self-directed education

You might know from (some of) my 59 posts here on the topic, that education, that is truly FREE education is a subject near and dear to my heart. http://www.idaholiberty.com/category/education/

The website everything voluntary just published a real nice, well supported article about education that I find well worth sharing.

Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should ToppleWritten by Peter Gray

I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is stronger now than ever. It occupies more of children’s time, gobbles up more public funds, employs more people, and is more firmly controlled by government—and at ever-higher levels of government—than has ever been true in the past. So why do I believe it’s going to collapse—slowly at first and then more rapidly—over the next ten years or so? Here are four reasons (adapted from the webpage of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education):

I am going to post their topic headings here. Click the link in the headline to read the article.

1. Our coercive schools have become increasingly and evermore obviously harmful to kids.

2. Evidence has mounted that children and adolescents can educate themselves remarkably well without coercive schooling.

3. Self-Directed Education is easier to pursue now than it was in the past.

4. Changes in the economy favor the skills developed by Self-Directed Education.

They attribute their information for the article to to organization below. Also a link well worth checking out.

The Alliance for Self-Directed Education

Imagine what would happen if, instead of sending children to coercive schools where their natural ways of learning are curtailed, we provided them with the resources that would allow their curiosity, playfulness, and other natural ways of learning to flourish. That is Self-Directed Education (SDE); education that derives from the self-chosen activities and life experiences of the learner.

The Alliance for Self-Directed Education is a nonprofit organization dedicated to normalizing and legitimizing Self-Directed Education, to make it available to everyone who seeks it. We invite you to join.