The David Gribble Archive : Talks

Four topics

Italy, 2002. Treviso, Trieste, Ferrara, Padua and Milan
Page 2

Which leads on comfortably to WREN *

As IDEC has become better known, so more and more schools and organisations have been able to get to know one another, to compare problems and successes, and to offer mutual help. One result has been WREN, which stands for Worldwide Real Education Network. At the 2000 IDEC in Tokyo my wife Lynette and I were asked to set up a database of schools, people and organisations that held to particular ideals. They constitute a fair description of what I would call "democratic education". These ideals are as follows:-

• respect and trust for children
• freedom of choice of activity
• equality of status of children and adults
• shared responsibility governance by children and staff together, without reference to any supposedly superior guide or system.

The database is on the web at www.worldwiderealeducation.net [now www.idenetwork.org]. It has about 60 entries, representing contact with over 30,000 learners of all ages. Many of the schools and organisations have websites of their own, which provide more information and further links. The database can be put to many different uses, but to my mind its most important function is simply to show that the movement towards informal education is indeed worldwide. As one recent member put it, "All of a sudden I felt part of this huge community of like-minded people rather than an isolated nutcase in a town nobody has heard of."

You join WREN simply by emailing your desire to do so, and giving us the information required for the database. The address for the time being is davidgribble@onetel.net.uk, although the site is managed by someone in Thailand. *

I shall go over the criteria again, to show how far removed this general direction is from the conventional, archaic and paternalist approach of most politicians and educationalists all over the world.