Abstract:
This paper is an attempt to provide the teacher who believes in students as people and people as self-directing, thinking individuals with working ideas that can be incorporated within the traditional school system, yet allow students freedom to learn. The ideas are practical because they are based upon the real experiences of teachers, students, administrators, and schools. It is also the seed of change for those to plant who recognize the desperate plight, or even failure, of the present public school system and the need for new ideas in the relatively static present condition. These ideas can work in the most traditional school even with administrators that are relatively opposed to change, but can really take root and grow where there is an increasing awareness in the school that all is not right.Most of the ideas expressed in this paper have been expressed by many others before in many different contexts. An attempt has been made to document some of the more controversial assertions made. This documentation usually in no way reflects the actual number of sources from which the idea was drawn, but rather is the source that has stated the case most succinctly or was the first expression of the idea encountered by the writer in his research. Any reader can gain a better perspective of the working validity and/or broader philosophical undergirdings of the ideas presented in this paper from further reading in the bibliography and/or appendix.