Our Speakers
Charlie Moreno-Romero
Charlie is a 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 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.
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 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.
Tomis Parker
Tomis has spent his entire career in the alternative education world. He 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, he has served as Operations Director at ALC Mosaic, a (large) microschool in Charlotte, NC, where he experienced firsthand the documentation challenges that plague programs like theirs.
Jun Eliahh Díaz González
Jun is a workshop facilitator with practices oriented around experiential learning, play, and popular education. They have accompanied business and training processes with young entrepreneurs at Nuestra Escuela in Caguas. An activist for human rights, a community organizer, and a member of the Nuestra Escuela community since 2019, as part of the staff. Since 2020, they have facilitated processes with children, youth, and adults, providing support centered on human rights, the right to play, and LGBT+ issues. They design participatory spaces where play and the body are recognized as the primary territory for learning, promoting relevant and transformative educational experiences.
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Zahra Lightway, M. Ed.
Zahra is the co-founder of Light Way Learning and creator of Famli, a family practice of consent-based democracy. She has studied and practiced sociocracy since the 1990s, training in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia with organizations including The Sociocracy Consulting Group and Sociocracy for All. Zahra has taught collaborative governance in intentional communities in Australia and Europe and presented at the Global Ecovillage Network European Gathering in Sweden. She also ran democratic learning programs for children in Texas, including a democratic microschool, three years of home-based Saturday programs, and a summer camp.
Eve Tonkin
Eve is a member of the IDEC Inclusion & Diversity Committee, which works to maintain and raise inclusion and diversity at IDECs, and a founding member of the Whakamanawa Learning Community. This charity promotes and supports agentic and holistic pedagogy in New Zealand. She was the teaching principal of Timatanga Community School, a Democratic school in Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand, from 2012 to 2025. She also attended a Democratic high school in her youth and taught at Timatanga Community School from 2006 to 2011. She is currently writing and consulting about education in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Sifaan Zavahir
Sifaan Zavahir is a co-founder of Kinder Republic, Sri Lanka’s first and only Democratic School, and a Founding Member of the Rights-Centric Education Network, which advocates for educational practices that fully respect human rights, especially child rights.
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.
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Olivia Loria & Cecelia Bradley
Olivia is an international education consultant with 55 years of experience working in private and public schools, as well as with homeschoolers. She was the founder and director of Pinewood School (1981-1996). Pinewood School combined with Clonlara School in 1996. Her last position with Clonlara was the Spanish Office Liaison. She is an active participant in the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) and a member of the IDEC Committee on Inclusion and Diversity. She served as an advisory board member, president, secretary, and board member of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS) while it was active.
Cecelia began her adult journey in education in the late 60s, when many new ideas, hopes, and dreams were part of the period’s educational and social upheaval. At that time, Currambena in Sydney was also beginning, and she eventually became part of that community as a staff member. After almost 30 years of learning and teaching with children, she and her colleagues initiated the Australasian Democratic Education Community. She was involved in establishing the Asia/Pacific Democratic Education Community and has attended several IDECs and APDECs over the years. She is part of the IDEC Inclusion and Diversity Committee.
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Christopher Sarkonak
Christopher is currently a high school physics teacher with 17 years of experience in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, and is working towards his Ph.D. in Education. He was the first Canadian selected for direct entry into CERN’s International High School Teacher Program and works with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics to develop resources focused on physics pedagogy. Christopher is passionate about student-centred education, having founded a STEM for Girls Week that has expanded into a STEM Club that offers outreach to K-8 schools in the city, and works with students to develop an assessment model that supports all learners.
Roy Karp
Roy is an experienced educator, writer, and advocate for small “d” democracy. As Director of the Alternative Diploma Program, he built a community-based high school that successfully engaged students facing significant educational barriers. Roy has trained hundreds of students and educators in Restorative Practices (RP). He has used them to create inclusive and democratic classrooms where students and teachers work collaboratively toward common goals. He currently leads Tidal Water Consulting (https://tidal-water.com), which provides training and coaching to implement RP in schools, non-profits, and mission-driven social enterprises.
Marko Koskinen
Marko, the organizer of IDEC@EUDEC 2016, is the founder of three alternative schools implementing democratic education principles: one democratic, one online, and one for street children in Pakistan. In 2025, he founded the Science of Learning Academy with the intention of spreading the knowledge of learning around the world. He has written a comprehensive book series on the topic.
Colectivo Pluriversidad Latinoamericana
Marcel Boesch, Patricia Meléndez, Jacquelin Gasco, Raquel Tomazini, and Yoliet Lombida - Find out all about us at www.pluriversidad.org.
The Inclusion and Diversity Committee of IDEC
The Inclusion and Diversity Committee is made up of IDEC members who have decided to work together to increase diversity and inclusion within IDEC. Find out more about us at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-oAjpeaWEaCFvoCHSxyRQeiec1hN9oFjIhq8HjD2Ih0/edit?usp=sharing
Manuel Vergara Echeverría
Manuel is an alternative philosopher and researcher in philosophy, education, and politics; he holds a PhD in Educational Sciences and a degree in Legal and Social Sciences from the University of Chile and the University of La Serena. He is the author of Aristeia: Hacia una nueva educación para la conciencia/Aristeia: Towards a New Education for Consciousness (2004) and Epistemología Espiritual/Spiritual Epistemology (2019). In addition, Manuel is the founder and advisor to various educational, social aid, altruistic, and professional association initiatives.
Lenka Mazakova
Lenka is a co-founder of the Slobodna skola. She specializes in designing and implementing inclusive educational practices for students with diverse needs and behavioral challenges in a democratic school environment. She develops strategies to ensure accessibility and inclusivity in self-directed education, creates teaching resources, and supports families in nurturing learning environments. Experienced in teacher training, curriculum innovation, and evidence-based pedagogy, she contributes to monitoring and evaluating educational practices and refining them for greater impact. She actively participates in designing and conducting training sessions and conferences, bringing practical expertise and a collaborative approach to fostering inclusive, student-centered learning.
Jessica Laus
Jessica is currently pursuing a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Wayne State University, a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, and has worked in international diplomacy for well over five years. A practitioner and advocate of restorative justice and nonviolence, she is most proud of her work cultivating youth leadership through peace education in New Jersey and Winnipeg.
Angela & Joann
Angela is an education researcher and facilitator based in Taiwan, working at the intersection of learning ecosystems, policy-to-practice translation, and coalition convening. She currently contributes to research on cross-sector collaborations in Taiwan’s community university ecosystem, translating field insights into practical briefs and learning notes for practitioners. She served as Program Director for IDEC 2024, supporting an international convening that required cross-time-zone coordination and facilitation structures balancing coherence with openness.
Joann is an education scholar and catalyst passionate about transforming learning landscapes to cultivate resilience, autonomy, and community engagement. With over 10 years of experience in education, she specializes in democratic and alternative education models, aiming to foster inclusive, equitable learning ecosystems that empower students to shape their educational journeys. As a founder of the To Be Educational Catalyst, she leads initiatives that bridge traditional and innovative educational practices. Her work spans research, consulting, and action-based collaborations, all focused on advancing Taiwan's educational systems through grassroots and systemic changes.
Carmela Wong
Carmela is an A.E from Hong Kong. She worked in a local democratic primary school as coordinator and administrator. She is currently exploring herself and what is needed to sustain an A.E. school.
Dorothea Schütze
-Dorothea is head of the Institute for the Development of Democracy (I.D.E.) in Germany and always connects her work and activities with anti-discrimination and a critical look at power relations. Her professional focus is organizational development of educational institutions, mainly public schools. She facilitates Democratic School Development processes with staff, students, parents, and all other people involved as personnel, partners, or administrators of the school. Dorothea is a member of the IDEC Inclusion and Diversity Committee. She lives in an intentional community with 18 adults and 14 children near Berlin and volunteers to develop democracy in her neighborhood.
www.ide-berlin.org
Kageki Asakura
Kageki has worked in both the practice and the study of democratic education. He has worked at the oldest free democratic school in Japan and founded the first Japanese democratic university, TDU/Tekisen Democratic University (it was Shure University). Asakura is the director there. He is keen to network free democratic schools/ universities internationally. He has been an active member of the International Democratic Education Conference for longer than two decades. He loves to help launch democratic universities in the world. Asakura studies and writes about democratic education, the history of education, and ethnography of youth. He is also a pioneer scholar of “self-ology”, a study about the self.
Asakura has been invited as a speaker to many international conferences, such as European Council's World Forum For Democracy (France), BEYOND UNIVERSITY: Critical, Conference for Emancipatory and Solidarist Endeavors (Turkey), International Democratic Education Conferences (Finland, Israel, India, Ukraine, USA, etc.), International Conference of Creative Education (Russia), National Conference of Alternative and Community Schools (USA), Korean Democratic Education Conference (Korea).
Nandini Deo
Nandini is an Associate Professor of International Politics whose research spans democratic education, secularism, gender, and civil society, with a primary regional focus on South Asia. She received her MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University and her AB from Bryn Mawr College. Professor Deo is the author of Corporate Social Responsibility and Civil Society in India (2024) and Mobilizing Gender and Religion in India (2016), the co-author of The Politics of Collective Advocacy (2011) with Duncan McDuie Ra, and the editor of Postsecular Feminisms in Transnational Context (2018). She spent 2023–24 as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar at SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai. In 2017, she served as co-PI on a research project funded by the Netherlands WOTRO to examine civil society partnerships and to establish the Civil Society Researchers Collective. Professor Deo teaches courses on comparative politics, scope and methods, South Asian politics, youth activism, religion and politics, and gender and politics.
Jerry Mintz
Jerry has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement since establishing AERO in 1989. In addition to his seventeen years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped found more than one hundred public and private alternative schools and organizations. He has lectured and consulted in more than twenty-five countries around the world. In 1989, he founded the Alternative Education Resource Organization and has served as its Director since then. Jerry was also a founding member of the International Democratic Education Conference in 2013.
Monica Cochran
Monica passionately advocates for removing the borders around learning. Active in the movement since 1978, with decades of experience including leadership at Clonlara School and SelfDesign Global, she supports families and educators worldwide to reclaim educational agency. Through Learning Without Borders, Monica champions inclusive, personalized learning environments where all young people—especially neurodivergent learners—are respected as equals. Using strength-based, trauma-informed, and polyvagal approaches, she partners with educators and families to cultivate "felt safety," embrace unique neuro-cognitive strengths, and unleash the natural curiosity that drives authentic, lifelong learning.
Amukta Mahapatra
Amukta is the Founder-Director at SchoolScape, a center for educators. She organizes online courses for teachers, parents, and school heads on Montessori pedagogy and democratic culture. In 2004, she organized IDEC in Bhubaneswar, India. Again, in 2018, she was the convenor for the 25th IDEC, 3rd APDEC, and the 1st InDEC in Bangalore, India. www.SchoolScape.org
Katarína Vassová
Katarína leads a team of pedagogical staff at a democratic school and supervises the methodological approach of self-directed education. She also ensures alignment with Slovak school legislation, supporting both innovative practices and compliance. Katarina has experience in facilitating student-centered learning, fostering participatory decision-making, and mentoring teachers in democratic and inclusive education practices. Her work bridges theory and practice, enabling students to engage in meaningful, interest-driven learning while meeting national educational standards.
Juraj Mazak
Juraj is an expert in democratic and self-directed education, focusing on systemic change. He supports the development of school structures, policies, and practices that foster student autonomy, participatory decision-making, and inclusive learning. Juraj has experience in mentoring educators, guiding curriculum innovation, and aligning democratic practices with local educational regulations. His work helps schools to create frameworks where students can take responsibility for their learning, engage meaningfully in school life, and develop skills for lifelong learning.
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David Brown
David is the Founding Principal of PROUD Academy in Connecticut and founder of Anchor Point Ventures, where he partners with schools and organizations to strengthen belonging, learner agency, and democratic learning. His work draws on experience as a public school principal, science educator, and school designer, with a focus on creating learning environments where young people are known, trusted, and empowered to contribute. Through his work with educators and youth, he developed the Prevention Through Belonging framework to help schools intentionally create the conditions that support meaningful participation, shared responsibility, and thriving communities.
Amira Kessem
Amira is an alumna of Hadera Democratic School in Israel, which she attended from age 4 to age 18. She currently lives in upstate New York.
David Onda
David is a teacher and researcher at Slobodna skola. He has experience in qualitative and quantitative research approaches and mainly focuses on how community meetings and committees shape democratic culture. He is also the coordinator of the financial committee.