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Jerry’s Editorial Response To The College Admissions Scandal

You have probably just read the breaking news scandal about the bribery of officials at elite colleges by people who wanted to get their children admitted.
A lot of people in the AERO network are just scratching their heads about this.
First, we are pretty fed up with these simplistic “tests” that high school students are pushed into taking to get into college. Many colleges have discovered that these tests are not a good predictor of college success, and more than a thousand have announced that submitting an SAT or ACT is no longer required on an application to get into their school. Here’s a list of them!
Many of these barriers have been broken down by homeschoolers and democratic school graduates who more often submit much more useful portfolios describing the actual work they have done. Why are the colleges paying attention to this? They have discovered that these graduates of learner-centered approaches are much more successful in their colleges, by every measure. They are falling all over each other to get these students!
Second, many parents and students from alternative approaches are not so interested in the “elite” colleges, whose traditional methods are very out of date. They are more interested in higher education alternatives that have more individualized and innovative approaches, such as Goddard with its low residency program and Antioch College, pioneer in cooperative (work experience) education. Here is AERO’s list of higher education alternatives.
So, our take on this is a little ironic and different from the mainstream!
Please send us your reaction to this for the Sunday e news!
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Derry Hannam Response To Guardian Story

Derry’s response –

The Guardian has a story about the new East Kent Sudbury School this morning – claims it is a ‘bohemian’ and elitist private school in an area of social deprivation.

Here is my just published letter to the supposedly progressive paper –

“I am a retired state school teacher. I attended a Kent grammar school from a working class background (dad a London bus driver). Most of my primary school friends went to secondary modern schools. I ended up at Oxford University – my primary school friends from secondary moderns did not. In my opinion the 11 plus exam was largely luck so I chose to work as a teacher in a secondary modern school. I was a year 7 Humanities teacher with the same class for half the week. The kids arrived in my class with a terrible sense of failure and having let their parents down. I encouraged them to study things they were interested in and ran the class as a democratic community with a weekly meeting to make and enforce class ‘laws.’ Their confidence began to recover and I had a lot of support from parents. I am still in touch with some of these 60 year-old ‘kids.’ Some, against all the odds, went on to get degrees and one ended up as head of a primary school and a strong believer in ‘student voice.’

It has become very hard for state school teachers who want to work in this way to develop the creativity and curiosity of their pupils. The desperately underfunded state system has become obsessed with testing and is driving many of the best teachers to leave the profession – and many more would if they could.

I am opposed to most private schooling in the UK which functions to reproduce a social elite – (often used by Guardian journalists.) I am deeply attracted to the systems of Finland or Norway where private education is almost non-existent yet innovation is encouraged within their state systems. We need more innovation in our state system and less rigid ‘fear-of-Ofsted’ conformity. Until we have this I support small experiments such as the East Kent Sudbury School which is not aiming to produce a social elite but merely to see what happens if kids are allowed to follow their own interests in a community that is run democratically and grounded in respect for human rights.”

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Exclusive to AERO: Report from the 2018 IDEC in India!

By Moe Zimmerberg – Tutorial School
This November 15th-21st, democratic educators, students, parents, well-wishers, and friends gathered in Bengaluru, a city in the state of Karnataka, India for the 25th International Democratic Education Conference.  Twenty-one countries were represented including your correspondent from the US. This was also merged with the third Asia Pacific Democratic Education Conference, and the first ever In(dia) DEC.

 

IDEC is always a wonderful time to deepen friendships, make new ones and learn about other schools in other countries.  This one did not disappoint. The week-long conference gave us ample time to connect and learn from each other. There were no scheduled keynote speakers, but rather “open space” scheduling which allowed anyone to post a session or workshop.

 

There were many presentations by various democratic learning places around India.  Many of them are Montessori-based. Maria Montessori was lecturing in India when World War II broke out and, as an Italian, was forced to remain until the end of the war.  She had a profound impact on alternative education in India. She taught then that the teacher should observe the child without judgements or assumptions and endeavor not to interfere with each child’s internal “natural learner.”  If you combine this approach with egalitarian school government and a focus on human rights for the child, you get democratic education–not that it has or should ever be defined.

 

In addition to the informative sessions there were various workshops:  Hand spun thread, clay sculpture, 3d paper objects, music therapy, contact improv dance, tribal stories, varieties of millet, to name a few.  One group spent the conference building a two story treehouse out of bamboo.

 

One remarkable thing we learned about was the Children’s Parliaments of India.  These are neighborhood decision making bodies completely run and populated by children.  They deal with issues of concern ranging from broken street lights or the use of disposable plastic to abusive, alcoholic parents.  There are 50,000 such parliaments in India. They have been to the UN and are now a worldwide movement. Power to the children!

 

Globally, the Democratic Education movement continues to grow at a dizzying pace.  The most surprising country was Indonesia, which is now seeing a surge of new schools. In Europe, Poland and Germany have many schools and startup groups.  Every country in Europe now has at least one democratic school, and many countries have several. France, a latecomer to Democratic Education, has sprouted 47 schools or groups in just 4 years.  Some estimate there to be 2,000 democratic schools worldwide.

 

After a slight stall, the international educator development program is back on track. Self-directed Education for Educators of Democratic Schools/spaces (SEEDS) will soon be online, thanks to the efforts of our new friend, Harsh, who will create the website.  Soon we will be inviting schools, interns, and mentors to join our program. Imagine how encouraging it would be for someone who wishes to learn how to be a democratic educator to find out that he or she would be able to intern at several schools around the world!

 

The passing of the IDEC Guitar to the Ukrainian organizing team directs our focus to the upcoming IDEC 2019, which will start in Kiev on August 1st and move to Vinnystia from the 3rd until the 8th or 9th.  If the last time the IDEC was in Ukraine is any indication, it should be a wonderful conference. 2020 will be in Nepal, and there is a suggestion to meet in the western hemisphere for 2021. IDEC is a conference, not an organization.  Thus, every organizing team has virtually free reign to design their IDEC as they see fit. Nearly everything is up to them, from the time of year to how much open space scheduling there will be.

 

The theme of this IDEC pretty much sums up the experience:  Shanti with Diversity – a very peaceful conference with a broad range of people, workshops, and sessions.
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Never Before Seen Letters From Summerhill’s A.S. Neill

There has recently been a fascinating and fortuitous series of communications, starting with an introduction by one of our school starter course students to an amazing man named Kent Bicknell. Kent was a founder of an alternative school in New Hampshire that combined alternative and progressive education with the teachings of important spiritual leaders in India. This led to the establishment of the Sant Bani School in 1971 which Kent directed for the next 44 years. As he said in his e mail to me he founded it “when I was 26 and retired when I turned 70.” He has written a remarkable book about it called Stepping Stones: The First Five Years of Sant Bani School.

In our far-ranging conversations Kent also mentioned to me that he has in his possession some rare and unpublished letters from A.S, Neill of Summerhill. They were written to a fellow progressive school Head, Otto Shaw, from 1953 to 1960. Kent mailed photocopies to me which we have scanned and have put in the AERO online museum, with his permission.

I think you will find that they show an amazing insight to A.S. Neill and his thinking at the time, and we are very grateful to Kent for sharing them with us. Readers after you read these unique letters from Neill, write to us and let us know what you think.

I look forward to reading Kent’s book, which he also sent, and will post a review when I have read it.

In her note introducing Kent to me, our school starter wrote about Kent’s book, “Stepping Stones is so inspiring and informative. I enjoyed the details you provided in terms of everyday operations, the struggle in scaling up, the way in which the team came together and laid the foundations of Sant Bani. The unwavering commitment to the philosophy and the dedication with which each of you have upheld those values, are hard to find – which is why it is critical to share this more widely, and inspire the new generations. I want to recommend this as a reading to the School Starters course.”

The AERO Online Museum now has these newly discovered letters from A.S, Neill. It also has letters from Ivan Illich and Emma Goldman, as well as the dramatic paintings of Bill Mintz.