ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION
The Local Planet has covered Steiner education in previous issues but John Donaldson asked to relate his very happy experiences with the change and choice he made for his son. We would like to cover other educational alternatives, from Montessori to faith schools; home education to learning all subjects through art - or even an exceptional ‘conventional’ school. Would you like to write and share the educational decisions and experiences (whether very positive or not so good) you and your children have had?

A chance meeting and conversation with a total stranger in a coffee shop near Kilkeel, County Down lead to a decision to educate my son James in a Steiner school. He spent his first two years in a Kindergarten at a Camphill community outside Kilkeel. Then, two years ago we relocated to East Clare so that James could start his education in Ireland’s largest Steiner school.

The new, full-time course in Herbal Science is now in its second Term at Cork Institute of Technology.

The Director of the college, John Thuillier, immediately saw the potential of such an innovative project and in the year 2000 the Practical Sustainability Course was established.

For a month this summer I had the good fortune to work as a voluntary teacher at Tumul K’in Centre of Education in Belize, Central America. It is a school with a difference.

The concept of bringing nature into communities & schools is not new & is used as an integrated approach in many countries. In our changing world it is becoming more important to learn where our food comes from & how to live in the world in a sustainable way – our ecological footprints are getting bigger as we consume without thought of the future generations to come.

In September 1999, St. Joseph’s B.N.S., Terenure first entered An Taisce’s Green-Schools Programme. ‘An international environmental programme, designed to promote and acknowledge whole school action for the environment.’