Holistic Ways of Learning at a Community School: A Critical Narrative Exploration of the Alternative School Experience

Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Foreword
1 Introduction, Prologue to the Story, and the Alternative School Movement
	Research Questions
	Purpose of the Study
	Limitations
	Theoretical Framework—Holistic and Critical
	Educational Sustainability
	Present Day, the Kids Are Not Alright
	Back to School Means Back to Stress
	Alternative Schools
	The Free School Movement
	The Influence of John Holt
	The First Street School
	Looking Back—The Deeply Personal and Deeply Political
	Becoming a Teacher
	The Hall-Dennis Report
	Summerhill Influences
	Free Schools
	Making It Relevant
	The Equinox School and North Star
	References
2 Holistic Theory and Critical Pedagogy
	Holistic Education
	What Is Holistic Education?
	Indigenous Education
	Transcendentalists
	Wholeness and Interconnectedness
	Soul/Sacredness
	Leading With the Head
	The Interconnected Holistic Educator
	The Holistic Learner, Freedom, and Self-Direction
	Holistic Theory—A Pedagogy of Privilege?
		Begin With Identity
	A Note On the Researcher-Educator-Learner
	Critical Pedagogy
	Defining Critical Pedagogy
	Frankfurt School Influences
	Critical Pedagogy Today
	Value Neutrality, the Great Equalizer, and Other Myths of Mainstream Schooling
	Critiques of Critical Pedagogy
	Questions of Gender and Othering
	Beyond Either/Or Thinking: Schools as Sites of Oppression and Liberation?
	References
3 Methodology
	Narrative Inquiry
	Narrative and Autoethnography as Critical Methodology
	Methods
	Participants
	Participants Then and Now
	Interviews
	Ethics and Consent
	Narrative Privilege
	Memory
	Thematizing and Characterizing (Data Analysis)
	Insider Status and Reflexivity
	Hearing and Sharing Multiple Voices
	References
4 The Newcomers
	Context—What Brought the Adults Here
	Barney—Community School Founder, Where It Began
	Kathlyn and Dennis
	Sylvia
	Bernadine
	Ish and Kathy
	Kathy
	Ish
	Other Community Members
	Note
	References
5 Education Is Too Important to Be Left to Professionals
	Philosophies of Education
	Being Brutalized By the System
	Factory Schooling
	Serious Undertaking
	Child-Centred
	Changing On the Fly: Auto Mechanics Is Just Not Their Thing
	When Passionate Views Lead to Conflict
	Reading and Telling Time
		Telling Time
		Learning to Read—According to Rudolf Steiner
	The Report of the Commission On Private Schools in Ontario
	“Real” School and Real Conflict
	How Did You Know They Were Learning? How Could You Not Know?
	References
6 Getting There Is Half the Fun
	Transportation: Getting There Is Half the Fun
	Travel By Car
	A Typical School Day—Was There Such a Thing?
	Animals: Horses and Geese and Sheep, Oh My!
	Gymkhana: Games On Horseback
	The Author’s Gymkhana Experience—Reflections On Memories
	Survival Week
	The Beaver Pond
	Yoga
	Meditation
	History
	References
7 A Beautiful Little School
	Like Family—For Better and for Worse
	Chores—This Is School?
	Transitions Between Mainstream and Community School
		Fitting In? That Is a Different Question Altogether
	Looking Back
	References
8 Conclusion
	Epilogue to the Story
	References
Index