Foundation for Democratic Education
DANDELION
We cordially invite you to the world in which Children and Adults co-create the educational space, function in respect and understanding of mutual needs, and the learning process is based on the natural curiosity of the world and the internal motivation of Children.
They decide about whether and with whom they want to learn. There are no traditional classes, bells, or grades here. The essence of our activities is to create conditions for building a community in which everyone, regardless of age, has the right to vote and co-decide about many aspects of its functioning.
Foundation team
The idea of the uprising
The Dandelion Democratic Education Foundation is an organization that was created out of the need to create a child-friendly environment, functioning on the basis of human freedom as an individual, creating a balanced relationship between members of our community and education in the spirit of democracy. Accompaniment in development, following the child, responding to his needs, while striving to build relationships, creating a community is the most important of our ideas. The team of people who make up the Foundation are not only tutors, teachers who work with children on a daily basis in the spirit of alternative education, but also parents looking for educational solutions that are closest to their own children.
The experience gained so far, the need to create a place close to both children and adults, the desire to accompany in development, and not its design, resulted in the launch of the Dandelion Preschool Point and the initiation of the School Group for Children operating in the Home Education system. Today we are creating a community of nearly 200 people, including both children and adults.
There are no bells, no grades, no result-oriented learning here. Kids have participate in the decision about when and with whom they want to learn, and tutors are the animators of this process, not its creators. We create conditions for acquiring knowledge of the core curriculum, which is the backbone of the traditional education system, but it is up to the students to decide how they want to acquire this knowledge and how they will use it in the future.
Our goal
Our goal is to promote the idea of democratic education, animate the environment of alternative education, and develop the existing structure of our organization. In the future we want to develop a kindergarten and establish a formal school, which will not so much contradict the traditional school, but be institutions that reflect the possibility of changes in the education system that exists today.
Foundation Board
Paula Gałęska
President
I spent the first 7 years of my life in the forest. I grew up with singing birds and the smell of honey from my uncle's apiary. It was in my childhood that I met the first plants, giving them names and composing magic potions.
Today I am a herbalist;) I enclose the power of plants in natural cosmetics. I use wild plants in the menu. I am studying Detailed Phytotherapy with Dr. Rożański. I co-create the Green Children Festival, promoting close contact with nature. I deeply feel and believe that being close to Mother Earth heals. Regardless of age.
Andżelika Mazurek
Vice president
Experimenter, tutor, always looking at what lies beyond the horizon, although in this case it will be more accurate to say what is hidden under the microscope.
She spent the first years of her career in laboratories in Poland and abroad. After the appearance of two offspring in her life, she redirected her energy to the gears of difficult science into a simple language allowing the youngest to discover the meanders of biology and chemistry.
A tireless collector of dead mice, snakes, beetles, moths, tapeworms, lichens, mosses and leaves, which instantly become exhibits in her biology room, helping to break the spell of this fabulous world.
Dorota Łapińska
Member of the Board
Co-founder of the Dmuchawiec Foundation, tutor accompanying children in grades 1-3, teacher of English. A firecracker woman for whom nothing is impossible is a synonym for Dorota.
Always smiling, infecting with optimism and hungry :) A specialist in the breakdown of space-time, involved in a thousand things at the same time. The owner of a head full of ideas on how to make the learning process interesting and attractive for kids. For years, she has been associated with the scouting community in Łódź. Privately, mother of two little Dandelions and wife of Dariusz. A fan of escape rooms and active outdoor activities.