Table Of Contents







Some Conference Features and Discount Possibilities
How to Raise a Happy Child
High School Student on Walkout
Henry More Info on Henry Readhead:
He Asks You to Vote on Which Keynote Topic You Want!
Henry Readhead will be a keynoter at the upcoming AERO Conference, June 28-July 1st at LIU/C.W. Post Campus, NY.

Henry Readhead was born in 1977. He is the grandson of A.S.Neill, founder of Summerhill School, world renowned as a pioneer in democratic, learner-centered education. His mother is Neill's daughter, Zöe, current Head of Summerhill. She was famously mentioned as a toddler in Neill's book, Summerhill, which was a best-seller with millions of copies sold in the early 1960's. It led to the free school and alternative school movement.

Henry was a pupil at Summerhill fro m the age of 3 to 16. He studied sound engineering at SAE Institute in London in 1997 and started a recording studio in 2002. He returned to Summerhill for several years to help with the successful court case against the Department for Education in 1999. He was the music teacher at Summerhill between 2002-2012 whilst working in the music industry.
 
He is presently Deputy Principal of Summerhill School with his brother Will, in support Zöe, their mother, who is still the principal.
Over the past 6 years Henry has also been the main ambassador for Summerhill School, representing it all over the world. He has been doing talks, workshops and lectures about Summerhill and A.S.Neill's educational philosophies, speaking in dozens of countries (see list below). He recently said, "I'm very excited about coming to America as it will be my first time and to speak at AERO as I have been friends with Jerry Mintz for many years."

Here is a list of some of the places where Henry Readhead has presented: See below that for the survey on his keynote topic.  

Keynotes, Workshops and Lectures
 
2012
HR Forum
Seoul
South Korea
 
Global
 
Arirang TV
Seoul
South Korea
 
2014
2014
Seoul
South Korea
 
IDEC
 
Urupia
Puglia
Italy
 
University Lecture
Bielefeld
Germany
 
Conference
Chichester
England
 
2015
 
Madrid
Spain
 
Alicante University Lecture
 
INNOVATION 2015
Moscow
Russia
 
Free-Learning Education Conference
Prague
Czech
 
University Lecture
Castellon
Spain
 
Workshop
Valencia
Spain
 
2016
 
Mikkeli
Finland
 
IDEC/EUDEC 2016
 
 
 
Alicante University Lecture
Madrid
Spain
 
APDEC 2016
Barcelona
Taiwan
 
CAIEV Educational Project
Spain
 
2017
2017
Hadera
Israel
 
IDEC
 
APDEC and S-Hill Promo Events
Kyoto & Tokyo
Japan
 
Conversation for Change
Anton
Austria
 
University Lecture
Madrid
Spain
 
Multiple
Moscow
Russia
 
APDEC 2017
Tokyo
Japan
 
EUDEC 2018
Paris
France
 
Oasis Movement Tour (9 dates)
Multiple
India
 
Poverty & Education, Kings College
London
England
 
2018
 
Summerhill
England
 
Freedom to Learn Forum
 
Humanity School Campaign Support Taipei
New York
Taiwan
 
AERO 2018
USA
 
Forgotten Majority, Invisible Minority
Hampshire
England
 
New Oriental Education Conference
 
China
 
 
 
 
Note from Henry Readhead to AERO Readers:
The subject of Summerhill School is not always so easy to cover in a short talk. Over the years I have covered most of the elements, so we thought it would be fun to give you all a list of topics I could speak about for my keynote and you can all vote on which ones you would like me to emphasize.

I will be giving a keynote speech with a Q&A, and a separate session later on in the conference. Here is a list of topics I can cover:
  • 100 years of freedom within education
  • Social and emotional development
  • Community life and boarding at Summerhill
  • 100 years of democracy at Summerhill
  • Learning at Summerhill with non-compulsory lessons
  • The meeting process, laws and conflict resolution
  • Parenting and Summerhill

Go HERE to Vote on the Keynote Topic You Like Best 

 
Lafazan Another TED-like Mini-Talk Announced for AERO Conference
On Friday Morning, June 29th, we will kick off the AERO conference with six TED-like mini-talks. This has become one of the most popular features of the AERO conference.

We're happy to announce that Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan will be giving a mini-talk at this year's AERO Conference. Josh is the Legislator for Nassau County's 18th district. 

At 18 he ran to be a trustee on the Syosset Board of Education and won. In 2015 he was re-elected for another three-year term. 

In June of 2017 he ran to represent Nassau county's 18th district,
which is the one where LIU/Post is located. He won, and now serves as a Nassau county Legislator.
        
He will talk about his experiences with education, his thoughts on the current education system, and how he decided to run for the school board at 18. 

We now have announced three mini-talk presenters. The other two are Pono founder Maysaa Bazna and North Star founder Ken Danford.

This week we will release, for the first time, videos of last year's mini-talks.

Here's a link to one of them, by Jamaal Bowman, principal of the innovative public alternative CASA, in the Bronx.  
 
Register at the early bird rate here!

Options Some Options of Conference Discounts
List of Conference Features 
The two for one Facebook sale ended automatically last Tuesday. It brought a lot of interest and the conference is starting to fill up. We would still like you to help us spread the word by reaching out to people in your networks and followers on Facebook. If you can get some new people to attend the conference we can still give you a discount on registration but you will now need to contact us directly about this. Of course we will still make special arrangement for schools and other group registrations.  

This conference is shaping up to be very special. Here are some of the features announced to date: 
  • Henry Readhead from Summerhill to keynote and do workshops.
  • Famed author and nutritionist Dr. Joel Fuhrman to keynote and do a workshop.
  • Public education pioneer Dave Lehman to keynote and to launch his new book at the conference. He'll do additional workshop. 
  • Homeschool pioneer and Clonlara Founder Pat Montgomery to present and sign her new book. 
  • Pono founder Maysaa Bazna to present a mini-talk as well as to show the new documentary about the presidential survey done by young Pono students. 
  • Former 18 year old school board member and current 24 year old Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan to do mini-talk. His district includes LIU/Post. 
  • 25 workshops.
  • School visits and pre-conference cruise. 

The early bird rate of $225 is still in effect for a limited time. The student rate is $175 and the child under 12 rate is $100 including childcare. To register go to the site and scroll right for all the options.  
 
You can register here.

AERO's 15th Conference  in our 30th year, will be here in NY from June 28 to July 1st. This one will be special and back to our roots. 
The theme is the Spectrum of Democratic Education.

Many schools and programs plan to attend and some have already registered, such as Raw Learning in Virginia, Houston Sudbury, Ridge and Valley Charter School, Alpha II in Toronto, Self-Design, Makarios Community School, TX, Clonlara School, MI, Pono Learning, NY, Summerhill School, Agile Learning Center, Education for Life, Self-Directed Path, Awareness Through the Body, All Children Great and Small, The Circle School, Rivers and Roads, Academic Center of Excellence, AR and The Farm School, TN. Also Varvara of the St. Petersburg Park School in Russia is planning to come!  
 
You can still register at $225 for the whole conference. And if you are a current AERO member you can use the member coupon to get a further 10% discount. You can actually hold the rate with a $50 deposit for individuals and a $100 deposit for group
But it may end at any time without warning.

We also have shared room and single room package deals available.

We will be taking proposals for workshops through march 15 or earlier, when we've approved the 25 workshops.

The accepted workshops are now on the conference site.

Register at the early bird rate here .
happy The Key To Raising A Happy Child
By Cory Turner

For much of the past half-century, children, adolescents and young adults in the U.S. have been saying they feel as though their lives are increasingly out of their control. At the same time, rates of anxiety and depression have risen steadily.

What's the fix? Feeling in control of your own destiny. Let's call it "agency."

"Agency may be the one most important factor in human happiness and well-being."

So write William Stixrud and Ned Johnson in their new book, The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives. Feeling out of control can cause debilitating stress and destroy self-motivation.

Read the rest here.
Anorexia "EDUCATIONAL ANOREXIA & BULIMIA" IN WASHINGTON, DC, AND ELSEWHERE
By John Merrow

Campbell's Law teaches us that, when too much pressure is placed on a single measurement, that measurement inevitably becomes corrupted to the point of being useless. A straightforward analogy is to physical health. An individual who worries  only  about weight is a strong candidate for anorexia and bulimia. On the other hand, the person who pays attention to muscle and skin tone, flexibility, endurance, a balanced diet, daily exercise, and personal appearance-as well as weight-is NOT a candidate for an eating disorder.

The same principle applies to education : When a system values (and measures) many aspects of schooling, such as the amount of art and music, the time devoted to recess, student attendance, teacher attendance, teacher turnover, and academic achievement, the school and its students, teachers and staff are likely to be 'balanced.' When  only  test scores or graduation rates matter, bad things are guaranteed to happen.

Read the rest here.
Leadership Whitefish Bay High School Student on Leading Walkout: 'leadership from adults wasn't getting us anywhere'
A Whitefish Bay High School student is organizing a student walkout in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

Samantha Hentzen, a senior at the school and the regional director of Women's March - Wisconsin, has organized dozens of students as part of a National School Walkout movement. She has events planned for March 14, one month after the Florida shooting, and possibly April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

Hentzen said the students would stage a "die-in" in the lobby or outside the school in March, meaning students would lie on the ground as if they were dead for 17 minutes, one minute for each of the Parkland victims. 

Read the rest here.
Factor The Main Factor in School Shootings is...
The main factor in school shootings is not guns or mental health. They are factors, particularly for adult shooters. But the main factor in teenagers doing school shootings is schools. We don't have teenagers doing mass library shootings, museum shootings or park shootings. What is the difference? Libraries, museums and parks are not compulsory or authoritarian. You go there when you want, do what you want, learn what you want, and leave when you want. They don't judge you, test you, grade you, suspend you or kick you out. Schools need to change. Democratic and learner-centered schools don't have mass shootings. Statistics verify that.
 
In 1999 we interviewed Arnie Langburg, founder of Jefferson County Open School in the Columbine district. He said he believed that one of the biggest problems was the anonymity of students at big schools: "This couldn't happen at an alternative school because their small size encourages closeness between adults and children, and because the schools have conflict resolution strategies."
 
By the way, the second most important factor in school shootings by teenagers is guns. Other countries have similar school problems but disgruntled students can't easily get guns or assault rifles, so such shootings are rare.

jobs Several New Job Openings
Anchor11Links 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

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