independent education for free range learners

Education, learning, at its core, is by definition an independent endeavor. We are learning from the second we are born, until the minute we die. Humans process information, interpret it, act on it, file it for future reference or purge it. Life, in other words, is our classroom.

How you choose to learn what you want to know has always been up to you. To our credit, this country has always held a high respect for the education of its citizens. To our discredit, that respect has developed into a compulsory system of state run schooling that honors attendance over education.

State approved curricula and mass schooling methods have squelched the will of generations of children to explore our world independently. If a child discovers Latin root words and their use in our language, he or she would have to explore that independently, only after a school day and homework are finished. No time to spend a few hours skimming a dictionary, when there is so much 'schooling' to be done.

The Alternative Educators' Network supports the idea of "Free Range" learning. This simply means that people should be able (and allowed) to pursue their own interests, on their own time, with whom they please. Learn what you need to learn and move on. We believe that given the opportunity, people will gravitate towards what interests them, learn what they need to know, and learn it more thoroughly, all without compulsion or mandate from the state.

We want to encourage teachers to teach and learners to learn, all without fetters, roadblocks and mandatory waste of time and taxpayer dollars. Free range, so to speak.