Congratulations to Pat Montgomery Who Founded
Clonlara School and Home-Based Education Program 50 Years Ago!!
|
|
| Pat Montgomery With Alfie Kohn At An AERO Conference |
|
 School Starter Course Began Monday
Still Possible to Enroll--We're Still in Introductions |
|
The annual AERO Online School Starters Course Began last Monday!
We have about 20 participants in the course in various roles. There have been hundreds of posts this week but it is still now too late to join the course. We have a few more spaces open. We are still introductions for another few days. On the course we also have free downl;pads of the books Turning Points, How to Grow a School, and School'd Over: How to have freedom and democracy in education."
The discussions and posts so far have been very exciting and far-reaching. Here's one example of a response I gave to a school starter who was working on deciding how she should organize her school-governing group:
"
What you said illustrated my point very well:
"With the free learning initiative I know about which fell apart here (the group divided into two and went their separate ways as they were unable to agree on how 'free' the learning should be),"
"The fact is that in our current society you usually can't fully empower BOTH the adults and the children. When you try to empower the adults you often get the result you described because the adults have great unmet needs and did not grow up being empowered. That's fine if you are going to start a school for adults, although, of course, very challenging. That's probably one reason why there are virtually no democratic universities. I'll even bet that the two subgroups meet the same fate."
"So, as I said, you will probably have to choose: If you want to have a democratic school for children I still believe you have to have the confidence in yourself and your vision to be the clear leader of it. This does not mean that you can't ask for all kinds of help, and that it can't be very interactive with a lot of input from your SUPPORTERS and TEAM. But I believe, from my experience, that in order to succeed and to survive it must start with someone who is willing and confident enough to be the real leader."
Last week we had a live Internet radio show about the course.
On the show we had two people from the AERO network who have started their own alternatives. One is Gleamer Sullivan who started Raw Learning in Staunton, VA. She now has over 60 students from K-12 in their homeschool resource center, Another was Nancy Tilton, who too the AERO Online School Starters Course. She then started the Mosaic School which is now ALC Mosaic. On the show Nancy talks about how she originally thought she was just to start a small program for two or three children, how it evolved into two schools in Charlotte, North, Carolina, then how it became part of the growing Agile Learning Center movement, and how she even found her husband in the process! Nancy said, "The AERO course was the start of my journey at Mosaic and I'll be forever grateful." Nancy will be a resource person for this year's course, along with several others who have started their schools and programs though AERO.
You can now listen to the podcast of the new show here
.
The course is not in real time so you access it when you can and respond to resources and posts in each section as we open them up. It takes about 10 hours a week but it is totally up to each
participant. When you register we give you a code to get into the dedicated website
If you want to get ready to start your new alternative, w
e encourage you to join us now.
Students in the course over the years have created at least 100 new alternatives.
So come join us as we change the world one child at a time!
|
Register for the course by clicking the image below.
Reply to this e news if you have specific questions.
|
|
Report from Poland from the Children's Rights Congress and International Korczak Association Conference
|
|
|
| From left to right: Mariola, Joyce, Marcia, Tatyana, 1st day at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw |
Joyce Reilly, Marcia Talmage Schneider, Efrat Efron, Tatyana Tsyrulina Spady and Mariola Strahlberg attended a very special congress/conference at the Polin Museum in Warsaw from September 13th - 16th.
Here is what Marcia wanted to share with you about it:
Mostly it was amazing! I was blown away at the number of persons who attended the 8th International Korczak Association Conference and The 3rd International Congress of Children's Rights and the numerous and varied lectures. Everybody was interested in Janusz Korczak! There was a simultaneous translation of English and Polish for all the lectures and individual translations at the workshops. The event was held in the Polin Museum of Warsaw.
Read the rest here. |
A Sudbury Valley School Glossary
|
|
By Scott Gray
When talking about the school, we all find others confused about what we believe, and about what we do. As with most confusion, much of the confusion can be reduced to language.
People casually use certain terms loosely and interchangeably as a shorthand way to say "this is a good thing." Educators, in particular, use certain terms loosely, because their aim in speaking is to send an emotive signal that they "believe in good things," rather than as an actual expression of their organizational philosophy. Consider, for example, the huge number of schools around the globe labeled "democratic" in which not one vote is ever taken on any matter of substance.
Read the rest here. |
Brooklyn Made Education: Self-Led Learning With A Slice of Social Justice
|
Inside a five-story brownstone in the Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn, NY, resides a true community of learners that do things the only way they know how; their way, with a slice of social justice.
Founded in 2004 by Alan Berger, Brooklyn Free School (BFS) is an independent school with 80 students, split into lower school (ages 4 - 11) and upper school (ages 11 - 18). But there are a few caveats: from the way in which students take complete ownership of the school, to how they lead discussions during democratic meeting for the betterment of the school community, to designing their own curriculum (in which letter grades are nonexistent). Students' fingerprints are literally everywhere.
Berger, a former assistant principal at Murry Bergtraum High School in New York, NY, shared how he conceived Brooklyn Free School:
Read the rest here. |
New Episode Of The Education Revolution Podcast
|
In this episode, Peter Berg interviews several students from democratic schools at the 2017 AERO Conference. The Students are from The Highland School and Liberated learners.
They discuss how they came to be at their schools, democratic process, how democratic education has benefited them, and why people should look into this type of education.
Listen here. |
| New SelfDesign Graduate Seminars! |
Self Design is one of AERO's regular advertisers. You can see them all at the right. Director David Marshak recently said,
"
The SelfDesign Graduate Institute advertises in AERO's online publications because we know that AERO members care deeply about learning founded in curiosity and enthusiasm. We offer graduate programs for adults who want to design their own learning and author their own lives-and we know that many folks who have these aspirations belong to AERO."
October 8, 4-5 PM PDT
Josette Luvmour:
How Adults Grow Together with Children
Josette's presentation will draw on her new book, Grow Together: Parenting as a Path to Well-Being, Wisdom, and Joy (https://luvmourconsulting.com/new-page/).
See the rest here. |
Links and Calendar
|
| Links
Ongoing
Calendar
Please send us feedback on this issue. also, we would like to have more articles written by AERO members and about AERO school and organizations.
Thank you for your ongoing support. With
your help
, we will make learner-centered alternatives available to everyone!
In Service,
Jerry Mintz
Executive Director
Alternative Education Resource Organization
|
|
Please consider making a donation to AERO to help support our work. Thanks!
|
|
|
