Geographies of Alternative Education: Diverse Learning Spaces for Children and Young People by Peter Kraftl

Abstract

 2014 Children, Youth and Environments Children, Youth and Environments 24(3), 2014 Geographies of Alternative Education: Diverse Learning Spaces for Children and Young People Peter Kraftl (2013). Bristol: Policy Press, 290 pages.£70.00 (hardcover); ISBN 978-1-44730-049-6. Geographies of Alternative Education is a book about the importance of “spaces” for learning. The book addresses key questions about the significance of geographies of alternative education in the practice of teaching and learning. What is unique about the authors contribution of this book to the field of “children’s geographies” is that with the exception of some of his own previous work, there exists very few of studies theorizing geographically alternative educational settings or alternative education. Throughout his writings he extends beyond the physicality of spatial readings of a learning space to theorize using the richness of new and innovative theoretical work currently underway in human geography (non-representational geographies, new materialities) to reflect on the role alternative education has in disrupting neoliberal regimes. But his conceptual framework is not limited to this, he crafts a range of theoretical perspectives together in order to show how “alternative learning spaces operate across a series of registers and concerns— financial, political, habitual, affective, material and much more” (54). The strength of the book is that it draws on an extensive history and depth of research studies and field work conducted by him in alternative education settings in the UK between 2003 and 2010. The settings include Care farms, Forest schools, homeschooling, Democratic, Steiner and Montessori school, 59 in all. He draws on data obtained from 79 educator and 35 learner interviews and 14 informal discussions with individual or groups of learners during learning activities. He notes on average he spent between half a day and three days at each of these research sites. The sites were selected because they were representative of the diversity of alternative education in the UK and fulfilled criterion that illustrated they did not confirm to the philosophical, political or pedagogical approaches adopted in “mainstream” schools. The sites of the cases also “represented a broad geographical spread of mainstream UK” (14) but in order not to narrow his discussion he draws on studies outside of the UK to create a further “international” tone and conversation with other researchers. While each of the chapters provide interesting and provocative ways for reading the activities within these settings, I felt chapter five on mess/order and chapter six movement/embodiment were the most lively and fascinating. The discussions on the materiality of learning environments in particular disorderly materialities constitutes a new “language” for reconsidering and reconfiguring assumptions about the heterogeneous relations of alternative and mainstream education. Being Book Review: Geographies of Alternative Education: Diverse Learning Spaces… 243 ordered, providing space and time for messiness, the “thing-power of material stuff” (148). Then in chapter six with the exploration of intimate and fleshy relations exposed through the theorizing of humans as “body-brain-material” assemblages within habitats of learning is a curious and creative way to consider the pragmatics of managing active bodies in lively spaces. The examples from Steiner, Montessori and home schooling provided throughout these chapters are insightful and thought-provoking. This is especially true in chapter six when Kraftl theorizing the notion of habit as inspired by the work of Felix Ravaisson, provides detailed and powerful examples of children actively engaging in learning spaces to illustrate the three styles of bodily movement and learning: distraction, implication and repetition. The book is dense and complex, yet Kraftl deploys a number of strategies to help with the theoretical work you need to do as a reader by juxtaposing theory with clearly articulated adult voices. Maybe the only limitation to the book is the less visible voice of the young learners themselves, who although present tend to be represented through proxy information’ from significant adults such as parents and professionals. As a teacher educator who has primarily worked with mainstream schools I found the detail of pedagogical exchanges in the alternative settings as inspirational and invigorating. As a researcher it provided an innovative example of how to execute what Pauliina Rautio identifies as “messy methodologies,” to present data that does...