In late June, at this year’s AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization), I gave a presentation on my late colleague, friend and mentor, Brent Cameron, who passed in 2012.
Yes, it’s been ten years since Brent passed, but I continue to admire his many contributions to education – especially alternative education – and I think he’s a very worthy subject of retrospection. A partial list of Brent’s accomplishments include:
- pioneering alternative learning communities: Wondertree (1984-1990), Virtual High (1993-1997), and SelfDesign (2002 – present)
- developed a (truly) personalized learning model to enfranchise learners of all ages to self-direct (self design) their own learning
- initiated Wondertree learning awards (later SelfDesign learning awards) to offer to people doing remarkable things in the world that the learning community agreed was making a positive contribution to humanity. Recipients included Linus Pauling (scientist), Jane Goodall (primatologist), Humberto Maturana (neuroscientist, Raffi (children’s musician), Noam Chomsky (social advocacy), Michael Moore (filmmaker), Mark Achbar (filmmaker) and a few others
- pioneered a new ‘natural learning’ model (AKA ‘SelfDesign’ model), as documented in his book, ‘SelfDesign : Nurturing Genius through Natural Learning
I feel I was very privileged to ‘ride the range’ with Brent for around 20 years. As I say in my presentation-video, Brent led all things he did with his heart as he set out to make the world a better place for all children, including his daughter Ilana. Working with Brent to co-found Virtual High and SelfDesign Learning Community were highlights of my learning and education career of the past 30+ years.
Here’s the link to my AERO presentation: AERO presentation on Brent Cameron by Michael Maser (I really start the presentation at around 5’20”. I hope you enjoy it.
The image is from my presentation, the text from from Brent’s book.
For more information on AERO, see here: AERO
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