AlterEd

Dear Friends,

Our first two meetings gave us a lot to think about and really inspired us to keep moving towards doing something concrete to help the teenagers that will shortly inherit the society we live in.

To that end Joel, Martin, Ajay and I met on the 7th February and after more conversation on educational matters came up with some goals:
2015 – an established permanent home;
September 2011 – open with 10 to 20 students meeting in a space yet to be determined;
January 2011 – establish an “office” with website and promotional materials together with a marketing plan;
June 2010 – have a name, mission statement, bye laws and be incorporated as a legal entity.
May 2010 - most important, establish a board of trustees.

A suggested philosophy statement that still needs work might be:
“Learning is natural and individual. We hope to inspire and nurture self-directed learning in a respectful, non-coercive environment.”

Any words of wisdom on any part are welcome but in particular, we could not think of a satisfactory non-negative alternative term for “non-coercive”, which could be construed as a criticism of other schools.... does anyone have any up-beat and positive suggestions?

Another interesting discussion point was the importance of lunch to teenagers and we thought about the need for a kitchen and common dining area in our future space. Making this an integral part of the educational experience could also have the desirable effect of modeling a healthy diet and strengthening the community of learners. (I would recommend a visit to Tinicum Arts and Science to see this in action.)

There is a lot of work to do, it will be stimulating and good fun but it does have a serious purpose. We are extremely lucky to have such good hearted and capable friends interested in moving this project forward.

Sincere thanks,
Paul