The ASDE Young People in Education working group held a workshop at the First Annual International Youth Rights Convention yesterday in East Wichita, Kansas. The topic of the workshop was: Naming Conventions for Rights-Centric Educational Models and the workshop was hosted by seventeen-year-old Kip Alaffing. Tipping Points journalist April Fuels had an opportunity to interview Kip after the workshop about the significant advances the working group made on the topic of naming conventions for this movement. Below is a transcript of the interview. Please note that the transcript has been slightly modified to fit this article.
April: Hi Kip, could you tell our Tipping Points readers a bit about Young People in Education and what this whole naming convention workshop was about?
Kip: Sure, April. Well, it all started with a conversation me and my friends were having at the Agile Learning Center we all attended for years. The facilitators there were calling this model Self-Directed Education, and we just didn’t think it was fair that the adults got to decide what this methodology of our learning is called. It’s oppressive, you know?
April: Of course.
Kip: So, we held an emergency school meeting, which turned into several meetings about it until we all agreed upon a new name: Unfettered Tutelage, which just seemed to fit our community better. Mostly the objection was this self-directed stuff. Sounds like a bunch of anarchists, you know?
We just didn’t think it was fair that the adults got to decide what this methodology of our learning is called. It’s oppressive, you know?
We brought that to the Youth Group meeting at the ASDE SDE Weekend meeting back in 2024, where we addressed ASDE and argued that the term Self-Directed Education is a mislabeling and is simply oppressive and offensive. It was at that time that we formed the Young People in Education working group, and today was our first in person meeting to decide what term would work world-wide for this movement.
April: So, what was decided today? Did you come up with a name?
Kip: Well, yes and no, April. It got more complicated as the conversation went around the working group. We had folks from all sorts of different backgrounds who wanted to weigh in with their own interests and concerns. For example, the group from the Liberated Learners school wanted to make sure that “Liberated” stayed in the name but that offended the radical unschoolers who felt that they simply liberated themselves and didn’t need some title to tell them where they were liberated from. They proceeded to unsubscribe the Liberated Learners from their Facebook group. It took some time in mediation to get them back to talking, but I’m pretty good at moderating “I feel” statements, so, I got them talking again.
April: So what was decided?
Kip: We switched over to an every third decision consent-based model alternated with a two-thirds majority process for any proposal brought up by the person with the talking stick, and I can’t remember what the group in the corner used but it had something to do with taking off their socks to convey agreement with twinkle toes. Anyhow, it worked. And it was decided that it’s just too oppressive for any given group of young people to be given a label for their methodology of learning. It was decided that each group would come up with their own name for their own methodology of learning.
And then we pulled out our art supply bins and had a working session where each group identified their methodology on trading cards to really express themselves freely, you know? And each time we convene, the meeting will start with a trading card battle. The card that wins will get to name the methodology for the day.
(credit: some cards made by Nicolas and Bear of Wild Roots Learning Community)
April: So interesting, Kip. How do you feel this will impact the Alliance for Self-Directed Education and the broader movement?
Kip: Well, since we’re not an official part of ASDE, we can only make recommendations, but the Fiercely Autonomous Cultivators, uh, you know — the group whose trading card won this meeting — has some suggestions for ASDE, being an alliance and all.
April: Like what?
Kip: Well, I don’t want to take all of the credit here, but I started out suggesting that it can’t just be an alliance of people, you know. We’ve got to support all living creatures because they have their autonomy too. There was a proposal to broaden that to inanimate objects and black holes as well, but that got tabled until the next meeting. And education is life — we’re lifelong learners, April. So we needed to change that word too. So, for now I proposed The Alliance for Living Things... Living. That group from the Sudbury school pointed out that living is a bit too limiting of a term. So, I think we left it that we’re proposing ASDE change to ALTLDMPE.
April: ALTLDMPE?
Kip: I’ve got to check my notes to make sure I’ve got that right, but yeah, I think it’s The Alliance for Living Things Living and Dying and Maybe Pondering Existence. We made a new logo for ASDE too, you know.
It can’t just be an alliance of people, you know. We’ve got to support all living creatures because they have their autonomy too.
April: Oh?
Kip: Yeah, I mean, what is that logo? An airplane? That’s so offensive.
April: How’s that?
Kip: Well, for one thing, it excludes all of the aviophobians... you know, those autonomous learners who have a fear of flying, April. So we settled on a grey square for the logo.
April: A grey square?
Kip: Well, yeah, with one smoothed over corner for aichmophobians, you know, because of the fear of sharp corners and stuff. And... a bite out of it I think just because someone thought that was funny and it got enough votes.
April: So, that’s it?
Kip: Well, it also got antlers, but I don’t know if that will stick around. Some kid stole all of the kombucha and wouldn’t give it back until we gave it antlers. So, you know, we’ll see...
April: Well, thanks Kip.
Kip: You’re welcome, April.
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