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Ron Miller to Keynote AERO Conference

Ron Miller
Ron Miller
We’re very excited to announce that Ron Miller, one of the leading and most frequently cited pioneers in holistic education, is briefly coming out of retirement to be a keynote speaker at the 25th anniversary AERO conference this June. Ron has always been one of AERO’s strongest supporters since our inception and served as editor of our magazine, Education Revolution, for many years. Ron Miller was involved with diverse educational alternatives from the mid-1980s until 2010, as a teacher, researcher, activist, editor and author.

Ron Miller has written or edited ten books, such as What Are Schools For?Free Schools, Free People: Education and Democracy After the 1960s, and most recently The Self-Organizing Revolution: Common Principles of the Educational Alternatives Movement. Miller established the Bellwether School in Williston, Vermont and he taught at Champlain College and Goddard College in Vermont Miller founded two journals, the Holistic Education Review (later renamed Encounter) and Paths of Learning. Since retiring as an educational researcher and activist, Miller has run a bookstore, literary festival, and adult learning program in Woodstock, Vermont. You can find dozens of articles and a complete list of Miller’s books online at www.pathsoflearning.net.

Ron Miller’s talk will be entitled: 1964-2014: A Half Century Since Freedom Schools and How Children Fail. Miller offers a unique and critical perspective on the history and landscape of alternative education in the United States. Miller’s book, Free Schools, Free People, placed democratic, freedom-based schools in an historical context that enabled a more thoughtful and necessary critical analysis of the movement to take place. As schools continue to be founded out of those same theoretical traditions, Miller’s work demonstrates the relevancy of learning from these historical roots to create healthier and more successful alternatives. In the same vein, this talk will help alternative educators learn about the significance and relevancy of the 1960s and what has happened since as it relates to their schools and learning environments today.

Ron Miller's last issue of Education Revolution (read by over 40,000!) can be read in its entirety here:

 

Watch Ron Miller's 2006 AERO conference keynote "Building an Educational Rights Movement" here: