Publish at June 02 2019 Updated June 28 2023
An alternative is a choice between two distinct possibilities. Alternative social movements are committed to citizen-based self-management, which runs counter to the dominant ideologies of globalization. They challenge the internal organization, status and policies of global institutions. They demand: economic justice, the autonomy of peoples, environmental protection and an end to the over-exploitation of resources, the protection of fundamental human rights and, even better, the democratization of institutions.
"No Planet B", "Another world is possible" are slogans that "alter" people identify with and seek to translate into all areas of life. Alternative ideologies can be found everywhere, starting with consumer choices against unethical and polluting international companies whose sole focus is shareholder profitability, which directly or indirectly destroy everything in their path.
Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and numerous NGOs have demonstrated this damage. Child labor, indecent living conditions, poverty wages, deforestation, animal suffering, destruction of biodiversity - most consumers modestly avert their eyes, letting themselves be taken in by flattering advertising that avoids offending their habits and sweet tooth. If you're into ecology, no problem: big business offers green brands that keep mass consumption attractive and profitable.
Alternatives range from raging rock, to alter-globalists, toalter-eco (organic and fair trade), to an alternative lifestyle like the hippies of yesteryear, who preached love, peace and freedom.
There's even an alternative Nobel Prize to balance the distinctions invented earlier with a nagging ecological concern, which our leaders flaunt in their campaigns but insist on relativizing once elected in the name of state folly.
The established order is being challenged on all sides. For example, alternative medicines are wary of sophisticated antibiotics and the chemical molecules with which traditional medicine fills us. Soft" medicines, with their herbs and placebo effects, are certainly not gaining enough ground. Holistic medicine, which takes the individual as a whole, has something to offer traditional medicine, which still sees us in functional pieces.
Alternative movement therapy could well bring our bodies back into balance, but the mother of all alternatives, and the one that most worries the establishment, is education. It is through education that the best-established beliefs are shaken.
The basis of alternative pedagogies is certainly a belief in each child rather than in a perfectly controlled educational system. There is therefore a libertarian dimension to this type of pedagogical approach. The alternative schools that promote this type of project are not subsidized and exist on the basis of the quality of their offerings. In a country like France, there are almost 700 schools that could be part of this dynamic.
For Steiner schools, it's a question of "recognizing the individual, establishing with him a relationship of trust and responsibility in continuity". When it was launched, the Freinet approach was rejected; today, leaders like to talk about Freinet or Montessori pedagogy, because it adorns them with a discourse of pedagogical modernity, but it's harder for them to make it an educational system on a national scale. So they create the right for teachers to innovate and do things differently, within strictly closed spaces.
There are also approaches such asslow education, based on an ecological approach, which organizes its educational project around sustainable development and pacifism.
The pedagogy of free progress imagined by Sri Aurobindo aims to elevate the child's spiritual being, to encourage his innate attitudes, to follow his needs in order to lead him towards his inner realization.
"The traditions of the past are great in their place, in the past, but I don't see why we should simply repeat them without going any further. In the spiritual development of consciousness on earth the great past should be followed by a greater future." Sri Aurobindo
Learning outside school is an even stronger alternative proposal. It involves homeschooling children and providing them with approaches that start from them.
The Colibris movement proposes to take action and create alternative places of education. Rather than denying the current dysfunctions of the education system in the face of a society in tatters, the Colibris movement is betting on the development of skills that enable autonomy. A return to practical agro-ecological knowledge, to making the most of natural resources, to crafts and manual work. The aim is to acquire practical and technical skills aimed at saving material and energy resources. The aim is "happy sobriety".
This other-mentistic ideal cuts across all sectors of society. It is also criticized in education. Doing, working, innovating and learning differently carries with it implicit notions, such as moving towards something better, getting away from the routines of what is installed and what is considered inequitable or full of red tape. Othermentists identify with each other to achieve a mutually beneficial action plan.
The model student in these educational projects is often the rejected student in other systems; it all depends on the criteria taken as a reference. So we all have the chance to be a role model somewhere, for someone. That's good news!
Sources
Globalization http://www.mondialisations.org/php/public/art.php?id=12340&lan=FR
Wikipedia- Alternative rock https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Groupe_de_rock_alternatif
Pedagogy.free Alternative http://pedagogy.free.fr/autrement.htm
Wikipedia - Alternative Nobel Prize https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Livelihood_Award
Institutional pedagogy
https://www.festival-ecole-de-la-vie.fr/pedagogies-alternatives-proposees-a-nos-enfants-2016/
Montessori https://www.innovation-en-education.fr/education-alternative-que-propose-etranger/
Steiner https://steiner-waldorf.org/pedagogie-alternative/
Marie Desrousseaux psychotherapist - Alternative movement therapy
https://www.marie-desrousseaux-psychotherapeute.fr/math
Alter eco https://www.altereco.com/
E-rse https://e-rse.net/portraits-consommateurs-alternatifs-refus-consommation-de-masse-24679/#gs.95xwgl
Montessori https://www.innovation-en-education.fr/education-alternative-que-propose-etranger/
Wikipedia- Hippie https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Hippie
Thot Cursus - Cristol Denis - Unschooling or homeschooling
https://cursus.edu/11007/descolariser-leducation-ou-faire-ecole-a-la-maison
Sri Aurobindo http://sriaurobindo.fr/
Slow education https://apprendre-reviser-memoriser.fr/education-lente-slow-education-ecole/
Retronews - 1932, the "Freinet method" turns schools upside down - and arouses the ire of conservatives https://www.retronews.fr/education/echo-de-presse/2018/12/14/la-methode-freinet-ecole
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