First published in 1973,
The Free School
explores the roots of the educational malaise- sociological, historical, and psychological- and looks at what could be done and what is being done to free education from its rigid and hierarchical nineteenth-century organization. By placing schooling within its larger social context, the author illuminates many reasons behind the troubled situation in our secondary schools. Our mistake has been, he thinks, to confuse education (in its truest sense) with schooling. He concludes his analysis with a valuable account of the ways in which new educational ideas are being tried out in such places as Countesthorpe, Wyndham, the Parkway Program in Philadelphia, and the Open University. This book is a must read for schoolteachers and educationists.