Posted 2020-02-17

Tipping Points Press Book Cover Contest!

The Alliance for Self-Directed Education is launching a new book publishing company, Tipping Points Press. Our goal for Tipping Points Magazine has always been to amplify and highlight the diverse voices of this movement, in order to advance our mission of making Self-Directed Education a legitimate, accessible option for all families. Tipping Points Press is an extension of that goal. An opportunity to, together, add more voices and perspectives to the landscape of book authors about Self-Directed Education. More information, such as submission guidelines and information about the publishing process will be coming soon. In the meantime, feel free to email any questions you have to Alexander Khost, Tipping Points Press and Magazine Editor-in-Chief, at alexander@self-directed.org.

The first publications by our Press will be a set of small books composed of articles that Peter Gray has published as blog posts for Psychology Today. They will be sold to help support ASDE’s projects and used as gifts for large donations to ASDE. The first four books are nearly ready to print, and we would like to add an interesting and relevant illustration to the cover of each of them. We are therefore inviting young people under the age of 18 who are involved in Self-Directed Education to submit visual art (drawings, paintings, illustrations, digital art, etc.) to us. These can be as realistic, cartoon-like, or abstract as the artist wishes. We are looking for illustrations that attract attention and somehow relate to the theme of the book.

The themes to illustrate for the first four books are as follows:

Book 1: Mother Nature’s Pedagogy. We would like to illustrate here the theme of children’s natural curiosity and desire to explore.

Book 2: How Children Acquire “Academic” Skills Without Formal Instruction. We would like to illustrate here how a child might learn to read or learn to calculate with numbers through play or normal, daily activities.

Book 3: The Harm of Coercive Schooling. We would like to illustrate here the stress, anxiety, boredom, or sense of imprisonment experienced in attending a conventional school.

Book 4: Evidence that Self-Directed Education Works. This book is mostly based on surveys of young adults who attended an SDE school or were unschooled during their school-aged years. The illustration might depict one or more self-educated young adults successfully facing the world, or it might somehow depict a quality — such as confidence or independence — that characterizes self-educated people.

We encourage participants to submit four piece of artwork, one for each book, but participants are welcome to submit just one, or two, or three if they prefer. All artwork will be posted on a special page on the ASDE website, along with the name of the artist. If a participant’s artwork is chosen by the ASDE team to be used as a cover art for one of the books, the artist’s name will be included on one of the initial pages of the book and Peter Gray will send a signed copy of the book, along with a letter of gratitude and congratulations, to that participant.

Please submit your art by March 31, 2020. Click here to access the submission form and submit your entries!

Tipping Points

The online magazine from the Alliance for Self-Directed Education, designed to amplify and celebrate the voices of our movement.

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[photo] The Misuse of Words
As deschoolers, a lot of us use inaccurate words when discussing Self-Directed Education. What are more precise words that we can use and why does this matter? And when do we need to make up our own words?
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[photo] Siyanür Zehirlenmesinde Nasıl Hayatta Kalınır
"Ölüme inananlar ve hayata inananlar" üzerine, "nefret dolu ceza sistemi" nin toplumumuzu nasıl şekillendirdiğine ve onu nasıl değiştirebileceğimize ya da değiştirip değiştiremeyeceğimize dair düşünceler.
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The latest SDE community to join the recent Flying Squad movement of stepping out of space pre-defined for youth.
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