Two years ago we started a holistic learning community in Bogotá Colombia. We are currently trying to implement a dual language program and looking for some guidance. We are looking for other alternative programs that have implemented unique self-directed ELL programs? We really want it to be unique in that it’s effective, student directed, and impactful. We are having trouble finding any schools who have done it a different way! Any guidance or direction would be greatly appreciated.
The Difference Between Personalized Learning and Learner-Centered Education
This week I was reading about Personalized Education in one of the newsletters we receive. We’ve heard a lot about this lately and the term seems to be used more and more. You might ask, does this mean that our concept of learner-centered education is being widely adopted?
Well, not necessarily. When we talk about learner-centered education in our schools we include the concept that what students learn should be based upon and built from their interests. And in the case of democratic schools, students are specifically empowered to make significant decisions about themselves, their education and their schools.
It could be argued that learner-centered education is a form of personalized education. But is personalized education learner-centered education? When you look carefully at what some schools and educators mean by this you discover that they are talking about an education DESIGNED BY TEACHERS to fit what they believe each student needs. It seems to me that this is quite different from learner-centered education. What do you think? We’d like to hear. Write to us. We’ll print some of your comments.
World Premier of Children’s Village Documentary
Filmmaker Marvin Blunte has made an incredible documentary about Moo Baan Dek, The Children’s Village, a very special school/orphanage in rural Thailand. I have known about it for decades, as it was inspired by Summerhill and runs democratically. The film, “6 Weeks to Mothers Day,” will have its world premier on Thursday November 16th at the DOC NYC film festival in lower Manhattan at the IFC Center.
It was founded 38 years ago by Rajani Dhongchai, known as Mae Aew, or Mother and her husband, Piphop. The film centers around the celebration of Mothers Day 38 years after Mae Aew founded the Village. She will be at the showing and will see the film for trhe first time!
It is very skillfully filmed and has many insightful and dramatic scenes. For example one shows two young twins meeting with their birth parents for their first time in memory. There are also several scenes with democratic meetings. The documentary is not a public relations piece but shows a variety of real life situations and issues.
If you are in the New York area, don’t miss this. Tickets are going very fast but here’s a link to get them.
If tickets are sold out please email: 6weekstomothersday@gmail.com and let them know you would like to be put on the waiting list. Additional screenings my be added.
6 WEEKS TO MOTHER’S DAY is also collaborating with Google Expeditions to create a virtual reality (VR) field trip, where teachers and students can use Google Cardboard to be transported to Children’s Village Thailand. This will be the first ever Expedition available in both English and Thai, further solidifying Mother Aew as one of the most progressive minded teachers in the country. Special edition “6 Weeks to Mother’s Day” Google Cardboards will be handed out to the audience after the DOC NYC screening, and instructions will be posted on the film’s Facebook page.
If you are further afield you can look for other places the film will show and you can reach the filmmaker at
or follow them on their social media pages here:
Website: www.6weekstomothersday.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/6WeekstoMothers
Authoritarian Culture Caused by Schools and it May be Too Late
Editorial by Jerry Mintz
‘There is much talk and hand wringing these days about the authoritarian turn in our government and the racism that seems to be bubbling up in our society. But none of this should be surprising when you consider the environment that most Americans have experienced as they have grown up.
Perhaps 95% of Americans, in public or private schools, have experienced a basically authoritarian system for 12 years in which they were expected to sit quietly at their desks most of the time, study the things that the teachers told them to study, not veer off into other directions, and prepare to be rigorously tested on these things (rigor, as is rigor mortis).
They also, for the most part, grew up in segregated or resegregated communities, based largely on discriminatory housing and economics. Many have not had much of a chance to really get to know people of other races or ethnic backgrounds.
All of this is effective training for craving the continuation of what they became used to, of authoritarian political rule and racist beliefs. It is therefore no wonder, as some have noted, that we now have an authoritarian government with racist tendencies.
By happenstance I was in Russia for the First New Schools Festival of the Soviet Union in August of 1991. There was a lot of positive optimism there about the future. After the conference we were hosted at Yeltzin’s While House in Moscow. While I was on my way back by train to England, the very next day, Yeltzin faced down the tank during the coup, from the very spot I had been standing the day before. There was no more Soviet Union.
This ushered in a period of real experimentation and change in Russia and people hoping to work toward real democracy. But because the population was very used to authoritarian dictatorship they seem to have devolved back to it. The majority seem comfortable with that while dissidents are again squashed.
If we want to avoid a similar fate in the United States I believe it is urgent to change our schools to empower students, to have them grow up experiencing responsibility and making real decisions about their education and their lives.
But how can we do this? We’ve only found one way so far, but it is too slow. We help change or create one learner-centered school at a time.
We truly need an Education Revolution now, before it is too late, and it may already be too late.
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