by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Hordes of university and college students have invaded Montreal again, parading through our streets a-hootin' and a-hollerin', often drunk. Meanwhile, the ankle-biter set are piling into school buses, gearing up for another year's worth of crammed classrooms and recess bullying. Parents everywhere, rest easy.

But there are options available for those seeking alternative forms of education, at all age levels. If post-secondary education seems cold, anonymous and remote, spiritually deprived women can enroll in the new Women's Mystery School, opening this month. Co-founded by Rebekah Crown and Kat Leblond, the Mystery School is a monthly meeting designed not only to empower women, but also to worship the female figure in a way that Neolithic Europeans did 3,000 years ago, before the main deity was cast as a male. Rituals, art, sweat lodges and hands-on healing are big topics.

"The school is dedicated to helping women find their creativity, their voice and their power," says Crown, 49, a Plateau massage therapist. "Feeling the power in the outer world comes from connecting inside ourselves."

More specifically, the connection comes from worshipping the Earth and reforging the link between the spiritual and the physical worlds, something mainstream religions have sought to negate in the past (yes, you, St. Augustine).

"The patriarchal religions have taught us to split the two, making spiritual practice unrelated to the Earth, to not be part of the web of life," she says. "Traditions teach us that we should have dominion over nature, and not be a part of nature."

Crown says she will be holding the first of nine meetings between now and June 2004 as soon as she finds enough people interested. For more info call 495-7633 or visit www.studioencorps.ca.

For parents less concerned with spirituality and more with their children's educational well-being, they may want to consider teaching their kids at home, something Angie Blackman has been doing for almost seven years. Blackman, the Vaudreuil-based editor of Homeschooling Horizons Magazine, is organizing a homeschooling convention on Saturday, Sept. 13 at Queen of Angels Academy in Dorval to offer parents the chance to find out just how homeschooling, once synonymous with weird religious sectarians, has evolved, especially in the last decade.

"Twelve to 15 years ago, I'd say that homeschoolers were predominantly conservative Christians," Blackman says. "But in a 2000 survey of conference attendees, only 10 per cent of respondents replied that they were homeschooling for religious reasons. The rest said that they were interested in education and felt that they could provide a higher quality of education than the schools in their areas." She estimates that 6,000 families homeschool on the island of Montreal alone, and 72,000 families homeschool across the country.

And although the one familiar complaint about homeschooling is the lack of socialization for kids, Blackman feels that the opposite is true. Kids can finish their work earlier, leaving their afternoons free to meet with other homeschooled students to participate in activities organized by a small, local network of parents.

Those interested in pursuing homeschooling can visit http://convention.homeschoolinghorizons.com or call (450) 424-3222.