Rebooting learning in the cradle of civilisation.
We’re crowdfunding to transform the non-formal education ecosystem in Greece, step by step. Join us, and Nature Play, as we embark on an Agile Learning adventure. Our campaign is live throughout May 2018, so pledge today! https://igg.me/at/natureplay
In the land that birthed Western civilisation, the education system is in shambles. Self-Directed Education is illegal, while the rigid state curriculum is compulsory. Even the Greek newspaper, Kathimerini, states: “It’s a completely outdated system that is totally divorced from society’s real needs.” But three young families are setting out to catalyse change through Nature Play: an innovative, non-formal education startup on the island of Evia, in Central Greece.
Why are we doing this?
Motivated by love for our children, and for nature — and inspired by the exponential growth of Agile Learning Centres in the USA — we’re seeking to cultivate a vibrant and colourful social movement behind this Self-Directed Educational (SDE) model here on the stunning island of Evia in Central Greece. You’d be forgiven for not having heard of it. It’s an underdeveloped rural area and an undiscovered island paradise — all wrapped up in one — that’s only a 2 hour drive from Athens, a major European hub.
After our overwhelmingly success in convening Europe’s first ever Agile Learning Facilitator training in 2017, we’re back to take our growing ecosystem to the next level. And kickstart an emerging social movement by training a core group of Agile Learning Facilitators. This time round, we’re supported by the European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC), a non-profit promoting democratic education across Europe — and its brand new regional chapter EUDEC Greece. Something special is stirring in our hearts and minds, and of those that support us. But first things first.
What is Agile Learning?
A methodology and learning process that restores the joy of learning; cultivating confidence, intrinsic motivation, dynamic skill sets, mental agility, self-awareness, and group skills. An Agile Learning Centre doesn’t have a traditional curriculum. Instead, it teaches children and young people to navigate the world by cultivating core competencies in entrepreneurialism, digital literacy, resourcefulness, empathetic and efficient collaboration and self-directed initiative.
Why Agile Learning Facilitator training?
When it comes to teaching and learning, the medium is the message. In order to teach honesty, respect, authenticity, initiative, self-direction, follow-through, purpose, and shareable value, you must embody these traits. And so, we’ll be learning from those leading the way in the ALF field. People who have years of hands-on experience working with kids and starting-up ALC’s from scratch in the US and Cairo. Deep dives, Q&A’s, role-modelling and so much more. It’s like riding a bicycle — we will only learn by doing!
Who’s behind this?
I’m Marcus, and I’m an Agile Learning Facilitator-in-the-making.
As an Agile Learning Facilitator — please, call me ALF — I’m part of a rapidly growing global network of micro schools, homeschooling collectives and facilitators who share tools, practices, and resources, seeking to create a new educational paradigm that is adaptive to the people and places it serves. Together with my wife, Emily, we set up Nature Play to help catalyse real change in education. But we’re starting small, putting one foot in front of the other.
As coordinators of this project, we like to think we’re intrinsically motivated since we have 4 and 1 year old boys to keep us focused! You can learn more about us — or even reach out to say hello — via our Facebook page, by exploring this Medium blog, or by following Emily on Instagram.
**Curious to learn more? Read our vision statement and origin story, or check out this deep dive into #4 principles of Agile Learning on Evia Island.
Beyond our tiny fractal, Nature Play is supported by overlapping communities of interest including EUDEC Greece, mama EUDEC and the ALC network, which already span the globe!
- Discover more about our lead ALF trainers, Sierra Allen and Nariman Moustafa, who bring years of hands-on experience, as well as intimate knowledge of the critical startup phase.
- Be inspired by the pioneering work of fellow European pioneers Zoe Burgess and Expression Education in Portugal and Flow ALC and Giulia Ambroso in Italy.
- Grow with us in collaboration with EUDEC and it’s brand new and much needed regional chapter, EUDEC Greece. Special thanks to Zoe and Evangelos for the key roles they’re playing in catalysing the Self-Directed Education ecosystem in Greece.
- Dive into the depths of the Agile Learning Centre Network and the Alliance for Self-Directed Education.
Meet Nature Play, a non-formal education startup and Agile Learning Community (ALC) in rural Greece.
On Wednesday 2nd of May 2018 we’re launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise €3,000 in pledges towards an Access Fund for a series of catalytic trainings in Agile Learning Facilitation.
The goal is simple — to kick-start the Self-Directed Education ecosystem in Greece.
What does Nature Play do?
- We’re an Agile Learning Community. Discover more about this exponentially growing global network here.
- We’re a non-formal education collective. Inspired by Wild + Free in the US, we’re committed to co-creating a transformative learning community of our own right here on Evia.
- We need your support to help kick-start an emerging social movement by training a core group of Agile Learning Facilitators in Greece this summer.
- This series of transformative trainings will empower Nature Play — as well as other education startups just like us in Athens and on islands like Crete and Paros — to make more regular offerings to learners of all ages, from weekly Nature Days to monthly ALF Weekends, pre-school groups to youth clubs!
The Trainings
It’s hard to overstate the importance of our annual ALF Summer training intensives, as well as our monthly ALF Weekends. They’re hugely important!
- Because #1, we get to learn how the model works from leading practitioners — ALF’s with years of hands-on experience working with kids and starting-up ALC’s from scratch in the US and Cairo. Deep dives, Q&A’s, role-modelling and so much more. It’s like riding a bicycle — we will only learn by doing!
- And because #2, these regular gatherings have become the platform from which experience is shared and trust is established. Trust and shared experience is the fabric of community, and thanks to these Weekends the embryonic form of a vibrant social movement is beginning to emerge!
Where does my money go?
Your pledges will directly support:
- Four places on a mini-series of 3 x ALF Weekends in June and July. An ALF Weekend is an invaluable taste and see experience offering families and educators an immersive, playful experience of Agile Learning Facilitation. We hope they will serve as an incubator for an emerging network of Self-Directed Education projects in Greece.
- Six places on our annual ALF Summer Greece. An ALF Summer is the ALC network’s long-established training intensive. It offers an experiential + exponential learning curve in Self-Directed Education and Intentional Culture Creation. These bursary places will specifically target pioneering individuals and families who’re ready to put this training into practice in their local places, but who are unable to participate, simply because of lack of money.
What do you get?
AKA What cool stuff and transformative experiences we can give you, in exchange for the hard cash you can give us!
- (€15) Personalised postcard from ALF Summer Greece.
- (€30) EUDEC Greece individual membership as “founding supporter.”
- (€50) Enter a raffle to win 2 x tickets to EUDEC 2018.
- (€75) Participate! Ticket to an ALF Weekend.
- (€75) Enable! 2 x tickets to an ALF Weekend, donated in solidarity.
- (€100) Skype with a Nature Play co-founder.
- (€150) Participate! 2 x tickets to an ALF Weekend.
- (€150) Enable! 2 x tickets to an ALF Weekend, donated in solidarity.
- (€250) Skype with a Keynote of EUDEC 2018
- (€300) EUDEC Greece organisational membership as “founding sponsor.”
- (€500) A unique weekend-long Transform Evia experience.
- (€1200) Attend our ALF Summer Greece training.
What about this EUDEC Greece Start-up Fund?
Beyond these all-important trainings, we’re collaborating with EUDEC Greece, an umbrella network campaigning for Free Choice in Education on behalf of families and educators all over Greece.
Specifically, your pledges will fund the registration and critical startup phase of a Union for Free Choice in Education, paying for all kinds of things including legal fees, graphic and web development and other business critical professional services. This Union is in essence a non-profit association that will facilitate the collective legal representation of families and educators who are ready and willing to unite around our inalienable human right to free choice in education.
We’ve got dozens of families and individuals all over Greece who are already signed up to become founding members. But like so many good things which are ready to thrive here in Greece, money remains an obstacle. All we need now is a financial boost to get this campaign up and running. And that’s why I’m here asking you to join the adventure!
OK, I’m stoked! How do I get behind this campaign?
Visit our crowdfunder! And give what you can.
Every little helps. And pledging €30 is a whole 1% of our target!
Spread the word.
We need your advice and connections to help us build a social movement for Free Choice in Education. Become part of our story crowd today and join us in telling a new story in Greece — hand in hand with the next generation!
Share this campaign
Please share, share, share on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Still on the fence and want more of the nitty gritty?
What problems and solutions are we addressing here?
The stakes don’t get any higher than this, folks…
Education is in crisis.
It’s time to stand up our right to free choice in education!
Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms lays it down in black and white, enshrining Free Choice in Education as a fundamental right which we — as European citizens — should expect to enjoy. And yet Self-Directed Education remains illegal in Greece and many other European states.
The key phrase here is “in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” This needs a little unpacking…
…so, here’s our pitch — or at least version 1.0!
- We’re witnesses to an old story which no longer makes sense.
- We’re experiencing our world changing before our eyes.
- Today a social movement towards free choice in education is gathering momentum, and we feel compelled to blow as much wind into its sails as we possibly can!
- Let’s be authentic and transparent — we understand that Self-Directed Education is illegal in Greece. And, we know hundreds if not thousands of families who would love to see breakthrough in this critical part of our lives.
- So let’s be strong and courageous. Let’s test and — we hope — change this legal context, for the benefit of ourselves and countless other families and educators all over Greece, both now and in future generations.
- We’re confident we can win the backing of high profile European NGO’s to help us bring this campaign home.
And so it begins. We really can tell a new story here in Greece, hand in hand with the next generation. But it really does all start here, with this simple crowdfunding campaign — so please, get behind us today!
The ALC model is growing exponentially all over in the world.
Let’s position this embryonic Greek ecosystem as pioneers in this emerging field.
- Our approach is to adapt ALF tools for non-formal education, and frame ALC’s in Greece as social enterprise optimised for families and educators seeking greater flexibility and choice.
- We’re paying attention to the economic reality. Most of the families who share our conviction cannot afford International Private School tuition fees, even if there was a Self-Directed Education option available in Greece.
- Our solution is to shift the legal responsibility, so that it is held squarely by the families themselves. Because if education startups like Nature Play are technically not-schools, we get to start with a blank canvas. No regulation, no curriculum, no compromise.
- Meanwhile, our Union for Free Choice in Education will become a solidarity network for parents and educators, advocating for a desperately needed legal breakthrough in times of economic and cultural crisis.
- We’re acutely aware of Greece’s appeal to a global community of Worldschoolers, homeschoolers and unschoolers. So let’s make Greece the world’s #1 destination for Self-Directed Education tourism!
Who benefits from your generosity?
This is real, folks. Your pledge today is a gift of lifelong learning which could have a game-changing impact in one of three transformative ways.
- Our scholars on our ALF Weekends and ALF Summer trainings. We’re seeding a network of Agile Learning Facilitators-in-the-making and ALC-inspired startups on Crete, on Paros, in Athens.
- Our Nature Play startup here on Evia Island. A pilot project and, we hope, an exemplar non-formal education startup. We’re building early traction on a daily basis, which is why we need every supporter, every share on social media, every pledge on this campaign we can get to help us grow and thrive.
- A grassroots network of families and educators all over Greece. Working in collaboration with EUDEC Greece we’re designing a simple and scalable model, open to everyone and open source. Help us build a non-profit association to represent families an educators without a voice.
What makes us the right people to pull this off?
We’re taking an iterative and integrative approach!
EUDEC Greece is a groundbreaking umbrella network uniting the Self-Directed Education community here in Greece in a truly historic way — inspired by our hosting of the European Democratic Education Community’s annual conference on Crete in August 2018.
Meanwhile, Transform Evia is a stunningly ambitious bioregional scale design challenge which knits together Nature Play with a whole ecosystem of other innovative social enterprises based on Evia island. Despite our big picture being absolutely huge, we’re learning to stay grounded — putting one foot in front of the other and slowly walking our vision into reality.
Nice idea, but what about early traction. Do you have any?
Yes, actually we do! It’s early days, but we’re starting to make little waves here on Evia island and all over Greece.
- We successfully raised £3,000 (£1,500 in crowdfunding plus £1,500 in match-funding) in June 2017 to fund six scholarship places on Europe’s first ever ALF Summer.
- We successfully raised over £10,000 in November 2016 for our Origin Club campaign — a collaborative trade project which recently won approval for 3 years of European R&D funding to help build an exemplar Community Supported Agriculture scheme in our local bioregion.
- This year’s EUDEC 2018 conference — happening on Crete from 1–7 August — will bring together a community of 400+ SDE pioneers from all over Greece and right across Europe. We fully intend for it to be catalytic in terms of impact and legacy!
Ready to pledge?
Then visit our crowdfunder, select your perk and help us plant seeds for meaningful change in rural Greece! https://igg.me/at/natureplay
Got questions?
Please don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello!
Get in touch by emailing marcusjohnletts@gmail.com, via our Facebook page, by commenting anywhere on this Medium blog or by following Emily’s Instagram channel.
