Holistic Education - Alternative Schools

Alternative Schools

For various reasons, many parents today are looking to alternative schools that offer different philosophies of education than mainstream schools. The diversity of alternative schools sets them apart from mainline education. Each school has its own methods and approaches to teaching. Therefore, each alternative school may have different beliefs about what education should include. Consequently, there are several types of alternative schools that have holistic values in their philosophies of education. While these schools have elements of holism incorporated in their values it would be fair to say that these schools could be placed on a continuum on how “holistic” they actually are (that is to say, some would have more holistic elements than others). Also, public and other types of private schools do not appear in the following list but that does not mean that there are no holistic values in their individual philosophies of education. In addition, many individual teachers in different venues of education try to incorporate ideas of holism into their own classrooms.

List of alternative schools that have holistic elements of learning in their educational philosophies:

• Camphill Schools
• Democratic school and Free school
• Folk Education
• Friends/Quaker Schools
• Homeschooling, Unschooling, and Deschooling
• Krishnamurti Schools
• Montessori School
• Open Schools
• Waldorf Education (or Steiner Education)
• Reggio Emilia Inspired Schools