Welcome to AOK Basic Skills!
Support in ESL, Education, Family Nutrition
& Building Independent Learners through the SDG’s
Hello! I’m John Kirk, a semi-retired teacher based in Portland, Maine, and the director of the AOK Basic Skills Project. It’s my retirement project. AOK began as a volunteer education program in Quito, Ecuador, where I presented free workshops to over 1,000 participants from schools, universities, Red Cross organizations, police departments, Indigenous groups, a provincial ministry for the poor and the Ministry of Health.
Today, AOK is a free, online self-teaching website and with several complete courses and materials for a number of workshops. It’s designed to expand access to basic education, ESL education and nutrition resources around the world. It’s initial priority is basic competence in the topic at hand, but its ultimate goal is to help create independent learners. It is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2-Zero Hunger and 4–Quality Education and its workshop evaluations are designed to motivate the UN to provide related websites.
What AOK Offers
- Independent English Learning
Effective strategies using free online ESL tools and study skills through the European System with CEFR/objective-based self-study - Educational Support for Parents and Students from other countries
Free educational websites that can be translated in up to 30 languages for all ages with Google that can help students catch up to their class, stay equal with it or get ahead. - Family Nutrition Education
The USDA has 3 monetary levels for consumption food, the lowest level being reserved for people on SNAP, or “Food Stamps”. SNAP currently has a yearly budget of $107 billion. Using USDA figures with a simple 5 category food prep system for likes that uses whole foods, a lot of plant protein, cooking ahead, standard conservation efforts, and sometimes one dish meals, a family with the median US income could save approximately $3,000-$5,000 per year. See the PowerPoint in the Nutritional section.
Global Goals & Outreach
AOK workshops are aligned with two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030:
- SDG 2: Zero Hunger
- SDG 4: Quality Education
Voluntary and anonymous participant feedback is shared with the UN to advocate for expanded access to related multilingual educational websites. In the past 3 years, the AOK website has welcomed over 34,000 visitors from around the world.
To learn more, please look under the page title “AOK & UN” on this website at “Letter: UN” and “Start”.
Statement of Purpose
This website is maintained as an act of advocacy and protest against the current U.S. administration’s policy decisions that specifically undermine constitutional principles of democracy, the separation of church and state, and international cooperation. AOK stands against policies that:
- Withdraw from critical international agreements that protect the health of the planet, such as the Paris Climate Accords.
- Withdraw from the WHO and oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and prohibit countries that are accepting US aid from promoting such initiatives. On January 7, 2026, a presidential memorandum was signed that initiated the withdrawal from a total of 66 international organizations.
- Seek to close or restrict international aid organizations like USAID.
- Use para military (ICE) domestically in search of unregistered and registered immigrants and in so doing break the first and fourth amendment rights of U.S. citizens by terrifying peaceful neighborhoods and killing them in the plain light of day.
- Use multimedia to hurt democracy. For example, some say the current administration is starting to erase the history of slavery in the US by removing certain books from school libraries and changing National Park signs. Also, by claiming such things as slavery taught “useful skills,” they flood people with confusing ideas. This makes the truth feel like just another opinion, making it harder to tell facts from lies.
- Track people’s behavior. In 2026, the current administration is combining files from the IRS and Social Security into one giant database. The DOGE department says this stops fraud, but critics worry it’s being used to track everyone’s behavior. New rules also use tech to flag people’s citizenship status and monitor their online activity without warrants. In the case of the AI company Anthropic, this company said that they didn’t want their product used for the mass domestic surveillance of Americans, and the current administration effectively “black listed” it.
- Contradict public health consensus on issues like vaccine policies and nutrition. This administration has overhauled the Childhood Vaccine Schedule, Reducing Routine Recommendations and down grading others. It has also issued the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030”, where it promotes red meat and dairy products and keeps saturated fat below 10% daily. However, it is time comsuming to do the calculations and easy to go above that mark.
It is hoped that the free educational proposals and workshops offered here can help supplement and expand on the efforts of aid programs everywhere.
John B. Kirk, Director
AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine