Our Speakers
Charlie Moreno-Romero
Pedagogue, anthropologist, and researcher. Interested in democratic education, SDT, SDL, Circle practice, educational commoning.
Luz Olid Díaz and David Caballero Pradas
Luz and David are the founders of Evolving Education, whose mission is to research and democratize how the most progressive learning spaces around the planet are transforming education. On their journey, they saw a deep need to re-root education so that life could flourish.
Kateryna Botvinnik
Kateryna Botvinnik is an educator and co-founder of a democratic school in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. She is also a co-founder of the NGO Vilnosvita, a facilitator of self-directed education festivals (with over 1,500 participants), and the organizer of IDEC-EUDEC 2019 in Ukraine.
Jennifer Goen
Jennifer is a high school English teacher and Instructional Lead Teacher at the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program, a democratic public school in Arlington, Virginia. She is committed to student-centered learning and to upholding the school’s pillars of self-governance, self-directed learning, caring community, and equity. In her leadership role, she coaches teachers in SDL and designs professional learning. At the district level, Jennifer facilitates a K–12 cohort for National Board Certified Teachers and leads learning on technology, media literacy, and student-centered pedagogy. She is an ambassador for the Teacher-Powered Schools Network and a doctoral student at Marymount University studying AI and self-directed learning.
Tomis Parker
I've spent my entire career in the alternative education world. I started as a teaching assistant in a Montessori classroom, then worked as a facilitator at a startup free school, organized summer camps for homeschoolers, and eventually co-founded the Agile Learning Centers model — a grassroots network of self-directed learning communities that has spread internationally. For years, I have served as Operations Director at ALC Mosaic, a (large) microschool in Charlotte, NC, where I experienced firsthand the documentation challenges that plagued programs like ours.
Liz Radday
Liz is passionate about challenge-based learning, student-driven passion projects like Capstone, and giving students voice and choice in the classroom. She spent sixteen years as a math and special education teacher in middle and high school and now conducts research on STEM education, writes curricula, and provides professional learning for teachers on a variety of topics, including Personal Interest Projects and AI in Education. Her book, Learning They’ll Love: Engage Students, Meet Standards, and Spark Creativity with Personal Interest Projects, was published in November 2025. She co-hosts the popular weekly podcast ChatEDU on AI in Education.
Nao Saowanee Sangkara
Nao is a filmmaker, educator, and founder of Binsi, an emerging movement that weaves together natural living, democratic education, art, and community into one integrated life-practice. Based in Northern Thailand, she leads a learning sanctuary and living-lab for natural building, child-led learning, and regenerative community life. Her work sits at the intersection of cinema, alternative education, personal narrative, and social transformation, bridging intimate storytelling with systemic change.
Tetiana Yermakova
Tetiana Yermakova is a student at the democratic school One Crazy School, a youth leader, and a facilitator of Vilnosvita events.
Judy Arnall, BA, CCFE, DTM
Judy is a certified brain and child development specialist and master of non-punitive parenting and education practices. She created Unschooling Canada Association and is the bestselling author of 5 print books, including Unschooling To University. She has unschooled 5 adult children and attended 4 university convocations so far. You can find her at
https://www.judyarnall.com or at https://www.unschoolingtouniversity.com.
Ian Cunningham
Ian is the founder of the Self Managed Learning Alliance, a nonprofit that supports democratic learning communities in the UK. Ian ran the largest and longest-running learning community for 24 years before setting up the Alliance. In his day job, he is a dancer.
