Come to the 10th annual AERO Conference:

May 23-26, at LIU/Post, near New York City!

Keynotes will take place in the Lecture Hall at Hillwood Commons

We feel that this is the time for the education revolution, to empower all students, to make learner-centered education possible everywhere. This year’s theme is “What works!” This means that we want keynotes and presentations that explore and demonstrate effective programs in educational alternatives. This could include any learner-centered approach, including home education, Montessori education, Waldorf education, democratic Education, progressive education, charter schools, magnet schools, etc. We are particularly interested in having presentations that involve graduates of educational alternatives, to hear about their experiences.

The Long Island University/C.W. Post campus is located at 720 Northern Blvd., Brookville, NY 11548.

AERO was founded in 1989 and this will be our 10th conference!

AERO networks all forms of learner-centered educational alternatives. The AERO conference is unlike any other conference you are likely to attend in the USA. Many attendees have described the conference as life-changing.

Download our flyer here.

Press Release

http://www.expertclick.com/NRWire/Releasedetails.aspx?id=43602

Quotes of the Week:

Both Alfie Kohn and Dr. Peter Gray are speaking at the AERO Conference this coming weekend. Here is a quote from each of them:

“Most things that we and the people around us do constantly… have come to seem so natural and inevitable that merely to pose the question, ‘Why are we doing this?’ can strike us as perplexing – and also, perhaps, a little unsettling. On general principle, it is a good idea to challenge ourselves in this way about anything we have come to take for granted; the more habitual, the more valuable this line of inquiry.” Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards

“Nothing in life is without risk.  When we deprive our children of taking the risks that they must take to grow in competence, confidence, and courage, we run the greater and ultimately more tragic risk that they will never learn to take charge of their own lives.” Peter Gray, Psychology Today, “How Children Learn Bravery in an Age of Overprotection.”

Conference Dates

The 2013 AERO conference will run from May 23-26 with pre-conference visits to democratic and alternative schools in the New York City area on Wednesday, May 22nd (see below).

Registration

We can still take registrations. If you have financial considerations call the AERO office at 516 621 2195 or write to Jerryaero@aol.com

Single day passes can now be purchased until we run out of space (see registration)

No refunds for any conference fees will be returned after April 1. Deposits are nonrefundable.

Keynote speakers

AERO is proud to present the following line-up of keynote speakers for this year’s AERO conference: What Works!

• Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. His twelve books include PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993), BEYOND DISCIPLINE (1996), THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE (1999), THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING (2000), UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING (2005), THE HOMEWORK MYTH (2006), and, most recently, FEEL-BAD EDUCATION (2011).

Kohn has been described by Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.” His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators — as well as parents and managers — across the country and abroad. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, including the “Today” show and two appearances on “Oprah.” He lectures widely at universities and to school faculties, parent groups, and corporations, as well as speaking at staff development seminars and keynoting national education conferences.

Kohn’s articles include “Turning Children into Data” in Education Week; “Five Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job!’” in Young Children; and “The Case Against Grades” in Educational Leadership.

Kohn lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.

•  Dr. Peter Gray

Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College, has conducted and published research in a wide range of fields, including neuroendocrinology, animal behavior, developmental psychology, anthropology, and education. He is author of a highly regarded college textbook, Psychology (Worth Publishers), now in its 6th edition. Most of his recent research and writing has to do with the value of free, unsupervised play for children’s healthy social, emotional, and intellectual development. He has expanded on these ideas extensively, for the general public, in a blog that he write for Psychology Today magazine and in his recently-published book, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013).

Peter Gray grew up in small towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where he had a rich childhood play life, which, he believes, prepared him well for adulthood. He did his undergraduate study at Columbia University and then earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences at the Rockefeller University, in New York City. His career since then has been centered entirely at Boston College. His play life continues, not only in the joy he derives from research and writing, but also in his enjoyment of long-distance bicycling, backwoods skiing, pond skating, kayaking, and backyard vegetable gardening.

• Nikhil Goyal

Lauded by the Washington Post as a future U.S. Secretary of Education, at age 17, Nikhil Goyal is the author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student’s Assessment of School by the Alternative Education Resource Organization. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, NPR, FOX and Friends, FOX Business, NBC Nightly News, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and Education Week. In 2012, Goyal was named one of the “World Changers” for Dell #Inspire 100. He is also 2013 Forbes 30 Under 30: Education.

An international speaker, Nikhil has spoken at NBC, Dell, Cisco, Fast Company, M.I.T., Florida International University, College of the North Atlantic, and other conferences around the world. He is also a guest lecturer at Baruch College.

Nikhil currently serves on the board of FairTest. He is leading a Learning Revolution movement to transform the American school system. Nikhil lives with his family in Woodbury, New York.

• Dr. Elina Lampert-Shepel

Dr. Elina Lampert-Shepel is currently a faculty at Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership, Walden University.  As a Vygotskian scholar, Elina coordinated research, development and implementation of teacher education program based on the principles of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical concept and activity theory at the first independent teacher educational center, Eureka University, Moscow, Russia. She worked as a teacher educator internationally, establishing dialogue and facilitating projects among innovative alternative educational communities. Her research interests include culture and cognition, reflective praxis, cross-cultural research, bilingual education, philosophical and psychological aspects of intersubjuctivity, learning community, cultural-historical psychology and activity theory (CHAT) as research methodology, mediational means, and dialogue among Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Dewey, and Freire in education.

• The Importance of North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens

North Star is an original model that combines the both of homeschooling and free schools. Founded in Amherst, MA in 1996 by Kenneth Danford and Joshua Hornick, North Star makes living and learning without school a viable and inspiring option for any interested teen in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. Most North Star members are teens who felt constrained and trapped in school, but who never would have considered or sustained homeschooling without the presence of a center such as North Star. The program offers classes, tutorials, and advisory services to its members, as well as support for its teens to explore and work in the local community. Most North Star members attend the center two to four days per week. Most North Star members go on to attend college, many beginning to take courses at ages 15-18 years old, though plenty of others have proceeded on to meaningful work and other opportunities as a continuation of their self-directed learning process.

Some of LIU/Post’s expansive grounds

Over the past few years, North Star has received numerous inquiries about its approach from disillusioned school teachers and veteran homeschooling parents interested in helping teens learn independently of schools. North Star has supported people to start similar programs in Princeton NJ, Ottawa Quebec, Somerville MA,, Framingham MA, New Haven CT, Grand Rapids MI, Portland OR, and elsewhere. Further, North Star has consulted with people all over the country and the world about providing the support and structure necessary for more teens to choose life without school. This growing network is becoming formalized with the inception of a new non-profit organization, Liberated Learners, Inc, founded in January 2013 by Kenneth and Joel Hammon of the Princeton Learning Cooperative. For the past seventeen years, even at AERO, North Star’s program was perhaps a bit ahead of its time. The recent growth in homeschooling, along with the ever-increasing number of people ready to start alternatives to traditional schooling, suggest that North Star is now well-placed to share its experience and vision. The core principles of North Star, embodying trust for teens with important supporting roles for adults, are best captured by North Star slogan, “Learning is natural. School is optional.”

Kenneth Danford

Lobby of Hillwood Commons

Kenneth co-founded North Star in 1996, and has supported hundreds of teens to leave school and utilize self-directed learning over these past seventeen years. Prior to establishing North Star, Kenneth taught in the Amherst, MA Regional Public Schools and in the Prince George’s County, MD Public Schools as an 8th grade U.S. History teacher. He earned his M.A.T. at Brown University under the auspices of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and he graduated from Amherst College in 1988. He has two teenage children, both of whom choose to attend public school and consider his work at North Star to be eccentric.

Laura Ross

“Fishbowl” next to cafeteria

Laura Ross is a 17-year-old homeschooler currently in her fourth year at North Star. She attended public school until 7th grade and started North Star in her 8th grade year. She plays guitar, bass, drums, and piano, and nothing makes her happier than listening to and making music. At the moment she is playing in the North Star band, as well as two bands and a percussion ensemble outside of North Star. She is an avid reader and dancer, and in her spare time she enjoys studying the stars through her telescope. She loves learning about the world and hopes to pursue astrophysics in the future.

Jonah Meyer

Cafeteria seating

Jonah completed elementary school, barely. He spent four years at North Star as a member, then spent a year studying alternative education and North Star’s place in that world. He attended the AERO Conference when it was in Albany, and continues to be committed to supporting alternatives to traditional school. In 2012-2012 Jonah was the youngest member in the history of the Greenfield Community College Outdoor Leadership Program, and he has spent the past fall and winter traveling and rock climbing in the western United States. He has just returned from climbing Mt. Cotopaxi, a volcano in Ecuador.

Emily Odgers

Emily Odgers is currently living and working full-time at the William Penn House in Washington, DC. She organizes service and educational projects for visiting groups in addition to hospitality and community building. Emily homeschooled independently for 7th and 8th grade, returned to high school for one year, and then left school for good to join North Star at 15. She interned with numerous social justice organizations including the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, American Friends Service Committee, and Public Citizen during her teen years. She also served as the youngest member of the Northampton Human Rights Commission. Emily will be attending Warren Wilson College in the fall and is looking forward to pursuing her interests in social justice, poetry, the environment and martial arts.

Workshops and presentations

Online AERO Conference Program (2013 program details now listed!)

Classroom for workshops

Aside from the keynote speakers at the AERO conference, there are dozens of other workshops, presentations, and discussions that will occur on a great variety of issues related to educational alternatives.

If you are interested in presenting a workshop, organizing a discussion or other activity at the upcoming AERO conference, please send us your proposal by February 15th. You can start by sending a paragraph about your proposed presentation. This year we plan to have fewer planned presentations and presenters at the conference so we can have more spontaneous presentations, so send your proposals as soon as possible. Enter your proposal information here into this Word document and email the saved file to info@educationrevolution.org.

“Smart” classroom for workshops

We still have a small number of display tables for individuals and organization with resources useful to AERO members. If interested write to info@educationrevolution.org or call 516 978 7812.

AERO Conference Documentary (2010):