Description: This book shares the nomadology of Alys-we searching for the Ideal School around the world, sharing stories from places educating differently to traditional education, hoping to inspire readers to be part of a paradigm shift.
Brief description: Alys Mendus, Ph.D. (2017), University of Hull, UK, is an Independent Scholar and Casual Academic at Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne and Southern Cross University, Australia. Alys uses arts-based research, autoethnography and collaborative narrative inquiry to research innovative education, feminism and societal change.
Review Quotes: "This is the finest critique of 'schooling' that I have come across since Illich's 'deschooling society' blew us all away in the 1970s. The book is written as a buoyant post-colonial, feminist romp through our various education systems in the west, interwoven with autoethnographic passages of fluid writing that touches the souls of readers. This is going to become a 'classic' text!" - Jane Speedy, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Bristol
"Searching for the Ideal School around the World is a must-read and must-use pedagogy for our time. The arts-based performative approach embodies a reflexive and collaborative autoethnographic 'we' encouraging the reader to use the book as a transformative and practical guide to efficacious educational adventure. Mendus invites us to 'educate differently' through entanglements of COVID, human exceptionalism, and isolationism. Personally and politically compelling, Mendus' work offers a life affirming pedagogy in these times of great possibility." - Tami Spry, author of Body, Paper, Stage: Writing and Performing Autoethnography