Staff Bios
who's on staff
You'll find descriptions on our four bio pages of most of the 2008 staff. A few people still aren't 100% confirmed, and 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.
photo of Grace, Francisca (a.k.a. Michelle), and Maya by Gayatri Janine Banks, NBTSC 2006
Directors
Grace Llewellyn, 44
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 is smitten with Argentine tango and goes to practicas or milongas (tango dance parties) at least a couple times a week. She also performs bellydance once a month or so for festivals, restaurants, parties, and other events. She's picking up balboa, swing, and salsa in spare moments here and there. And she is particularly excited about the fact that she's in a training program with her mentors Vinn Marti and Zuza Engler, learning to teach an ecstatic dance practice called Soul Motion.
(Unfortunately, she will miss part of Vermont this year due to that training program, but Nathen--see below--will seamlessly and competently take over in her absence.)
Her more official bio is here, links to interviews with and articles about her are here, and her 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. 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 communicates extensively 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; updates all written camp materials; and works closely with Maori and Sarabeth 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 perfect attendance award. (Except that she missed part of Vermont in 2007 due to her Soul Motion teacher training, and will again, alas, in 2008.) She has always directed, and often taken an advisee group too.
*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...
Nathen Beryl Lester, 36
Springfield, Oregon
Session 1 Advisor
Session 2 Advisor and Project Leader
Vermont Advisor and Assistant Director
Grace will (reluctantly) miss much of Vermont camp this year, but no worries -- Nathen will take over. If you had seen him play Grace in a staff skit some years back, you would be confident that he is the perfect man for the job.
Nathen works as a music recording engineer and record producer, and is also famous (at least in some circles, including the NBTSC community) for Abandon Ship, a band he created with two of his brothers. He says, "I think I'm a classic unschooler in every way except that I am 36 years old and attended lots of schools during my first 27 years. I do what interests me. That includes writing songs, playing drums in a rock & roll band, making records, researching and experimenting with communication, relationships, nutrition and making money. I get excited about a lot of sciences--anatomy, physiology, psychology, evolution theory, geology and physics. I meditate, swim, climb mountains, read philosophy books and talk about them. I live with a group of adult unschoolers in Springfield, Oregon, where we grow food, compost and have parties and talent shows."
nbtsc history: Nathen has been an advisor at every session but two since 1999. He says, "What I love about camp is the people who come--the staff, the campers--and how they interact, how they share their excitement and inspiration and how they form friendships and communities with the people they meet. I love the talent shows, from nervous, first-time attempts to professional level performances. I love how at camp I'm treated like an interesting person and a friend by people who are younger than me."
unschooling history: Nathen homeschooled during third grade, and observed four of his younger brothers homeschooling/unschooling.
at camp: Nathen is famous not only for being sincere, friendly, enthusiastic, and sometimes potently amused, but also for the zeal, intellect, and originality with which he teaches workshops on subjects such as the human digestive system. Among his tentative plans for workshops at NBTSC 2008 are Metacommunication, The Science of Attention and The Aesthetics of Recorded Music. He will also reprise his popular Session 2 project, in which a group of musicians -- with a wide variety of skill levels and instruments -- co-create a piece of music and perform it for the whole camp.
Here's the Abandon Ship website.
Office Managers and Logistics Goddesses
Sarabeth Matilsky, 28
Ithaca, New York
Advisor, Vermont
Year-round office goddess and east coast liaison
Sarabeth joined us 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 2008: 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, and now an upcoming move to EcoVillage at Ithaca, a cohousing community just outside of town. In 2008 they plan to take their first whole-family bicycle trip, along the Erie Canal from Buffalo to Seneca Falls.
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.
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 is translating 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
Francisca (Frankie) Cruz
Pensacola, Florida
Logistics Goddess at all camps, 2008
I quit school when I was 14, in my first semester of high school. Until then I had attended mostly alternative schools, ranging from Montessori to arts/math magnet schools, and I'd "homeschooled" for a year in second grade that mostly involved me telling my mom I wanted nothing to do with flash cards or handwriting lessons.
After attending high school for a semester I realized it was doing more damage than good, and decided I'd rather stay home and sew, cook, write, and take pictures with my sister. Through the combined effort of my aunt, mother, grandmother, and myself, I stumbled upon Sudbury schools and Grace's Teenage Liberation Handbook. Beneath the worrying and slightly skeptical gaze of my family, and with the support of an anarchist community I had adopted in my hometown, I became a proud drop out.
In the six years since, I began the creation of a pirate radio station, interned on an organic farm, traveled copiously around the United States (largely alone, in my sturdy 15 year old car named Nito) and Puerto Rico, experienced life changing relationships, made art (mostly of the photographic and textile persuasion), learned to milk goats, flirted with college, worked fly rails in a theater, and lurked around Los Angeles' Garment District. Last year I moved into a collective house of folks who have all at one time or another staffed at NBTSC, worked at a Montessori school, learned a little about working lights at a live music venue, became heavily involved in a therapy technique called Re-Evaluation Counseling or Co-Counseling, worked as a permaculture landscaper, and spray painted everything I could get my hands on silver.
Recently, I've been looking into starting a more legitimate and FCC licensed radio station in Pensacola, Florida, and have been enjoying waiting tables at a small fine dining restaurant, after spending a chilly winter in Vermont sitting by a fully stocked wood stove on a friend's sheep farm.
Camp History: camper 2003-2006, 2006 junior staff, dish queen, Logistics Goddess since 2007
Brittney Lynne Andrews, 23
Nickname: Maori
Newington, Georgia
Year-round NBTSC staff liaison, and Oregon office support. (Also an advisor at Session 1.)
Maori attended over 11 different schools and traversed much of the US while growing up, but her mainstream, suburban lifestyle couldn't quite satiate her appetite for adventure and wonderment. She is thankful for the day that she found herself entangled in the powerful words and substance of the Teenage Liberation Handbook. Its beguiling notion of teenage liberation prompted her to defy conventional logic, and she quit school to homeschool through her senior year. Wanting to try new things, she attended Not Back To School Camp and found it brimming with inspiration and an unparalleled sense of aliveness. The experience led her implement major and subtle changes in her life: she adopted a more active and enthusiastic approach to learning and began to unearth and cultivate more meaning and beauty in her life.
At age 18, Maori started college as an Interior Design major, but she found it to be a little too vinyl-clad and fluorescent-lit. She left after one semester. Then Maori took a Natural Building apprenticeship at The Farm in Tennessee, where she first learned about Permaculture (something she loosely defines as a design philosophy, which seeks sustainable ways of living by observing and emulating natural systems and patterns). In March of 2008, she completed her Permaculture design certification at Maya Mountain Research Farm in Belize, Central America. Through Permaculture, Natural Building, and Environmental Psychology (the interplay between humans and their surroundings) Maori has been able to discover the deeper, more personal layers of design that had originally sparked her interest in the field. This fall she will study green Interior Architecture at the Academy of Art University where she plans to earn her BFA.
Currently, Maori enjoys spending time outside, working at an organic plant nursery, tending to her two little garden patches, caring for her little goat (Santiago), life-guarding at an outdoor pool, watching the sun set in Georgia, and continuing to work with Not Back to School Camp.
NBTSC history: camper at the first-ever East Coast session in West Virginia in 2002, junior staff in West Virginia in 2004, logistics goddess in West Virginia in 2005, logistics goddess in Oregon 2006, 2007.
Next.....please choose a session, and enjoy meeting more of the NBTSC staff.
Also see our links page for websites pertaining to past and present staff people--some great stuff there.
Contact the camp office.