“Learning naturally!” with Stefanie Mohsennia

We are very excited to have Stefanie Mohsennia joining us all the way from Germany on Monday 27th June at 2pm. Stefanie will give a presentation on natural learning and all attendees will get a chance to join in the conversation afterwards. The event promises to be enlightening for anyone with an interest in education of all sorts.

“Learning naturally!”

Presentation and conversation with Stefanie Mohsennia

What would “Learning 2.0” look like?

How could learning be more suitable to our human nature?

What would be favorable conditions for young people to learn and grow?

“Schools as we know them are obsolete” (Sugata Mitra)

“Children are by nature smart, energetic, curious, eager to learn, and good at learning; they do not need to be bribed and bullied to learn; they learn best when they are happy, active, involved, and interested in what they are doing; they learn least, or not at all, when they are bored, threatened, humiliated, frightened.” (John Holt, Freedom and Beyond)

Stefanie

- has been involved with home education since about 2002

- is the author of “Schulfrei : Lernen ohne Grenzen”

- is the editor of “Wir sind so frei : Freilerner-Familien stellen sich vor”

- has been organising a local home-ed group in Northrhine-Westfalia for many years

- has taken part in home-ed meetings in 11 different countries over the years

- is far from done with learning herself, for example just finishing her training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique

- has maintained the website www.unschooling.de from 2004 to 2015

- and has now developed the “Schulfrei-community”, a European networking website for home educators, together with her 17yo son. (http://schulfrei-community.de/en/)

All welcome. Join us from 12pm for a shared lunch (bring something to share) or just for the talk at 2pm. The event is free but donations are very welcome.

Longford participants in the 1916 Easter Rising

John Mimnagh and Robert Belton tell us about their relations' involvement in the 1916 Rising.

Time Travel Day Out

Seamus Clarke of Outtake Community Media also filmed our Time Travel Day Out to 1916 recently.
Thanks to everyone who came along and helped out on the day. Here's a small snippet of the day:


We really enjoyed getting to see the car Kitty Kiernan once travelled in with Michael Collins and want to thank Eamon Creamer for bringing it along. Thanks to the 1916/2016 Longford Committee for their support all year and for attending the event. Special thanks to Heritage Officer, Mairead Ní Chonghaile for coming along in character as Brigid Lyons Thornton, Martin Smyth who agreed to be Padraig Pearse for us and everyone else who put effort into their costumes and brought some along for others. Thanks also to John Mimnagh and Robert Belton for telling us about their Longford relations who were involved in the Rising. We had fun researching the art and entertainment from the era during the year and put a compilation of video from and about 1916 together for the day. The list of what was shown is below, most can be found on YouTube. We are also very grateful to Gaelscoil Longfoirt for lending us their wonderful 1916 projects for display on the day.

Our fairy trail

Thanks Seamus Clarke of Outtake Community Media for capturing our fairies on film recently. They are very shy and only reveal themselves occasionally to special visitors.