“Lacking a precise meaning, the term “alternative education” describes different approaches to teaching and learning other than state-provided mainstream education, usually in the form of public or private schools with a special, often innovative curriculum and a flexible programme of study which is based to a large extent on the individual student’s interests and needs (Raywid, 1988; Koetzsch, 1997; Aron, 2003; Carnie 2003). (Sliwka 2008 pg. 1)”

“Wherever educational alternatives combine customised learning with collaborative group learning in authentic, inquiry-oriented projects, provide their students with access to diverse knowledge sources and assess them for deeper understanding and further learning, alternative schools seem to be ahead of mainstream education and can serve as meaningful models for the renewal of mainstream education across the globe. (Sliwka 2008 pg. 11)”

o The first decades of the 20th century saw the advent of several alternative education movements that proved to be influential even today. With her influential book The Century of the Child (1909), the Swedish educator Ellen Key was among the first of several advocates of child-centred education. The German education reformers Hermann Lietz, Paul Geheeb and Kurt Hahn founded reformist rural boarding schools (“Landerziehungsheime”) that were meant to provide children with a holistic education secluded from the negative effects of industrial urban life. In 1907, the Italian paediatrician Maria Montessori opened the first Casa de Bambini, a house of elementary education based on her own observations in child development. The first Waldorf school was founded by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1919. Because of official criticism of his innovative teaching methods, French educator, Célestin Freinet in 1935 resigned from his job as public school teacher to start his own school in Vence. In North America, John Dewey, Francis Parker and others formed a powerful progressive education movement based on the belief that education should primarily serve the needs of children and focus on understanding, action and experience rather than rote knowledge and memorisation. (Sliwka 2008 pg. 2)”

“Across the world, we find a broad range of alternative forms of education rooted in different philosophies. Thus, the landscape of alternative education is highly fragmented, which makes it difficult to quantify the number of students in alternative schools and programmes. Large, global networks of alternative schools based on particular educational concepts such as Montessori and Waldorf/Steiner pedagogy coexist with some new movements in alternative schooling as well as individual alternative schools. In addition, several OECD school systems have created legislation that makes room for and funds alternative schools and education programmes within public school systems (Rofes and Stulberg, 2004). (Sliwka 2008 pg. 1)

“The groundwork for what is now referred to as “the Reggio Emilia approach” (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1993, 1998) is deeply rooted in the town’s long history of resistance to social injustice and its alliance with Italy’s socialist and communist parties (New, 1993). The more obvious origins can be traced back to a time shortly after World War II, when working parents claimed abandoned buildings and petitioned the city to help them build new schools for their young children. Wanting more than the traditional custodial care, parents found an eloquent spokesman in the form of Loris Malaguzzi, who was inspired by their strong sense of purpose and soon joined their efforts. Parents declared their desire for schools where children were taken seriously and where even the youngest could acquire the skills and values of collaboration and critical thinking necessary to a free and democratic society. (New 2007 6)”

“The principle of collaboration is expressed in a myriad of ways, beginning with the insistence by teachers that they are not substitutes for parents, but rather, share with parents the challenge and responsibility of educating their children. (New 2007 8)”

“This “making visible” occurred through other means as well, including experiences that were even more powerful and personal. The notion of study tours or delegations was a new experience for many teachers and academics. This firsthand approach to learning about another culture’s educational practices quickly caught on, and thousands of non-Italian educators have since seen for themselves “what all the talk is about.” These firsthand experiences in Reggio Emilia played a major role in convincing skeptics that activities and learning depicted in the exhibit and described in journal articles were, in fact, legitimate representations of ongoing classroom practices. (New 2007 10)”

“The 1968 Italian law proclaiming preschool as a right for 3- to 5-year-old children also described these environments as “laboratories for teachers.” In part due to the absence of any preservice teacher education for teachers of young children in Italy,2 this notion of schools as learning environments for adults was translated by Reggio Emilia into a form of professional development inextricable from other key elements of their early childhood services. Throughout the early period of program evolution, Reggio Emilian teachers explored the ideas of American philosophers Dewey and Hawkins, among others, as they contributed to a pedagogy of collaborative inquiry involving children as well as adults. Along with colleagues in other Italian cities, educators in Reggio Emilia have since explored Italian traditions of documentation and discussione (conversations characterized by debate and negotiation)—in which teachers observe, record, share, analyze, and debate their emerging understandings of children’s ways of thinking and learning and then share these understandings with others. This combination of philosophically and practically derived understandings of epistemology represents a highly particularized invention of teaching (Davis, 2004) that can be traced back to Socratic traditions of doubt and inquiry. (New 2007 7)”

“Surely the most obvious contribution to its global status is the city’s willingness to go public with both the practical and ideological dimensions of their work. The ability to articulate and demonstrate “the what and the why” (New, 1998) of their work was expressed first through the exhibition and soon thereafter by the words and actions of the Italians themselves. Malaguzzi did not mince words when he talked about his wish to change the culture of childhood. Not confident in the typical forms of scholarly dissemination, he convinced the city to support the creation of an enormous (100 meters long) exhibition to travel throughout Western Europe. The exhibition was hugely successful in attracting the attention of educators in other nations, notably Germany and Sweden, and in 1987 an English-language version arrived in the United States. The exhibition has since been translated into several other languages and has by now traveled across oceans to nations as diverse and distant as Australia, Brazil, and Japan. (New 2007 9-10)”

“In the early days, Evelyn Arcuri, the teacher, said later, when she asked the students to return their materials, “they would just toss stuff at me. Now there’s better control. They’re more engaged.” I noticed something similar. (Oppenheimer 1999 71)”

“’An incomplete toy lets children use their imaginations.’” (Oppenheimer 1999 73)

“’People say, ‘Oh, can your kids read’ There is no concerted effort to drum words into the kids. And that was the point.’ Before teaching sounds and word recognition, Waldorf teachers concentrate on exercised to build up a child’s love of language. The technique seems to work, even in public schools.” (Oppenheimer 1999 75)