We are starting to put the keynote videos and audio workshop MP3s on the AERO member site archive. AERO members will be able to access all of them free, along with our hundreds of other videos. If you are an AERO member, just sign in with your member code. If you want to support AERO and become a member you can join here. We will then send you the code along with information about all the other member privileges. These include 10% discount in the AERO bookstore and for conferences, access to our member listserve, free job ads, access to the AERO reps and videos archive. And if you are a school or organization you get a link from our member site, you can get put on the member map,  and you can have a banner to put on your site!

As an example of our keynotes we are giving you a free link to the incredible dialog between Sugata Mitra and Yaacov Hecht. Yaacov is a little hard to understand as he Skyped in from Korea, but his powerpoint is great. You can get it here.  

By Bob Blumenthal

For decades, educators have been trying to bring inner city children up to par with their suburban counterparts and have failed miserably. School takeovers, grants, SmartBoards, computers, Head Start, and a host of cure-all programs have done little to balance the success of the haves and the have-nots. Unfortunately, this will continue for years to come unless there is a radical change in school philosophy.

To succeed in school, you must be able to read. Children are required to read printed materials that provide them with the information they need to pass tests. They need to read the tests so that they can understand how to respond to the questions. When children experience school failure, their inability to read is usually the culprit. Since reading ability determines who succeeds and who fails, it is easy to see why inner city children are doomed from day one. There are three basic reasons. First, they do not possess the background of experience that is essential to the reading process. When looking at the printed page, readers make connections with events that occurred in their lives. For example, a story about a farm would be more meaningful to a child who visited a farm than to one who never had this opportunity. It is easier for me to read education journals than Popular Mechanics because of my teaching background and my lack of experience with machinery. While middle and upper class children are traveling to various cultural and geographic places of interest, inner city kids are spending their free time within neighborhood boundaries. By the time Suburban Sam enters first grade, he is light years ahead of Inner City Ike in the experience department.

Second, learning to read also takes a great amount of concentration. Children who have social, emotional, and/or health issues often find learning difficult. How much attention can you give to the teacher if you are hungry or if you have a toothache? How can a child focus if he is afraid to go home after school? Life in the inner city is filled with land mines which are generally unknown to those in tree lined communities.

It's a warm spring evening in Central Park and a group of fifteen teens are gathered at the Alice in Wonderland statue, just up from the boating lake. For most of them, frolicking on the iconic statue is probably something they haven't done in a while. But today the teens don't hold back. They're scaling the slippery toadstools, patting the White Rabbit's ears, and vying to perch like Buddhas on the Mad Hatter's top hat. They are their kid selves again. 

The buoyant mood is because this crew of homeschooled teenagers, ranging in age for 11 to 18, is celebrating the fact that just under two weeks ago they did something quite remarkable. In an off-Broadway theater on 43rd Street, they staged a production of Alice's Adventures of Wonderland in a sold out weekend run. The show was entirely teen directed, acted, and produced. Parents and other adult friends played an important supportive role, but for the most part everything - from the lighting to props, the stage managing to ticket sales, the choreography to the character development - was done by this group of New York teens. 

Agile Learning Center in Manhattan

What is an Agile Learning Center? 

Agile Learning Centers are an educational model that creates fun, intelligent, magical communities. Communities of happy, actualized people with a deep connection to place and full access to a globalized network of other communities that share resources, practices, tools, stories, and experiences, an upward spiral of human potential.