"Your freedom and mine cannot be separated."

- Nelson Mandela

Founded in 1994, Rethinking Education, with its international conference, is at the forefront of a rapidly growing trend in alternative education.

RE is organized and produced by Barb Lundgren, an unschool parent with 25 years of unschool and entrepreneurial experience. For more about Barb click here.

At the heart of Rethinking Education is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive. With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children have a powerful drive to self-direct their own learning; the result being children who direct their own education... indeed, their own futures.

Education viewed this way becomes a mutual endeavor, a life-long process of questioning and discovery ... a true exploration of self, society and the larger world.

Proponents are widespread and include John Taylor Gatto, Jan Fortune-Wood, John Holt, Bruno Bettleheim, Alice Miller, Ivan Illich, Susannah Sheffer, A.S. Neill, Daniel Greenberg, Jonathan Kozol, and numerous others. For a booklist sampling, click here.

Check out the conference discussion on MySpace!

What is Freedom? Unschooling successfully is all about maximizing freedom, for each child, teen and parent.

Simply put, freedom is living life being true to yourself, making your own decisions, all of which directly affect you. Freedom is NOT taking action that intrudes or violates the personal freedoms or personal space of someone else.

At the Rethinking Education conference, each person will be extended maximum freedom to have fun, choose their own awake-and-sleep hours, choose activities and new friends, mealtimes and meals. Be free, be wild if that's your thing, be true to whoever you are or whoever you want to be. PLEASE... be sure your actions are YOURS, and will not intrude upon someone else's space or freedom to do or be what THEY want for themselves.

Example: YOU want to stay up all night, having fun with your new friends. (By popular request, we will be planning and hosting activities that go into the wee hours this year.) You are FREE to do this! You are NOT FREE to make noise or otherwise keep others awake who prefer to be sleeping. Remember at all times that your choice of action should always be that which affects you alone, and not anyone else. If someone else chooses to participate in your activity, they will let you know.

FREEDOM, as it applies to individual rights and freedoms, will be dissected and addressed at length during a powerful keynote given by Valerie Fitzenreiter. She will speak on Summerhill, the landmark book published in the 70's by A.S. Neill, founder of Summerhill school in England. Read the book ahead of time if you haven't already done so! Summerhill changed Valerie's life years ago as it did Barb Lundgren, RE founder. This will be a most anticipated keynote!


About Rethinking Education - Demographics