Agile E-Book References and Resource Recommendations

In posting the audio versions of each chapter of my Self-Directed Education and the Agile Learning Approach e-book, I realized there was no good way to make sure folks could find the people I was citing without literally spelling out each name and title…so I copied the recommendations at the end of each chapter here and am posting the link wherever I share the audio. Hopefully folks find works that make them think and offer useful frameworks for their worlds through this list!

Examining School References and Further Resources

• Ivan Illich published Deschooling Society in 1971, with Calder & Boyers. The text as a whole is somewhat narrow and dated, but engaging with Illich’s unsettling of broadly held social assumptions regarding what education is, what it’s for, and who decides can still be productive.
• Alison Gopnik explores the impact of judging assessment in her book The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children, published in 2016 with Farrar, Straus and Giroux. She asks how adults would engage with children differently if not attached to standardization, control, and setting kids in competition with each other. 
• Peter Gray and Sir Ken Robinson both argue in multiple talks, essays, and books that surveillance and assessment stifle creativity in learners of all ages. Watching videos of their talks would be the way to start getting familiar with their work, but there are plenty of options if you prefer to read. Short and freely available, Gray’s online essay “How Does School Wound? Kirsten Olson Has Counted Some Ways” from 2011 introduces this perspective using his and Olson’s research. Robinson’s book with Lou Aronica Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life was published in 2013 with Viking, and while it’s more focused on adult learners than his earlier works, the concepts and conclusions are just as relevant for young learners and those who work with them. An interview about the book is available at interaliamag.org/interviews/ken-robinson
• The history of standardized testing and grading, in school and out, is also interwoven with eugenics and really problematic ideas about whose lives, potential, and knowledge matter. Learn more in Stephen Jay Gould’s 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, published with Norton and available online at archive.org. For further reading, see Dan Bouk’s work on the history and impacts of categorization regimes at shroudedincloaksofboringness.com and Cathy O’Neil’s book on the dangers of accepting and mass automating sorting processes: Weapons of Math Destruction published in 2017 with Crown.
• To trouble definitions of “waste” and discardability, check out Max Liboiron’s Pollution is Colonialism, published in 2021 with Duke.
• Exploring education: an Introduction to the Foundations of Education (3rd Edition) by Alan Sadovnik, Peter Cookson Jr., and Susan Semel was published with Pearson in 2005. It’s referenced here, because it’s one of the books that I was assigned when I was still taking more mainstream teacher-training courses.
• Sanjay Sarma and Luke Yoquinto published Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn in 2021 with Anchor. Along with their comparison of schooling systems to social winnowers, they describe the evolution of education philosophy and understandings of learning influencing different trends in the history of education. Unlike many other readings on the history of schooling, this book looks at higher education and online courses, including questions about how to use what we’ve learned so far to design future education pathways.
• There’s a Matt Hern piece on the history of compulsory schooling and resistance to it, “The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance,” at theanarchistlibrary.org.
• Peter Gray also has an article on the history of schooling, available at psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education
• “Progressive Education,” in the history of the evolution of schools and schooling philosophies, means something more specific than “embracing the positions of the contemporary ‘progressive’ political party.” Here’s “Democracy and Education,” one of the Dewey texts most of us who studied education were introduced to the history of progressive education through: gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm
• The use of “schools” for genocide and colonization is also part of the history of schooling. The history of residential schools, also known as Indian Boarding Schools or by various other names though the US and Canada, is painful and too important to keep allowing to be erased from these conversations. Read more at boardingschoolhealing.org/education/us-indian-boarding-school-history/ Beyond the North American context, the stunning 2023 film Je’vida, directed by Katja Gauriloff focuses on the intergenerational impact of these schools on Sámi people in Northern Europe.

Alternative Education Landscape References and Further Resources

• More information about Maria Montessori and her methods can be found at amshq.org/About-Montessori/History-of-Montessori.
• You can read about Steiner/Waldorf schools at waldorfeducation.org/waldorf-education/rudolf-steiner-the-history-of-waldorf-education, and then maybe look up ‘anthrosophy.’
• More on Reggio Emilia schools at reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/.
• Curious about constructivism, constructivism, and Seymour Papert? Find a thorough explanation of constructivism at simplypsychology.org/constructivism.html and one of constructionism at https://learning.media.mit.edu/courses/mas713/readings/. You’ll want to select “Constructionism – Falbel.”
• More on Modern Schools at theanarchistlibrary.org/library/abe-bluestein-comp-the-modern-school-movement.
• Forest schools drew press interest particularly during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Check out the 2020 article “Outdoor Classes and Forest Schools Gain New Prominence Amid Distance Learning Struggles” at edsource.org.
• Sometimes folks mix up project-based learning (PBL) and self-directed education. Here’s an article on PBL: edutopia.org/project-based-learning-history.
• There’s lots of information on democratic free schools — notably books about Summerhill and Sudbury Valley. Here’s an intro piece on democratic schools: alternativestoschool.com/articles/democratic-schools/.
• Savannah Shange’s Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco was published in 2019 with Duke.
• Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implication for Social Activism was published in 2021 with North Atlantic Books.
• The graphic I find most useful for explaining Virginia Satir’s model of change is available at https://www.lanajelenjev.com/product-page/satir-change-model-facilitator-s-guide
• Kathrine McKittrick’s talk “Curiosities, Wonder, and Black Methodologies // 09.14.20,” sampling both her book and playlist, is on YouTube on the UVA School of Architecture channel.
• While much of adrienne maree brown’s writing reads like poetry, including her work on group dynamics and principles for facilitating with emergence, much of her deliberate poetry lives on her blog. For example this excerpt:
  “be careful
  we are fertile
  that heat between our palms
  that poem in the mirror
  we know the beauty of our own reckoning
  all those years, asleep in delicious fog
  that was only winter”
  Find the rest at adriennemareebrown.net/2022/03/24/be-careful-i-am-fertile/
• Similarly, Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ work can read as poetic even at its most dense and academic. Her book of essay reflections, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, published in 2020 with AK Press, includes:
  “Are you still breathing? This is an offering towards our evolution, towards the possibility that instead of continuing the trajectory of slavery, entrapment, separation, and domination and making our atmosphere unbreathable, we might instead practice another way to breathe. I don’t know what that will look like, but I do know that our marine mammal kindred are amazing at not drowning. So I call on them as teachers, mentors, guides. And I call on you as breathing kindred souls. May we evolve.”

Self-Directed Education References and Further Resources

• The Alliance for Self-Directed Education has an introduction to the concept on their website at self-directed.org/sde/.
• More about the “Growing Without Schooling” magazine can be found at johnholtgws.com/
• Akilah Richards has a TED Talk, “Raising Free People,” as well as a podcast and a popular and accessibly written book by the same name. The book’s full title is Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work, and it was published in 2020 by PM Press. 
• Peter Gray has a book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, published in 2015 with Basic Books, which looks at some of the science behind Self-Directed Education. 
• Iris Chen’s book Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent was published in 2020 by Untigering Press. Chen’s book considers the space of the caregiver-child relationship before any specific school-unschool philosophy, which can be refreshing when most books do the opposite.
• Naomi Fisher’s book A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education, published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2023, offers glimpses into what self-directed education looks like for neurodiverse learners, with research explaining how the approach can support students who understand the world and express themselves in many different ways.
• The “Racial Equity in Self-Directed Education” panel transcript quoted in this section is available in full at self-directed.org/tp/racial-equity-summit/
• A very partial list of movement practitioners and reflection-sharers to follow beyond those already mentioned include Maleka Diggs, Tiersa McQueen, Idzie Desmarais, carol black, Carla Bergman, Antonio Buehler, Domari Dickinson, Chemay Morales-James, Isela Mondragon, Kelly Limes Taylor, and Constanza Monié.

The Science of Learning References and Further Resources

• The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik was published in 2009 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Pair it with Laura Schulz’s 2015 TED Talk “The Surprisingly Logical Minds of Babies” for an introductory exploration of baby reasoning.
• Peter Gray’s Free to Learn and essay “How Children Acquire ‘Academic’ Skills Without Formal Instruction” discuss concepts like the “educative drives” of children and the importance of playing with “tools of the culture.” For further reading, check out Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings by David Lancy, first published by Cambridge in 2008.
• There are many places to start looking at research on play! From the National Library of Medicine to the University of Southern California’s Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE); from the LEGO Foundation’s online repository “Learning Through Play” to play and occupational therapy guides, you have many rich and interesting options to choose from.
• Vivek Murthy’s Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, published by Harper in 2020, and Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, published by Penguin Books in 2016, advocate for the power and urgency of the creation of spaces for connection. Both books explore loneliness and belonging. These can be helpfully reorienting, especially when considered alongside Bronnie Ware’s “Top Five Regrets of the Dying.”
• Idzie Desmarais’ blog “I’m Unschooled; Yes, I Can Write” can be found at yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/
• A Mathematician’s Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form by Paul Lockhart was first published in 2009 by Bellevue. It’s short and widely available online.
• For those unsure where to start learning about the tech we are learning to navigate alongside our kids, a starting list of folks to follow includes Safiya Noble, Ruha Benjamin, Joy Buolamwini, Catherine D’Ignazio, and Lauren Klein. Data Feminism, by D’Ignazio and Klein, has beautiful graphics and accessible, actionable suggestions for shifting how we gather, interpret, and use the information around us, with and without the aid of digital tools.

Whole Human Development References and Further Resources

• After being taught uncritically about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in multiple classes, I learned — nearly a decade later — that his framework drew (and not particularly accurately) from Blackfoot traditions. Here’s an article: https://lincolnmichel.wordpress.com/2014/04/19/maslows-hierarchy-connected-to-blackfoot-beliefs. A long but worthwhile video from NorQuest College in 2018 is “Naamitapiikoan Blackfoot Influences on Abraham Maslow.”
• Monica Sharma’s Radical Transformational Leadership, published in 2017 by North Atlantic Books, includes an accessible introduction to thinking in systems. The work of Donella Meadows – Thinking in Systems published in 2008 with Chelsea Green – and Elizabeth Sawin – with the Multisolving Institute – also offer helpful introductions to thinking in relationships, constant change, and complexity.
• Mary Helen Immordino-Yang has some interesting research on the role of emotions and social connections in learning. Check out “Emotion, Sociality, and the Brain’s Default Mode Network: Insights for Educational Practice and Policy,” published in Volume 3 Issue 2 of the journal Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in October 2016.
• The importance of stable and supportive relationships in human resilience and development is pretty clear. Ann Masten’s book Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development, published by Guilford in 2015, discusses research on youth resilience and protective factors. Bethany Saltman’s Strange Situation: A Mother’s Journey into the Science of Attachment, published with Ballantine in 2020, takes a more personal approach to the topic.
• As you encounter mentions of the “psycho social-environmental” and “bio socio emotional environmental” “social ecological” and other systems models of understanding human needs and behavior that are continually being adapted for education, social work, disability studies, and public health publications, when they reference Bronfenbrenner, here’s what they mean: simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html
• The Ayni Institute has change-making strategies at their website ayni.institute. Juhi Shareef and Teina Boasa-Dean’s “doughnut economics” framework is at popularresistance.org/an-indigenous-maori-view-of-doughnut-economics.
• Sara Hendren’s What Can A Body Do: How We Meet the Built World, published by Riverhead in 2020, touches briefly on the ways schools are designed in ways that actively harm folks with disabilities, both in the built environments and in the constant assertion that one’s performance on intelligence assessments indicates worth or potential.

Self-Directed Learning in Agile Learning Centers References and Further Resources

• adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds was published by AK Press in 2017. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants was published by Milkweed Press in 2013. Both texts provide useful definitions and illustrations of facilitation, education, accompaniment, and love.
• Mia Birdsong’s How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, published by Hachette in 2020, illustrates creative ways friends and chosen family organize to care for each other and share their lives.
• The Agile manifesto is online at agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
• The Agile Learning Centers Network website is agilelearningcenters.org
• The Agile Learning Center NYC website is nycagile.org
• The free ALC Network Starter Kit that I helped rewrite in 2021 is on the ALC Network website, Gitbook, and archive.org. It’s bilingual and multimedia.
• Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, published in 2019 by Melville House, offers an invitation to a different relationship with our attention, one that’s intentional, powerful, and helps us practice staying in relationship with the living world. The Strother School and Friends of Attention host sanctuary spaces and collective practicing events, bringing the theory and individual practices of the book into shared action.

Tools and Practices References and Further Resources

• Spence Babcock’s “Holding Space Circles: What Are The Essential Elements of Self-Directed Education” is a training exercise that Spence developed and has now shared in video form at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPfm-PHCz48
• Here is an article published in a business journal about our Change-Up process: nycagile.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Cutting-Edge-Agile1.pdf
• Kanban boards have their own Wikipedia page! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban
• CollectiveUp published about how tools from Agile companies translate in Agile education spaces. Their repository is at agileforcollaboration.eu/result-2/ and they have related videos on their YouTube channel @Collective-UP
• The Gottman Institute shares helpful frameworks and tools for taking care of our relationships. Their conflict map and resources for families are particularly helpful in our centers. Their institute is at gottman.com.
• The Liberating Structures menu can be really helpful for designing offerings, gatherings, conversations, and other happen-ings with the people in a center. Explanations and guides at liberatingstructures.com/
• Lana Jelenjev introduced me to Virginia Satir’s model of how change happens, which I’ve found very useful, as well as Ecocycle Mapping and other helpful frameworks. Her website is lanajelenjev.com/toolkits-and-guides.
• Alanna Irving’s “Full Circle Leadership” is useful for getting teams to reflect on their individual strengths and growth edges, which can then lead into a conversation about roles and patterns. At medium.com/enspiral-tales/.
• Kathrine Chen’s Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event, published in 2009 by UChicago, looks at ways to encourage and manage volunteer participation in an organization that understands itself to be a welcoming do-ocracy with minimal hierarchy. The patterns, both in challenges and benefits to taking this approach as a group, echo across contexts.