Here’s a fun new book: Joys of Self-Determined Learning: A Collection of Essays, edited by Carlo Ricci and Gina Riley. Spoiler Alert: I have an essay included, entitled “Expanding the Movement: Attracting More People to Self-Directed Learning.”
It’s an honor to have a piece of my own among essays by others I respect in the field, including my Liberated Learners colleague Katy Burke in Princeton, NJ. These stories confirm my view that there are many people and programs encouraging alternatives to conventional school, and this mosaic of experiences has something for everyone. While some of the specifics in our models vary, we all start with strong convictions for respecting the autonomy of young people and offering support rather than compulsion.
This collection features Akilah Richards, who places unschooling in the context of a larger process of liberation; Carol Nash offering the history of Alpha, a public school in Toronto; Lainie Liberti and her son Miro Siegel describing their journeys of worldschooling; Rebecca English, Robin Alpern, and Kate Green each sharing their own family’s path to unschooling; Maysaa Banza and her daughter Sulaf Hatab informing us about Pono and their adventures in Manhattan; Hope Wilder telling about Pathfinder in North Carolina; and youthful reflections from “kindergarten dropout” Idzie Desmaris, and Summerhill Alum Jasmine Higgins.
If all of these names and places are not familiar to you, then welcome to my world! Please read this book and feel inspired by each account. As you do so, rejoice that we have such vision and variety around the world working to empower young people. Thank you, Gina and Carlo for making this book a reality.