SEED Alternative School is an alternative high school, part of the

Toronto District School Board The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, is the English-language public-secular school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The minority public-secular franco ...

. The name is an acronym of "Shared Experience Exploration Discovery"

History

SEED was founded in 1968, making it the oldest public alternative secondary school in North America. Science fiction author

Judith Merril Judith Josephine Grossman (January 21, 1923 – September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be widel ...

ran a weekly science fiction seminar at SEED from 1972–1973. Students are called SEEDlings. Many are artists and activists like tech author and journalist

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...

who got his high school degree from SEED according to his Wikipedia page.

Philosophy

The school was founded in accordance to the ideas of

Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, ; ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called genetic epistemology. ...

and the book '' Summerhill'' by

A.S. Neill Alexander Sutherland Neill (17 October 1883 – 23 September 1973) was a Scottish educator and author known for his school, Summerhill, and its philosophy of freedom from adult coercion and community self-governance. Raised in Scotland, Neill ...

. Focusing on democratic decision making,

critical thinking Critical thinking is the process of analyzing available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to make sound conclusions or informed choices. It involves recognizing underlying assumptions, providing justifications for ideas and actions, ...

and

collective action Collective action refers to action taken together Advocacy group, by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective. It is a term that has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences ...

. Instead of a top-down model of education, where teachers decide what the student has to learn, students would negotiate "Individual learning contracts".

History

Philosophy

See also

References

Further reading

External links