Thinking About Alternative Education? with Danielle Merritt-Sunseri

Education with Purpose & Intention

Everyday we turn on the news.  I don’t need to recall the horror stories and devastating statistics – there are too many to list here anyway.  It might be school violence or bullying or a failure to provide appropriate special education services or social injustice or any number of other issues.  There are some really excellent teachers, but too many of them are leaving their field in frustration.  Whether because of a lack of trust or a lack of money, we are driven to consider some type of alternative education for our children.  But the challenges that this decision presents are sometimes significant.  How much time is required?  How expensive is it?  How will we maintain any sense of community?  The answer to all of these questions is: it depends.  Alternative education has many faces with many different goals.

Alfie Kohn made this striking statement about education in an August 2025 article: “If we don’t think about goals, then learning comes to be seen as nothing more than a prerequisite to securing a credential – and, as educational historian David Labaree noticed, it’s rational to do as little learning as one can get away with.”  This raises an important question for all of us with children in our care: What is our purpose in making decisions about education? 

"Whatever type of alternative schooling we are considering, we must do something…  but let that something be intentional."

We should have been expecting this question.  Dr. Kenneth Gergen has been challenging academics to think more deeply about purpose for decades (a brief video here and in many books here).  Until recently, many of us felt that we could rely on those academics, but our frustrations and concerns as parents and as teachers have stimulated us to action. Whatever type of alternative schooling we are considering, we must do something…  but let that something be intentional. 

A Relational Education

This generation of courageous caregivers believes in intentional parenting and relational medicine – why should education be any different?  So, what is our purpose in making decisions about education?  

As Mason educators, we believe, as Charlotte Mason did, that our purpose is to immerse every learner in relationship.  This radical immersion means not only that the learner has positive relationships with the in-real-life people around them, but also that the learner is growing relationships with people from other places and times, with the things of the universe, and with their Creator.  These relationships don’t require any particular amount of time and money; the amount needed by the learner in their context is the right amount.  These relationships don’t prevent any sense of community, but they may change what your community looks like because they will change you as a person.

This kind of relational education changes the way we engage with the world.  Other people – all other people – become part of our community, worthy of being known. 

The things around us are not resources to be used, but charges to be stewarded.  Ideas are part of who we are and who we will become.  We cannot memorize any amount of information in a book to pursue this kind of education.  This is why a traditional education with a heavy emphasis on memorization is incompatible with a relational education.  The information is the object of the former; the learner in her context is the object of the latter.

"Other people – all other people – become part of our community, worthy of being known."

This brings to mind some research from Stanford that is illuminating here.  In July 2023, the medical school published work suggesting that even autistic learners with low-support needs (aka “high-functioning) might struggle in traditional education because memory is an essential tool in traditional education and memory just works differently as a basic feature of the autistic brain.  While I may find the conclusions of the writer to be from a limited perspective, I do find the work to be interesting within the context of my lived experience as an autistic person and a loved one of many many neurodivergent people.  I find the observations to be validating on some level – yes, even those of us who might be getting by are often struggling with more than just social interactions!  More relevant to our discussion here, I find the conclusions to be ironic.  The researchers do not seem to consider that perhaps the problem is not that autistic brains function differently; perhaps the problem is that memorization isn’t the most effective way to learn.  This alternative conclusion is consistent with the idea that neurodivergent people are the red flags, calling society’s attention to the fundamental problems that plague us all – the proverbial canaries in the coal mine.  So, what is the red flag warning us of here?  What is the problem if it isn’t neurodivergent memory?

"Learning is a social endeavor and it only truly happens in the context of relationship."

To answer this question, we can also look to the research and the lived experience of autistic people (summarized well here).  At first glance, it may seem that autistic learners are all over the place or that they need a super-special and separate curriculum, but the fundamental take-away is that autistic people learn well when they are connected: connected to their in-real-life people through communication and respect, connected to their physical world in safety and confidence, connected to humanity through shared experience, interest, or concern.  The problem isn’t neurodivergent memory; the problem is lack of connection. This is a problem all across society.  And it’s a problem that relational education answers perfectly. Because learning is a social endeavor and it only truly happens in the context of relationship.

Embracing a Relational Life

I won’t lie to you, though.  Just because relational education answers the need perfectly, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  Real, genuine relationship isn’t ordered up online.  It doesn’t arrive at the speed of your favorite chat bot.  Real relationship is messy.  It requires commitment from parent(s) and/or school leaders.  It provides no guarantee beyond whole, healthy persons – whatever that looks like… but the great variety in what that looks like is precisely why relational education is so beautiful and so valuable.  And, as with any relationship that we are truly committed to, we don’t have to worry about doing it perfectly!  “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly" (G.K. Chesteron, What’s Wrong with the World, 1910).

"As with any relationship that we are truly committed to, we don’t have to worry about doing it perfectly!"

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Bio

Danielle Merritt-Sunseri grew up in a quirky family on the coast of Virginia and in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  She completed her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry (2000) at St. Francis University, Loretto and her Master of Science in Chemistry (2003) at the Pennsylvania State University.  When she decided that it was time to leave the research lab, a providential Google search introduced her to Charlotte Mason.  Her Mason education began in 2009.  In Home Education, Danielle found her theological training and her dearest educational experiences growing together into a beautiful garden, more deeply connected than she had previously understood.  Danielle is a certified educator in Universal Design for Learning, a writer and developer for the Alveary curriculum, and a cofounder of the Blue Orchard Bee, CMI’s initiative toward a relational education for neurodivergent persons, which began in 2019.  She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, Jay, and their 3 youngest children.  Danielle is a late-diagnosed autistic person that enjoys planning and designing projects, handicrafts, the symphony, and a good conversation with her cats.