ASDE News

Most who explore self-directed education (SDE) and stick with it were impacted early on by the work of others who shared the honesty within this life path. Taken from the mission of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education, ASDE is “...dedicated to informing people about the benefits of, and methods for, allowing children and adolescents to direct their own education.” In other words, we aim to help people find and become comfortable with SDE, to be a support and connecting force for those who are interested in this path.

This year was no exception. With the overnight move of public schools to remote learning formats, ASDE moved to respond to the needs of the community. ASDE provided webinars, hosted by Maleka Diggs of Eclectic Learning Network, for parents struggling with work-life balance challenges when work and life were now being practiced simultaneously in the same space. Social media spaces, our info emails, and the forums on the ASDE website, self-directed.org, became sounding boards for parents and teens who had so many questions and no one near them with experience to give them answers. Tipping Points Magazine put out articles that directly addressed how life was shifting with the pandemic, and how SDE centers were responding to the sudden changes. Local groups shifted into new ways of providing community, or hibernating for a time, but the local SDE groups organizers continued to meet online and support one another in their various situations. Meanwhile, thanks to efforts of September James and other volunteers, our Resource Directory is larger than ever, with new additions of unschooling and SDE support groups all over the world, and a growing list of SDE-aligned counselors and mental health support.

We want to continue and expand this support. To be able to pay authors and researchers for focused work in areas where we want to expand; to continue shifting our website and program offerings to be aligned with the current needs of the increasing number of people considering leaving school; and to focus on projects that specifically support the work, voices, and efforts of marginalized folks within the SDE movement.

Please consider donating to support this movement and help us expand our efforts. Now is a more important time than ever for thousands of people to find support to shift away from coercive schooling and into ways of living and learning that are liberating and community-based. For just $3/month, we could expand our impact widely.

Check out our social media accounts this upcoming week for more specifics about each initiative!