This article stems from a doctoral study about alternative education around the world and the author's personal journey to identify characteristics of the "ideal school." The focus here is a case study of one small primary school in Australia, through which it shows that there can be a larger amount of freedom and self-actualisation…

This article describes the ways in which a class of 7- and 8-year-old children used writing to communicate. Using Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics as a theoretical frame, I examine what functions these messages served, how functions varied from child to child and how the practice of message-sending evolved over time. Analysis of data…

The immersive method is a new concept of visual education that is better suited to the needs of students in contemporary post-industrial society. The features of the immersive method are: (1) it emerges from interaction with visual culture; (2) it encourages understanding of contemporary art (as an integral part of visual culture); and (3) it…

This study provides a quantitative approach to analyzing college students' levels of self-actualization. Specifically, it addresses the distinction between students from non-rural and rural hometowns relative to their level of self-actualization. Students from five public state schools, in one Midwestern state, were surveyed. Self-actualization…

Teachers rely on their vision of literacy and literacy education to guide their teaching and influence the ways they view their students' literacy learning. This article describes what happens when a career teacher senses that her vision is limiting her teaching and her students' opportunities for learning. Kid watching and careful study of…

Dr Lesley Cullen-Powell and Professor Julie Barlow are both chartered health psychologists and both work at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Health at Coventry University where Lesley Cullen-Powell is a research fellow and Julie Barlow is a director. In this article, they assess the benefits of a "self-discovery programme" for…