Workshops Group A - 1:25 pm: - 2:35 pm: TBD
(All Following Workshops Are 70 - Minutes In Length and Will Run Concurrently.)
1:25 - 2:35
“How To Start and Run a Tuition-Free SDE Cooperative Unbusiness.”
with Dr. Sundiata
It’s purpose is to encourage unschoolers to not only deconstruct and challenge conventional education but also to deconstruct and challenge capitalism by organizing outside its the confines. My motivation for coming up with this concept is to make unschooling programs, like ALC’s for example, accessible to people no matter their socio-economic background. It’s also to create a fail-proof way for people to organize without the risk of a program closing due to a lack of money like so many programs do.
Presenter Bio ~ Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta is an Independent Educator/Anti-Oppression & Social Sustainability Facilitator. Sundiata is the co-creator of GROW, a network of people and initiatives designed to promote and create social, economic, and political systems centered on Liberation, Sustainability, and Unconditional Love. You can also listen to his podcast Theory of Indivisibility
Make Your Own Radical School:
with Ndindi Kitonga PhD. and Scott Stubbe
The Angeles Workshop School model Angeles Workshop School co-founders Ndindi Kitonga PhD. and Scott Stubbe discuss the philosophy and praxis developed in their revolutionary secondary school in Los Angeles. They will address the practical and conceptual challenges and solutions for starting your own school, as well as the many benefits and liberating aspects of "going rogue".
Presenter Bios ~ Scott Stubbe and Ndindi Kitonga, PhD are the husband-and-wife founders of Angeles Workshop School, a revolutionary independent school in West Los Angeles that incorporates role-playing games and social justice into a democratic learning model, providing a truly authentic education for inquisitive teens. Both Scott and Ndindi are award-winning educators with decades of experience, as well as artists and activists.
Scott, a Los Angeles native, is also a filmmaker and designer of over a dozen educational RPGs. He has led his students to six California Student Media Fest wins, and two Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted film awards. Scott has spoken on RPG-based socio-emotional learning for students on the spectrum at San Diego Comic Con and Wonder Con.
Ndindi is a Kenyan-American revolutionary educator. She is an organizer and activist with the International Marxist Humanist Organization and the Association of Raza Educators. Ndindi is also a published scholar in the areas of critical pedagogy, and democratic education.
Liberating African American Students through the Sudbury Model
with Dr. Anika T. Prather
Ever since discovering the Sudbury model I have become acutely aware of how important it is for African American students to have more opportunities to be educated in liberated environments. It is critical to our progress, I believe.
I have come to believe that for my own children and the students I work with, the Sudbury model (and other similar philosophies) is a very effective way to truly free African American children from the “plantation.”
Traditional schooling has been just an extension of the physical plantation for most African American students....slavery by another name.
My topic will discuss the importance of the Sudbury model and other similar, liberating and student-directed educational philosophies in the education of African American students.
Presenter Bio ~ Dr. Anika T. Prather earned her B.A. from Howard University in elementary education. She also has earned several graduate degrees in education from New York University and Howard University. She has a Masters in liberal arts from St. John’s College (Annapolis) and a PhD in English, Theatre and Literacy Education from the University of Maryland (College Park).
Her research focus is on building literacy with African American students through engagement in the books of the Canon. She has served as a teacher, supervisor for student teachers (University of MD), director of education and
Head of School. Currently she is the founder of The Living Water School, located in Southern Maryland.
The Living Water School is a unique faith-based school for independent learners, inspired by the Sudbury Model. She is married to Damon M. Prather who is a chemical engineer and they have three young children. One unique thing about Anika and her family is that they also have an urban farm where they raise angora rabbits to use for spinning wool to make yarn and for selling to other fiber artists. They reside in the DC metropolitan area.
Workshops Group B - 4:30 pm - 5:40 pm - TBD
(All Following Workshops Are 70 - Minutes In Length and Will Run Concurrently.)
4:30 - 5:40
So You Want to Start an Educational Alternative?
with Jerry Mintz
Join Jerry Mintz the Executive Director of AERO to learn tips to start your own educational alternative. Jerry will be sharing his knowledge from helping to start hundreds of educational alternatives across the globe and the latest ideas from the AERO schools starter course.
Presenter Bio ~ Jerry Mintz has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement for over 30 years. In addition to his seventeen years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped found more than fifty public and private alternative schools and organizations. He has lectured and consulted in more than twenty-five countries around the world.
In 1989, he founded the Alternative Education Resource Organization and since then has served as it’s Director. Jerry was the first executive director of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS), and was a founding member of the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC).
In addition to several appearances on national radio and TV shows, Jerry’s essays, commentaries, and reviews have appeared in numerous newspapers, journals, and magazines including The New York Times, Newsday, Paths of Learning, Green Money Journal, Communities, Saturday Review, Holistic Education Review as well as the anthology Creating Learning Communities (Foundation for Educational Renewal, 2000).
Jerry was Editor-in-Chief for the Handbook of Alternative Education (Macmillan, 1994), and the Almanac of Education Choices (Macmillan/Simon & Schuster, 1995). He is the author of No Homework and Recess All Day: How to Have Freedom and Democracy in Education (AERO, 2003) and is editor of Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Story (AERO, 2010).
Supporting Children of Color in Self Directed Education.
with Crystal Byrd Farmer
What are the unique challenges that families face when educating children of color (i.e., Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous children)? How do we acknowledge cultural differences in approaches to educating children while holding to our practices in SDE spaces? In this interactive workshop, we will discuss the challenges of diversity and practical ways to connect with families of color without alienating them.
Presenter Bio ~ Crystal Byrd Farmer is an engineer turned educator in North Carolina. She opened Gastonia Freedom School in 2018 based on her experience of being both a parent and a facilitator in the Agile Learning Network. Gastonia Freedom School is an ALC whose mission is to empower marginalized children in embracing their passions and flip the script on their expected life stories. Her autistic seven year old daughter attends the school. Crystal is passionate about encouraging people to change their perspectives on diversity, relationships, and the world through her speaking and writing. www.bigsisterteams.com
Matrix of a Learner
with Tracy Hanson
Life is like a bicycle wheel. It can go backwards or forwards depending on who's riding it and it's not broken. In this workshop, you will learn about the Matrix of a Learner and why it is called a Philosophy for Life. You will discover the three parts of the Matrix as related to a bicycle and perhaps begin to discover why we aren’t moving forward as we wish; either as an individual, a group, a community, nation, or world.
Presenter Bio ~
Tracy Hanson is the founder and CEO of Next Generation Global Education. Over her 38 years in education, she has worked in both the private and public sector as a teacher, director, consultant, and administrator. She has worked with elementary students, medically fragile multi-handicapped children, gifted learners, adults recovering from a break-down, birth to 3 year olds just to name a few.
One of the greatest ironies of her life was that she ended up in the field of education, given her own struggles through a system that she was unable to fit into as a learner.
Throughout her educational career, her goal was to insure all her learners were successful. Unfortunately there were and still are, too many obstacles (such as bureaucratic control and perpetual testing of arbitrary standards) and not enough support to accomplish those goals.
Tracy then had the opportunity to develop a middle school curriculum for a special middle school. Open Educational Resources (OER) were just becoming recognized and I used them to develop and monitor an individualized program for each of the learners. The success of this approach was astonishing. Behavior problems melted away, students became motivated and excited about their learning which lead to being successful, something none of them had experienced in their previous school years.
Tracy replicated this program into a K-8 private school called “Mistacres”. Her students attended virtually including a group of 15 from Nairobi, Kenya. She realized we could develop this concept further and use it to build a global learning environment where learners from around the world would have the opportunity to learn with and from each other.
Thus, Next Generation Global Education (NGGE) was born. At its foundation is a new model for education called “The Matrix of a Learner” which puts each of us in charge of our learning with the support and coaching of mentors; parents, peers, teachers, community and global members. Together we are creating a global educational environment where learners can learn with and from each other.
Tracy says ~ "I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to travel to NGGE members in other countries so together we can create positive change in education. Education is the gateway to creating a better understanding of each other, more responsible and collaborative society opening the doors for a more peaceful world."
