Category: News

By Jerry Mintz

The answer to this question has been perplexing me recently.

In the past when the country has had crises and disasters such as World War 1, the great depression, World War 2, the polio epidemic, it has caused people in to come together and unite to solve the problem. But the COVID era and its aftermath has seemed to cause the just the opposite. It has brought out selfishness, discourteousness, meanness, anti-semitism and racial prejudice.

When I am driving it is most obvious to me. It Is as if nobody had ever taken driver’s education: About a quarter of the drivers act as if they are the only important people on the road: They act as if they are pretending to be racecar drivers, although this is far from pretend. I’ve seen people swerving to the passenger lane on the right to pass motorcycles and school busses on curves. I’ve even seen people go into the berm on the right to pass cars, only to be stopped at the next light. At night they keep their lights on bright, although we were told in school never to do that, as if to warn people that they are coming through at any cost. Of course, the accidents and deaths are piling up, both for cars and pedestrians. When I offer to courteously let someone into my lane, it is almost taken in disbelief.

And that’s just driving. A friend who works at a well-known coffee chain says he has to constantly stop students from walking on top of the tables. He doesn’t want to give them water because they immediately use it in water fights, but the chain insists he give it out because they are afraid to be accused of discrimination!

And of course, schools have become even more of a disaster than they were. The modern education system started about 150 years ago with antediluvian roots. There is little evidence it was organized to encourage creativity or responsibility. There is much more evidence that it was created for control and propaganda and to prepare people for factory work and to follow orders. Students and educational pioneers such as Dewey, Montessori, Steiner and A.S. Neill have rebelled against this, but to little avail. Schools are still mostly oppressive to students.

Pre-pandemic most students were able to cope with this. But now it somehow is boring right into them (pun intended). Perhaps family life has disintegrated so much during the pandemic that it no longer offers a shield for children. This may be why there has been such a rise in drug abuse, childhood depression and suicide.

Therefore, this seems to be an opportune time for us who are in the Educational Alternatives community to make sure people know of our existence. It is our obligation to let people know that there is a better way to educate: Children must become empowered learners; creativity and responsibility need to be encouraged. Just doing so for a privileged few is no longer an option.

This is probably an important topic for us to discuss at the upcoming AERO Conference. But prior to that I encourage our readers to send us responses to this essay.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
—-What are the Dates of the Conference?June 23 – 25th, 2023
—-What Time Zone is the Conference In? All times are Eastern Daylight Time – USA What Does It Mean That The Conference is a Hybrid?
This means there will be both In – Person (at LIU Post) and Virtual sessions happening during the conference. 
—-I am attending In Person, What are the accommodations? LIU Post has dorm rooms available on-site. They will be opening up reservations for those soon.  If you are staying off campus you can look into accomodations here and here  you can also look into Airbnb. 
—-If I attend In-Person Will I have access to the Virtual Sessions? Yes, for the most part, virtual sessions and in -person sessions will not be happening at the same time. 
—-If I attend Virtually Will I have access to all of the In – Person Sessions?We will do our best to live stream or record a select few in-person sessions. However, we will not be able to do this for all of the in – person sessions. 
—-How Will The Schedule Work? Will In-Person & Virtual Sessions Happen at the Same Time? Every effort will be made so that in-person and virtual sessions will not happen at the same time. Virtual sessions will be happening during the unscheduled and break times of the in-person portion of the conference.  The few in-person sessions that will be live-streamed will happen during the unscheduled or break times of the virtual portion of the conference. 
—-Will I receive recordings of the Virtual Sessions? Yes, anyone who registers for the conference will receive the recordings of the virtual sessions, shortly after the conclusion of the conference. 
—-Will I be able to Access the Virtual Sessions from Anywhere? Yes, as long as you have internet access you can participate in the virtual sessions from wherever you like on whichever device is most convenient for you.  You can also access the conference via the Whova app. (more on the Whova app below)
—-Can I offer a session?Right now we have a few spaces open, the deadline for proposals is 3/31/23 but if spaces are filled sooner we will stop accepting proposals. Presenters register for the conference at the presenter rate. 
—-What Happens if I miss the deadline but I still want to offer a Session? You can offer a pop-up session which are sessions that happen during break or non-scheduled times. 
—-What are Pop-Up Sessions? How do they work? Can Anyone Offer One? A pop-up session is an impromptu session that happens during break or non-scheduled times. They usually come about as a result of a topic that has emerged. These happen often at AERO conferences. Generally, the person offering or organizing a session will let participants know what it’s about and where it’s happening. If it is a virtual session the person organizing the sessions will have to provide their own link to whatever platform they will be using.  Anyone who is registered for the conference may offer a pop-up session. 
—-Does AERO endorse and monitor pop-up sessions? AERO does not monitor or vette pop-up sessions.  AERO is not responsible for the content or delivery of pop-up sessions.  
—-How will I get access to the virtual sessions?You will receive a link that will have all the live links for the virtual sessions the day before the conference begins. 
—-Will there be Youth Presenters?Yes, the AERO conference is multigenerational and will feature many youth presenters.
—-Will there be a central room where people will come to gather and get information?  Yes, there will be a virtual main room for the virtual portion of the conference and the registration desk for the in-person portion of the conference, where participants can come get information. 
—-Will there be networking? Networking is the backbone of the AERO conference. We encourage people to use the Whova app to network (see below). You can also come to the virtual main room or registration desk at any time during the conference.  There will be plenty of time for networking. 

—-Can I go to more than one workshop during a session?

Yes, you can attend as many as you wish.

—-What is the Whova App? 

Whova is an app that can be used for networking, offering pop-up sessions, accessing the schedule, and conference announcements. You will be able to enter any of your information that you wish.  Registrants will receive instructions on how to download and use Whova soon. 

—-Are there group or youth rates? 

Yes, please contact Peter – peter@educationrevolution.org or Jerry – jerryaero@aol.com for more information. 

—-What if I want to come to the conference but am having trouble paying? 

We will make every effort to make it work for you. Please contact Peter – peter@educationrevolution.org or Jerry – jerryaero@aol.com for more information. 
—-How do I give my feedback about the conference? You will be sent a survey at the conclusion of the conference. There will also be a closing/evaluation session on Sunday June 25, from 2:30 – 3:30 PM


Join The Education RevolutionRespectfully, Peter Berg Ed.D., AERO Representative 

Review of Deb O’Rourke’s Can This Be School? Fifty Years of Democracy at ALPHA

by Chris Mercogliano

Only the quiet children who had spent the morning playing passively were rewarded with gold stars, a five-year-old Deb O’Rourke astutely observed at the end of her very first day of kindergarten. And she wasn’t one of them. Thus began the system’s unwitting creation of a future educational troublemaker and the author of this brilliant new book on democratic schools.

Can This Be School? Fifty Years of Democracy at ALPHA is part memoir, part thoroughly researched polemic, and part history of the democratic school movement. Then, perhaps most importantly, it enters into the permanent record the dramatic story of what is arguably the planet’s oldest, publicly funded democratic school for elementary-age children.

O’Rourke is the best one to share it because she arrived, as the parent of a sensitive young child just like she had once been, early enough in ALPHA’s history to be able to catalog all the ins and outs of convincing the Toronto District School Board to sign off on a radically different kind of public school. It’s a compelling account of how possible it is for a committed group of parents to help create something better for their children so that they won’t have to endure the same educational misery.

Here O’Rourke glosses over nothing. She describes in painstaking detail the messy infighting that soon broke out between parents, staff, and the school board once ALPHA opened its doors and everyone had gotten to see what it looks like when you all of a sudden unleash 100 energetic children on the third floor of an old, urban YMCA for seven hours at a clip. While the notion of educational freedom is lovely and seductive in theory, in practice it’s another matter entirely.

Which was precisely the problem: No one—students, teachers, parents, administrators—had had any practice whatsoever doing a kind of school that allows children to move about as they please and choose what and when they want to learn, gives them a loud voice in the proceedings, and eschews formal curricula, grades, and standardized tests. The noise, as one might imagine, was incessant; and before long there was conflict everywhere you turned. Rambunctious kids locked horns. Anxious, faction-forming parents feared their children would fall behind academically and pleaded for more structure. Overwhelmed teachers discovered they neither agreed with nor liked each other, and irate school board members demanded to know what the hell was going on—all without the preestablished means for resolving any of it.

In a word, writes O’Rourke, it was “chaos.” In its purest form.

But no one got hurt, and ALPHA survived its shakedown cruise. Parents willing to gamble on the school’s experimental approach replaced those who weren’t. They found staff who were more comfortable with such a child-led, improvisational way of teaching and learning—and with each other. And the school board failed to form a majority to defund it. In its second year and beyond, the school relaxed into a vibrant learning community like none other in the city.

It’s not an uncommon story of that period—the late 1960s and early ‘70s—when thousands of educational alternatives sprouted like dandelions and experienced similar birth pangs. What makes ALPHA’s story extraordinarily unique is the way succeeding generations of ALPHA’s supporters have continued to fight, not only to keep the school alive, but also true to its founding principles—in an official climate that stopped being friendly toward it a long time ago. It’s a stubborn victory for democracy in every sense of the word.

O’Rourke, who joined the staff a decade after her role as an ALPHA parent had come to an end and retired in 2015, is the one to tell the second chapter, too, because she was there to witness it. It doesn’t hurt that she’s such a good storyteller—maybe it’s the Irish in her. She moves seamlessly between reports of the countless battles to defend ALPHA against the displeasure of increasingly conservative school authorities and a deft, insider’s description of what sets it apart from conventional schools and makes it so worth saving. Along the way, she seasons the narrative with nuggets of wisdom from visionary educators like AS Neill, Ivan Illich, George Dennison, John Taylor Gatto, and Jonathan Kozol, along with her own insights that stem from someone who deeply understands children. It’s a hard book to put down.

Can This Be School? Fifty Years of Democracy at ALPHA is a welcome addition to the alternative education literature, with Deb O’Rourke adding a fresh voice to the movement’s ongoing campaign to smuggle its ideas and approaches into the mainstream. Her book is a must-read for anyone interested in starting an alternative, or who simply wants a clearer picture of the inner workings and importance of genuinely democratic schools for young children. In addition, I highly recommend it to lovers of history interested in learning more about such a fascinating and provocative era. Having come of age at the exact same time, I savored every morsel!