Abstract

Beginning in the mid-1960s, thousands of small alternative schools sprang up across the United States and Canada. These schools varied widely in programs and policies, but common factors among them were a disenchantment with conventional schooling, a desire to reform education, and (frequently) the belief that schools should be controlled by the population served, including children. The National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools was formed in 1976. Its journal from 1985 to 1990 was SKOLE (from a Greek word for the type of dialectical activity conducted by Socrates). This volume contains selected articles published during that period. Six articles profile small alternative schools: Shaker Mountain School (Burlington, Vermont); Sudbury Valley School (Framingham, Massachusetts); Metropolitan School of Columbus (Ohio); the Free School (Albany, New York); L'Ecole d'Humanite (Goldern, Switzerland); and Central Park East (New York, New York). Other articles and reprints discuss teaching the American Constitution; child-adult relationships in learning situations; alternative schools in early America; a high school student's perspective on alternative versus conventional education; community-building processes in a national coalition of educators; homeschooling, experiential learning, and the vision of John Holt; children's theater as education; refuting Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences; peace education; what's wrong with public education; the outdoors as "school"; movement education; teaching, learning, and schooling in the works of Piaget, Skinner, and Dewey; and comparisons of learner outcomes of children schooled at home and in school. Also included are four poems and three book reviews. (SV)