I have worked as a teacher for over 15 years, working with both with children and adults, in private as well as in public schools. As an educational sociologist, I have done consulted and directed group processes with teachers in schools, and in preschools. One of the projects I am busy with at the moment, is leading a new course for teaching assistants at a community college. In this course, I am focusing on giving my students the tools they need, to go into the school syste

From the moment my daughter was born, I knew that I would be walking a process of letting her go. I knew that she is, as the poet Kahlil Gibran says, not my own. She is the daughter of life itself, exactly as I am. I knew that I would have to let go of my own wants, needs and desires in relation to her, so that she can grow up to be the person she needs to be, that she has potential to be, and because I will not accept myself to hold her back or limit her to serve my own self

Joao Jesus from Life Educators and Anna Brix Thomsen from A Teacher’s Journey to Life are the hosts of a new series of live conversations on YouTube and Google + on Saturdays at 7 pm GMT. The series will feature interviews with experts and trailblazers in the education field as well as live discussions on cutting edge educational methods and philosophies – all with the purpose of redefining education to create a world that is best for all. Please join us with your questions a

“I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions – a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom.” – bell hooks Children are not allowed to partake in the democratic processes of this world, generally because they are considered incapable of addressing complex questions. When we imagine a world ruled by children, it is a world not unlike the one in The lord of the flies, a chaotic world without logical rules, regu

“Institutional wisdom tells us that children need school. Institutional wisdom tells us that children learn in school. But this institutional wisdom is itself the product of schools because sound common sense tells us that only children can be taught in school. “ – Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society We are all, I am sure, painfully aware that the world as we know it, is in dire need of change. What most of us concerned with this issue, ask ourselves on a daily basis is: how do

As adults, and as parents in particular, we tend to focus on ‘short-term results’ when it comes to our kids. But what is seldom considered is the longitude of a child’s life and how there is so much more to life besides ‘making it’ in the labor force. When we as parents look at our children’s future, this is often the primary point of concern, and we more often than not, place it as our ultimate goal to get them into the workforce to become productive members of society. Then

The world as we know it is at a crossroads, a crossroads where the old is colliding with the new, where past generations feebly cling onto old ways while new generations spearhead towards the future, creating a gap in between of being stuck in transition: We cannot go back to how things were because the world has changed too much, but we also cannot move forward because we still cling on to old ideas about how the world is supposed to be, that we refuse to let go of, to actua

How do you raise a child? My answer: you don’t. Have a look at how a child learns to crawl, stand and walk. The child does that on its own. The adult might support with various devices like walkers and strollers, or through encouragingly inviting the child to stumble into their embrace, but it is the child alone that instinctively on a visceral level figures out how to manage its muscles and bones to eventually raise itself from the ground and onto two feet. It is not like th

“If you observe children learning in their first few years of life, you can see that they can and do learn on their own – we leave them alone to crawl, walk, talk, and gain control over their bodies. It happens without much help from parents. You can’t make someone learn something – you really can’t teach someone something – they have to want to learn it. And if they want to learn, they will.” – Daniel Greenberg, Co-founder of the Sudbury Valley school A couple of weeks ago I

As teachers, parents and adults in general we have become accustomed to categorizing the people we meet into neat little boxes of judgment and preconceived prejudice based on first hand impressions dictated by our biased minds. Sounds brutal, unfair? Well it is, especially for the children, who too fall victim to these snap judgments made by adults, adults who are supposed to be their guardians and champions and role models. We sit and wonder how terrorists or school shooters

Education is a process that each new generation goes through, to learn about the ways of the world so as to effectively integrate into society. We educate our young so that we may not have to reinvent the wheel over and over with every new generation – and it is because of education that we have been able to progress from the horse carriage wheel to the motorized wheel and who knows, maybe someday soon we will implement the hovercraft in its place. I will argue that education

You cannot force someone to learn. You can threaten them, you can punish them, you can force them to sit still and listen (or pretend to listen), but you cannot force them to learn. No one can be forced to learn. Why is it then, that our entire schooling system and the strategies with which most parents raise their children are based on the very premise that children can be forced to learn? How many of us have not experienced information being forced upon us through threats o

I’ve written several blog-posts inspired by Gatto’s work. You can read one of them here. Recently I asked John Taylor Gatto a question on his website. Here is his answer below. “Hi John. I am a teacher working in a country where homeschooling is illegal. Moreover, it is a country where parents have a lot of faith in the education system, so much so that they often prefer not (or do not dare) getting involved. I therefore work to introduce unschooling principles in my teaching

#unschoolingtheschoolsystem #alternativeeducationcommunity #unschooling #annabrixthomsen #consciousconsumernetwork #guerrillateacher #fortheloveoflearning

“After school, kids are devouring new information, concepts, and skills every day, and, like it or not, they’re doing it controller in hand, plastered to the TV. The fact is, when kids play videogames they can experience a much more powerful form of learning than when they’re in the classroom. Learning isn’t about memorizing isolated facts. It’s about connecting and manipulating them. Doubt it? Just ask anyone who’s beaten Legend of Zelda or solved Morrowind.” – James Paul Ge

“A child does not have to be motivated to learn; in fact, learning cannot be stopped. A child will focus on the world around him and long to understand it. He will want to know why things are the way they are. He won’t have to be told to be curious; he will just be curious. He has no desire to be ignorant; rather he wants to know everything. “ – Valerie Fitzenreiter, in The Unprocessed Child: Living Without School When I started working as a teacher, I made a decision that wo

“We don’t yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.” ~ Alice Miller The past few months I have been working with introducing unschooling principles into my work as a teacher. As mentioned in a previous post, unschooling is an educational principle where all traditional schooling activities such as sitting in a class, doing homework and w

“Rules in the absence of principle are often found to be irrelevant by children. Principles lived fully make rules unnecessary.” —Karen Tucker We are facing a time in history where breaking with the conventions of yesteryear is not only inevitable but in fact a necessity. Radical unschooling represents such a break with conventional thoughts, as it challenges everything we thought we knew about education and parenting. Out with the old. In with the New. The realization that w

From the moment a child is born, it is expected to assimilate to the culture and society surrounding it, to make its norms and traditions its own. It is a war with the goal to break down the child until it surrenders its natural instincts and accepts its domestication. This process is unnatural and not without bloodshed. Screaming, conflicts and violence ensues when the child tries to fight tooth and nail to express itself in a way that comes natural to it and not succumb to

In this post we are therefore going to do a different thought experiment. We are going to imagine what it would be like to go to school in a potential future education system, an education system that honors and prioritizes the life and well being of our children, an educational system that doesn’t aim solely at producing future consumers to keep the wheels of corporate capitalism spinning, but on nurturing compassionate and independent individuals to live and become their fu