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Presenters

2010 Speakers
We are so pleased to have these interesting and passionate people at the Symposium to help support the unschooling community! On a personal note, I am thrilled to have hand-picked these seven people, whom I look up to and respect deeply, to be a part of this project and adventure.


Wes Beach
Wes worked in public schools for 32 years, teaching several subjects and directing alternative programs.  He wised up in 1993, left his position in a public high school, and now directs his own private high school, a shelter for autodidacts.  After spending no time in middle or high school, his son earned a BA and a PhD in computer engineering.  His students, after designing their own paths for their teen years, go on to succeed in a wide variety of endeavors, ranging from professional rock climbing to medicine.  He has served on the board of the HomeSchool Association of California (HSC), is presently the Teen Adviser for both HSC and the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum, and is a consultant, mentor, and speaker.

Wes' Topics Include:

Success During the Teen Years and Beyond

Wes has worked with hundreds of young people who have spent little or no time in a traditional high school and have gone on to be successful in a wide variety of vocations, ranging from professional rock climbing to medicine.  He will provide a number of students' stories along with general ideas about learning during the teen years on one's own terms and then moving on to endeavors beyond "high school."  He will explain how parents can do everything for their kids that he does for his students.

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Why Unschool?

After observing hundreds of people with little or no experience in a traditional high school succeed in their chosen vocations, Wes has come to believe that success is built on a foundation of personal strengths and abilities and that, in fact, formal secondary schooling often dampens or destroys one's motivation and blocks expression and development of interests and talents.  He will relate some of his students' stories and present evidence indicating that personal traits and pivotal life experiences, sometimes very brief ones, are the real roots of success.

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Writing Transcripts

Parents and their kids can write transcripts that will be completely acceptable and be favorably evaluated in college admissions offices, by employers, and by other institutions and organizations.  Wes will show some of his students' transcripts and provide guidelines for writing effective, personalized documents.




Blake Boles (Offering Mentorship)
Blake has worked extensively with teens outside of the traditional high school environment. He is the author of College Without High School, a guidebook for getting into 4-year colleges and universities as an a self-educated teen. Blake designs and leads innovative trips for teens during the school-year through his company Unschool Adventures, and he co-leads a teen wilderness leadership program through Deer Crossing Wilderness Summer Camp.  Since 2006 he has served as an advisor to unschooling teens at Grace Llewellyn's Not Back to School Camp.

After a traditional public school upbringing and halfway through an astrophysics major at UC Berkeley, Blake read a John Taylor Gatto book and immediately rearranged his major to exclusively study the wide world of alternative education. He has worked as a snowboard instructor, academic tutor, marketing researcher, chef, outdoor science teacher, freelance web designer, homeschool mentor, and windsurfing instructor. He spends time living in various cities in California and Oregon.

Blake graduated cum laude with a self-designed B.A. in alternative schooling from the University of California at Berkeley.  He is a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician and an instructor in Wilderness First Aid and Red Cross CPR. When not working with teens, Blake enjoys backpacking, ultimate frisbee, Argentine tango, international travel, and never-ending reading & writing.

www.blakeboles.com


Blake's Topics Include:



College Without High School

Four-year college is not for everyone, and pretending so is a fool's game.  But for unschoolers with a few serious intellectual interests, college can provide a highly liberating and formative experience.  If you see yourself walking down the college path in the far- or near-future, then this workshop is for you.

Questions covered include:  How do you prepare for competitive college admissions without giving up your current dreams, goals, and unschooling lifestyle?  What are your competitive advantages as an unschooler?  How can you constructively combine what colleges want–including standardized tests and structured coursework–with your own self-directed projects?  How can you turn yourself into a sexy beast in the eyes of admissions officers?  And what, exactly, do colleges look for in homeschooled applicants?

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Indescribable Sexiness
Did you know that there are two types of sexy?  First (and most familiar) is regular sexy, which is only skin-deep. But the second type, while rare, is possessed by people with totally average looks.  This is indescribable sexiness, and it's actually a specific set of body language, communication, and creativity tools that anyone can learn and practice.  Indescribable sexiness is useful for many purposes as a teen unschooler, including dealing with adults, resolving conflicts, making money…but we're going to learn it in its original context: how to meet attractive and interesting members of your preferred gender!
Bring your friends to this fun, fast-paced, and highly hands-on workshop.

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Unschool Adventures Slideshow
Watch a narrated slideshow from the Unschool Adventures trips, and tell us where to plan our next adventures!



Danielle Conger (Offering Mentorship)
Danielle works and learns alongside her three always-unschooled children, Emily, Julia and Sam, on a small farm in Northwestern Maryland, where they have a cow, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens and more. She and the kids run a small subscription garden, or CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), ten months of the year, and she's always happy to talk gardening and sustainability.

Although she needs to be dragged kicking and screaming off the farm, Danielle can be found online at AlwaysUnschooled : Always Unschooled and Organic Learning among other haunts. She has been writing about unschooling for several years, and her articles and excerpts on parenting a spirited child can be found at Articles

Danielle's Topics Include:

Roadblocks:

Sometimes it seems everyone else's unschooling journey looks so easy from the outside while our own is littered with roadblocks: from panic attacks to reluctant spouses to tv and video games to food hangups to sibling squabbles and more. Join me as I discuss what some of these hurdles have looked like in my family and how we've moved through them successfully at times and less so at others, but all the while trying to keep the focus on love and laughter. I'll share some of the tools we've developed over the years to foster communication and connection, and I'll share some of our… gasp!… failures as well, hopefully dispelling the notion that there's any such thing as a perfect unschooling family. (Though there might be some out there that come pretty close!) Bring your own questions and concerns and we'll try to touch on them all, brainstorming and creating a mutual support network to draw upon outside the conference as well.


Beth Fuller

Unfortunately, Beth will not be speaking at The Symposium this year after all.


Evan Hunter Wright (Offering Mentorship)
Evan is an unschooler's unschooler. Although only in his late twenties, he has years of experience supporting self-directed education. Evan is the creator and Director of the Education Empowerment Project, which provides services for the unschooling community.  He is an unschooling coach and mentor, and a senior staffer for Grace Llewellyn's Not Back to School Camp.
Evan began studying unschooling when he read The Teenage Liberation Handbook and left school at 15. He is living proof of the power of unschooling, and enjoys a unique empathy with those pursuing the unschooling experience since he has been there himself.  For over a decade Evan has worked with hundreds of unschoolers and their families, establishing his reputation as a generous mentor, a passionate leader and an articulate advocate of unschooling.

Evan's Topics Include:

Speaking of Unschooling:

The way in which we speak to others about unschooling will impact how they think about alternative education and what they think of us. Speaking of unschooling can reinforce prejudices or gain supporters, inspire others to pity or admiration, and lay a foundation for self-doubt or self affirmation. Even for gifted communicators it can be very difficult to talk about unschooling with those who have never heard of it. In this discussion we'll be exploring ways to improve how we talk to others about unschooling and the different situations which require us to do so.

Getting Real: Benefiting from the hard-earned lessons of adult unschoolers:
Unschooling can sometimes feel like landing on another planet: you are alone, you don't know where the path you're on will take you, and no one else seems to have arrived yet.  The truth is, Planet Unschooling is already inhabited by many whose experiences (both good and bad) we can learn from. What pitfalls have other unschoolers already uncovered? Why is it important to talk about the obstacles faced by those who unschool? What can we learn from those who have gone before us?


Brenna McBroom (Offering Mentorship)
Brenna McBroom is 20 years old and currently resides in Jacksonville, Florida. Traditionally homeschooled until the age of fourteen, Brenna has spent the last six years as a radical unschooler. Her current passions include writing, wheel-thrown pottery, photography, yoga, wheel-thrown pottery, raku firing, and wheel-thrown pottery. However, that may have changed by the time you read this, so you should ask her yourself what she's passionate about! She spent a year at a small liberal arts college in south Florida, so she can be a great resource for anyone interested in selecting a college, getting into college, succeeding in college, or deciding whether or not to go to college.  

Brenna's Topics Include:

Finding your Path:

Robert Frost urges us that 'taking the path less traveled by' will make 'all the difference'. However, the paths that we all walk, rather than diverging neatly into two roads, branch and fork repeatedly over the courses of our lives. In addition, decision making is frequently much more complicated than judging which road has less traffic and following it blindly. This speech explores the decisions that unschoolers face during the transition into adulthood and throughout their lives. In addition, it covers the factors that must be taken into account while making those decisions. The intent is to empower emerging adult unschoolers to make the choices that are right for them- choices that lead to happiness and fulfillment.




Sean Ritchey (Offering Mentorship)

Sean is a passionate social and environmental entrepreneur and an inspired life-long learner.  He focuses on creating collaborative and empowering platforms for people to be active participants in the exciting work of creating a just, sustainable, and joyous world.  He sees this work beginning with himself, and so strives everyday to move through his life with consciousness, grace, and consistency.   
In early 2009, Sean joined forces with Sophie Theriault to co-found the non-profit Vida Samiha.  The fledgling organization creates programs that support people being conscious and visionary as they empower each other to create the beautiful and sustainable world they dream of (www.VidaSamiha.org).

Sean also serves on the Board of Directors of The Common Fire Foundation.  Common Fire helps create intentional communities, ranging from cooperative houses to village-scale projects (www.CommonFire.org).

Up until mid 2009 when he began to move his focus to Vida Samiha, Sean ran a green home design and general contracting firm that he co-founded in early 2007 (www.DeepGreenBuilding.net).

Sean finds that he is the happiest when he is living and working in ways that are holistic and are pushing him to expand his vision for the future.  This means that he generally is enjoying life the most when his is starting and building projects that save the world, dancing, drinking really good tea, having his mind blown by other people's talents and contributions, actively using his body, taking pictures, being grateful for his breath, and living passionately.

Sean's Topics Include:

Entrepreneurship: Creating Vehicles For the Passionate Pursuit of Our Dreams

Sean's attraction to entrepreneurship was a seamless evolution of his passion for empowered self-directed education.  In true unschooler spirit, building organizations (both for-profit and non-profit) has been a cornerstone of how he strives to be an effective and graceful contributor.  In this session, Sean will talk about his take on entrepreneurship and how his highest successes, and deepest failures (and everything in between) have shaped how he approaches life, work, creativity, sustainability, humility and the pursuit of his passions and dreams.