| Super Early Bird Conference Deadline |
Remember, the Super Early Bird conference rate, $225, $200 for students, and $100 for children under 12, ends tomorrow, Friday the 14th, at midnight Pacific time. The rate will then start climbing to $350, still a pretty good price. If you have or get an AERO membership you can get 10% off these rates. Reserve your spot at the Super Early Bird rate here.There are more keynotes and workshops to be announced. We've already filled almost half the workshops and the variety and quality is amazing. Please help us spread the word about the conference to your networks. Our mission is the Education Revolution, and we want as many people as possible to know about it.
Call for Workshops
Send in your proposals soon if you want them to be listed on the website and scheduled. Accepted presenters can register at the presenter rate. To submit a proposal to host a workshop or presentation click here.
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| Special Membership Offer for Schools, Organizations, and Individuals |
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A letter from Jerry
Dear AERO Community Member:
We wanted to give you a heads up that for the next few days only we have reduced the price for new and renewing memberships from $40 to $30 for individuals and from $75 to $60 for schools and organizations. This still gives you a 10% discount at our bookstore, the conference fees for the AERO conference coming up in June, and even consultations! The Super Early Bird conference price of $225 for adults ends on Friday evening and you can get an additional 10% off with your membership code.
I don't think I need to tell you about other features: free job posting, a banner for your website, the right to join our listserves, access to our film library, just to name a few.
Of course this also supports AERO and our work.
Please continue your support by becoming a new member of renewing your membership!
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| Unschooling Reflects Current Cognitive Research |
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Wendy Priesnitz
As I wrote recently in Life Learning Magazine, unschooling is the way of the future, for all ages. So I'm always surprised that so many people think it is wrong, weird, or witless...or even anti-intellectual. In fact, it's just the opposite; our current education systems are based on outdated science, and unschooling reflects current cognitive research.
When schools were created, it was thought that learning was a sequential process that involved structure, uniformity, and memorization, and relied on extrinsic motivation and control - things like praise, rewards, and punishment. Now science knows differently; modern cognitive research is demonstrating that learning is open-ended and spontaneous, and that people - including children - learn best when they are intrinsically motivated and can build on their everyday experiences.
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Am I An Alternative Ed Tourist?
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 Kristan Morrison
Author of Free School Teaching
Whenever my husband and I go on our summer vacations to various lovely locales, we always wonder about moving to that beautiful place and living there year-round. We imagine that we would love it, but then we start to think about all the ramifications and repercussions of moving to this very different place..... what will it be like in winter? What is the education world like here (would we like teaching here)? What are the utility bills, taxes, etc.? We start to pretty quickly realize that what looks like a lovely idea on the surface might be fraught with lots of problems underneath.
For over 12 years, I have been enamored with alternative forms of education. They sound so good to me - democratic, empowering, balanced, social justice-oriented, environmentally-oriented; basically, they run counter to many of the destructive practices of schools rooted in modernism and industrial-era society. They are my utopia in many ways. Alternative schools are tantamount to my summer vacation locales - when I am reading about them or observing at them in my research, it is so lovely, and I really get to thinking that I would love to stay there! When I studied the Albany Free School for my dissertation (shameless plug for my book based on those experiences here), I fell in love with the place and wanted to stay there; when I have observed unschooling families, I desire to have kids and raise them in that lifestyle/educational philosophy; and when I have observed at various other alternative education locales, I thought about becoming a teacher in that environment.
Read more here.
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| Book Review: School's Out |
Daniel Sage began interning with AERO in 2004 as a homeschooler and last year assisted in organizing the 10th annual AERO Conference. Daniel continues to support AERO's work and recently has created maps for all of our school networks. Below is a review he wrote of the book, School's Out by Jessica Dotter.
Reviewed by Daniel Sage
During my time at AERO, a lot of books have come through the mail to be reviewed and be considered for sale in our online bookstore; but we tend to be very discerning about which one's actually make it. School's Out by Jessica Dotter instantly jumped out at me from the pile. Jessica is a lifelong unschooler (albeit a young woman), living in California pursuing her dream of becoming a professional writer. School's Out (her first novel) is a book about a group of kids who quit the eighth grade to learn on their own terms. But, at its heart, School's Out is about questioning the social institutions we are all part of. Since I am an unschooler myself; I decided to give it a chance. I instantly became transfixed in a tale of six 8th graders being thrown thru the motions of public school. The protagonist becomes irate when he receives his first F for writing his summer book report on a book (Clockwork Orange actually...) that wasn't on the school's list! He then decides to play a little prank that goes a little too far and end's up unraveling the whole school; or shall I say prison-esque establishment that most modern children are forced to endure every weekday. Jessica's writing style is very unique and once you get entranced in the story like I was, it's nearly impossible to put the book down. This is a book for anyone who know's someone going through the motions in a public school (or are in an authoritarian school themselves!), or someone interested in all of the amazing possibilities that unschooling brings.
4.5 out of 5 stars.
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John Gatto: "Divide and Conquer, How our Enemies Separate us From our Friends" (Video)
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Do you have a news or resource item you think Education Revolution newsletter readers would find useful? Send it to [email protected].
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Thank you for your ongoing support. With your help, we will make learner-centered alternatives available to everyone!
Sincerely,
Jerry Mintz
Executive Director
Alternative Education Resource Organization
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