Dear Sonja: Welcome to the list. Thanks so much for introducing yourself and giving us a short biographical sketch. It sounds as though you can make really great contributions to our thinking. One of our goals is to collect some personal stories that illustrate issues and experiences about education and ways of educating and learning that are not alienating and use other approaches besides the usual hierarchical mainstream ones. So you might want to think about what stories you can tell in this regard. in solidarity, Faith Wilding