If you’re a parent of a WCS child or just someone visiting the site to learn more, you might be wondering, “What do those kids do all day? How does this whole thing play out in real life?”  Below are some links from similar schools and philosophies where you can explore the ideas and pedagogy behind self-directed education.

ALC – Agile Learning Centers restore the joy of learning with a surprisingly effective educational approach: intentional culture supporting self-directed learning reinforced by agile management tools.

Books

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald

A Free Range Childhood: Self Regulation at Summerhill School
by Matthew Appleton

Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing
by A.S. Neill

Freedom: Not License!
by A.S. Neill

Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood
By A.S. Neill, Edited by Albert Lamb

How Children Learn
by John Holt

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling
by John Holt & Patrick Farenga

Learning All the Time
by John Holt

Escape From Childhood
by John Holt

Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves
by Naomi Aldort

Free at Last: The Sudbury Valley School
by Daniel Greenberg

The Pursuit of Happiness: The Lives of Sudbury Valley Alumni
by Daniel Greenberg, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Jason Lempka

The Sudbury Valley School Experience
by Daniel Greenberg, Hanna Greenberg, Michael Greenberg, Laura Ransom, Mimsy Sadofsky, and Alan White

Trusting Children: A Look at Sudbury Education Around the World
pub. by Sego Lily School

Creating Learning Communities
ed. by Ron Miller

No Homework and Recess All Day: How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education
by Jerry Mintz

Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business
ed. by Alfie Kohn and Patrick Shannon

Kids Working It Out: Stories and Strategies for Making Peace in Our Schools
ed. by Tricia S. Jones and Randy Compton

The Compassionate Classroom: Relationship Based Teaching and Learning
by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson

The Exhausted School
ed. by John Taylor Gatto

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
by John Taylor Gatto

Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect our Children’s Minds–and What We Can Do About It
by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D.

Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think–and What We Can Do About It
by Jane M. Healy, Ph.D.

Free School Teaching: A Journey into Radical Progressive Education
by Kristan Accles Morrison

The Happy Child: Changing the Heart of Education
by Steven Harrison

Making It Up As We Go Along: The Story of the Albany Free School
by Chris Mercogliano

​The Teenage Liberation Handbook
by Grace Llewelyn

Last Child in the Woods
by Richard Louv

Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better
by Matt Hern

Teaching as a Subversive Activity
by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner

The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
by Neil Postman

​Punished by Rewards:The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes
by Alfie Kohn

Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever by Mem Fox