Staff Bios
who's on staff
You'll find descriptions on our four bio pages of most of the 2010 staff. Things sometimes shift a little during the summer so there may be changes, but here's what it's looking like so far.
Grace wrote or revised some of the bios, so anything that sounds arrogant is probably her fault.
Director
Grace Llewellyn, 46
Eugene, Oregon
Grace is most well known for her book, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: how to quit school and get a real life and education. She's also the co-author and/or editor of 3 other books, most recently Guerrilla Learning: how to give your kids a real education with or without school*. A former school teacher, Grace founded NBTSC in 1996. Since 1991, she has been involved in the un/homeschooling movement in numerous ways--she has spoken at conferences, directed a resource center, and produced a mail order book catalog for unschoolers.
In her other life, Grace loves to dance. She performs bellydance twice a month at Cafe Maroc, a North African restaurant in Eugene, and also for occasional festivals, parties, and other events. She also loves Argentine tango, is an apprentice teacher of Soul Motion, an ecstatic dance practice, and DJs a couple times a month for Eugene's ecstatic dance gathering, Coalessence.
And in her most essential, miraculous, and recent life -- Grace is the new and utterly smitten mama of Yared, who came home from Ethiopia with her in February, and turned two in April. It feels ironic to her that after decades of hoping and planning to be a parent, and working with teenagers, it's only now that she's old enough to be a grandmama that she's finally beginning her own parenting adventure. And yet the timing also feels absolutely perfect.
Grace's more official (but outdated) bio is here, links to interviews with and articles about her are here, and her rarely-updated personal website is here.
At camp, Grace's intention is to connect with, and enjoy, every single camper and every single staff person. Some sessions that works out, and other sessions tedious disciplinary necessities and other stuff gets in the way, but she still usually knows everybody's name by the second or third night. Another important part of her role is to pay attention to the overall tone and energy of each camp session, and to do what she can (with help from campers and staff) to keep things harmonious and inspiring. She also tries to keep her eyes on every aspect of camp to make sure things are going OK or, preferably, much better than OK. And she spends a lot of time making notes for meetings with individual people and groups, and runs daily staff meetings, and all-camp morning meeting and evening meeting. And deals with discipline issues when they come up. Her workshops usually focus on dance, various aspects of writing and publishing, and goal setting and issues related to unschooling.
During the year, she reflects on the larger purpose, direction, and vision of NBTSC; communicates with campers and parents; reviews feedback from campers, staff, and parents; plans and implements major and minor changes and experiments for the coming camp year; hires staff; inspects all the previous year's camp expenses and sets a budget for the coming year; updates all written camp materials, policies, and such; and works closely with the administrative goddesses to make sure everything that needs to get done gets done. And, she updates this website from time to time.
Unschooling history: It took her a while to figure it out. First she went to school, and college, and taught school. Then she started to think there must be a better way, investigated, discovered John Holt, and that was the beginning of the end. Or the beginning of the beginning.
Camp history: Grace holds the one and only near-perfect attendance award. (She missed part of Vermont in 2007 and 2008 due to her Soul Motion teacher training.) She has always directed, and for many years was an advisor also.
*The other author of Guerrilla Learning is Amy Silver, who advised at NBTSC one year, and is the mother of one of our campers, and is also the mother of advisor Carsie Blanton, and is the stepmom of advisor Amos Blanton--and is also an amazing songwriter...
Assistant directors
This year, because Grace may need to focus on Yared at "inopportune" moments, there will also be an experienced staff person at each session acting as a backup/assistant director. Names coming later....
Admin goddesses and god
Sarabeth Matilsky, 30
Ithaca, New York
Year-round office goddess and camper liaison
Sarabeth joined our administrative staff as our East Coast liaison in 2004, and now operates the year round NBTSC office for both Oregon and Vermont. She has fabulous organizational skills, and is a delightful person for campers and parents to be in contact with prior to camp.
In 1996, Sarabeth came to the first-ever NBTSC as a sixteen-year-old camper. Growing up in suburban New Jersey in the eighties, there wasn't a whole lot of support for unschooling, and she was blown away by her NBTSC experience. She decided to do something BIG with her own life, and in 1997 she rode her bicycle 4500 miles across the country to camp (solo except for the great folks she met along the way).
Fast forward to 2009: Sarabeth lives in Ithaca, NY with her most excellent husband (whom she met on that fateful bike trip so long ago!), and their two boys, Ben Starling and Jem Reed (both born at home on, respectively, 1/10/04 and 8/5/07). Some of Sarabeth's many interests (most of which she will resume participation in once both children start sleeping through the night): hosting dinner parties, playing piano, discovering and listening to music by independent and wonderful artists, cooking and baking, doing pilates, writing, and wholistic health and nutrition.
Sarabeth and Jeff's latest adventures include raising "diaper-free" babies, moving to Ithaca, NY so that Sarabeth could cook at the famous Moosewood Restaurant, more recently moving to EcoVillage at Ithaca, a cohousing community just outside of town, and undertaking their first whole-family bicycle trip.
Unschooling history: Sarabeth is the oldest of 5 sibs who have always unschooled. Having been at it for so long and in a very thoughtful, dedicated way (and written about and otherwise shared their experiences in numerous forums), the Matilskys have served as role models for many other unschoolers. Ben and Jem, like their mother, have been unschooling since birth.
Camp history: Camper in 1996 and 1997. Advisor 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 (Session 2 and 3), 2003 (Session 1 and 3) and 2004 (WV), logistics goddess in West Virginia 2004 and in Vermont 2006. Advisor in Vermont, 2008.
During the year, Sarabeth communicates with campers, parents, and staff, and processes all kinds of information related to them and to camp. Together with her husband Jeff Amaral, who is a Linux whiz, she translates NBTSC's forms and questionnaires into an online registration system that cuts down massively on the killing of trees and on the necessity of tedious re-typing of data. Sarabeth also pulls together gazillions of details ranging from workshop supplies to compiling directories to coordinating everybody's travel plans.
photo--Sarabeth and Ben at the prom, NBTSC Vermont 2006
Matt Sanderson, 21
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Logistics Coordinator, all sessions
photo by Kitty Pelham-Bush
Matt was born and raised in Philadelphia where he attended completely nonfreakyoroutoftheordinaryinanyway schools through 9th grade. In his sophomore year he switched to an alternative 'free' school called Upattinas, read Grace's Teenage Liberation Handbook, and fell in love with alternative education. He spent 3 years working on the board of his new school attempting to maintain an equal balance of power between students and teachers while playing basketball with the school team and attending anti-war demonstrations in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Washington DC, and New York City. He graduated through a combination of collecting the required number of credits and putting together a video presentation on the anti-war movement.
After finishing high school in 2006, Matt spent the fall in New Orleans gutting houses in the ninth ward, the area hit hardest by hurricane Katrina. In the Spring he joined two of his friends in founding and co-coordinating a camp called the Young Peoples Empowerment Convergence (www.ypec.org). The idea for YPEC was to create a camp experience entirely created and maintained by youth, a goal which was accomplished through monthly meetings each of the six months preceding the camp's one-week run-time in June of 2007.
Matt Spent Fall of 2007 working as an art and English teacher for first through seventh graders in Olon, Ecuador. Later in the year he again co-coordinated the 2008 Young Peoples Empowerment Convergence, which happened in late July. 2008 was also Matt's first year at Not Back to School camp. Hired for the first Oregon session, he liked camp so much that when invited to stay for the next two sessions as a volunteer, he was extremely pleased to accept. Since camp last year, he has lived Not Back to school camp staffers Alex, Frankie, Nicole, Josh, Abbi and Zen (not all at once) in Philadelphia, Albany, and finally San Francisco this Spring. Finally returning to Philadelphia with an eye on continuing to help facilitate the Young peoples Empowerment Convergence.
Maya Toccata Lester, 29
Joshua Tree, California
staff liaison
Alas, Maya can't make it to camp this year, but she is our trusty behind-the-scenes staff coordinator and liaison.
In her former life, Maya lived in Eugene and ran Grace's office (Not Back to School Camp, plus other stuff) for about 5 years. after camp in 2005 she and her husband Damian moved to Joshua Tree, California, where she now tries to stay hydrated while she rides her bike around the desert, tends to her garden, fruit trees and cute chickens. She's passionate about growing, preparing and eating food, and sometimes does that for money. (As of this writing she hasn't found anyone to pay her for eating food, but folks seem to enjoy paying her to grow and cook it.) mostly though she makes money by working in her local health food store.
Maya grew up in Vancouver, Canada and still loves rain very much. She's done some learning about counseling, conflict resolution, and general empowerment and loves those things too. She loves most things, actually.
unschooling history: Maya went to school until she was 13, when she read the Teenage Liberation Handbook and quit. She then proceeded to learn about hats, hardware stores, Anne Frank, traveling solo, rock climbing, newsletter editing, self defense, and life.
camp history: Maya came to camp for the first time in 1997, and has been present every year and almost every session since then. She came so many times, in fact, and was so cute and smart and nice and peaceful and competent that eventually Grace had no choice but to hire her as a junior staff person (in 2000) and then (later in 2000) as the year-round office manager and, starting in 2001, the logistics goddess of NBTSC. Grace finally realized at camp in 2004 that the term "logistics goddess" no longer fully reflected Maya's role at camp, and renamed her "assistant director." While she no longer runs the office or officially holds the AD title at every session, Grace (and probably everyone else) still thinks of her that way.
Kitchen coordinator
The kitchen coordinator plans all menus, orders and shops for food, trains and supervises the kitchen staff.... and in Nicole's case, the kitchen coordinator also envisions linking NBTSC more closely with campers and their families. (Read her bio below.)
Nicole Martin, 30
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Nicole says,
"Hello everyone! I currently live with the love of my life, my kid, and many other amazing folks in a collective house in North Philly. I have been teaching myself about being rooted in a place that is capable of meeting my specific needs on as many levels as possible. My days are filled with getting to know the people in my neighborhood through all kinds of inspiring community projects, and continuing to cultivate supportive enriching relationships with the people in my home and with people in reach via technological means. At thirty, I feel rich with what feels like lifetimes filled and refilled. I also feel about 11 years old."
Nicole's been on the NBTSC staff since 1997 -- first as junior staff, then many years as both cook and advisor. She is full of energy and creative ideas, has a magical way with food and is a sought-after chef/caterer. In the last couple years she has expanded the vision of the NBTSC kitchen to buy food, whenever possible, from camp families who farm, grow large gardens, keep bees, and such. If you grow or otherwise produce food and would like to be part of this vision, contact Nicole.
Nicole is one of the most physically vital people you'll ever meet -- she surfs, does Capoeira, dances, and is at home in her body in a most inspiring way. She's also an accomplished singer and guitarist, an artist, a devoted activist, and a passionate mother.
Health coordinator
"Health coordinator" is a new year-round position. Heather has been attending conferences, hob-nobbing with nurses and health department inspectors, rewriting our medical history forms, and generally upgrading the way we approach health at NBTSC. So far she only attends NBTSC in Oregon, but one can always hope that eventually she and her little sprout Poppy will make it to Vermont also.
Heather Loo Jaggers, 40
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Heather says:
I left school when I was 17 and ventured to my Grandmother's. There I was able to indulge my love of animals from milking goats to raising orphaned raccoons. Those experiences encouraged me to explore the veterinary world to become a technician. I still work at the vet clinic a few days a month and enjoy my time there--especially during puppy and kitten season. I've taken all sorts of classes in human medicine. My husband and I met during my clinicals on the ambulance (he was a paramedic--not a patient!). I like to blur the lines of distinction between human and veterinary medicine.
I am enjoying my job as the parent of a homeschooled "preschooler". My most favorite past times include catching frogs and riding horses.
Camp history: Mama Bear, 2007-2009
Next.....please choose a session, and enjoy meeting more of the NBTSC staff.
Vermont Session 1 Staff
Vermont Session 2 (Wild Card Week) staff
Contact the camp office.