Green ALF – EXPANSION Training

Join us in Agile Learning Facilitator training programme

“Education is the sum of everything a person learns that enables that person to live a satisfying and meaningful life. Self-Directed Education is education that derives from the self-chosen activities and life experiences of the person becoming educated, whether or not those activities were chosen deliberately for the purpose of education.” The Alliance of Self-Directed Education.

In Agile Learning Centers, the facilitators make sure that the children and youth have all the optimal conditions to learn freely, with intention, playfulness, planfulness, curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and agility. 

Take a look at what is Self-Directed Education (SDE), what is the Agile Learning model and how learning in nature can have amazing benefits for people. If you intend to change the way you are involved in education – as an educator: teacher, trainer, professor, youth worker, animator, facilitator, parent, join us in this Self-Directed endeavour, in Cluj-Napoca, mid July. 

Our programme is structured in 2 parts: 

1) “Overview” – you have the opportunity to discover the SDE values, the foundations and main tools of Agile Learning; 
2) “Expansion” – going deeper into the Self-Directed Education by practicing it in a week of agile education: mixed-age group of children spending their week with Green School, parents of SDE kids sharing their experience with anyone interested, Green School ALFs sharing some of their experiences, the facilitators for this event and YOU – the people interested in Agile Learning.

Possibilities 

At Green School we learn the Self-Directed way, including at the events for adults. This means we are not designing a great training script that is supposed to “fit all”, but we are creating learning spaces for you to be able to plan, discover, understand, create, practice, question, argue, justify, develop, reflect, share. 

Our facilitators who are making the offerings are all trained in Agile Learning and are coming from different organisations, with different perspectives.

Among the offerings you can find:

• Agile Learning – the tree model,
• Agile Learning tools and instruments,
• Self-Directed Educational philosophies,
• Flying Squad – place-based education & education in public,
• Circle Of Security and attachment theories,
• Children’s needs,
• Forest Education,
• How to start an Agile Learning Group,
• How to start an Agile Learning Centre, 
• Communication and public relations in a new ALC,
• Financial aspects of a start-up group,
• Woodcrafting, 
• Junk/ Free play,
• Roleplaying,
• Biomimicry and others.

You can make your own offerings and requests, in both of the trainings. You can share ideas, methods, challenges that you faced or are facing, games, books and whatever you feel like sharing. 

When thinking what you can offer as experiences, consider that we are going to use the Green School spaces: indoor (training room, living room, kitchen) and outdoor (gazebo, hammock area, the hill) and surroundings: the Someș river is 4 minutes away and the forest 20-25 minutes away – walking distances. 

You can also join the offerings of 4 of the Green School facilitators, a group of parents and a group of Green School children. 

In Green ALF we will host learners of different ages (children, youth and adults), different learning styles, different personalities, different genders, different religions, different political views. Please consider that Green School is a safe space for people who can be whomever  they want to be. We are a discrimination free and a consent-based, safe culture.

Overview – foundations training course (2 days)

Two days of possibilities to meet people from around the world and discover the values of Self-Directed Education and the foundations of Agile Learning with them. We will meet every morning at 9.00, have a light breakfast together and set intentions for the day. You can create or join different offerings in order to have a good day and to learn according to your own intentions. At the end of the day we reflect on our processes and we express final thoughts for the experiences. Our facilitators, children and 3 of the Green School facilitators will make their offerings around the topics: education, learning, schooling, pedagogy, andragogy, Self-Directed Education, Agile Learning, Agile Learning methodology and tools, forest education, green schooling, EQ games.  

You can participate in Green ALF Overview without participating in the Expansion training, but you cannot join the Expansion training without the Overview. 

Expansion –  training course (+5 days) 

After participating in “Overview” you can go deeper into understanding Agile Learning philosophy, experiencing a school week, within the cycle: intention, creation, reflecting and sharing. 
We go deeper into understanding Self-Directed Education, Agile Learning, educational tools and methods that children, youth and adults can be interested in and learn from, by themselves or with others (with or without facilitators). 

Reminder: You can participate in Green ALF Overview without participating in the Expansion training, but you cannot join the Expansion training without the Overview. 

Facilitators

Alexander Khost – is a youth rights activist from New York City, now living in Cluj-Napoca where he volunteers for Green School.
He has founded several projects focusing on providing youth with rare opportunities to self-manage, lead and delegate the decisions over their own lives.

He most recently co-founded Flying Squads, a youth liberation and anti-oppression collective that believes in the abolition of divided spaces between young people and their community.Previously he co-founded and co-ran the junkyard playground, play:groundNYC and founded a democratic free school.

He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Tipping Points, the book and magazine publisher for the Alliance for Self-Directed Education.

He has three children of his own that all are raised in a trustful parenting, Self-Directed Education environment. 

​He is a certified K-12 fine art teacher in New York State, holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design, the New School University, and a BA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. He has taught internationally through various English as a second language programs.

Ancuța Chibulcutean – passionate about Self-Directed Education, mother of a self-directed child that learns with Green School Romania, participated in the Green ALF training in 2022 and in different SDE events with practitioners, facilitators and parents, through SDE Friday – a Green School project. In the school she is part of the Educational Working Group, working on the Living Library methodology and on planning SDE events for youth and young adults. Outside of the school Ancuța is Head of Product, Solution Architect, Scrum Master and Engineering Manager. She is a people advocate, passionate about learning, leadership and mental health.

Sonia Khost – co-founded Green School after gaining her PhD in Educational Sciences (2013) from University of Bucharest and University of Vienna. She started to study and research the value of nature-based education programmes in 2003 and, with time, became an advocate for Nature-Based Education and Self-Directed learning.

She participated in multiple international training events in non-formal and formal learning contexts and in 2018 she did her ALF Summer training in New York with NY ALC, after creating already Self-Directed learning contexts.

In 2021 she returned to the US as a researcher studying ”sense of belonging and emotional security and wellbeing in SDE”, as a Research Scholar in University of Delaware. Sonia is an educational animator, trained in the French system (in Romania and in France), with extensive socio-educational animation experience, being specialised in theatre (shadow theatre and black light theatre) and animation for inclusion and anti-discrimination. Trained in psychodrama, Sonia is using her experience in creating learning spaces for children, youth and adults.