My name is Michael Sappir. I am an Israeli living in Leipzig, Germany, where I study linguistics. I am also a co-founder and alumnus of Sudbury Jerusalem, a Sudbury school in Israel, and currently Council Chairman of the European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC).
In 2001-2, at the age of 14, I was involved in starting Sudbury Jerusalem, Jerusalem’s first (and so far only) Sudbury school, which I then attended for four years as a student. I was (and am) the school’s first graduate. Sudbury schooling (and democratic schooling in general) is an area I care about deeply, and since moving to Germany I have made myself available as a speaker about democratic education, giving talks for universities and school startup groups. You can read about some of my talks on the Home page.
In October 2007, I became involved in creating the European Democratic Education Community and organizing the EUDEC 2008 conference. The conference attracted nearly 400 participants from across Europe and around the world and injected the young organization with a great deal of vitality. I am currently a member of EUDEC’s Council, and the Council’s elected Chairman.
Since I began my studies in 2008, linguistics has become very central to me. My particular interests right now are the architecture of grammar, the structured connection between form and meaning, and cross-linguistic variation. I have written about why I like something as boring as grammar here: “Why Grammar?”. From April to December 2009 I was a research assistant in the “Hierarchy Effects in Kiranti and Broader Algic” research project. My work there was on the Algic languages (see Wikipedia) of indigenous North America and languages related by geographic nearness and similarity, particularly Karuk (Wikipedia). Some of my work on Karuk can be found on the Hierarcht Effects project wiki.
Other than democratic education and linguistics, my main areas of interest include civil rights and liberties, strategy and politics, the Internet, technology and game design. When I post to my blog, these topics often come up.
