Education Resources

Autodidacticism

Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person — typically someone who has an enthusiasm for self-education and a high degree of self-motivation. Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan and Newton’s contemporary Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz were largely self-taught in mathematics. Occasionally, individuals have sought to excel in subjects outside the mainstream of conventional education. Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea depicts an autodidact who is a self-deluding dilettante. Other autodidacts have excelled within, and brought innovative perspectives to, their more mainstream disciplines. For example, physicist and Judo expert Moshe Feldenkrais developed an autodidactic method of self-improvement based on his own experience with self-directed learning in physiology and neurology. His was motivated by his own crippling knee injury. In addition to Feldenkrais, Gerda Alexander, William Bates, Heinrich Jacoby and a number of other 20th-century European innovators worked out methods of self-development which stressed intelligent sensitivity and awareness.

A person may become an autodidact at nearly any point in his or her life. While some may have been educated in a conventional manner in a particular field, they may choose to educate themselves in other, often unrelated areas. It should be noted that self-teaching and self-directed learning are not necessarily lonely processes. Some autodidacts spend a great deal of time in libraries or on educative Web sites. Many, according to their plan for learning, avail themselves of instruction from family members, friends, or other associates (although strictly speaking this might not be considered autodidactic). Indeed, the term ’self-taught’ is something of a journalistic trope these days, and is all too often used to signify ‘non-traditionally educated’, which is entirely different.

Inquiry into autodidacticism has implications for learning theory, educational research, educational philosophy, and educational psychology.

Contents 1 Famous autodidacts 2 The Ignorant Schoolmaster 3 Autodidacticism quotations 4 Books 5 See also 6 External links

Famous autodidacts

Mythologist Joseph Campbell is one of the most famous autodidacts, and is seen by some as a poster-boy for autodidacticism. Following completion of his masters degree, Campbell decided not to go forward with his plans to earn a doctorate, and he went into the woods in upstate New York, reading deeply for five years. According to Campbell, this is, in a sense, where his real education took place, and the time when he began to develop his unique view on the nature of life.

According to poet and author Robert Bly, a friend of Campbell, Campbell developed a systematic program of reading nine hours a day. It is speculated by some that Campbell felt the work he did during this time was far more rigorous than any doctoral program could have been, and more fruitful in developing his unique perspectives.

For a listing of famous autodidacts see Category:Autodidacts.

The Ignorant Schoolmaster

In The Ignorant Schoolmaster, Jacques Rancière describes the emancipatory education of Joseph Jacotot, a post-Revolutionary philosopher of education who discovered that he could teach things he did not know (for instance, Jacotot taught Flemish students to speak French without speaking any Flemish himself). The book is both a history and a contemporary intervention in the philosophy and politics of education, through the concept of autodidactism; Rancière chronicles Jacotot’s “adventures,” but he articulates Jacotot’s theory of “emancipation” and “stultification” in the present tense. .

Autodidacticism quotations

• “Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion… religion is institutionalized spirituality.” – Huston Smith [1]
• “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” – Joseph Campbell
• Actress Jada Pinkett Smith said of the Matrix directors: “The Wachowski Brothers are very unique. They are probably– Larry and Andy are probably two of the smartest people I know. Larry reads everything. He reads everything. I mean, everything, you know what I mean. One thing I learned through Larry, through Andy also, is that life is about research. Larry, he’s constantly researching. And he’s constantly reading and that’s one thing that I’ve taken away from this project, that life is about research.”
• “The new age of education is programmed for discovery rather than instruction. Art as radar environment, radar feedback, early warning system: the antennae of the race.” – Marshall McLuhan
• “My education was of the most ordinary description, consisting of little more than the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at a common day school. My hours out of school were passed at home and in the streets.” – Michael Faraday, who had little mathematics and no formal schooling beyond the primary grades, is celebrated as an experimenter who discovered the induction of electricity. He was one of the great founders of modern physics. It is generally acknowledged that Faraday’s ignorance of mathematics contributed to his inspiration, that it compelled him to develop a simple, nonmathematical concept when he looked for an explanation of his electrical and magnetic phenomena. Faraday is considered by some to have possessed two qualities that more than made up for his lack of traditional education: fantastic intuition, and independence and originality of mind.
• “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” – Albert Einstein
• “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” – Albert Einstein
• “I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker… I never learned anything at all in school and didn’t read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.” – Stanley Kubrick
• “I never let schooling get in the way of my education.” – Mark Twain

Books

• The Passion To Learn: An Inquiry into Autodidactism by Joan Solomon ISBN 0415304180
• SELF-UNIVERSITY: The Price of Tuition is the Desire to Learn. Your Degree is a Better life. by Charles D. Hayes ISBN 0962197904
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellen ISBN 0962959170
• The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (Stanford Univ. Press, 1991) by Jacques Rancière ISBN 0804719691
• The Day I Became an Autodidact by Kendall Hailey ISBN 0385296363

See also

• Unschooling
• Jacques Rancière

External links

• Autodidactic.com (Publisher)
• Autodidactproject.org (personal website)
• Autodidacticism

Apprenticeship

“Apprentice” redirects here. There is also a reality show called The Apprentice.

Apprenticeship is a traditional method, still popular in some countries, of training a new generation of skilled crafts practitioners. Apprentices (or in early modern usage “prentices”) build their careers from apprenticeships. Most of their training is on the job, working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade, art or craft. Less formal, theoretical education is involved.

The system of apprenticeship first developed in the later Middle Ages and came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people as an inexpensive form of labour in exchange for providing formal training in the craft. Most apprentices were males, but female apprentices can be found in a number of crafts associated with embroidery, silk-weaving etc. Apprentices were young (usually about fourteen to twenty-one years of age), unmarried and would live in the master craftsman’s household. Most apprentices aspired to becoming master craftsmen themselves on completion of their contract (usually a term of seven years), but some would spend time as a journeyman and a significant proportion would never acquire their own workshop.

Subsequently governmental regulation and the licensing of polytechnics and vocational education formalised and bureaucratised the details of apprenticeship.

Universities still echo apprenticeship schemes in their production of scholars: bachelors are promoted to masters and then produce a thesis under the oversight of a supervisor before the corporate body of the university recognises the reaching of the standard of a doctorate. The modern concept of internship is also analogous.

Also similar to apprenticeships are the professional development arrangements for new graduates in the professions of accountancy and the law (that is, lawyers), a British example was training contracts known as ‘articles of clerkship’.

Contents 1 United Kingdom 2 Germany 3 France 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 External links

United Kingdom

Apprenticeships have a long tradition in the United Kingdom’s education system. In early modern England ‘parish’ apprenticeships under the Poor Law came to be used as a way of providing for poor children of both sexes alongside the regular system of apprenticeships, which tended to provide for boys from slightly more affluent backgrounds.

In modern times, the system became less and less important, especially as employment in heavy industry and artisan trades declined. Traditional apprenticeships reached their lowest point in the 1970s: by that time, training programmes were rare and people who were apprentices learnt mainly by example. In 1986, National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were introduced, in an attempt to revitalise vocational training. Still, by 1990, apprenticeship took up only two-thirds of one percent of total employment.

In 1994, the government introduced Modern Apprenticeships (in England - but not Scotland or Wales - the name was changed to Apprenticeships in 2004), again to try to improve the image of work-based learning and to encourage young people and employers to participate. (Modern) Apprenticeships are based on frameworks devised initially by National Training Organisations and now by their successors, Sector Skills Councils, state-sponsored but supposedly ‘employer-led’ bodies responsible for defining training requirements in their sector (such as Business Administration or Accounting). Frameworks consist of National Vocational Qualifications, a technical certificate and Key Skills including literacy and numeracy. Those who complete all elements of the framework receive a certificate, but the Apprenticeship is not a discrete qualification.

There are now more than 160 Apprenticeship frameworks (2005). Unlike traditional apprenticeships, the current scheme extends beyond ‘craft’ and skilled trades to areas of the service sector with no apprenticeship tradition. Employers who participate in the scheme have an employment contract with their apprentices, but off-the-job training and assessment is wholly funded by the state through various agencies - formerly the Training and Enterprise Councils, now the Learning and Skills Council in England or its equivalents in Scotland and Wales. These agencies contract with ‘learning providers’ who organise and/or deliver training and assessment services to employers. Providers are usually private training companies but might also be Further Education colleges, voluntary sector organisations, Chambers of Commerce or employer ‘Group Training Associations’; only about 5 % of apprenticeships are directly contracted with single employers participating in the scheme. There is no minimum time requirement for apprenticeships, although the average time spent completing a framework is roughly 21 months.

In 2000 the Government established the Modern Apprenticeships Advisory Committee (MAAC) to recommend ‘how best to ensure that the quality of Modern Apprenticeships fully matches the standards set by leading nations worldwide’ . Its 2001 report noted that ‘England currently does not have a strong apprenticeships system’; critical weaknesses identified included: declining participation by young people; low completion rates, with only about a third of all apprentices completing their frameworks; and weaknesses in training, assessment and data collection. Many young people and employers were still unaware of exactly what an apprenticeship involved.

Changes recommended by the Committee at first seemed to have little effect: between 2000 and 2003, the number of people starting apprenticeships fell from 76,800 to 47,300. In 2001, just over one fifth of young people under age 22 took up an apprenticeship: of these, only 33% actually completed it, making approximately 7% of young British people under 22 who completed an apprenticeship in 2001. Between 2001/02 and 2004/05, however, the percentage of young people completing apprenticeships rose from 24% to 39% and in 2005 it was announced that the target of getting 28% of 16-21 year olds to start an apprenticeship had been met. Recognising that demand for apprenticeship places exceeds supply from employers, and that many young people, parents and employers still associate apprenticeship with craft trades and manual occupations, the Government developed a major marketing campaign in 2004.

Refinement of the Apprenticeship system continues - in 2005 the Learning and Skills Council, Department for Education and Skills, and Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, together with their equivalents in Wales and the Sector Skills Councils, launched the Apprenticeship Blueprint for England and Wales, which revises and redefines the essential and flexible elements of an apprenticeship framework.[1]

Germany

Apprenticeships are part of Germany’s successful dual education system, and as such form an integral part of many people’s working life. Young people can learn one of 356 (2005) apprenticeship occupations (Ausbildungsberufe), such as Doctor’s Assistant, Banker, Dispensing Optician or Oven Builder. The dual system means that apprentices spend most of their time in companies and the rest in formal education. Usually, they work for three to four days a week in the company and then spend one or two days at a vocational school (Berufsschule). These Berufsschulen have been part of the education system since the 19th century.

In 1969, a law (the Berufsausbildungsgesetz) was passed which regulated and unified the vocational training system and codified the shared responsibility of the state, the unions, associations and chambers of trade and industry. The dual system was successful in both parts of divided Germany: in the GDR, three quarters of the working population had completed apprenticeships.

Although the rigid training system of the GDR, linked to the huge collective combines, did not survive reunification, the system remains popular in modern Germany: in 2001, two thirds of young people aged under 22 began an apprenticeship, and 78% of them completed it, meaning that approximately 51% of all young people under 22 have completed an apprenticeship. One in three companies offered apprenticeships in 2003; in 2004 the government signed a pledge with industrial unions that all companies except very small ones must take on apprentices.

The precise skills and theory taught on apprenticeships are strictly regulated, meaning that everyone who has, for example, had an apprenticeship as an Industriekaufmann (someone who works in an industrial company as a personnel assistant or accountant, etc) has learned the same skills and had the same courses in procurement and stocking up, cost and activity accounting, staffing, accounting procedures, production, profit and loss accounting and various other subjects. The employer is responsible for the entire programme; apprentices are not allowed to be employed and have only an apprenticeship contract. The time taken is also regulated; each occupation learnt takes a different time, but the average is 35 months. People who have not taken this apprenticeship are not allowed to call themselves an Industriekaufmann; the same is true for all the 356 occupations.

France

In France, apprenticeships also developed between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, with guilds structured around apprentices, journeymen and master craftsmen, continuing in this way until 1791, when the guilds were suppressed.

In 1851 the first law on apprenticeships came into force. From 1919, young people had to take 150 hours of theory and general lessons in their subject a year. This minimum training time rose to 360 hours a year in 1961, then 400 in 1986.

The first training centres for apprentices (centres de formation d’apprentis, CFAs) appeared in 1961, and in 1971 apprenticeships were legally made part of professional training. In 1986 the age limit for beginning an apprenticeship was raised from 20 to 25. From 1987 the range of qualifications achieveable through an apprenticeship was widened to include the brevet professionnel (certificate of vocational aptitude), the bac professionnel (vocational baccalaureat diploma), the brevet de technicien supérieur(advanced technician’s certificate), engineering diplomas and more.

On January 18, 2005, President Jacques Chirac announced the introduction of a law on a programme for social cohesion comprising the three pillars of employment, housing and equal opportunities. The French government pledged to further develop apprenticeship as a path to success at school and to employment, based on its success: in 2005, 80% of young French people who had completed an apprenticeship entered employment. In France, the term denotes manual labor only. The plan aimed to raise the number of apprentices from 365,000 in 2005 to 500,000 in 2009. To achieve this aim, the government is, for example, granting tax relief for companies when they take on apprentices. (Since 1925 a tax has been levied to pay for apprenticeships.) The minister in charge of the campaign, Jean-Louis Borloo, also hoped to improve the image of apprenticeships with an information campaign, as they are often connected with academic failure at school and an ability to grasp only practical skills and not theory. After the civil unrest end of 2005, the government, led by prime minister Dominique de Villepin, announced a new law. Dubbed “law on equality of chances”, it created the First Employment Contract as well as manual apprenticeship as soon as 14 years old. From this age, students are allowed to quit the compulsory school system in order to quickly learn a vocation. This measure has long been a revendication of conservative French political parties, and was met by tough opposition from trade unions and students.

See also

• Education
• German model
• Guild
• Indentured servant
• Journeyman
• Tradesman
• Vocational education

Further reading

• Modern Apprenticeships: the way to work, The Report of the Modern Apprenticeship Advisory Committee, 2001 [2]
• Apprenticeship in the British “Training Market”, Paul Ryan and Lorna Unwin, University of Cambridge and University of Leicester, 2001 [3]
• Creating a ‘Modern Apprenticeship’: a critique of the UK’s multi-sector, social inclusion approach Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin, 2003 (pdf)
• Apprenticeship systems in England and Germany: decline and survival. Thomas Deissinger in: Towards a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Europe in a comparative perspective, 2002 (pdf)
• European vocational training systems: the theoretical context of historical development. Wolf-Dietrich Greinert, 2002 in Towards a history of vocational education and training (VET) in Europe in a comparative perspective. (pdf)
• Apprenticeships in the UK- their design, development and implementation, Miranda E Pye, Keith C Pye, Dr Emma Wisby, Sector Skills Development Agency, 2004 (pdf)
• L’apprentissage a changé, c’est le moment d’y penser !, Ministère de l’emploi, du travail et de la cohésion sociale, 2005

External links

• Facts about Germany: Apprenticeships, Federal Foreign Office
• Apprenticeships - a great idea (UK)
• UK Apprenticeships, on “Edexcel” site
• L’Apprenti, in French
• Article on the history of apprenticeship in the U.S. from EH.NET
• Barry Yeoman, Academic Apprentices: Still an Ideal?, Duke Magazine

Andragogy

Andragogy a term originally used by Alexander Kapp (a German educator) in 1833, was developed into a theory of adult education by the American educator Malcolm Knowles (April 24, 1913 — November 27, 1997).

Knowles held that androgogy (from the Greek words meaning “man-leading”) should be distinguished from the more commonly used pedagogy (Greek: “child-leading”).

Knowles’ theory can be stated as four simple postulates [1]and [2]:

1. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept and Motivation to learn).
2. Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities (Experience).
3. Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life (Readiness to learn).
4. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation to learning).

Knowles’ work (most notably the book Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers, published in 1975) has been controversial. To some, his proposed system states the obvious, to others, he has merely proposed an adaptation of existing child-learning theories.

The term has been used by some to allow a discussion of the difference between self directed and ‘taught’ education. However as the attitude of society towards young people change the differences in educational methods will tend to diminish (self directed education being encouraged in earlier age groups).

See also

• Educational psychology
• Educational technology

References

• Knowles, M. (1975). Self-Directed Learning. Chicago: Follet. ISBN 0842822151
• Knowles, M. (1984). The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (3rd Ed.). Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing. ISBN 0884151158
• Knowles, M. (1984). Andragogy in Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 0608217948

External links

• One of several useful pages on learning theories from the Theory into Practice Database
• Knowles’ Curriculum Vita
• Biography of Knowles from Informal Education Encyclopaedia of lifelong learning
• Statement of principles by Dr. Knowles
• Description of Andragogy from the encylopaedia of informal education and lifelong learning

Amos Bronson Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29, 1799 - March 4, 1888) was an American teacher and writer. He is remembered for founding a short-lived and unconventional school as well as a utopian community known as “Fruitlands”, and for his association with Transcendentalism.

Alcott was born on Spindle Hill in the town of Wolcott, New Haven County, Connecticut. His father, Joseph Chatfield Alcox, was a farmer and mechanic whose ancestors, then bearing the name of Alcocke, had settled in eastern Massachusetts in colonial days. The son adopted the spelling “Alcott” in his early youth.

Self-educated and early thrown upon his own resources, he began in 1814 to earn his living by working in a clock factory in Plymouth, Connecticut, and for many years after 1815 he peddled books and merchandise, chiefly in the southern states. He began teaching in Bristol, Connecticut in 1823, and subsequently conducted schools in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1825-1827, again in Bristol in 1827-1828, in Boston, Massachusetts in 1828-1830, in Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, in 1831-1833, and in Philadelphia in 1833. As a young teacher he was most convinced by the educational philosophy of the Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

In 1830 he married Abby May, the sister of Samuel J. May (1797-1871), the reformer and abolitionist. Alcott himself was a Garrisonian abolitionist, and pioneered the strategy of tax resistance to slavery which Thoreau made famous in Civil Disobedience. Alcott publicly debated with Thoreau the use of force and passive resistance to slavery; along with Thoreau he was among the financial and moral supporters of John Brown and occasionally helped fugitive slaves escape on the Underground Railroad.

In 1834 he opened the Temple School in Boston, which became famous because of his original methods. Alcott’s plan was to develop self-instruction on the basis of self-analysis, with an emphasis on conversation rather than the lecture and drill which were prevalent in U.S. classrooms of the time. The subject matter was often the Gospels, religious and moral principles; some of the school’s conversations were published in Alcott’s Conversations with Children on the Gospels. Alcott refused corporal punishment as a means of disciplining his students; instead, he offered his own hand for an offending student to strike, saying that any failing was the teacher’s responsibility. The shame and guilt this method induced, he believed, was far superior to the fear instilled by corporal punishment. As assistants in the school Alcott had two of nineteenth-century America’s most talented women writers, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (who published A Record of Mr. Alcott’s School in 1835) and Margaret Fuller; as students he had the children of the Boston intellectual classes, including Josiah Quincy, grandson of the president of Harvard. Alcott’s methods were not well received; many in the church found his conversations on the Gospels close to blasphemous, and many in the public found his disciplinary measures ridiculous. The school was denounced in the press and rejected by most public opinion, and was not pecuniarily successful as the controversy caused many parents to remove their students. Finally Alcott alienated many of the remaining parents by admitting an African American child whom he then refused to expel from his classes. In 1839 the school was closed, although Alcott had won the affection of many of his pupils. His pedagogy was a forerunner of progressive and democratic schooling.

In 1840 Alcott removed to Concord, Massachusetts. After a visit to England, in 1842, he started with two English associates, Charles Lane and Henry C. Wright, at “Fruitlands”, in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, a utopian socialist experiment in farm living and nature meditation as tending to develop the best powers of body and soul. The experiment quickly collapsed, and Alcott returned in 1844 to his Concord home “Hillside” (later renamed “The Wayside” by Hawthorne) near that of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Alcott removed to Boston four years later, and again back to Concord after 1857.

He spoke, as opportunity offered, before the “lyceums” then common in various parts of the United States, or addressed groups of hearers as they invited him. These “conversations” as he called them, were more or less informal talks on a great range of topics, spiritual, aesthetic and practical, in which he emphasized the ideas of the school of American Transcendentalists led by Emerson, who was always his supporter and discreet admirer. He dwelt upon the illumination of the mind and soul by direct communion with the Creative Spirit; upon the spiritual and poetic monitions of external nature; and upon the benefit to man of a serene mood and a simple way of life.

Alcott’s philosophical teaching was, and is still, often thought inconsistent, hazy or abrupt. But though he formulated no system of philosophy, and seemed to show the influence now of Plato, now of Kant, or of German thought as filtered through the brain of Coleridge, he was, like Emerson, steadily optimistic, idealistic, and individualistic. The teachings of Dr. William Ellery Channing a little before had laid the groundwork for the work of most of the Concord Transcendentalists and contributors to The Dial, of whom Alcott was one.

In his last years, his daughter, the writer Louisa May Alcott, provided for him. Alcott was gratified at being able to become the nominal, and at times the actual, head of a Concord “Summer School of Philosophy and Literature”, which had its first session in 1879, and in which, in a building next to his house, listeners were addressed during a part of several successive summers on many themes in philosophy, religion and letters.

Alcott’s published books, all from late in his life, included Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), and Sonnets and Canzonets (1882). Earlier he had written a series of Orphic Sayings which were published in The Dial as examples of Transcendentalist thought. The sayings, though called oracular, were considered sloppy, or vague by contemporary commentators as well as twentieth-century ones. He left a large collection of personal jottings and memorabilia, most of which remain unpublished. He died in Boston on 4 March 1888.

References

• Alcott, Amos Bronson. Conversations with Children on the Gospels.
• Geraldine Brooks. “Orpheus at the Plough.” The New Yorker, January 10, 2005, pp. 58-65. (The New Yorker article is reproduced on author’s website)

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Alternative school

This article is about a school for “at-risk” and special education. For alternatives to traditional education, see Alternative education.

An alternative school, sometimes referred to as a minischool, special-needs school, or remedial school, is an educational alternative geared toward students in need of special education, as well as “at-risk” students who are having other difficulties in a traditional school setting, including potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, and returning students. These schools generally offer smaller class sizes with lower teacher-to-student ratios, special curricula, and a more flexible program of study than a traditional school.

Generally an alternative school serves as an extension to a larger traditional privately- or publicly-run primary or secondary school, although similar programs exist in higher education settings that serve adults returning to school. They generally function as stand-alone schools, or in the case of minischools, as a “school within a school”, where they physically operate within the walls of the larger school.

Sometimes, particularly in the United States, the phrase alternative school can refer to a school which practices alternative education. This is a much broader use of the term, covering all forms of non-traditional educational methods and philosophies, including school choice, independent school, homeschooling, and alternative school as described in this article.

Purpose

The major goal of an alternative school is to provide opportunities for the students not succeeding in the traditional classroom setting to obtain academic credit, career exploration activities, vocational work experience, and extended teacher/peer support in an alternative setting where the unltimate goal is that of obtaining a diploma. This is done through various methods aimed at helping and encouraging at-risk students. Many of the methods utilized attempt to:

• Reduce the alienation and improve the self-concept of at-risk students
• Provide at-risk students with increased access to desirable social roles
• Increase community and parental participation in the education of at-risk students
• Provide a flexible and integrated academic and vocationally oriented curriculum which emphasizes the importance of school in preparing for later life
• Provide students with a success-oriented program to obtain academic and employability skills in a school environment
• Provide a competency-based, self-paced program with clear quantifiable objectives. Instruction will be provided in a variety of ways best suited to the individual student’s needs
• Foster within students the responsibility for their own learning and the expectation that they will take an active role in setting their own goals

Methods

Alternative school programs generally strive to keep their student/teacher ratio low, usually ten to one or less, allowing for more individualized and personalized instruction. School staffs have a great deal of autonomy in developing curriculum and establishing rules. Teachers must also provide an extended role in dealing with the whole child and his/her problems. The alternative site that is generally apart from and different than the regular school building with the intent of fostering a positive environment. By developing a feeling of community and a sense of belonging, students find it easier to commit to a new set of rules, expectations and standards of behavior.

Academic and vocationally oriented education programs are generally provided through an individualized, student-centered approach. These programs try be attentive to the needs of a career-oriented curriculum and will be sensitive to the variety of learning styles among students. Participants learn through various means, like within classrooms, in small groups, in vocational activities, in community-based outreach programs, and through internships. The environment created for each student aims to be positive, caring, and adapted to individual needs. Alternative school programs stress individualized academic education, career development, and personal growth.

Alternative schools will work with each student to assess academic, career, and personal needs in order to develop an individualized learning plan. Emphasis is generally placed on helping students develop self-discipline and responsibility. A fundamental belief of many alternative schools is that all students are of value, and they need guidance to find and develop the positive qualities they possess, despite that many will have histories of failure in the ‘traditional’ educational system.

See also

• Gifted education
• Special education

Alternative high school

For the Calgary school with this name see Alternative High School (Calgary)

An alternative high school provides different educational opportunities to students who have dropped out or are at-risk of failing within the traditional high school setting.(disputed — see talk page) In education, the phrase alternative school usually refers to a school based on a non-traditional, new, or non-standard educational philosophy. A wide range of philosophies and teaching methods are offered by alternative schools; some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, while others are more ad-hoc assemblies of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspect of mainstream education. In many instances the alternative schools tend to be smaller than regular schools and teachers and students are closer to each other i.e. calling teachers by their first names. They also usually work together as a community unlike a regular school. Ideally, alternative schools are aimed to gifted students but they may accept students that may not be served well by traditional public schools in their communities (such as pregnant teens or teen parents, drop-outs, and other at-risk populations) or those with special educational needs.

See also

• Alternative school
• Alternative high schools
• Homeschooling

Alternative education

This article is about alternatives to traditional education. For a school for “at-risk” and special education, see Alternative school.

Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, describes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than traditional publicly- or privately-run schools. These approaches can be applied to all students of all ages, from infancy to adulthood, and all levels of education.

Educational alternatives are often the result of education reform and are rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different from those of mainstream compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students somehow dissatisfied with certain aspects of mainstream education.

Educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community.

For some, especially in the United States, the term alternative refers to educational settings for “at-risk” youth, as well as those in need of special education, rather than educational alternatives for all students. Other words used in place of alternative by many educational professionals include non-traditional, non-conventional, or non-standardized, although these terms are used somewhat less frequently and sometimes have negative connotations as well as multiple meanings. Within the field of educational alternatives, words such as authentic, holistic, and progressive are frequently used as well, however, these words each have different meanings which are more specific or more ambiguous than simply alternative.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Modern forms 2.1 School choice 2.2 Alternative school 2.3 Independent school 2.4 Home-based education 2.5 Other 3 Internationally 3.1 Canada 3.1.1 Toronto 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 Resources 7 External links

Overview

Over the 200-year course of compulsory education, various widely-scattered groups of critics have suggested that the education of young people should involve much more than simply molding them into future workers or citizens. The Swiss humanitarian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, the American transcendentalists Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, the founders of progressive education John Dewey and Francis Parker, and educational pioneers such as Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner, among others, all insisted that education should be understood as the art of cultivating the moral, emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of the developing child.

More recently, social critics such as John Caldwell Holt, Paul Goodman, and Ivan Illich have examined education from more individualist, anarchist, and libertarian perspectives, that is, critiques of the ways that they feel conventional education subverts democracy by molding young people’s understandings. Other writers, from the revolutionary Paulo Freire to American educators like Herbert Kohl and Jonathan Kozol, have criticized mainstream Western education from the viewpoint of their varied left-liberal and radical politics.

Another quality that distinguishes educational alternatives from their traditional counterparts is their diversity. Unlike traditional privately-run and publicly-run schools which are remarkably similar in many aspects to one another, most alternatives do not subscribe to a “one model fits all” approach. Each educational alternative attempts to create and maintain its own methods and approaches to learning and teaching. Practitioners aspire to realize that there are many ways of conceiving and understanding the needs of the whole child in balance with the needs of the community and society at large. Thus, each alternative approach is founded upon, sometimes drastically, different beliefs about what it means to live, learn, and grow in today’s society.

One aspect that distinguishes educational alternatives from each other is the curricula taught within their respective settings. Across these alternatives, we find that traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics are not always taught separately but integrated into the overall learning experience. Other subjects like environmental education, ecology, or spirituality, which are often not found in more traditional school curricula, emerge from the interests of learners and teachers in a more open-ended learning community. For the most part, however, subject matter is only indirectly related to the root philosophies and educational approaches utilized in many alternative education systems. Often alternative approaches to education will vary considerably within a single type of alternative from one cultural or geographic setting to another.

Modern forms

A wide variety of educational alternatives exist at the elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. These generally fall into four major categories: school choice, alternative school, independent school, and home-based education. These general categories can be further broken down into more specific practices and methodologies.

School choice

Main article: School choice

The public school options include entirely separate schools in their own settings as well as classes, programs, and even semi-autonomous “schools within schools.” Public school choice options are open to all students in their communities, though some have waiting lists. Among these are charter schools, combining private initiatives and state funding; and magnet schools, which attract students to particular themes, such as performing arts.

Alternative school

Main article: Alternative school

Special needs schools, sometimes referred to as alternative schools are geared towards students with special needs as well as “at-risk” students who are having difficulty with school, including potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, returning students.

Independent school

Main article: Independent school

Independent, or private, schools have more flexibility in staff selection and educational approach. The most plentiful of these are Montessori schools, in one form or another, most of which are private, but an increasing number are public, Waldorf schools (sometimes called Steiner schools because they are based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner), Friends schools, and various other independent schools. These include democratic, or free schools such as Summerhill School and Sudbury Valley School, Krishnamurti schools, open classroom schools, those based on experiential education, as well as schools which teach using international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate and Round Square schools. The majority of independent schools offer at least partial scholarships.

Home-based education

Main article: Homeschooling

Families who seek alternatives based on educational, philosophical, or religious reasons, or if there appears to be no nearby educational alternative can decide to have home-based education. Some call themselves unschoolers, for they follow an approach based on interest, rather than a set curriculum. Others enroll in umbrella schools which provide a curriculum to follow. Many choose this alternative for religious-based reasons, but practitioners of home-based education are of all backgrounds and philosophies.

Other

There are also some interesting grey areas. For instance, home-based educators have combined to create resource centers where they meet as often as four days a week, but their members are all home-based. In some states publicly-run school districts have set up programs for homeschoolers whereby they are considered enrolled, and have access to school resources and facilities.

Also, many traditional schools have incorporated methods which might be considered alternative into their general approach, so the line between alternative and mainstream education is continually becoming more blurred.

Internationally

Canada

In Canada, some privately-run schools receive government school funding.

Toronto

In Toronto the alternative movement has been adopted and functions within the framework of the Toronto District School Board. An example, is Mountview Alternative School which shares space with the much larger Keele Elementary School in Toronto’s High Park-Junction. Another example is the Triangle Program, Canada’s only high school program designed especially for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

See also

• Autodidacticism

Further reading

• Korn, Claire V. (1991). Alternative American Schools: Ideals in Action, Ithaca, New York: SUNY Press.
• Trickett, Edison J. (1991). Living an Idea: Empowerment and the Evolution of an Alternative High School, University of Maryland: Brookline Books.

Resources

• Alternative Education Resource Organization

External links

• Informal Education
• Education in Alternative Education Programs - ERIC Digest E585
• International Association for Learning Alternatives
• AltLearn - a worldwide network of Natural Learners, Unschoolers,and support groups, linked together by map
• A Vermont High School based on Alternative Education Methods - Otter Valley Experiential High School -Experience The Alternative…Experience Your Life.

Adult high school

An adult high school is a high school facility designed for adult education. It is intended primarily for adults who have not completed high school to continue their education in a facility which offers child care for single parents, special integration programs for immigrants, career counseling and other programs and services geared toward the special needs of adult students.

A number of cities in the United States and Canada have dedicated adult high school facilities. In most other cities, adults returning to high school attend regular high schools or community colleges. Some adult high schools operate within regular high schools during off-hours.

Some adult high schools may also offer general interest programs such as computer skills upgrading or other continuing education courses.

See also

Volkshochschule

Homeschooling

Home education, also called homeschooling or home school, is an educational alternative in which children are educated at home by their parents, in contrast to the compulsory attendance which takes place in an institution with a campus such as a public school or private school. Home education methods are similar to those widely used before the popularization of compulsory attendance requirements in the 19th century. Before this time, the majority of education worldwide was provided at home by family and community members, with only the privileged attending privately-run schools or employing tutors, the only available alternatives at the time.

In modern times, although there were American families living overseas who were already homeschooling their children, the first parents known to homeschool within the United States were Tom and Mary Bergman of Utah, 1971. Unknown to each other at the time, the second known family was Charles and Virginia Birt Baker of Texas, 1972. Homeschooling was sometimes erroneously called unschooling, but the latter was a curriculum-free philosophy coined in 1977 by American educator John Holt in his alternative education magazine Growing Without Schooling. The terms homeschooling and home education also include instruction in the home by parents choosing to be under the supervision of correspondence schools, which are referred to as “umbrella schools” [example: Christian Liberty Academy].

In the United States, homeschooling is the focus of a substantial movement among parents who wish to provide their children with a custom or more complete education, which they feel is unattainable in most private schools or the government’s public schools. While many families in the U.S. are educating their children at home, the vast majority still utilize the institutional setting for their children. Despite its popularity some people have concerns about the recent renaissance of this traditional method of educating children.

Contents 1 History 2 Popularity 2.1 Australia & New Zealand 2.2 Canada 2.3 United Kingdom 2.4 United States 3 Motivations 4 Methods 4.1 Unit studies 4.2 Special materials 4.3 All-in-one curricula 4.4 Student-paced learning 4.5 Community resources 4.6 Eclectic curricula 4.7 Unschooling 5 Social development 5.1 Social concerns 6 Cost 7 Public opinion 8 Legality 9 Results 9.1 Academic findings 9.2 Social findings 10 Notable home-educated individuals 11 Quotes 12 See also 13 References 14 External links 14.1 USA / UK / France / New Zealand 14.1.1 General 14.1.2 Research 14.1.3 Legalities 14.2 UK 14.3 France 14.4 New Zealand

History

The general historic foundations of home education originate with the informal education systems that existed in many parts of the world before the rise of publicly-run schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, famous figures such as Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson (the only U.S. President to hold a Ph.D.) might be considered to have been home-educated as they were self-educated or had mentors or tutors growing up, but received little formal education.

In the United States, the “curriculum in a box”, or All-in-one curriculum, form of home education dates back to 1906, when the Calvert Day School of Baltimore, Maryland made such materials available through a downtown Baltimore bookstore and a National Geographic advertisement. Within five years, nearly 300 children were making use of materials from Calvert’s Home Instruction Department. In less than a century the materials had become the basis for lessons for more than 350,000 children annually in more than 90 countries.

Popularity

Australia & New Zealand

About 26,500 children in Australia & New Zealand are involved in home schooling.[1]

Canada

As of 2001, it was estimated that 80,000 children are educated at home in Canada[2]; however, that number continues to increase.

United Kingdom

An estimated 50,000 children are considered “home-educated” in the United Kingdom.[3]

United States

In the United States, homeschooling is the focus of a substantial movement among parents who wish to provide their children with a custom or more complete education, which they feel is unattainable in most private schools or the state governments’ public school systems. In many instances one motivation is to provide religious education along with education on traditional subjects; religious education would not be available in a public school setting, and the available private schools may be too expensive for the family to afford, or may be of a different faith than that of the family. Home schooling is also considered an excellent alternative by groups whose job necesitates frequent moves, such as military families. While a growing number of families in the U.S. are educating their children at home, the vast majority of families still utilize the institutional setting for their children.

In 2003 about 1.1 million children (up 29% from 850,000 in 1999) were home-educated on the United States[4]. A desire to provide religious or moral instruction, and a desire to provide a better learning environment are among the most common reasons for homeschooling. Other reasons include: more flexibility in adapting educational practices for children with learning disabilities or illnesses; allowing the introduction of more non-traditional studies, such as Latin and agriculture, focusing more on a child’s unique gifts, such as art or mathematics; and providing more hands-on methods of learning such as unschooling.

As educational choices become abundant through a vast array of educational products and services available, computers, and the internet, the idea of homeschooling in the U.S. is expanding in popularity and acceptance. Some state governments, like those in Alaska, California, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Kansas, sponsor home-education “virtual” charter schools and/or reimburse parents who purchase curricula approved by the state. [5][6]

Motivations

Individual motivations to home-educate, home education methods, and academic and social results of home education are varied, and are the source of vibrant debate. Proponents of this educational alternative invoke parental responsibility and the classical liberal arguments for personal freedom from government intrusion. Some proponents advocate that home education should be the dominant educational policy.

Most home education advocates are wary of the established educational institutions for various reasons. Some feel that they can more effectively tailor a curriculum to suit an individual student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, especially children who are gifted or have learning disabilities. Others are religious conservatives who see non-religious education as contrary to their moral or religious systems. Still others feel that the negative social pressures of schools, such as bullying, drugs, school violence, and other school-related problems, are detrimental to a child’s development. Many parents simply like the idea of teaching their own children rather than letting someone else do so.

In the United States, reasons for homeschooling vary; religious concerns are an important, though not overwhelming, factor. According to a 2003 U.S. Census survey, the parents of 33% of homeschooled children cited religion as a factor in their choice, 30% felt the regular school had a poor learning environment, 14% objected to what the school teaches, 11% felt their children weren’t being challenged at school, and 9% cited morality [7]. In 2003, the reasons most frequently reported by parents for homeschooling were: concerns about the school environment (85%); a desire to provide religious or moral instruction (72%); and dissatisfaction with academic instruction (68%)[8].

Options which make home education attractive to some families also include:

• Allowing a longer exploratory play-oriented childhood, encouraging the development of rich imagination and pre-academic skills which can foster later academic success
• Allowing each student to work at his or her own pace, enjoy family vacations, and integrate outside activities or current events into subjects they are studying
• Incorporating religion, ethics, and character topics not included in most school curricula
• Including non-traditional curricula and unusual subjects such as Latin and Greek
• Giving extra weight to subjects of particular family interest such as art, music, or business
• Adapting educational practices for children with learning disabilities or illnesses
• Providing a legal option for families who wish to abstain from mandatory immunizations.
• Providing consistency in education for families that travel or move frequently.

Methods

There is a wide variety of home education methods and materials. Many home education families base their work on a particular educational philosophy such as:

• Classical education (including Trivium, Quadrivium)
• Waldorf Education
• Charlotte Mason education
• Theory of multiple intelligences
• Montessori method

Others use a broad combination of ideas or allow the child to develop their own motivation, through what is known as Unschooling.

Because home education laws vary widely according to individual government statutes, official curriculum requirements vary. [9]

Unit studies

Unit studies teach most subjects in the context of a central theme. For example, a unit study of Native Americans could combine age-appropriate lessons in: social studies, like how different tribes live now, and lived prior to colonization; art, such as making Native American clothing; history of Native Americans in the U.S.); reading from a special reading list; and the science of plants used by Native Americans. The following unit-study subject could change to some other broad topic of study.

Supporters say unit studies make excellent use of student time by combining several fields into one study time, and permit students to follow personal interests. Unit studies also permit children of different ages to study together. For example, in a Native American unit, a 10th-grade student might make a deer-skin coat for an art project, while a 1st-grade student might make construction-paper tipis.

Home educators often purchase unit-study guides that suggest materials, projects and shopping lists, and supplement them with specialized curricula for maths, and sometimes reading and writing.

Special materials

Special materials focus on skill-building. Individual subject materials usually consist of workbooks, sometimes with textbooks, and an instructional guide. Many specialized subjects are only available in this form. Special materials are frequently used for math and primary reading.

Critics say that some parents over-focus on skills while excluding social studies, science, art, history and other fields that help children learn their place in the world.

All-in-one curricula

“All-in-one” curricula, sometimes called “school in a box”, are comprehensive packages covering many subjects, usually an entire year’s worth. They contain all needed books and materials, including pencils and writing paper. Most such curricula were developed for isolated families who lack access to public schools, libraries and shops, or are overseas.

These materials typically recreate the school environment in the home, and are typically based on the same subject-area expectations as publicly-run schools, allowing an easy transition into school if desired. They are among the most expensive options for the home-educated, but are easy to use and require minimal preparation. The instructional guides are usually extensive, with step-by-step instructions. These programs may include standardized tests, and remote examinations to yield an accredited privately-run school diploma.

Student-paced learning

Similar to All-in-one curricula are learner paced curriculum packages. Often times called paces, these workbooks allow the student to progress at an individualized speed. They allow the student to master concepts before moving on to the next subject, instead of being held back by the speed of the teacher and other students or rushing forward for the same reasons. Prices vary widely depending upon the publisher.

Community resources

Home educators take advantage of educational programs at museums, community centers, athletic clubs, after-school programs, churches, science preserves, parks, and other community resources. Secondary school level students often take classes at community colleges, which typically have open admission policies.

Eclectic curricula

The majority of today’s home-educated use an eclectic mix of materials. For instance, they might use a pre-designed program for language, arts or mathematics, and fill in history with reading and field trips, art with classes at a community center, science through a homeschool science club, physical education with membership in local sports teams, and so on.

Unschooling

Unschooling is an area in which students are not directly instructed but encouraged to learn through exploring their interests. Also known as interest-led or child-led learning, unschooling attempts to provide opportunities with games and real life problems where a child will learn without coercion. An unschooled child may choose to use texts or classroom instruction, but it is never considered central to education.

Advocates for unschooling claim that children learn best by learning from doing. A child may learn reading and math skills from playing card games, better spelling and other writing skills because he’s inspired to write a science fiction story for publication, or local history by following a zoning or historical-status dispute.

Social development

A common concern voiced about home-educated children is they lack the social interaction with peers that a school environment provides. Many home-education families address these concerns by joining numerous organizations, including home-education cooperatives, independent study programs and specialized enrichment groups for physical education, art, music, and debate. Most are also active in community groups. Home-educated children generally socialize with other children the same way that school children do: outside of school, via personal visits and through sports teams, clubs, and religious groups.

Most home education proponents have argued that their alternative actually enhances the student’s social development. They argue that the school years are the only time in a person’s life that he or she will be artificially segregated into chronologically-determined groups. These advocates assert that home-educated children have a more normal interaction with persons across the age spectrum. This, in turn, results in more influence on the child from adults, and less from other children, leading to more mature young citizens.

Social concerns

Opponents of home education offer criticisms concerning socialization, pointing out that not all home-education families participate sufficiently in community activities. Some of the concerns offered include:

• Interaction with different social groups is essential to learning to live in society; a common criticism is that home-schoolers’ “interaction” is solely with other home-schooled children from like-minded families.
• Schools are a unique environment that provide students with necessary social networking skills that help them succeed in the workplace and in the politics of business. Real life includes school as well.
• Home-educated children tend to live in an insulated world where they aren’t exposed to a variety of ideas, which can impede personal growth and independence later in life.
• If children are insulated from unpleasant social situations, then they will be left unprepared when they are inevitably left to make their own way in the world. Children should be allowed to live and learn from their mistakes rather than sheltered from reality.

Some people oppose home education because they fear that children will be exposed to an extremely narrow set of view-points and will lack the broad range of experiences gained through interaction in a larger group setting.

Cost

Home education may have a financial impact on families. In addition to purchasing school supplies and curriculum materials, parents often cut back or refrain from employment outside the home in order to supervise the child’s education. This may have long-term career consequences in addition to the more immediate concerns of reduced family income. However, many such parents say that one unique benefit is the additional time they get to spend with their children. Further, in most jurisdictions the family still must pay property taxes to the local district (even if school vouchers are offered they are rarely available to homeschooling families).

Conversely, families may see a financial benefit. Families may save unspent money on the costs of tuition outside the home, such as: school fees; levies; uniforms; compulsory books and extra curricular activities, such as school sports teams or clubs.

Of course home education can be expensive if a full curriculum is purchased and many costly activities are attended. It can also be very inexpensive by using free resources, taking advantage of free facilities, such as public libraries, art galleries, parks, and gardens, and resources available on the Internet.

Public opinion

Opposition to home education comes from varied sources, including organizations of teachers and school districts. One example is the National Education Association, a teachers’ union, which is the largest labor union in the United States. They are on record as opposing homeschooling outright; though, in recent years they have not been as outspoken in this opposition. Opponents state concerns falling into several broad categories, including: academic quality and completeness; reduced government money for the publicly-run schools; socialization of children with peers of different ethnic and religious backgrounds; and fear of religious or social extremism. Gallup polls of American voters have shown a significant change in attitude in the last twenty years, from 73% opposed to home education in 1985 to 54% opposed in 2001 [10].

Opponents view home-educating parents as sheltering their children and denying them opportunities that are their children’s right, reducing the amount of government funds publicly-run schools would receive if more children were attending the publicly-run school, and providing an unfair advantage to home-educated children over students whose parents lack the time or money for home education.

Two recent studies by the Home School Legal Defense Association, a home education advocacy group in the United States, dispute the claim that the academic quality of home education programs is substandard.[11][12]

Legality

Home education exists legally in many parts of the world. Countries with the most prevalent home education movements include the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Some countries have highly regulated home education programs which are actually an extension of the compulsory school system, while others have outlawed it entirely. In many other countries, while not restricted by law, home education is not socially acceptable and, therefore, virtually non-existent.

In many countries where home education does not exist legally, underground movements flourish where children are kept out of the compulsory school system and educated at, sometimes, considerable risk. Still, in other countries, while the practice is illegal, the governments do not have the resources to police and prosecute offenders and, as such, it takes place largely in the open.

Home education in the United States is governed by each individual state and therefore regulations vary greatly from one state to another.

Results

Academic findings

The academic effectiveness of home education is largely a settled issue. Numerous studies have confirmed the academic integrity of home education programs, demonstrating that on average, home-educated students outperform their publicly-run school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects. Moreover, the performance gaps between minorities and gender that plague publicly-run schools are virtually non-existent amongst home-educated students.[13]

Some critics argue that while home-educated students generally do extremely well on standardized tests[14], such students are a self-selected group whose parents care strongly about their education and would also do well in a conventional school environment.

Some opponents argue that parents with little training in education are less effective in teaching. However, some studies do indicate that parental income and education level affect home-educated student performance on standardized tests very little.

Home-educated student curricula often include many subjects not included in traditional curricula. Some colleges find this an advantage in creating a more academically diverse student body, and proponents argue this creates a more well-rounded and self-sufficient adult. Increasingly, colleges are recruiting home-educated students; many colleges accept equivalency diplomas as well as parent statements and portfolios of student work as admission criteria; others also require SATs or other standardized tests. Opponents argue that home education curricula often excludes critical subjects and isolates the student from the rest of society, or presents them with ideological world views, especially religious ones. ^{[citation needed]}

The results of home education with gifted and learning-disabled children have not been as thoroughly studied.

Social findings

In 2003, the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) conducted a survey of over 7,300 U.S. adults who had been home-educated (over 5,000 for more than seven years). Their findings included:

• Home-educated graduates are active and involved in their communities. 71% participate in an ongoing community service activity, like coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association, compared with 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages from a traditional education background.

• Home-educated graduates are more involved in civic affairs and vote in much higher percentages than their peers. For example, 76% of surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 voted within the last five years, compared with only 29% of the relevant U.S. population. The numbers of home-educated graduates who vote are even greater in older age groups, with voting levels not falling below 95%, compared with a high of 53% for the corresponding U.S. populace.

• Of those adults who were home-educated, 58.9% report that they are “very happy” with life (compared with 27.6% for the general U.S. population). Moreover, 73.2% of homeschooled adults find life “exciting”, compared with 47.3% of the general population.[15]

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), a U.S. government agengy, has published multiple articles on home education. Here are excerpts from one which examined several studies on home-educated children socialization:

According to the findings, children who were educated at home “gained the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed to function in society…at a rate similar to that of conventionally schooled children.

and;

The researcher found no difference in the self concept of children in the two groups, and maintains that “insofar as self concept is a reflector of socialization, it would appear that few home-schooled children are socially deprived, and that there may be sufficient evidence to indicate that some home-schooled children have a higher self concept than conventionally schooled children.” [16]

Proponents argue further that the social environment of traditional schools:

• strongly inhibits individuality and creativity,
• follows the standards set by the slowest students,
• involves bullying, recreational drug use, early sexuality, defiance, criminality, materialism, and eating disorders.

and that socialization in the wider community:

• leads them to see adults, rather than peers, as role models,
• better prepares them for real life,
• encourages them to be more involved in youth, church, and sports organizations,
• helps them develop an independent understanding of themselves and their role in the world, with the freedom to reject or approve conventional values without the risk of ridicule,
• teaches children to deal with a variety of situations and people,
• still provides for interaction with conventionally-educated children after school hours in their neighbourhood and in other after-school activities.

Notable home-educated individuals

• Thomas Edison, United States, scientist and inventor
• Andrew Wyeth, United States, Artist
• Alexander Graham Bell, Scotland, Inventor (Telephone, Hydrofoil)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Germany, theologian, Hitler assassination conspirator
• Aaron Carter, United States, Singer
• Dakota Fanning, United States, actress
• Lynx and Lamb Gaede, United States, racialist musicians
• Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, France, physicist
• Hilary Duff, United States, Actress/Singer
• Charles Evans Hughes, United States, Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States
• Jon, Peter, and Dann Hume, New Zealand, musicians
• Brooke Hogan, United States, Singer
• Ruth Lawrence, Israel/United Kingdom/United States, mathematician
• General Douglas MacArthur, United States, General/WW2 Hero
• Bode Miller, United States, champion skier
• The Moffatts, Canada, Band
• Evelyn De Morgan, United Kingdom, artist
• Clara Muhammad, United States, Nation of Islam leader
• Frankie Muniz, United States, Actor
• Chauntelle, Sherri, Weston, Stacy and Garron DuPree, United States, musicians
• Christopher Paolini, United States, author
• Rosa Parks, United States, civil rights activist
• Susan La Flesche Picotte, United States, first American Indian woman physician
• John T. Plecnik, United States, syndicated columnist
• Emerson Spartz, United States, internet entrepreneur
• Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russia, rocket scientist and pioneer of cosmonautics
• Roman Vishniac, Russia/United States, photographer, biologist, and polyglot
• Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Poland, author and artist
• Sho Yano, United States, child prodigy
• Woodrow Wilson, United States, the only United States President to hold a Ph.D.
• George Washington, United States, First United States President
• Abraham Lincoln, United States, President during American Civil War

Quotes

Opinions relevant to education are those of the authors of the quotes:

• “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled” - Plutarch (45-125 A.D.)
• “What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child” - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
• “Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education” Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)
• “When you make the finding yourself, even if you are the last person on earth to see the light, you will never forget it” - Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
• “To find yourself, think for yourself” - Socrates (469-399 BC)
• “The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn” - Cicero (106-43 BC)
• “Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon” - E. M. Forster (1879-1970)
• “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)*”Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything learnt in school” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
• “It is nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of enquiry” - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

See also

• Accelerated Christian Education
• Attachment parenting
• Catherine Baker
• Deschooling
• Educational philosophies
• The Education of Henry Adams
• John Taylor Gatto
• General Educational Development (GED)
• Growing Without Schooling
• Proactive Academics
• School choice
• Washington Homeschool Organization
• Work at home parent

References

• “Mary Pride’s Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling” by Mary Pride ISBN 0736909184 Fifth edition of first mass-market book to describe and review the entire homeschool movement and market
• Teach Your Own by John Holt and Patrick Farenga
• A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille
• Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath—You Can Do This! by Terrie Lynn Bittner, ISBN 0972807152
• The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn
• The Homeschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith
• Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
• You Are Your Child’s First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy
• The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook by Rebecca Rupp
• The Homeschool Source Book by Donn Reed
• The extract from the Education Act is Crown Copyright, 1996. Reproduced from Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, United Kingdom. The Education Act is available in printed form, ISBN 0105456969

External links

USA / UK / France / New Zealand

General

• Educationsense - Wendy Bance’s website devoted to home education. Down-to-earth support, resources, products, services and events, by home educators for home educators. Includes forums, e-mail lists, camps, de-cluttering pages, education theme guides and much more.
• A to Z Home’s Cool A portal for homeschooling, with consumer information.
• Homeschool World Most-visited homeschool site. Events listing, groups listing (U.S. and world), forums, contests for homeschoolers, news, articles on all aspects of homeschooling, e-letter.
• Homeschooling UnlimitedAn online community for homeschooling families
• National Home Education Network (NHEN)
• What They’re Reading at the Kitchen Table, a September 2005 article from the Wall Street Journal
• Percipion.com - homeschool resources and information.
• Gifted Homeschoolers Forum A California-based national association for families homeschooling gifted children.
• National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance The largest and most comprehensive website and organization for African American homeschooling families
• Learning is for Everyone, Inc., Supporting Family Choice in Learning
• About Homeschooling An About.com homeschool community with forums, free ecourses, curriculum reviews, unit studies, clubs for the kids, and information for beginners
• One family’s guide to “Christian homeschooling”
• American Homeschool Association’s Resource Guide
• Radio Free School, a radio show devoted to homeschoolers, MP3 archive available
• Eleos, ACE/CEE Home-School, ACE/CEE Student Forum
• Homeschoolalumni.org, An On-Line Community for Homeschool Graduates.

Research

• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Links to homeschool research and reports
• National Home Education Research Institute
• Homeschooling Grows Up: The largest research survey to date of adults who were home-educated.
• ERIC digests from US Dept. of Education
  • Homeschooling, by Patricia M. Lines, 2001
  • Home Schooling and Socialization of Children
  • The Scholastic Achievement of Home School Students
  • Home Schooling
• Annotated bibliography of research on homeschooling, hosted on a GeoCities website

Legalities

• Association of HomeSchool Attorneys (AHSA)
• National Home Education Legal Defence (NHELD)
• The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)

UK

• Home Education UK - Contains links to UK, US, European and Australian home education organisations
• Diversity-Otherwise - UK multi-cultural home education
• HSLDA UK Webpage - Legal information and links to UK home education organisations.
• Home Education Diary - from a family in Scotland, with activities and links to resources.
• Education Otherwise - a home education charity with around 16,000 members in the UK
• Christian Education Europe - Christian Education Europe Ltd. provides Accelerated Christian Education materials and services to schools and home schools in the United Kingdom and Europe
• Schoolhouse Home Education Association - Scotland’s home education charity

France

• IndigoExtra - provides information and links on home education in Europe, with a focus on France
• Les Enfants d’Abord - A home-education organisation with information in English and French.

New Zealand

• Home Education Foundation - The Home Education Foundation is a charitable trust established to encourage parents to take up the option of educating their children at home and to support them in their task.