Abstract

The paper looks at experimental alternative education systems to explore different approaches to pedagogical theories of post-secondary education. The paper focuses on the story of Rochdale College, an experimental free-form college and communal housing project associated with the University of Toronto between 1968 and 1975. The aims, theories and methods of Rochdale College are contextualized by an examination of two theorists on alternative education: John Dewey and Paul Goodman. The theories of Dewey and Goodman are explored through a brief examination of two experimental colleges that preceded Rochdale: The Experimental College (at Tufts University from 1927-32) and Black Mountain College in North Carolina (active from 193357). Ideas regarding alternative forms of education were integrated into socio-political ideas from the 1960s counterculture movement in America and Canada, and a major test site for a form of counterculture education was the controversial experiment called Rochdale College. The paper explores ideas of what an alternative post-secondary education system has looked like in the past, in order to pose questions about the ways it could take shape in the future.