Dear All,
I'd like to ask if there's anyone out there in IDEC land who would like to come to Poland for a while and talk about setting up and running democratic groups/ schools etc. or the experience of being a participant in them.
Unfortunately none of those groups have any funds, they are all informal gatherings, but as our guest you wouldn't have to pay for food or accommodation in Poland. You could stay at our house in southern Poland and use it as a base for travelling and other people could put you up in other parts of Poland.
There are three situations I'm involved in that that person could talk to and work with.
- The Universe of English (democratic English club)
- This is a group of mainly 15-16 year-olds. We meet about once a week to do things in English; talking, discussing, watching films, listening to English language music, talking to guests. We meet in a room made available by a religious organisation. The group has a really solid sense of itself now after about 6 months of activity, there's a good energy and momentum there. The youth don't have much experience with planning and organising and running group activities in a democratic way. In our meetings they would generally rather I took the lead role, as the chair. They feel uncomfortable doing what they see as 'giving orders' to their friends and peers.
- A democratic education interest group with name still undecided
- This is a group of mainly teachers but not only. The bulk of the group are English teachers who know each other from another group which has been focussing on self-directed, autonomous, community approaches to language learning over the last 5 years. The new group wants to know all it can about democratic education by reading, discussing, taking part in and organising workshops and conferences and meeting people who are involved in democratic education.
- A family and young children's group that is just starting up
- This group is just starting out. It's a group of families with small children (0-7 years old, mainly 3-7), who are planning to organise regular meetings for adults and children to join in with side by side. It's a kind of Saturday family pre-school/school run in a democratic spirit. We've met once so far. In the back of my mind is to do all we can during our Saturay meetings which then could spin-off in setting up a school in the future. But having said that we want to meet and do these things anyway, whatever may happen later. We are planning to do the kind of activities that I imagine go on in home-schoolers' family get-togethers, although I haven't had direct experience of those. I'm talking about playing, some art and crafts, music and dance, visiting people in their workplaces, going on camping weekends etc. etc. Obviously the potential is endless.
I'd really like the guest to talk about ways of coming to decisions, the dynamics of working with groups, also the nitty-gritty of setting up a school.
Please let me know off-line if you might be able to find the time for that, maybe in May-June.
(By the way, friends, those three initiatives have all been started up since IDEC 2003. So if anybody sees Jim Connor, please pass this message on to him).
David (frenchman2@wp.pl)
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