Harmony School, a small, independent school in Bloomington, Indiana, seeks a permanent secondary science teacher to start on January 1, 2019. The ideal candidate will relish the challenge of designing their own curricula in environmental, biological, and physical sciences. They will love working with young people inside and outside the classroom and appreciates the variety of ways that students learn. Harmony utilizes a project-based, holistic educational approach, which requires personalized involvement in the academic, social-emotional growth and development of our students. Looking for qualified applicants, certification not required, with experience teaching science and enthusiasm for working with adolescents. Please send resume to P.O. Box 1787, Bloomington, IN 47402 or officemanager@harmonyschool.org
Annual Meeting of the Modern School at Rutgers University in NJ to Feature Unique Performance This Year!
The Modern School was the first significant democratic school of the 20th century, predating Summerhill. It was based on the work of Francisco Ferrer of Spain. After he was unjustly executed in 1909, Modern Schools were started all over the world in his name, including one that started in 1911 in New York City. Even though the last Modern School in the USA closed in 1958, its attendees were so profoundly affected by it that they continue to have reunions every year, although they are now called meetings as their numbers dwindle.
I first heard about the Modern School from Nellie Dick, a former teacher there, when she was 96 years old, in 1989. I’ve attended most of the annual meetings since then and have met many truly remarkable people there. For example, one was Alfred Levitt, who was 100 years old when I met him there. He was an immigrant from Ukraine, His teacher was Will Durant and a fellow student was Ariel. They became a famous writing couple selling millions of their books on philosophy. Meanwhile Levitt studied art with some famous Dadaist artists who dropped into the school. I attended a special event at Ellis Island to honor Levitt, at age 103, as one of the most important people to pass through there. They displayed 20 of the paintings he had made, borrowed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You can see a video of it here. You can read some of the history of the Modern School here. One of the pictures from 1911 is of Durant, and I assume Levitt was one of the students in it.
Following is the official announcement of the Annual Meeting. Rutgers houses the archives of the Modern School. If you are nearby you should go!
The Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Modern School this year will again be co-sponsored by Rutgers Libraries. The gathering will begin with a musical theater performance followed by a speaker and refreshments. This year will mark our 46 th annual gathering of the Friends . It will be held from 1 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Saturday, September 15, 2018 in the Remigo U. Pane Room in the Alexander Library, Rutgers University. The building and room are accessible for the disabled . Directions and parking availability are given on page 2. There is a $20 entrance fee to cover the cost of the presentations and refreshments.
The play is called Mother Jones in Heaven featuring a musical theater performance by Vivian Nesbitt. ED
More information and directions here
Please Read This Note To You From AERO
AERO supports educational alternatives around the world. There are a lot of dramatic stories about transformation that AERO has been a part of. For example, we came back from the International Democratic Education Conference that we cosponsored in 2003 and worked with people to create the first democratic school in the NYC area in decades, Brooklyn Free School, which led to several others in the NYC area. Subsequently, we worked with people to start Manhattan Free School from the waiting list for Brooklyn Free School. When that nearly folded several years later I was invited to what was supposed to be their final meeting. At that meeting, I encouraged the parents, students and staff members there to use the resources they had, a nonprofit status and a building in which to operate and get volunteer parents to keep going. One parent, from a software background, volunteered to be the interim director. Because of his IT background, he applied the agile learning approach to the school and thus Manhattan Free School morphed into the first Agile Learning Center. The idea has now been spreading around the world.
One of the most dramatic alternatives we work with is the Sri Aurobindo Ashram/orphanage in Kathmandu, Nepal. It was started by Ramchandra who ran away from Nepal to India at 12 years old. Educating himself there, he returned 20 years later and saw the great poverty in Nepal with many homeless children on the street. He then started the Ashram, an orphanage that now takes care of over 200 children with nothing paid for the children and no government subsidies. They raise 100% of their food at the Katmandu location and at another one in southern Nepal. They also started a retreat center in the mountains, staffed with graduates, to help support the Ashram.
The children there are raised almost like middle-class children. They now have a school that goes through 10th grade, but they send their graduates on to high school and university. One, who came as a 4-year-old now has a masters’ degree in math and physics from Germany and has returned to be principal of their school. Another also came back to teach and is now teaching at a gap year program. He recently visited us after bringing 22 American students back from Nepal after visiting the Ashram and other adventures. Another graduate became a world-class dancer.
The Ashram was preparing to host the 2018 IDEC when the deadly earthquake hit Nepal. As fortune would have it, all the students were outside unloading hay when it hit, and nobody was injured. But it did tremendous damage to their buildings. AERO members raised $10,000 to help them with repairs and found other resources, such as an architect to help them design the repairs. We also arranged a $5000 donation from a famous actress to help them buy a new milk truck to help them deliver excess milk from their dairy to sell in Kathmandu. They now plan to host the IDEC in 2020 in the new school building they are erecting brick by brick. You can see a video we made of the ashram here.
This is an example of the work that AERO continues to do. We do not receive any government funds and foundation grants only cover about 20% of our costs. This is why it is important that our new membership initiative to get 100 more sustaining donors is so important. We are just a small nonprofit that depends on the niche of readers and supporters who understand that children are natural learners and believe in learner-centered education.
Nevertheless, we put out a newsletter every week of the year, have an annual conference, have published more than 10 books , and have an annual school starters course. We also have the #1 alternative education website, according to Google, with a half million accessing it every year. We don’t know how many schools and programs have been inspired by AERO but we do know of more than 100 we have directly helped to start. This year’s school starters online course begins September 24th.
So, if you see we have gone to the effort of putting out yet another e-newsletter, even if we seem to be selling something that helps us keep going, please open it, and if you have time, give us some feedback. If we ask you to become a sustainer or AERO member, please consider it.
Thanks!
Jerry and The AERO Team
Friends of the Modern School Reunion will be held on September 15, 2018!
[su_document url=”http://www.educationrevolution.org/store/files/2018/08/2018-Gathering-p-1-1.pdf” width=”1600″ height=”1600″]
