Christmas is coming. Most of us have roots in the evangelical tradition of Christianity and thus we know to appreciate this time of year as a manifold opportunity: to spend precious time, unhurried by everyday exigencies, with family; to reflect upon the sense of life; to step back and take a second breath; last, but not least, to relax, have fun and renew oneself.

As anybody living currently will probably agree, our times have proven the wisdom of the Chinese, who have a curse against the bitterest foe: “Let you live in exceptional times”. The times are anything but boring. Tumultous changes are sweeping away the old and tried traditions of politics and society, cultural attitudes and education. Some of them carry a promise of amazing gifts: the openess to change itself is the biggest revolution of all. Among those are so called “experimental schools” (let us not quibble about the term, although many of us may state that the experiment is in the eye of the current educational authorities, while in reality it is “the only sound option to the oppresive institution of a public school”). And in this issue we present another option, that of “homeschooling”.

I hope David will forgive if I quote him without his permission. In one of his e-mails he described the feeling he experiences in connection with his work at school: “great lumps of fear”. Since I began experimenting with autonomous learning/teaching five years ago I have grown to recognise this feeling as my recurrent companion. Treading on unknown ground can be exhilarating, but more often than not it brings its own nigthmares. Were it not for articles such as Leonard Turton’s momentous “Club house democracy” (published already in the exclusively electronic-version Issue 5) and David French’s report from his visit to ASSA, an unusual school in Wrocław, I suspect I would have thrown in the towel long ago. As the editor of our Newsletter I sincerely hope that the range of articles presented will be of the similar help to those of us who might experience a momentary “lapse of confidence”.

Ryan James, our guest writer, has stated himself that his roots are more Teacher Training than Learner Autonomy – nevertheless there are ideas in his article that the staunchest “autonomophile” will find enlightening. I am still “using” a coursebook, although it progressively becomes more of a prop to appease parents and school authorities as the loveliest, most intense classes are conducted without its limiting framework. But everyone discovers his/her own path and for many of us the ingenious ideas on widening the resources library might be a starting point to liberating ourselves from the “one and only course curriculum” rigours. And don’t we just love the concluding sentence: “The most important tools any teacher needs are within her/him”?

Beata Opałka, pursuing her work with the use of IT in EFL, has presented another article full of bright ideas and thoughts based on hands-on experience. She is busily raising her baby daughter at the same time and I hope one if these days she will bring the youngest member of the SIG to one of our conferences.

I have opened a new column, devoted to short, anecdotal stories. I do realise that for many of our members spare time is scarce and writing an article is a major project, for which there is never enough of this precious commodity. But there are benefits in even the shortest, most trivial anecdotes. Please do not hesitate to send in, whenever something happens which you would love to share with us. Even if it is in the form of a hasty note, I promise to polish off all the rough edges. The first edition of the column contains mine and David’s yarns

There is another column planned, “Activities for a busy teachers”, which would contain ideas proven in practise and shared with the other autonomous learning afficionados on this forum. Since, however, there have been no contributions worthy of the description of “autonomous activities”, the existence of such a column remains an unfulfilled dream. Well, some of my dreams have turned into reality, so I hope it will be likewise with this one.

We have a few interesting events to wait for: a meeting in Kraków, a retreat in Szczyrk, and our traditional weekend conference in Cieszyn. By the way: I have long preserved in my cupboard a bottle of wine donated to our SIG by Saro, our memorable guest at the Cieszyn 2001 conference, to be shared between us at an appropriate occasion with memories of her sympathy and support. When should it be?

Until that moment –
Happy Christmas!

Zosia Grudzińska
Zosia_g@wp.pl