典型的傳統學校，通常在一個圍牆內，有正式的組織編制、正式的課程和固定的上課時數，教師中心教學、記憶式的學習內容，強調競爭和個人成績，缺少團隊和合作學習。為了突破對傳統教育的束縛，世界各國有許多非典 型學校陸續出現，學校型態、教育方式都與傳統學校有很大的不同。 一棵樹算不算學校？一艘船算不算學校？沒有文憑算不算學校？沒有老師、沒有課程，算不算學校？非典型學校大致因應學生學習需求而設置，因地制宜，相當有彈性。本文擬介紹巴基斯坦大樹下的學校、孟加拉太陽能漂浮學校、印度赤腳學院、美國瑟谷學校、加拿大海上課堂（Class Afloat）進修高中等五所非典型學校，這些非典型學校的啟示有六：創新學校教育突破時空限制、關照學生優先啟發向學之心、孕育自由環境培養主動學習、重視實務導向 教育終身學習、善用社會資源開拓教育視野、學校設施因地制宜更有彈性，可供教育主管機關和學校經營之參考。

A typical traditional school usually be thought of as standing on a fence, with a formal organization, formal courses and fixed course hours, teacher-centered teaching, memory-based learning content, emphasizing competition and personal achievement, lacking teamwork and cooperative learning. In order to break through the shackles of traditional education, there are many atypical schools that school and education type are different in the world have emerged. Can a tree be regarded as a school? Can the boat be regarded as a school? Can we be considered as a school without a diploma? Can we be considered as a school have no teachers and no courses? An Atypical school setting in response to students ‘learning needs, and according to local conditions, fairly flexible. This Paper intends introduced five atypical schools, include Pakistan Ayub’s outdoor school, and Bangladesh Solar-powered floating school, and India Barefoot College, and American Sudbury Valley School, and Canada Class Afloat. There are six implication from these atypical schools: the innovation school education breakthrough the limit of time and place, the priority of caring students is inspiring their learning motivation, producing flexible environment can train the active learning of students, attending practice-oriented education and lifelong learning, using well of social resources to develop education perspective, making school facilities adjusting measures to local conditions and more elastic, and offerings education authorities and schools for managing.