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
