There is a wealth of information about Self-Directed Education available online. Listed on this resource page are a few references to get you started and to offer support through the paradigm shift from traditional education models to the Self-Directed Education framework.
Articles
- What Is Self-Directed Education?
- Why Do People Choose Self-Directed Education?
- Survey of Unschoolers is a series of reports by Peter Gray where he thoroughly investigates the impact of self-directed education
- Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple
- What The Modern World Has Forgotten About Children and Learning
- A Radical Way of Unleashing a Generation of Geniuses
- Back to Basics is a portion of a larger work that interrogates the fundamental purpose and need for schooling
- A Map of The Alternative Education Landscape
- The Challenges of Unschooling
- College Admissions for Alternative Schooled, Homeschooled, and Unschooled Applicants
Videos
- What Is Self-Directed Education? An introductory illustration from Peter Gray and the Alliance for Self-Directed Education
- Culture Hacking Education Eric Bear, a pioneer and missionary for Agile Learning Centers gives an invigorating TED Talk on the marvel of blending Agile tools and self-directed education.
- Changing Education Paradigms An RSA Animate of another great Ken Robinson talk on Education.
- The Crisis of an Outdated Paradigm Tomis, ALC Facilitator on the crisis created by our outdated educational paradigm.
- The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us An articulate RSA Animate of Dan Pink’s famous talk.
- Hackschooling Makes Me Happy A 13 year old homeschooler, Logan LaPlante, describes how he hacks his own education to create the life he wants for himself.
- What If We Trusted You? A great talk by Jerry Michalski about how traditional schools are set up around the belief that children do not want to learn.
- Do Schools Kill Creativity? Famous talk from Ken Robinson.
- Exploring the Realm of Self-Directed Education Akilah S. Richards and Laura Kriegel from the Alliance for Self-Directed Education explain how unschooling, free/democratic schools, learning centers, co-ops and more relate.
Books
Though there are several, these books have become somewhat canon and fundamental to starting and supporting someone on the deschooling path.
- Free To Learn by Peter Gray
- Summerhill by A.S. Neil
- Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar by James Marcus Bach
- The Art of Self-Directed Learning by Blake Boles
- Free At Last by Daniel Greenburg
The following websites exist to promote, connect, inform, and organize around the realm of self-directed education.
Organizations
Below we link to the main websites and blogs of prolific and notable scholars, educators, and practitioners in the realm of unschooling and self-directed education. Each of them with their own perspectives, theories, and approaches. Each of them gateways to massive amounts of stories and information about this realm of alternative education.
- Peter Gray
- Ken Robinson
- Sugatra Mitra
- Akilah Richards
- A.S. Neil
- Daniel Greenberg
- Yaachov Hecht
- Blake Boles
- John Holt
- Penelope Trunk