Last week AERO finished it’s first-ever 4 – day online conference. By all accounts it was a resounding success and far exceeded expectations.
When the COVID-19 virus made the decision for us that we would be having the conference online we were pretty nervous about it.
We had planned to have the conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota which would have been another first for us. The virus had other plans.
We had to suddenly rethink the conference and ditch a good deal of the planning we had already done in preparation for Minneapolis.
In the beginning, the idea of the online conference didn’t quite catch on. We wondered if our numbers would stay on the low end. With a little less than a month to go to the conference, the numbers started to pick up significantly.
Then a day before the conference we had 475 people registered with more trying to get in!
Thursday morning started with online school visits with our friends from Sri Aria in Malaysia and Liberated Learners leading the way. The conference officially kicked off with a welcome from Jerry and Peter.
Many people had a chance to introduce themselves and then were put into Zoom breakout rooms to network and get to know each other more.
One thing we were worried about was networking. Networking is the backbone of the AERO conference and AERO.
We put a lot of thought into making space for that to happen at this year’s conference but weren’t sure how it would go. In true AERO fashion, the community stepped up and took every opportunity to network and connect. It was beautiful to watch.
One reason that networking was so effective was that our friend Kristy Cheng, from Sri Aria school in Malaysia, kept the main room open for our community members in different time zones. This was one of the highlights of the conference as many reported on the amazing conversations/connections that happened during these hours..
In the afternoon our set of 20-minute talks started with Gina Riley, followed by Mara Linaberger, Zoe Greenhouse and ending with Andrew Pudewa’s.
Then the series of over 45 workshops began.
After a short break, students Kat Farr and Walker Meyn were interviewed by Peter Berg. The interview focused on mental health in education.
The evening concluded with a keynote from Peter Gray. The main room remained open during the overnight hours.
Friday kicked off with another set of amazing workshops. Many participants stayed in the main room during the lunch break for the launch of The Quest for a Just Society petition (see article).
Another set of workshops got us going again after the break.
Then Wayne Jennings delivered a keynote speech on some of his pioneering involvement with public alternatives.
A panel with Brian Connor, Jacob Dennis, and Walker Meyn from the National Youth Rights Association on youth rights in education was next. They described the scope of work NYRA is doing and about how each of them individually contributes to it.
After a break, we all watched the documentary Unschooled. When we came back to the main room to hear people’s thoughts we had an unexpected treat. Taylor Wildenhaus, Associate Producer on the film joined the chat and spent about 30 minutes with us answering questions.
Kristy kept the conversation going all night. Some of us went to bed so we could rest up for the over 15 hours of programming on Saturday.
Saturday began with more networking and discussion in the main room. Another set of incredible workshops took place in the morning. After a break in the afternoon, a long evening began with another set of incredible workshops. From there we had the pleasure of listening to an International Youth Panel on consent in education. Anna, Katherine, Mike, and Sofia took us through their journey through self-directed education. They then showed us their campaign for SDE for all, focused on student rights and consent in education.
Shortly after, Amir Nathoo, founder of Outschool.com presented on how the online marketplace can support self -directed education. He took us through some possibilities and also the latest happenings with Outschool. Outschool has gone from 8000 students to 300,000 during the pandemic.
After a break, we came back to hear Catherine Fraise, founder ofWorkspace Education. Right after that, professor, author and education critic Yong Zhao presented. Adler Yang and Ozzie Su joined Yong in a short panel discussion. Adler and Ozzie continued with their presentation describing pioneering work in Taiwan. It was quite a long day filled with so many amazing perspectives, ideas, and calls to action.
Many of us were pretty tired by the end of this long day 3. We were excited for day 4 but a little sad that this was the last day of the conference.
Sunday began with the documentary CaRabA, about what would happen if the court decided that compulsory education was unconstitutional, followed by a discussion with the filmmakers. There was also networking and discussion in the main room. Our last set of incredible workshops rounded out the morning session. Public superintendent of schools Dr. Michael Hynes and Kate Robinson, daughter of Sir Ken Robinson made the culminating workshop.
Sadly, it was time to close out the conference and say “see you later” not goodbye to all of our friends from around the world. Jerry and Peter asked for feedback and suggestions during a short evaluation session and ended the conference with thank you’s to all the volunteers and participants.
Throughout the entire conference, there were impromptu pop-up sessions and discussions many of them are still continuing. One of these topics is titled The Elephant in the Room: “The protests in the United States of America and around the world are highlighting the gross inequities based on the amount of a chemical (melanin) in a person’s skin. The absence of this issue at the conference is deafening, especially since the AERO conference was to be held in Minneapolis this year.” This has raised deep, critical discussion.
This was a truly global conference with people from 6 continents and over 30 different countries. We are still on high from the conference, processing all that happened, carefully considering feedback, and recuperating. Thank you again to all of you who were a part of the conference and thank you to all of you for being a part of AERO.
