Staff - 2009 Vermont Session 4
Advisors
Advisors do lots of things: teach workshops; lead games, sports, hikes, fieldtrips, and other activities; help out with logistics; and other stuff. But most essentially, they connect with campers--individually and in small groups. Each advisor meets daily with his or her group of 11 or so campers, and is generally available for support, hugs, and conversation.
Blake Boles, 26
at large (California, Oregon, etc.)
Advisor, Sessions 1,2,3&4
Project Leader, Session 2
2008 was an exciting year for Blake--he signed a publishing deal for his book (College Without High School), led a group of nine teenage unschoolers around Argentina for six weeks, and acted (for two weeks) as the full director of a children’s wilderness summer camp. Never one for a “stable lifestyle”, this year found him living in Portland, Oregon for 4 months, working as an EMT medic for a New England environmental education program, presenting at two homeschooling conferences, and returning to the California High Sierras to work and backpack. Blake is SUPER excited to work all four sessions of NBTSC in 2009 and connect with dozens of new unschoolers!
Blake was a public school student and didn’t get bit by the unschooling bug until he was in college--but it bit hard. After redesigning his major to study alternative education exclusively, Blake went on to brainstorm a cornucopia of unschooler-related enterprises. He is the co-founder (with the famous Abbi Miller) of Unschool Adventures (www.unschooladventures.com), a teen travel company for unschoolers. You can find College Without High School (a great gift for friends in high school!) via the publisher’s website (www.newsociety.com), your local bookstore, or the omnipresent Amazon.com.
Blake 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 and writing. 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 both California and Oregon.
Evan Wright, 27
Seattle, Washington
Advisor, Sessions 1, 3, and 4
(photo by Vanessa Filkins, Quo Vadis 2004)
One of Evan’s defining characteristics isn’t obvious at first, although it has a long history. When he was ten years old, he decided he wanted to “stay underwater” and built a diving bell out of an upside-down garbage can, a length of rope, and 75 pounds of weight: he is a creative problem solver to the core. After a decade developing experience as an autodidact, he is even more at home using the tools of stubborn curiosity, independence, and unconventional approaches to arrive at surprising and innovative solutions to all kinds of challenges.
Evan began his practice of self-education after reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook at 15. His curriculum included unlearning many of the unspoken lessons from school and re-establishing his own direct personal relationship to learning. He explored the British Museum; worked at a London soup kitchen run by nuns; raised harbor seal pups, disentangled sea lions from fishermen's nets in Mexico, and assisted in research of 5 ft. long green sea turtles in Costa Rica. Without school he studied the life of Albert Einstein, assisted with research on whales, and explored the writing of educational visionaries and critics.
As an adult, Evan has specialized in creating projects that bring people together. He enjoys facilitating connection among challengingly diverse groups of people and fostering community among those who may not fully appreciate what they have in common. For over a decade Evan has worked with unschoolers and their families, establishing his reputation as a generous mentor, a passionate leader and an articulate advocate of unschooling. He is the founder of The Education Empowerment Project (an unschooling organization) and for five years was the director of an adult unschoolers event called Quo Vadis.
Evan has participated in Not Back to School Camp for a decade: for many years as an advisor, and as a camper before that. He is a total dork and is honored to share a week with one hundred home- and un-schooled teenagers. At camp Evan has led or co-led workshops and discussions on: Marine Biology, How to Build an Underwater Robot, How to Change the World in 90 minutes, Stone Sculpting, Investing, How to Make Homemade Pasta, The Life of Albert Einstein, How to Begin a Project or Event, The Supreme Court of the United States, Barn Raising (a networking activity), Blues Dancing, The Effective Unschooler, and How to Get What You Want.
Jasmine Sheldon, 25
Seattle, Washington
Advisor, Sessions 1,2,3&4
Project Leader, Session 2
If you asked her, Jasmine would characterize herself as an affectionate optimist. She has spent the last year rewriting her life plan dozens of times; at this point she has simply decided to treat herself really well and be open to whatever comes her way. . .
Jasmine originally hails from the great northern state of Alaska, spending most of her adolescence in Palmer, where she didn't attend school, but did play in the woods, learn to cook, work at a bakery, teach swim lessons to cute kids, run around, laugh a lot, and spend many cold winters sledding with her sisters and reading aloud from good books.
Jasmine loves a good adventure. In the past year she has tried on a variety of professions, including working in a major trauma hospital, teaching preschool, making coffee and serving delicious lunches at a cafe, hosting at a back country ski camp, working on and off at a rock climbing gym, and most recently spending her summer rock climbing and backpacking with 8-17 year olds all over Washington State, primarily through Seattle-based non-profit Passages Northwest and Bothell-based non-profit Rite of Passage Journeys.
Jasmine is extremely excited about: Traveling. Finding new ways to incorporate silliness and play into her life. Hiking. Laughing. Rock climbing. Skiing. Backpacking. Swimming. Being true to yourself. Honesty. Playing games. Bringing ritual and gratitude into her everyday existence. Bike commuting. Bike touring. Building strong, supportive communities. Cooking. Baking. Reading new books. Re-reading books that she loves. Looking at the world through curious eyes. Taking pictures. Cutting up old clothes and putting them back together to make new ones. Dreaming. Making art. Writing. Poetry. Staffing at all four sessions of NBTSC 2009.
During camp Jasmine loves to be silly (think pirate olympics, etc.), sing in the sun, play rowdy games, laugh, be a sounding board for your thoughts about life, celebrate your uniqueness, and support you in any way she can.
Unschooling history: An unschooler since birth, Jasmine has spent time learning in a variety of settings. From the cooperative based loosely termed "school" of 10 families in Alaska during the late 80s and early 90s, to a year in a public high school and four years in a college program that pretty much let her design both her classes and her degree. She continues to learn, grow, and unschool in everything she does.
camp history: jr staffer 2003, night owl 2004, 2005-2008 advisor and project leader
Ethan Mitchell, 32
Vergennes, Vermont
Advisor, Session 3 & 4
(photo by Allen Ellis, NBTSC 2006)
I live on a sheep farm in Vermont, with my amazing wife, my parents, grandparents, 65 sheep, 17 ducks, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and many, many books. We keep open house so there are usually one or two other people living here as well, sometimes with additional livestock. To make the coin, I used to work mainly as a sculptural stone-carver, but immediately after NBTSC 06 (my first taste) I basically quit my job and started working as a tutor and organizer for the local unschoolers. Oh, and I spend a lot of time rebuilding my house, which used to be a cow barn. And writing. I write way too much, sometimes for money and mostly for fun.
Before I ran into hundreds of bona fide unschoolers (I didn't leave school until college, and that was more an act of revenge than emancipation) I used to think I had diverse interests. I think I can generally arrange my interests around three questions. Viz: What does unschooling mean at the level of the university? How did people fall in love in the 9th century AD? And (paraphrasing the Lester boys) how do we decide what to think about, and what not to think about? More, uhhm, specifically, I am passionate about: welding; free speech; ceramics; recycled building materials; telluric currents; Medieval feminism; ducks; and helping people get through grad school so they can, as someone once said, get a real life and education.
Ethan's resource page for Vermont unschoolers is here.
Denise Green, 29
Rochester, New York
Advisor, Session 4
Denise enjoys advising at NBTSC because the mere sight of a large group of young folks free to learn as they please, supported in their interests, many of whom have never set foot in a school, is something that she used to only dream about on long, tortuous bus rides to school back before she found the Handbook and convinced her parents to give the whole "home education" thing a shot.
These days, now that college is a thing of the past and her Sign Language Interpreting business has been up and running for a few years, she can be found enjoying this next phase in her life when she enjoys traveling (Central America, Europe, New England), nesting, gardening, and creating (her first quilt, original clothing, and humble pizzicato tunes on her violin, Eden). More recent research interests include pregnancy and un-hospital births, Plato's Symposium, how technology is affecting human interaction, and music theory.
NBTSC history: camper, 1997. Cook, 2006 (VT). Advisor, 2007-2008 (VT).
Kitchen coordinator
Nicole Martin, 29
Albany, New York
Kitchen Coordinator, all sessions everywhere
Nicole's been on the NBTSC staff since 1997 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, and comes as a set with her fabulous daughter Lou. 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.
Cooks
At camp, our fabulous cooks prepare 3 meals a day, harmonizing with each other and with the many campers who help out in the kitchen. Food at NBTSC definitely does not happen in a factory atmosphere; while making dinner, the kitchen crew is liable to sing together and to discuss life, the universe, and everything--or garlic, blackberries, and pizza crust, which often amounts to the same thing. Anyway, because they have so much interaction with campers we consider them unofficial advisors and hire them with that in mind--they are advisor-caliber folks who can also make magic with potatoes and other miracles of nature.
Joshua Nicoson
Albany, New York
Cook, Vermont
"Josh in a nutshell," by anonymous:
Joshua Nicoson is an utter genius. He was born in Manhattan, and until most recently has lived in such places as New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois and Vermont.
Laughter unabated, the thinnest darn feet, redbeard to be reckoned with, a capacity to meet folks young and old right exactly where they're at in the most allowing of ways, degree in structural engineering, a degree in architectural nerdiness, more knowledge of sports facts than most would give a bleep to know and even the ones who do he knows more than, pool shark--yikes, eats onions like they're apples, has a son named Emmett who if he's lucky will grow up to be much like his father.
Marlene Depierre
Maui
Cook, Sesscion 3
It's a pleasure to welcome Marlene (who happens to be Nicole's mom and Lou's grandma!) back to camp. She once did a fabulous job of coordinating our Oregon kitchen, and Nicole learned many of her own amazing ways with food direct from her mama.
Cameron Lovejoy, 21
Columbia, South Carolina
Cook, Session 3
Cameron left school at age 12 after consulting his parents about being homeschooled, because he was certain that school was interfering with his passions. After much research, his mother found the writings of John Holt; and after two years, he found his love of learning again. Since then he has created a short film about quitting school, presented at numerous unschooling conferences, helped his family with the Live and Learn Unschooling Conferences, joined the Unschool Adventures team as a marketing and advertising intern, and created an online discussion group for parents to ask unschooling offspring about being autodidacts. Along with advocating unschooling, Cameron also enjoys cooking, backpacking, kayaking, world travel, concerts, good hugs, ultimate frisbee, drumming, entrepreneurship, and the nomadic lifestyle. Currently, Cameron is directing an unschooling conference of his own called The Autodidact Symposium debuting March of 2010 in Columbia, South Carolina. He hopes to see YOU there! www.theautodidactsymposium.com
Dish Queen
Alex Rhue, 21
San Francisco, California
Advisor, Session 1; Dish Queen, Session 2&4; Night Owl, Session 3
Growing up, partially, in the middle of rural California was the most instrumental chapter of my life to date, I believe. For it was there that I discovered how, and why, to be curious. I would spend my days and evenings wandering through the forest near my house, with a small pickax, in search of fallen trees, natural springs, and the ever elusive Banana Slug. I think that my parents' unbridled willingness to let me spend quite literally every waking moment in the outdoors, galavanting, conversing with animals, and just... Breathing - is to this day one of the things I am most thankful for. That and the flavor of watermelon.
Ennui was not an emotion I knew until my progression to Northern Michigan, acquiring a television, the invention of the internet, and puberty ( a malicious event in life that refuses to be supportive of you while you're around attractive people). Michigan, though, was the great state that introduced me to acting, being the home to the first play that I was cast in - Aladdin, I believe it was. I played a cloud. Now, surprising as though it may seem, it was not love at first sight. My older brother was actually the one interested in theater; I merely followed in his footsteps with a little stiff handed prodding form my beloved mother. Much like my first year at camp, my mother had to bribe me with some unnamed culinary delicacy, or perhaps the promise of less chores if I would simply try it. I was, and remain, a rather shy child.
After becoming enthralled with the fantastical ways of the stage, I spent the next 8 years learning lines, playing soccer, riding over the international bridge to get to rehearsals and ALWAYS being terrified of both the U.S. And Canadian customs officials, and playing more soccer. If I hadn't found my spark acting, then that's probably what I would be doing. Playing for the USA Olympic soccer team and trying to create some sorely needed dignity that the men's league never had.
I moved out of my house at 19, to another, slightly more racially and culturally diverse city in Michigan called Ann Arbor. I attended a very nice community college for one semester, before I abandoned higher education for the second time (but not the last, I assume) to pursue two "day-jobs" and begin writing what I only recently figured out to be a mildly fascinating screenplay. I then moved to New York on a whim (a proposition was made, with an expiration date of 20 minutes), where I divide my time between another increasingly ill-fated day job and writing down snippets and plot advances for several different screenplays and short films.
(Grace says: Then Mr. Rhue moved to San Francisco and engaged in more ill-fated and fascinating snippets and whims .... but I guess he ran out of whim while updating his bio for 2009. You'll have to sit him down and get a plot update in person.)
Logistics puppy
This year our Logistics Goddess, Frankie Cruz (see the aministrative staff bio page), has the luxury of her own well-seasoned, dedicated assistant:
Matt Sanderson, 20
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Logistics Elf, Sessions 1,2,3&4
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.
Matt 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.
The next spring, Matt 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.
Last year was Matt's first 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 that time, he has lived with Not Back to school camp staffers Alex, Frankie, Nicole, Josh, Abbi and Zen (not all at once, but almost) in Philadelphia, Albany, and San Francisco. He's now returning to Philadelphia, with an eye on helping to again facilitate the Young peoples Empowerment Convergence (happening mid July).
Junior Staff
The junior staff does all kinds of logistical and grunty stuff that frees up the senior staff to focus on caring for campers directly--they scrub lots of pots and pans; supervise bathroom cleanup, the dish-line, and other chores; wake people up in the morning; count heads twice daily; cook; and do all kinds of other important stuff. We really appreciate and love our junior staffers! Their week on jr. staff also enables us to get to know them in a different context and find out how we think they might do in the future as potential senior staff, and it helps them see what being on staff entails. (Lots of fantasies are dashed, actually, when people discover for themselves how hard the staff works, so not everyone ends the week begging to join the senior staff!) Almost always, junior staffers are 19-21 year olds who have come to NBTSC previously as campers. Once in a while, they are folks completely new to our community. (As a bit of historical trivia, Nicole, Damian, and Jasmine all made their first appearances at camp as junior staffers.)
Our Session 4 Junior Staffer is Chris Dunn.
Back to administrative staff page
Oregon Session 1 staff
Oregon Session 2 staff
Vermont Session 3 staff