An
introduction to non-traditional education
at nontraditionaleducation.net
Introducing non-traditional education
The non-traditional movement in education has its origins in the academies of Ancient Greece and in English academic practice before the advent of compulsory mass education. It continues into the modern era through the ideas of many distinguished thinkers, including those in the Californian university-without-walls movement in the 1970s. Put simply, non-traditional education is a set of ideas concerned with individuals taking charge or being empowered to take charge of their own learning processes, rather than being the servants of a centralized state educational establishment.
Just as individuals are widely different in their ideas, interests and abilities, so their learning styles differ profoundly. Society's answer to this has up to now been to promote one-size-fits-all systems of mass education, which, as well as alienating many young people whose needs go unmet, alienate many adults who find the traditional settings of education disempowering and even demeaning.
Only individualized solutions to learning can ultimately address today's need for progressive and enlightened forms of education and the evolution of educational infrastructure. Only such solutions offer a genuinely holistic alternative to the tick-box and league table culture that has trivialized and obscured the failings of the state sector, done nothing to raise educational standards and narrowed educational aims still further.
It's time to take our education back.
From secondary to higher education
For many years non-traditional solutions have been taking root in the informal education, homeschooling, unschooling and democratic schooling movements of education below the age of eighteen, because at that level small individualized institutions have had the potential to compete effectively. But the problem always remained; how to transfer those solutions effectively to what often seemed the state-controlled monolith of higher education?
Non-traditional higher education received a major injection of adrenalin with the coming of the internet and the possibility of the creation of globally widespread educational networks - virtual universities - that would constitute an educational counter-establishment. Although mainstream institutions continue to oppose and decry these developments, they will ultimately bring about a painful but necessary process of change, and in that process inevitably shift the balance of power from the centralized public sector to the individualized private sector. In that process, choice and diversity will become the hallmarks of a sector that is at present obsessed with centralized control and standardization.
Non-traditional education in action
In its structure and methods, non-traditional education looks very different from its traditional alternatives. Gone are traditional examinations, regimented courses and the dependence on the campus as the seat of learning. A central pillar of non-traditional learning is that learning is honored no matter where or when it has occurred, no matter whether on campus or in an entirely different setting.
"It is immoral
to teach someone something he or she already knows."
Elizabeth Monroe Drews, former Professor
of Education, Michigan State University
Although the non-traditional program is often presented as taking place via "distance learning", in reality its location is more complex than this - the campus becomes the student's own community with the program drawing on the resources to hand. This means there is no divorce between campus and workplace, for example, and no need to uproot student and family or interrupt professional commitments. The university comes to you.
This means that the "time-serving" aspect of traditional education is replaced with a structure of assessment that allows the learner to demonstrate the knowledge and skills gained, through such methods as portfolio assessment, project work, dissertation and written papers describing learning experiences in their context. Since a truly non-traditional program is self-paced, the learner can balance earning a degree with their work and home responsibilities, without being concerned about minimum or maximum enrolment periods, and can work to their own agenda.
Their studies may cross boundaries, combine different assessment methods or explore ideas considered unfashionable. Because the learner is in the driving seat, they decide the nature and scope of their program in co-operation with their institution (for example via learning contract) and taking into account the needs of any relevant third parties, such as employers.
The nature of the institution offering such a program has changed radically from the traditional university. Firstly, these ideas are profoundly spiritual in their implications for self-empowerment and honoring human diversity, so they will fit most naturally within institutions that approach education as a holistic spiritual activity. Secondly, the community-as-campus and distance education concepts mean that such institutions have no need of the fixtures and fittings of the traditional campus. Technology has moved on to a point where the online university is now emerging for the first time as a serious conduit for this approach to education.
Lastly, because non-traditional education is a profoundly political set of ideas, challenging the establishment and seeking to counter it with a radical inclusivity and individuality, it will truly flourish only in institutions that are free and independent of political control - whether direct control by government agencies, or indirect political control by the educational establishment - the unions, accrediting agencies and tenured faculty whose conservatism stands as an attempt to stop the tide of change.
Realizing the power and popularity of non-traditional education, some mainstream institutions have introduced programs that incorporate aspects of its ideas, and has re-formulated the term "non-traditional" to cover what are actually very conservative programs that are merely delivered by correspondence or online. Whatever the virtues of these programs, and they may be considerable, they cannot be regarded as truly non-traditional because they do not take place within the political context of independence and student empowerment that the non-traditional philosophy demands.
European-American University
Launched in 2007 by a religious society of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church, the Society for Humanistic Potential, European-American University is a radical non-traditional alternative to mainstream higher education. As a global online institution offering degree programs in many areas - all via distance learning - it is one of the first institutions to point the way towards a new form of university.
EAU's profile is dynamic and directly responsive to market need. In addition to its work through its research centers that have brought forward original scholarship in areas neglected by the mainstream (including its own publishing imprint), it stands firmly for non-traditional principle in policy and practice, academic freedom and the pursuit of liberty. As a fully private sector institution, independent from control by government or similar external bodies, its core values are significantly different from the authoritarian left-wing ideologies that dominate many mainstream campuses and reduce scholarship to fashionable and easily-measurable areas.
EAU offers degree programs at the bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels in a wide variety of areas, including the possibility of fully customizing a program to your needs. Students can enrol at any time of the year at tuition fees that are among the lowest of any legitimate institution. If you believe a degree from a truly private, non-traditional institution could be the difference you need in your life, we invite you to visit the European-American University website and experience what we offer for yourself.