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IDEC : International Democratic Education Conference

Comments on previous IDECs

IDEC 2003
There were about 500 participants at the 2003 IDEC in Albany, New York, but only 470 got into the official list. They were mostly, of course, from the USA, but also from 23 other countries. Here are those countries, with the number of people who came from them:-

Australia (6), Brazil (1), Canada (15), China (1), France (1), Germany (5), Guatemala (7), Hungary (2), India (10), Israel (7), Japan (11), Nepal (3), The Netherlands (5), New Zealand (3), Palestine (2), Poland (6), Russia (4), South Africa (3), Switzerland (2), Taiwan (5), Thailand (2), UK (4), Ukraine (11).

The speakers were digitally recorded by Dan Peterson, and the recordings are on sale from www.educationrevolution.org/speeches.html. They are available on individual CDs, which can be ordered for $10 each, or an MP3 of 16 key speakers on two disks for $19.95. This includes presentations by Bill Ayers, Susan Ohanian, John Taylor Gatto, Dave Lehman, Yacov Hecht, Matt Hern, Michael and Susan Klonsky, Pat Montgomery, Rabbi Yehuda Fine, Zoe Readhead and others.

Here are a few comments from people who attended the IDEC:

I am still on cloud 9 from the conference. Everything so positive, sincere and loving. Seeing Zoe (Readhead, from Summerhill) again was super, just super. She made a wonderful presentation and the sustaining applause was a tribute to Neill, Summerhill, and the whole idea of participatory democracy.
Herb Snitzer, USA

I believe that this conference means so much to the reform of traditional education systems in both developed and developing countries. I have learned a lot about democratic education. I am sure that I will choose democratic education as the concentration of my PHD studies at U Mass Amherst which starts in this fall and try to start the first democratic school in China in the near future.
Xiao, China

It has been unbelievably wonderful to be surrounded by people doing similar things to Tamariki School in New Zealand and to know that I don't have to constantly explain to people who have no idea where I'm coming from.
Diana Scullin, New Zealand

What I heard and learned in Troy changed my way to think about education, to think about kids, because I got a sense for what it means to be free.
Marco Ernesto Bigu Bichsel, Switzerland

I think I'm heading for a breakdown as a result of the inspiration I got at
IDEC:
- we're starting a group for "high school" age students - largely inspired by interactions with The New School;
- input about IDEC at a conference I have just attended has inspired a diverse group in South Africa to start a movement towards Freedom in education in South Africa - more on this will follow when my feet touch ground;
- I'm trying to write a book;
- I was invited to help plan our local government's policy re home-education, and probably to train govt. officials who will be involved in home-ed.
Sharon Caldwell, South Africa

I will never forget the IDEC. Maybe I will never have another chance to go to an international conference like IDEC, where you can meet people that believe in self government with children, teenagers and adults in schools. Here in Brazil this is very rare. But, I hope I can save some money to travel again some day, because I think that this exchange of cultures was the most important thing.
Marcel Noznica Penessor (Lumiar - Brazil)

This conference opened to me and to Ibrahim (from Hope Flowers School, Bethlehem) a new learning opportunity which I believe has the source for a changing in our country and the future in our area.
Mara List (Democratic School of Hadera, Israel)

IDEC 2004
The IDEC in Bhubaneshwar, India, attracted about 300 participants from seventeen different countries, including Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Croatia for the first time. Most participants from the West who had never visited India before were dumbfounded by India itself - the poverty, the beauty, the food, the crowds, the social hierarchy - but they recovered to have a wonderful conference.
The group from Room 13, Scotland, wrote a long report. This is an extract from their conclusion:

IDEC 2004 left us with conflicting thoughts. It was interesting to compare ancient Indian concepts with those of Plato and to discover them virtually identical. It was interesting to meet and discuss with a wide variety of people, mostly not professional teachers, where education in our respective countries has gone wrong. it was good to note that it is a world wide perception that there are better ways to teach than to insist on every child doing an identical pre-planned course of action at an identical age. It was good to meet a variety of young people from many cultures who had had some control over how they were educated and to discover that the were just as (or more!) articulate, erudite, intelligent and silly as we thought we were. It was worrying to discover that some of the adults were just interested in theory and had obviously never actually tried teaching for real … the professor of 'alternative education' with his degree from an established university!
It was good and important to spend time with people our own age who really truly care about education.
Passionately deeply care.
More than most teachers we have met.
Room 13

Amukta Mahapatra, the organiser of the conference, wrote this in an email:

I think the most important aspect of Democratic Education is the preparation of the teachers with an international experience. I would love to set up an informal, exchange programme for teachers, so that educators can see for themselves what can be done in different situations. Now most feel restricted by the boundaries of the Indian context, but once one looks at the broader human context, they will feel more free and light. Even being at IDEC 2004, made so many of them feel free. One person, Rama from Bangalore said, " I am going back with so much freedom."
Amukta Mahapatra

One first-time participant described what many people have felt at their first IDEC:

"I can't stop thinking of many of you, IDEC participants, you are somehow a kind of drug. I don't know what happened on that conference, but it was something amazing."
sofie keymeulen

More recent IDECs
Reports on IDEC 2005 in Berlin and IDEC 2006 in Sidney can be found on their respective websites – www.idec2005.org and www.idec2006.org.