The responses I'm reading in the comments are kind of shocking. I attended a Sudbury model school from 9 to 16, which basically runs on some of the same unschooling principles, only with a larger group of children all in one place. No formal classes, no grades, no pressure -- each student was free to make their own decisions on what they wanted to do. From 16 to 18 I moved away & was unschooled independently and continued to have full autonomy over my education. Since then, I’ve been able to – shock horror – hold steady corporate jobs and attend university, where I graduated in the top 5% of my year.

So the threat of giving children the choice to choose their own educational path is not nearly as huge as some people seem to think. Children are human beings, and perfectly capable in making good decisions. And why is obtaining guidance from their parents – in lieu of an impartial school official – somehow condemnable? How can exploring subjects they truly have interest in be a bad thing? The .5 seconds of video which showed those kids garden setup was impressive, but the journalists wanted to shock you with images of messy rooms and TV. All people should have the freedom to choose what and how they want to study and educate themselves – even if we don’t agree with what they are learning. The freedom to make decisions about education means you get thinkers who are able to perform outside the constraints of a limited and homogenised curriculum.

As for Foreigner1, your horror story about the nameless alternative school is laughable at best. I’ve witnessed my cousins get mentally/physically bullied at mainstream schools and receive a complete lack of response from staff – even when directly confronted about the problem. It is obvious you’ve never read any contemporary texts of child development or alternative education models. You’re missing the (very obvious) fact that ‘traditional’ schools for working & lower middle class children only started to exist as we know them in the early 20th century. But why cast pearls before swine? If you actually cared at all about the methods of fostering understanding in children, you could research the history of education yourself.

They must be ornate baby rattle / whistles! Most likely Victorian. Talk about born with a silver spoon!

What's been overlooked here is that the artwork itself is the photograph - not the sculpture - of the giant tinfoil ball.

That image made my heart flip and stomach turn; a total reaction to the abject! Was not expecting /that/ at 1:50 in the morning... It was like drinking a very strong cup of coffee very, very quickly.

Thank goodness I live with a conscientious neurotic; or maybe I'd be dead!

That top image (of the typography constructed river Thames) is not Posavec's work -- it's from the (defunct) design duo of Kerr | Noble.

A case of TL;DR or what? Heh!

That octopus sounds so bored; locked up by itself, alone for the winter -- no longer its causing trouble, it sounds like Otto is in solitary confinement!