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 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.

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

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.