Between the Wars:
a forthcoming film
Joanna Grudzinksa
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
A response to the extract from Siegfried Bernfeld’s article on the Baumgarten Children’s Home, posted on this site in September 2008.
Robert Hamm
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.
An account of the achievements and disappointments of Coole Schule, the Austrian movement for student involvement in school decision-making.
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
The Kinderheim Baumgarten was an innovative Jewish children's home set up in Vienna after the first world war.
Siegfried Bernfeld.
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
A comment on the case of the teacher who attacked a pupil with a dumbbell
David Gribble
Downloadable files of the first three LTA bulletins.
Extracts from a correspondence that first appeared on the IDEC listserve.
Inspiring extracts from the leaflets published by William Booth Nursery and Infant School in Nottingham
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.
Shikshantar, an Indian institute for rethinking education, has published a number of comments on the undesirability of relying on certification.
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.
Human Scale Education, which has been running since 1985, has had a grant from the Paul Hamlyn Trust. How are they going to use it?
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
Igor Mitschka, aged 14, of Austria's Cool School Association, has organised two children's conferences, open to every school student in the country.
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.
Other Education: The Journal of Education Alternatives, is a new, on-line academic magazine edited from the University of Stirling.
James Bar Bowen
A former Summerhill houseparent, writes about his impressions of the school.
Matthew Appleton
Sammy Kunina has a passionately libertarian approach to parenting.
Sammy Kunina
Local youth was incurring the age-old ire of its despairing elders in a small Derbyshire town.
Bryn Purdy
Richard Layard and Judy Dunn
A Free School Meets the Exam System
Kapriole, a free school in Bad Würtemberg, takes its first exams.
The Student Voice Team from the Phoenix Education Trust describe their new projects.
The Student Voice Team
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
Is there a lack of ecological concern among democratic educators?
Eric Nicolas Schneider
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
Some extracts from a blog, describing extraordinary official attitudes.
Jenny Collins
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
For twenty years or more I have been visiting schools described as democratic or progressive or free or child-centred and finding a huge variety of places that seemed to me to be excellent. Some had no lessons but many rules and others had many lessons but no rules, some were governed entirely by the school meetings of students and staff and others were owned by benevolent dictators, at some the staff offered courses and at others the students decided entirely for themselves ...
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