Welcome to AOK Basic Skills!
Support in ESL, Spanish 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 CEFR-based self-study - Educational Support for Parents and Students from other countries
Curated ESL and native Spanish websites are for all ages - Family Nutrition Education
Simple, whole-food approaches for food-insecure communities
Global Goals & Outreach
AOK workshops are aligned with two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- 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 2.5 years, the AOK website has welcomed over 32,000 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 policy decisions that specifically undermine constitutional principles of democracy, the separation of church and state, and international cooperation. AOK stands against policies that:
- Contradict public health consensus on issues like vaccine policies and nutrition.
- Withdraw from critical international agreements that protect the health of the planet, such as the Paris Climate Accords.
- Oppose diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and prohibit countries that are accepting US aid from promoting such initiatives.
- Seek to close or restrict international aid organizations like USAID.
- Use the of the para military 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.
It is hoped that the free educational proposals and workshops offered here can help supplement and expand on the efforts of aid programs everywhere.
Want More?
While AOK is completely free, learners seeking more personalized or advanced instruction can explore additional services through JBK English (https://jbkenglish.com).
John B. Kirk, Director
AOK Basic Skills Project
Portland, Maine