Product Description

Come to the AERO CONFERENCE

August 1-5, 2012 Portland, OR

Conference Registration

$50 deposit for us to hold a place for you at the conference.

$300 per adult

$200 per student/youth/presenter

These rates apply until May 30 when the rates will increase. Deposits are non-refundable.

Keynote speakers

AERO is proud to present the following line-up of keynote speakers for this year’s AERO conference: Finding the Catalyst for the Education Revolution. More keynotes will be announced in the next few months as we approach the conference!

• Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation.  He is also one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere.  The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been seen by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries. He works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. Sir Ken will share his thoughts on shifting the paradigm that many education systems still manifest around the world.

• Naomi Aldort is an international expert on parenting and parent/child relationships and author of the book Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. Naomi is an expert on raising powerful and peaceful people through attachment parenting and by protecting their innate freedom to be themselves. Her parenting advice columns have been internationally published covering all responsive parenting issues from babies through adults with focus on raising self-reliant, autonomous, powerful, and peaceful people. For her keynote she will be talking about raising self-directed and powerful children who act and learn from their inner passion without coercion or manipulation.

• Occupy Portland’s Our School project will present a panel sharing practical ways that individuals and groups can organize the education revolution in their own communities. AERO’s Director, Jerry Mintz, will introduce the panel by outlining AERO’s new international representative program. Their panel will end with a group discussion and visioning session to help focus and spur on the education revolution beyond the conference.

• Yaacov Hecht (pictured above) is the co-founder of the Democratic School of Hadera in Israel and the founder and head of the Institute for Democratic Education. He will speak about his work on the Education Cities project which helps transform entire cities’ education systems.

Workshops and presentations

Online AERO Conference Program (updated regularly)

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 29th. 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.

We will have a small number of display tables for individuals and organization with resources useful to AERO members. If interested write to info@educationrevolution.org.

Transportation and logistics

The conference will begin with pre-conference events on the evening of Wednesday, the 1st of August. It will end after lunch on Sunday the 5th.

It will be held at the Red Lion Hotel on the River, In Portland, Oregon. You can see the map of the location here. The hotel provides free transportation from the nearby airport. You may actually lock in your room right now at the low conference rate. Later on rooms at the hotel may be limited.

Meals

There will be a buffet style meal option for lunches and dinners during the conference. You can buy a 6-meal ticket here in advance of the conference. You could buy the ticket at the first meal as well or buy your meals individually if you like.

You’ll save $10 if you buy a meal ticket (either in advance here or at the first meal during the conference).

Volunteers

We are looking for a handful of superstar volunteers to help out at the conference. This might involve sitting at the registration/conference info table or the bookstore, helping put up signs, childcare, audio/visual, putting together conference packets (info about the hotel, Portland info, brief schedule). If interested, write to conference@educationrevolution.org

Additional Information