| New Keynote Speaker Announced - School Visits - Final Early Bird Ends in One Week |
One of our attendees from last year told us about someone he thought "would be a great keynote speaker for the AERO conference...She is a leading advocate for more freedom and responsibility for kids and less structure, less hovering, and less overprotective fear."
It was Lenore Skenazy, author of the hilarious Free Range Kids, and has been very much in the media spotlight lately, sometimes being called "America's Worst Mom!" We were excited to be able to turn this attendee request into a reality, as AERO conference is about you, the attendees. We were able to do the same as a result of many requests from attendees to invite Zo� Neill Readhead, head of Summerhill School, to keynote the conference. She will be coming to the United States for the first time in ten years.
Meet our new keynote speaker, Lenore Skenazy:
 Lenore Skenazy is "America's Worst Mom." (Google it!) The New York City newspaper columnist-turned-reality-TV show host got that title after letting her 9-year-old son take the subway, alone. In response to the media blowback, she founded the book and blog, "Free-Range Kids" (freerangekids.com), which helped launch the anti-helicopter parenting movement. Her feisty belief that our kids are safer and smarter than our culture gives them credit for has landed her on talk shows from Dr. Phil to The View. She has lectured internationally, from Microsoft Headquarters to the Sydney Opera House, and written for everyone from The New York Daily News (for 14 years) to Mad Magazine. Yep. Mad. On her Discovery/TLC International show World's Worst Mom she helps overprotective parents loosen the reins - a job she now does on her own, through Free-Range House Calls. She lives in New York City with her husband and two teen sons, who are half Free-Range, half Facebook addicts. Then again, so is she. One thing she understands: None of us is a perfect parent - and that's okay.
School Visits
We now have at least three New York City area schools that will be available for visits on June 25th, the day before the AERO conference. They are Brooklyn Free School, Manhattan Free School and Pono. We need to know how many are interested in visiting those schools as the numbers will be limited. So reply to this post or email [email protected] with your name and the school you are interested in visiting.
REGISTER NOW!
Through the end of this month, we are making a special offer to people who are ready to register for the AERO conference at our final early bird rate. If you register this week you will get a free six month AERO membership, worth $40 for an individual and $75 for a school or organization. We'll send you all the membership information which gives you the code for a 10% discount for the conference and the AERO bookstore, and all other membership perks, like free job ads, etc. The way to do it is register with a $50 deposit for an individual or a $100 deposit for a group. Then, when you receive the code, pay off your balance using the code. If you have already registered, just e mail us and we'll extend your membership.
If you look at the list of 60 workshops, you'll see many people there who might otherwise be keynoters, such as Peter Gray who keynoted last year, and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs who has previously keynoted AERO conferences and will come from Mexico.
Don't forget to register this week!
|
Nuestra Escuela: Bringing Love & Creativity Back to Education
|
Shilpa Jain
Traditional schooling has been wreaking havoc on individuals and communities for 200 years. It's time to replace it with a new system of self-designed and community-supported webs of learning.
I've been working in the field of alternatives to traditional education for a long while now, ever since I was a child running around my neighborhood, inventing my own games and art, and reading books of my choice.
Though by its own measures I did well in traditional schools (by which I mean I got good grades), I never really liked school, with its competitions, its limits, its labels, and its random subjects disconnected from real life and real issues.
As I got older and started learning about the historic roots of the education system and its impact on diverse communities around the world, I realized that my personal dislike of traditional schooling was well-founded. This system has been wreaking havoc on individuals and communities for at least 200 years.
|
|
15 Reasons Why Standardized Tests are Worthless
|
Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the American Institute for Learning and Human Development, and also the author of 15 books about learning and development-over a million of which are now in print. The latest is called Neurodiversity in the Classroom: Strength-Based Strategies to Help Students with Special Needs Achieve Success in School and Life. Thomas wrote this post last year for his own blog and offered it to me to use here.
It's wonderful to see all the protests around the country against standardized testing. At Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, teachers are refusing to administer the Measures of Academic Progress. In Texas, hundreds of school districts have passed a resolution saying standardized tests are "strangling" public schools. The National Resolution on High Stakes Testing, which calls on government officials to reduce standardized testing, has been endorsed by hundreds of organizations and over 13,000 individuals. And yet, in spite of all this, testing is still putting a wicked half-Nelson on students' curiosity, creativity, and passion for learning in tens of thousands of classrooms around the country. Just in case you are in a position as an educator to influence public policy on this issue, here is a list of 15 reasons why standardized tests are worthless-utterly worthless!
1. Because students know that test scores may affect their future lives, they do whatever they can to pass them, including cheating and taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Read the full list here.
|
|
Learn more about the 22nd annual International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) by reading their first English-language newsletter here (PDF).
The conference will take place July 28th - August 3rd in Gwangmyeong, Korea. Registration opens March 17th.
You can find out more at www.idec2014.kr or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theIDEC.
|
|
News, Resources, & Calendar
|
Do you have a news or resource item you think Education Revolution newsletter readers would find useful? Send it to [email protected].
New
|
 |
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
|
|
The Ten Signs You Need to Find a Different Kind of Education for Your Child
| |
Many parents don't realize that the education world has changed drastically since they were in school. Schools and class sizes used to be smaller, dropout rates lower, in-school violence almost unheard of, and teachers weren't terrified of showing affection to their students, or of discussing moral values. Of course, even then, school was far from perfect, but at least the teachers-and usually the principal-knew every student by name, something that is increasingly rare today.
Because our public school system has deteriorated considerably, many parents, teachers, and individuals have taken it upon themselves to create public and private alternatives to that system; and it is important for parents to know that they now have choices.
So how do you know that it's time to look for another educational approach for your child? Here are some of the signs:
1. Does your child say he or she hates school?
If so, something is probably wrong with the school. Children are natural learners, and when they're young, you can hardly stop them from learning. If your child says they hate school, listen to them.
|
|
|
|
