Talk and discussion with Chris Mercogliano and Manny Bernstein

Free! All welcome!

Children's lives are becoming so filled with managed, prepackaged experience that the spark that animates them, and is the source of their uniqueness and creativity--their "inner wildness"--is in danger of going out. This talk will focus on the major sources of domestication and what we can do to defend the ecology of childhood so that kids can continue to develop whole, autonomous, deeply original selves.

Chris Mercogliano recently concluded thirty-five years as a teacher and director at the Albany Free School, a freedom-based, inner-city alternative, in order to focus full-time on writing and speaking out about issues affecting the lives of children. His essays, commentaries, and reviews have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies. He is the author of "Making It Up As We Go Along: The Story of the Albany Free School" (Heinemann, 1998), "Teaching the Restless: One School's Remarkable No-Ritalin Approach to Helping Children Learn and Succeed" (Beacon Press 2004), "How to Grow a School: Starting and Sustaining Schools That Work" (Oxford Village Press, 2006), and "In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness" (Beacon
Press, 2007). Chris has been featured on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation Radio's "Ideas," and other nationally syndicated radio shows. The father of two wonderful daughters, he lives with his wife, Betsy, on a one-acre farm in downtown Albany, New York.

Manny Bernstein has taught and counseled students of practically every age, from nursery school, to public elementary and high school, to college. Along the way he has also worked as a social worker, a truck driver, and a counterperson at a diner. He is currently in private practice as a psychologist in Saranac Lake, New York, and most recently is the author of "The Secret Revolution: A Psychologist's Adventures in Education."