"Making It Up As We Go Along"
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Selected as one of the 25 best education books of 1999, Making It Up As We Go Along recounts the founding, the philosophy and the evolution of the world's longest running independent inner-city free school. Making It Up As We Go Along is the story of the Albany Free School, a
Read noted authors' praise for Mercogliano's Book
There is no curriculum or preset methodology to describe because teachers
and students at the Albany Free School make it up as they go along. What
Mercogliano does do is render into words the possibilities that abound when
fifty-five kids and ten adults interact together in an atmosphere of
spontaneity, creativity, personal responsibility, and mutual respect. His book
debunks many of the prevailing myths about teaching and learning, including the
belief that education requires a lot of money, sophisticated technology, and
specialized teacher training.
For more information about Chris Mercogliano
This book was written with three broad goals in mind: to provide an
in-depth history of the school, including an analysis of its place in the
broader scheme of alternative education; to describe the school in a way that is
meaningful to both those who have some point of reference to non-conventional
approaches to schooling and to those who do not; and to address certain
fundamental subjects that are too often neglected in our national thinking about
children: aggression, sexuality, race/class, and spirituality. In the process
the author demonstrates how teachers can help all students pursue their genius
and their dreams through the union of self-direction, excitement, joy, and
emotional awareness.
To purchase Making It Up As We Go Along
The Albany Free School
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school based on real freedom, real democracy, real community, and real affection
between students and teachers. Here, for more than twenty-eighty years, Chris
Mercogliano has taught a never-ending variety of children kids of all ages from every race and
social class, from those with learning and behavioral problems to the so-called
gifted. Thanks to this ongoing, radical experiment in education, the author has
come to understand how important autonomy and authenticity are to the learning
process.
