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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students from alternative approaches are not so interested in the “elite” colleges, whose traditional methods are very out of date.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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Master Tree Kindergarten Seeks Instructor

Master Tree Kindergarten Seeks Holistic Instructor (Shishi, China) 

Job Description:
Master Tree Kindergarten in Shishi, China is an Originateve Wood Certified school. As such, we have a commitment to foster a holistic environment wherein our children and adult community can together explore regenerative practice and design with a strong emphasis on ecology and culture. We are seeking enthusiastic colleagues eager to co-operate and grow alongside our tenderfoot community. Candidates interested in joining our team should have deep interests in childhood development, the arts and life in participation with the natural world.
Along with the kids we play with, day in and day out, we believe that the world is a play-garden in which to remember our ancestral capacity to appreciate beauty and engage by creating even more beauty of it. We have sand dunes, swimming pools, a library, live-stock, a workshop, a rooftop garden and more for you to recognize emergent curriculum as well as orchestrate enriched learning moments.
We welcome painters, gardeners, storytellers, carpenters and bards that have learned that there is no greater gift than that of planting a seed in the hearts of those growing beneath our wings.
Compensation:
Positions start at 13,000rmb/month + housing (walking distance from many beautiful beaches) + meals + insurance + paid holidays + one-way air-ticket home upon completion of contract and other benefits to be discussed with interested candidates.
Interested applicants should send a resume and brief cover letter to: carlemmons@originateve.org
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Little River Community School is accepting applications for a Middles teacher for the 2019/2020 school year

Little River Community School, founded in 1999, is a K-12 democratic school with forty students (22 full-time, 18 part-time) located on Birdsfoot Farm in Canton, New York. For next year, there are three full-time teachers and two part-time, Aubree Keese (Youngers), Leon Sawyko (science and Olders), Steve Molnar (Olders and special classes), Cathy Giglio (Middles math and special needs), and Ola Aldous (Olders art). We are seeking a full-time teacher to work with us in our Middles program. We currently have fourteen students (8 full-time, 6 part-
time) in the Middle's program in grades 3-6.

We are looking for a teacher with at least several years of experience working with children and an interest in democratic education. In addition to teaching basic academic and social skills to the Middles, the Middles teacher may be asked to share special interests like art, music, other languages, or computer science with students in the Youngers or Olders rooms. It is important to be comfortable with all ages, K-12, though this position is primarily working with the Middles. Teacher certification is not required.

Our ideal candidate would plan to stay with the school for several years or longer. Qualities we are looking for include: a passion for working with children, flexibility, patience, ability to think on your feet, long term interest in teaching, problem-solving abilities, strong communication skills, reliability, behavior management skills, a sense of humor, confidence, and self-motivation.

Little River provides a unique environment where students are trusted and seen as inherently self-motivated to learn about their world. Our teachers facilitate and support the students; quest for knowledge and understanding. Little River has multi-age classrooms where students learn together in cooperation and are grouped by their ability and interests. Little River provides strong academic classes in a small group setting. Some academic and special classes may have all the Middles, and others only three or four. The teachers need to generate excitement and interest with the students. Special emphasis is put on problem solving skills and hands-on experiences. All of the students and teachers come together several times a week in a morning meeting, facilitated by the students, for discussion, to make plans, and solve problems. Middles have two breaks each day for unstructured play. Many of those sessions are spent outside. Each student has an individualized curriculum developed by the student, teachers, and parents. Visit us on the web at www.littleriverschool.org for more information about the school.

Teachers are on-site from 7:30 am – 2:30 pm. After school hours, the teachers have a weekly staff meeting, do class preparations, and complete some administrative tasks. In the fall, we have conferences with each family to make an individualized curriculum for each student. There are all-school meetings every six weeks with the students, parents, and teachers.

Little River follows the local school district's calendar for holidays and snow days. Our final day is just before Memorial Day weekend. There are no classes during the summer months. Staff shares some minimal responsibilities in June and July and we use the month of August for training, preparation, and team building. The starting date is August 6th.

The teacher salary is $27,000- $30,000 a year (first year) with benefits including free tuition for a teacher’s child, a small health fund, and a supportive environment with a lot of academic freedom.

If this sounds like the job for you, please complete an application. You can find the application at www.littleriverschool.org.

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Jerry’s Response to John Merrow’s Article “I Was Just Following Orders”

See John Merrow’s Article Here.

Well, maybe, John!

It reminds me of when I was talking to a student at Sudbury Valley School. He said, “I’d rather be in an authoritarian military school than in a school in which the teachers let you help decide some of the rules, with them leading the process. I’d rather know who my enemies are!”

So I believe very strongly in real democratic process. In that process I fully expect that the meeting WON’T come up with the same decisions the staff might have made. I believe in my bones (and from experience) that the meeting will come up with BETTER decisions than authority figures or students would make by themselves.

And indeed, yes, our culture has come to crave authority because those students grew up in an authoritarian system. This is much like the Russian public got so used to dictatorship that they had trouble with freedom and gravitated back to having an authoritarian leader to tell them what to do.

One of my staff members did some research and discovered that voting participation in the United States began to drop as the public school system grew, and it didn’t really correlate with anything else.

I once did a consultation with a school that wanted me to demonstrate democratic process. On the way over I realized that the oldest student was 5 years old! I thought that I would have to create the agenda for them. It was my public school roots speaking to me. When I started the process and explained that a democratic meeting should talk about “what might be a problem in the school, or what might be a good idea for the school” every hand went up and the agenda was instantly made. Among other things they decided that nobody should eat chocolate after the morning because it had a caffeine-like substance in it–this was brought up by a 4 year old. Another 4 year old brought up that he thought that is someone had a cold they shouldn’t go out in the cold. This was passed. I have a video of the whole consultation, called “Pre-School Democracy.“

So. I feel you went some of the distance but not all the way there.

Jerry