Australian Association for Progressive and Alternative Education

Acoording to the AAPAE...

Progressive Education is that which emphasises personal relationships between learners and teachers. It includes an awareness of and a breaking down of power dynamics. Teachers are learners/mentors/catalysts with the learner. It is inclusive and has a celebratory attitude towards the gifts learners bring. What learners are able to do and know about themselves becomes central to the learning process. It is a learner-directed and/or managed approach. Teacher intervention may be minimal at certain times and in certain areas. Teaching is usually in context, using concrete materials and the principles of holistic and conceptual learning, supporting any specific learning the child needs or desires, rather than behavioural approaches such as drills and repetitive rote learning for their own sake.

"A system that depends on connection, on sustainability over a very long time, and one that recognises that each person, just like each plant or animal or micro-organism in an eco-system, is an integral part of the web of relationships. I propose a system that has biodiversity at the centre; one in which epistemological multiversity recognises the specialness of everyone wherever they come from; one which encourages the wild types to thrive, the wild child to laugh."

Susan Hawthorne [2002] 'Wild Politics'

http://www.aapae.edu.au/index.html