Rethinking Education's 2008 Kid / Teen / Young Adult PROGRAM

Part I.  Overview of What Kids, Teens & Young Adults Can Expect
Part II. What Kids Can Do To Help
Part III. How Kid Village Works
Part IV. Program for Kids
Part V. Program for Young Adults


Part I.  Overview of What Kids, Teens & Young Adults Can Expect
We will have lots of ongoing sessions and activities all weekend.  All kids, teens and young adults must be registered for the conference in order to participate in any/all of the activities and sessions. All kids of all ages are welcome in all activities and sessions, with the exception of Kid Village, which is limited to kids aged 1-6 only.  To see what is scheduled so far, click here. (Erin, link to Part III, below.)

We will continue to add sessions and activities through June 2008. Check back often for updates. To have us keep you updated via email, sign up here.

The following is an overview of what the Rethinking Education Conference experience will be like for kids, teens and young adults.

For Kids 1 - 6:
Kid Village is a fully supervised play area for kids aged 1 - 6, and kids may either come and go as they wish or attend with a parent or grandparent or older sibling.  Your child aged 1-6 will not be permitted to leave Kid Village on her own unless you tell us it is ok for them to do this.  Kids 1 - 6 may also participate in any other conference session or activity of their choosing all weekend. (More on Kid Village below.)

For Kids 7 and up:
There will be numerous and wide-ranging activities for kids of all ages all weekend, many hosted by adults, some hosted by kids and teens, and several that are open all weekend with no host.  All of the activities and sessions may be attended by any kid of any age.

For Young Adults 16 - 25:
For the first time ever, we will offer a "Program within a Program" this year, with lots of dedicated hotel meeting room space and an entire weekend anchored by Sean Ritchey and Steve Cooperman.  Teens under the age of 16, parents and grandparents are also welcome in any of the sessions for Young Adults.  


Part II.  How Kids, Teens and Young Adults Can Help
We love as much active participation from and are eagerly looking for ideas from kids, teens and young adults on WHAT THEY WANT at the conference this year.  This conference is all about YOU!  Here is what we want you to do:

- if you are a kid, teen or young adult and have an idea about something you want to learn, talk about or do, or if you have an idea about something you want to present or share with others, tell us now.  Steve Cooperman is helping organize this and is talking to kids, teens and young adults now though August about their ideas.  Email him at stevecooperman@hotmail.com or call him at 641.472.0444.  Talk to him about your ideas.  If you are a parent or other adult that has an idea for a session or activity that you think kids - young adults will love, contact Barb Lundgren at barb@THEunschoolingconference.com or 817.540.6423.

At the start of the conference in September, Steve Cooperman will take charge of a session for kids, teens and young adults.  In this session, everyone's ideas, even brand new ideas introduced at the conference itself, will be shared, and Steve will facilitate a process of organizing and scheduling them.  So, if you have something to share, or want to know what's going on, be sure to attend this session, which is most likely going to be on Thursday evening.  Parents are also welcome, of course.


Part III.  How Kid Village Works
Kid Village is a large area completely devoted to play for kids aged 1 - 6.  It is supervised at all times, and open during all session hours, typically from 9am - 10pm.  Kid Village is stocked with a bounce house, kid-sized grocery store, books, art, tents and tunnels, super heroes, dolls and doll clothes and beds, a kid-sized mini hospital, dress-up supplies, riding toys and much more.  If you want your child to be able to play in Kid Village with or without you, you must register your child for the conference.  Non-registered children will not be admitted to Kid Village.

As a parent, you will decide whether your child is able to come and go at will (free-range), or not.  If you do not want your child to leave Kid Village on her own, you will tell us when you bring him into Kid Village.  If your child asks for you while in Kid Village or needs a diaper changed, or simply does not want to remain in Kid Village any longer, the Kid Village volunteer or supervisor will call your cell phone and you will come to pick up your child immediately.  Your child is welcome back to Kid Village anytime.  Typically, kids come and go many times per day, staying for just 1/2 hour or for hours at a time.  Each child is different, each experience is different.  Kid Village offers you and your child 4 full days of happy and fun child care on each child's own terms.  Additionally, your child is welcome to attend all adult sessions with you as long as he is not disturbing the other attendees.  Our goal is to provide a safe, fun, empowering experience for each child and parent, with you and your child at the helm.


Part IV.  Program for Kids
Sessions and activities for kids are open to everyone and anyone, regardless of age, including young adults, parents and grandparents.

Sessions and activities will continue to be added to our program through July 2008.  Here's whats on the agenda so far:

- NEW this year! Music & Dance, Art & Movies every night in our very special Unschool UnNightclub from about 7:30 pm - 1am.  We have an amazing space on the 20th floor of the Westin with an entire wall of glass windows that overlook the Dallas city lights.  We will host themed music and dance each night, movies and other activities here. We will keep you posted via our Conference Email Updates.  To sign up for the emailed Updates, click here.

80's Night
Don't forget your Aqua Net hair spray for this night. Big shirts, shoulder pads, ponytails and skinny leggings is what we look forward to seeing this night because we are gonna Party Like It's 1999. Duran Duran, Madonna, Prince, DEf Leppard, Bon Jovi, Cindy Lauper and WHAM! Get ready to Bang Your Head all night long.

Random Hit's Night
Togas, mohawks and black lipstick...just do your own thang. Wear your freakiest, silliest or most conservative garb and enjoy being whatever you want with total acceptance. Bring your own CDs and submit them for play. It's your night, make it yours. Anything goes.

Vintage Night 20's 30's 40's and 50's
Dust off your best Zoot Suit and let's do the Charlston. Flappers and Poodle skirts tonight. We will Twist and Shout and wake the legends of the past. Get ready to Boogie Woogie to Glen Miller and big band music, The Supremes, Etta James, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra all night.

Hippie Night 60's and 70's
Give peace a chance, Man. You don't need any extra bread for this night. Grab some flowers, bell bottoms, tye dye and your favorite pair of Go-Go boots for a night of Bob Dylan, The Mommas and the Pappas, The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Blondie, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, Jefferson Starship, The Doors and many more. Yeah, Man, it's gonna be groovy. Pet rocks allowed!


Monday, Sept. 8:
This entire day will be devoted to the much softer pace we are calling our "Afterglow Gathering". It will take place in a beautiful setting and be unstructured all day, hosting a variety of movies, music, dance, art, puzzles and of course, conversation and final connections with old and new friends alike. We have this space reserved for our use until midnight.


- Junkyard Golf - NEW this year! All weekend.
We will use a big chunk of our hotel meeting room space to create, with Bernie DeKoven's help, a golf course made with …. Junk. Not only that, but it will be a golf course unlike you've ever seen or imagined, with all new rules too, or maybe no rules at all. The course will be entirely a product of YOUR imagination, so be sure to show up to help create it. We will leave it up all weekend for golfers to play with, rebuild and reinvent.

- Dress-up! - NEW this year. All weekend!

- Monster Pick-Up sticks! All weekend!

- Film Making. Veteran unschool Dad Vince Ofeno will lend us his top notch video cameras and expertise once again this year so kids can invent, film and edit a weekend movie. To see last year's movie, click here.

- Box City!  All weekend!  Box City will be a bit different this year.  Instead of creating a city out of refrigerator boxes, we will have hundreds of sturdy boxes of all sizes assembled as cardboard blocks, to use for building anything your imagination can create.

- Tin Can City - NEW this year. We will have hundreds of tin cans which you can use to build with all weekend.

- Remote Control Car Racing - NEW this year! Bring your remote control cars, build obstacle courses and work on your maneuvers or even race with other players. We will set aside some large space for you a few times during the weekend indoors and you can set your course up and run your cars!

- Games!  Lots of games, all weekend.  Not only will David Niecikowski and his collection of the World's Best Games be back with us again to share and teach his huge array of fabulous games, but Bernie DeKoven will be with us to teach us all sorts of brand new games, how to break all the rules to make the games suit our desires, and have major fun (in fact, Bernie's nickname is Major Fun)!  We will also have conference games and puzzles to play with and work on all weekend too.

- Video Game Room.  Bring your game system, games and a TV and we will provide the dedicated space to play all weekend.  You can either have us lock up your equipment when not in use, or you may safely store it in your overnight room when out of use.

- Role-Playing Games.  We will have dedicated space for you to play your D & D, Pokemon, and all role-playing games all weekend. Bring your games!

- Music Room.  We will have a dedicated, locking room for all who wish to bring their instruments of all kinds and make music... all weekend.

- Movies!  Be sure to email Barb if you want to schedule a movie... otherwise you will just have to be surprised!  

- Talent Show!  Bring your talent, whether newbie or expert skill level, to our Sunday night Talent Show.  This is one of the highlights of our weekend together and all performers are enthusiastically welcomed and applauded!

- Conference Ombudsman.  We will have a teen or adult serving for one hour at a time, 4 times daily, to help anyone with any question, problem or conflict that might arise at the conference.  If you would like to be an ombudsman, contact Barb at barb@THEunschoolingconference.com.

- Imagination Station  


VALLEY REED
currently directs her own business, Chrysalis Healing Arts www.chrysalishealingarts.org offering Massage Therapy, Dream Groups and Movement Workshops. She serves on the Board of the Dallas Peace Center www.dallaspeacecenter.org where she volunteers as Team Leader for the Swords Into Plowshares Team. Most importantly she is a mother raising 2 wonderful teenagers who are very creative and opinionated individuals!

Valley Reed has been a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams since 2000, she has presented papers at the past two International Conferences on working with young children and dreams and family dreaming. As the mother of two amazing creative dreamers she has cultivated a tradition of dream sharing into the everyday family setting. She will chair a panel at the 2008 IASD Conference in Montreal, Canada on tracking your Ancestral ties through Dreaming.

Valley has practiced a life long love of dance and studied many forms over her lifetime. She has performed professionally with the local dance companies The Dallas Ballet - performing artist, Mahogany Dance Theater - Assistant Director, Nine Fish Jumping- Founding Member. She continues to dance and choreograph and will perform "the Crow and the Phoenix" in Montreal Canada in July 2008 at the International Association for the Study of Dreams Conference. She was inspired by her then 6 year old daughter who wanted a book for her dream book library, to write the story "the Crow and the Phoenix" as a fairytale based on a series of dreams. For more info, see www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org, www.iasdreams.org

Valley hosts:

Conflict Resolution with Contact Improvisation
The process reveals empathy, how to contain polarity, and offers valuable information about where you are inside of a conflict.

Peace Movement allows us to embody peace by listening to the body and moving with our experience. This process allows us to listen deeply and get out of our heads where conflict too often becomes a polarity of black or white, this or that. We will move toward the center of resolution and reconciliation within the container of the circle where all shades of experience are available. All ages.

Dream Work for Teens 12-17
Creative Dreaming - learn how to incubate a dream for creative problem solving, and also how to honor the dream with creative expression. Dream Transfer - Would you like to dream for another person who may be in need of a dream? This techniques shows you how to dream for another person and how to share the dream with them.

Dream Work for Children ages 4-11
Confronting your dream monsters. Have you ever had a scary dream? Did you ever wish you could confront your fears in your dreams? Well you can! In this workshop we will learn how to re-enter a dream scene by drawing the dream and then drawing a desired outcome for the dream.

Family Dream Sharing - Parents and their children
How to share dreams as a family and learn to dream together.
This workshop will cover the art of dream sharing, how and when to share a dream. How to cultivate a safe environment for dream sharing. We will create a family album of dreams, a kind of family dream journal, with a family tree of dreams where dreams of departed relatives can be shared.


QUINN EAKER
Hello Everyone! I'm gonna give u a bit of info on myself so that u don't have to ask my mom, she is busy enough as it is!

As I write this (Quinn, oldest son of Barb Lundgren *wink*) my fascination with all aspects of pottery has dwindled to a grateful understanding and utilization of techniques while I move on to another facet of life; MUSIC! I just recorded two songs and loved the entire process. Sound has taken on a whole new life for me and the gadgets, tools, equipment and software that can be incorporated are providing plenty of stimuli!

I'm leaving for Mexico in 3 days. While I'm not quite sure how it will play out my feelings tell me there shall be plenty to enjoy. I leave behind a property where we are doing "industrial harvesting" as I like to call it. Where we are collecting materials from all over the area that are no longer wanted but to me are EXTREMELY useful. We currently have a free manure bank, wood chip bank, tire bank, cardboard bank, brewed barley and hops bank and all sorts of varying trickles of resources, providing materials for the essentials of life. A large garden, rain water harvesting, wine & beer brewing, mushroom house, green house, art studio and various cob structures are in the process. It's important to me to enjoy it now for what it is and be able to let it go when and if it is no longer fulfilling, inspiring and creative.

I have come into alignment with the reality that the universe is abundant, that all the information needed is only a book or keyword away and LIFE WANTS TO LIVE!!!

Quinn hosts:

Didgeridoo Meditation
The didj is as pure and primal as waves on rock. Profound, deep, penetrating, peace and contentment is in the didj experience. More simply it just feels good.

I enjoy holding space for the focused silence within the music. Sage, resins, stones and candles may also be a part of this experience. All who are present may be for as much or little as each wishes. Plan for roughly1 hour, although I do not base this experience on time.

All words aside I am sharing what I feel good about sharing and would love anyone who wants to be a part of it to be so.


Dawn Roosth
Dawn is the Director of Education at In-Sync Exotics Wildlife Rescue & Educational Center in Wylie, TX, a non-profit sanctuary dedicated to the rescue of abused, neglected and displaced exotic/native cats. She and her unschooled daughter, Kassi (14), have been actively volunteering at In-Sync for 5 years. Dawn is also dabbling in wildlife rehabilitation and is working under a mentor rehabbing bobcats, raccoons, opossums and other wildlife for release back in the wild. Fortunately, she has a daughter who is also an avid animal lover so that the two can live and learn together. Dawn lives in Murphy, TX with husband David, teenaged daughter Kassi, two dogs and a chinchilla. Visit In-Sync Exotics' website at www.insyncexotics.com.

Hosting:

Where the Wild Things Are…and Where They Should Not Be
In-Sync Exotics is not a zoo and does not exist for the public's viewing pleasure. In fact, it's our dream that one day there will be no need for wildlife sanctuaries. Because of people's infatuation with wild animals and their desire to interact with animals that would otherwise be untouchable, exotic animal breeding facilities have thrived and reputable sanctuaries, such as In-Sync Exotics, struggle to provide safe, loving and nurturing homes to these former pets, discarded entertainment animals and formerly abused and neglected products of inhumane breeding facilities. Come learn about the rescue work we do and hear the stories of some of the cats that call In-Sync home in this DVD presentation and Q & A session. For the safety of our cats and the people we visit, and so not to contribute to the exploitation of big cats, especially those who had a rough start in life, no cats will accompany me.

Come Visit the Cats in Their Home
In-Sync Exotics will open its doors to conference goers, Monday, September 8, 10am-2pm. Come meet the cats that have found a safe haven at In-Sync Exotics. Dawn will be on-sight to show you around the sanctuary. The discounted admission fee is $5/person. Under 3 are free. All money goes directly to the cats' care. Cash and Checks only. No strollers please. Directions can be found on our website, www.insyncexotics.com, and on the back of the flyer found in your Welcome bag. Hope to see you there.


MILLER PYKE & ALYSON WHITWORTH
have been lifelong Unschoolers who recently began taking dance classes together. Alyson works at Chili's when she is not being a beautiful ballerina. Miller works as a hired interior designer and painter on the side when she's not being a zombie. Neither of them are Hip Hoppers but, in their Hip Hop class they began to learn the classic "Thriller" dance and caught Zombie fever! This is a dance that you will remember your whole life. We are so excited to teach you! Are ready to be Zombified?

Miller & Alyson host:

Thriller: Let's Dance like Zombies
25 years after Michael Jackson's "Thriller" came out it is still amazing! In this workshop we will teach you the classic "Thriller" dance and you help put our own twists to it! We will also stretch and give a good workout! Feel free to bring zombie clothes and make-up.


REID PATTEN
My life consists of listening to my I-pod, "working" on the computer, and dancing. I am ten years old and vertically challenged (which here means fun-sized, which here means short for my age!) My style of dance most people don't even know, which then takes a lot of explaining and then they just get lost in the first sentence. My three siblings don't make things easier for me. Once I found myself picking up my little ponies when I was cleaning my shared room with my 6 year old sister Greta, my 2 year old little brother Seth broke our 2 day old remote, and little brother Eli….well, he's just Eli. It can be VERY hectic in the Patten household between dance, gymnastics, Kindermusic, and piano lessons. Summer is the worst time of year for us because of summer camps, summer classes, and kids never being where they were two seconds ago! So all in all I am a very busy person, complete with the siblings and oldest sibling responsibilities.

Reid hosts:

Lyrical Dance...Whatical Dance?: The Dance that Nobody Knows
This a fun, simple introduction to lyrical dance. A very easy start for people wanting to try lyrical dance, or just for a fun thing to do.


Troy McDonald
I am 12 years old and I live on a farm in Northeast Texas with my parents and three brothers. You can see one of the chicks I am raising sitting on my shoulder. I love driving our tractor, riding my horse and helping my dad on the farm. I have been homeschooled my whole life. I enjoy reading, legos, and chess. I like to do all kinds of arts and crafts, including drawing and making jewelry.

Wood Burning:
I will show you how to use the power of the sun to create a beautiful work of art. We will draw a picture on a piece of wood , and then burn the design into the wood with magnifying glasses and the sun's rays. We will be outside near the pool, so wear your bathing suit, and sunscreen.


OWEN & CAMPBELL SUTKA
My name is Owen and I am 10 years old. I like to read, do gymnastics, Tae Kwon Do and play soccer. Something unique about me is my bunny teeth. I would like to be an alchemist and a natural philosopher when I'm older. I love unschooling because I like being able to read all day and do more of the activities I like to do.

My name is Campbell and I am 6 years old. I like math, art, science and reading. I am really small, but you don't want to mess with me, because along with my brother Owen and my sister Madeleine I am a green belt in Tae Kwon Do. I've won two dancing contests with my famous robot dance moves. I want to be a mad scientist. It's fun not to have to go to school and sit around being bored, and being able to hang around with my family.

There are six people in our family, we have an older sister Madeleine (11) and a baby brother Finnegan (2), we also have a dog named Caesar and a cockatiel named Sam. Our family is always together because Dad works from home. We all love to watch movies together, play rockband and guitar hero on the playstation and we spend a lot of time just being goofy. As you might imagine, our house is very loud, which is just the way we like it!!

Owen and Campbell will host:

Pikachu! Charizard! Swampert! Treecko! Elite Four! Deoxys!
Does this mean anything to you? If so, then this is the session for you!

This is a chance for Pokemon enthusiasts to chat, trade, battle, berry crush, etc… Bring game systems, adaptors, trading cards, figurines, toys and anything Pokemon to share tips, hints, favorites, and your love for all things Pokemon. Whether you are just starting off, or you've already beaten the Elite Four, everyone is welcome.


MISTY FELNER
is an unschooling mom of two and wife of 10 yrs. When Misty was only 13 yrs of age, she found a love and interest in American Sign Language, and knew she wanted to spend her life using this beautiful visual way to express yourself. Despite all attempts by the public schools to thwart her aspirations, she remained steadfast in her dream to become fluent in the language of the deaf. Upon graduating from SFA State University, where she met her beloved husband, Misty moved to Dallas and accepted a job with the city's public school district. There Misty slowly lost her ambition to share her passion and was broken down to become just another dictator in a classroom. When she started her family Misty was able to break free of the damaging habits she had succumbed to, and adopted the principles of unschooling. Now Misty has reclaimed her passion and is happily sharing it with fellow parents, unschoolers and home learners.

Misty hosts:

Sing and Sign Along
If you are interested in learning a few signs in American Sign Language or like singing songs with hand motions come and Sing and Sign Along. In this session you will learn some basic American Sign Language vocabulary to sing a few everyday children's songs. Come Sing and Sign Along with your friends and me.

Say It With Signs
Ever want to have a conversation that most others couldn't understand? Ever want to be able to chat when it's too noisy to hear? Ever meet someone who's deaf and want to say hello? If the answer to any of these questions is yes then come to "Say It With Signs". In this session you will get an introduction to one of the most widely used languages in our country, American Sign Language. You will learn a brief history of the language, and the vocabulary necessary to carry on a basic conversation in ASL. So bring your friends and learn to Say It with Signs.


EDDIE DUNLAP & THE MONDO DRUMMERS
Eddie Dunlap is artistic director of MONDO DRUMMERS and co-founder of Arts Fifth Avenue.

He is a native of Fort Worth who began playing drums professionally at age 10. He has performed with international stars Stevie Ray Vaughn, Mose Alison, Master Cylinder, Sarah Petronio and West-African dancer Titus Fotso. Eddie has hosted popular workshops through the Van Cliburn Foundation outreach efforts, most notably with the Brazilian percussion group Uakti and world-renowned percussionist Evelyn Glennie. For the past 20 years, Dunlap has contributed his talents for musical theatre production with such organizations as Jubilee Theater, Circle Theater and Hip Pocket Theater.
#122 MONDO DRUMMERS educates audiences and students about the history and culture of musical styles from around the world. Begun in 1994 through the Eastside Neighborhood Arts Center as an outreach program for at-risk youth, MONDO focuses on percussion and hand instruments and beyond. MONDO DRUMMERS Performance Ensemble was the first youth hand-drum and percussion ensemble in Texas and recorded their first CD "It was a Big Sky, After All" in 1999. A new recording from MONDO will be launched this year.


CYNDI DORBER
They call her "The Dance Doctor" – she can change those two left feet into one left and one right in a matter of minutes! Through her teaching, she demonstrates a list of laugh-out-loud do's and don't using her own body, that can break the tension of any dance wannabe. You'll turn into a cool, finger-snapping, hip-swaying, toe-tapping dancer, leaving with a smile on your face!

Cyndi has been teaching ballroom, country western, swing, latin and line dancing for 23 years – she's got fun down to a science.

She started out as a sportswriter in New Jersey and was asked to go undercover and tried out for the New Jersey Cosmos Professional Indoor Soccer Team Cheerleading Squad alongside 350 other ladies. She was instructed to find out the scoop about Professional Cheerleading tryouts – there wasn't one. After three days of tryouts, she loved it and made the final 16. She cheered in front of 70,000 soccer fans at the Meadowlands Stadium. She found her true passion – Dance. Two weeks later, she answered an ad in the newspaper asking for a dancer who wanted to be trained as a ballroom instructor and was hired on the spot…she quit her newspaper job and her feet haven't stopped dancing since.

Cyndi hosts:

Salsa & Line Dancing
Join in on the fun, even if it's your first step on a dance floor. Salsa is the rage right now so it's first on the agenda. She will follow that with some serious fun – line dancing with the Cupid Shuffle, Electric Slide, Cotton-Eyed Joe and the Texas 16 Step! Get ready to move and share some fun memories on the dance floor! It's time to laugh and dance!

This seminar is for parents and kids, alike. Dancing is ageless! It keeps you young! Get ready. Wear comfortable clothes and bring your sense of humor!


ANDREA GILROY
lives in Texas with her husband Jeff, son Andrew(13), and daughters Bailynn(9) & Caia(1). A vivid soul from day one, she's always danced through life to her own drummer. She has a heart for God, the arts, nature & people. Born in Kentucky, surrounded by a large and loving family that played, ate and found any reason to be together, she moved to Texas when she was 8 and always desired to have that same closeness of family she knew as a child.

Andrea's unschooling journey began in high school with her desire for "something better". Excelling in her honors classes wasn't enough. She loved to learn, but felt stifled by the public system and annoyed with the lackadaisical attitudes of her peers. There had to be a better way! One of her mottos always resounded in her head, "when you stop learning, you die," and helped her succeed in spite of the system.

As parents, Andrea and her husband searched to find a better way than the public school system that had failed them both, though in different ways. Their paths have always been leading to unschooling, although detours have occurred along the way, and they are excited to continue on this lifelong journey together. Guided by God and the wise council of their friends and family, they strive to nourish the minds of their children, allowing them room to follow their dreams.

Andrea will host:

"Fly Like a Butterfly" Yoga for Kids
"Children's yoga is a natural and healthy way to exercise, relax, focus, and strengthen their mind/body/spirit connection. Yoga games, breath meditations, and deep relaxations are wonderful self-help therapies for hyperactivity, and have helped with ADD/ADHD, Autism, and children's health and well-being."
www.childrensyoga.com/butterfly.htm. Andrea Orr-Gilroy, RCYP certified teacher


MICHAEL BAKOWSKI
is the CEO of Flaming Brick Studios and an unschooled teen with a passion for film making and animation. I have been making movies on my Mac for the past 3 years.
I especially enjoy stop motion animation created with my Legos.

Michael hosts:

Stop Motion Animation with your Favorite Building Toy!
Learn the basics of stop motion animation using Istop motion software. Easy to use and fun to learn! The class will include set building, lighting, basic animation movements. Here is an example of what you will be learning!


BETH ANN DAVIS
Hi I'm BethAnn and I'm 11 years old. I'm unschooled and I love it! It's so fun because I get to hang out with my friends all the time. I also love to do crafts.

Beth Ann hosts:

Shrinky Dinks
I first made Shrinky Dinks with my mom. We made these awesome earrings. They turned out so great that we made them at our Girl Scout meeting and pendants too for the people who don't have their ears pierced or boys like my brother. They are really fun because you can make anything you want and write on them or color them any way you like but the best part is watching them shrink. They go in the toaster oven and shrink up really small. They're so cool. You'll love it!  


VICTOR MARTIN
Victor is inventive, a comedian, a BB gun enthusiast, enjoys Martial Arts, loves dogs, creates books, throws a mean spiral football, Bionicle maker & player, PSP enthusiast and can play a wicked "Iron Man" on his Guitar Hero. Victor likes to works with his Dad, who is an Engineer and plans on designing Battle bots this summer. He is studying German and loves the library. He is friendly and enjoys lots of commotion and new experiences. At night you can find him in his sleeping bag, with a flashlight and a book...... he lives in Indianapolis and this will be his first year at RE!

It's Victor's 11th birthday on Friday, September 5 and his parents will be throwing him a party at night at the hotel which everyone is invited to attend, complete with a treasure hunt, prizes and treats!  


ANDRA LARSON
has attended public school, private school, has homeschooled and most recently has figured out unschooling is her best idea yet- it even tops her double-dipped French toast. After discovering Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook, she realized she had been unschooling all along- her schooling had just gotten in the way of [that] knowledge! Now, sixteen years old and one year wiser thanks to this new change in education, she is ready to go to the next level: meeting other unschoolers! Thanks to the RE Conference and a local online group, this may not prove as difficult as getting to the next level of D&D, although she has never tried either before now.

Not only has unschooling allowed her to walk around in pajamas and read psychology textbooks, but she has also discovered the perks of being in the press. This year boasted the first issue of Youth Writes, (a local teen publication) created by yours truly. This quarterly newspaper is locally renowned, (by mostly the jackrabbits), but also by quite a few Homo Sapiens as well, not limited to the young people of the area, although that is who it is targeted at.

What Andra thought she really needed (besides a new hair cut) was a place to express her creativity and views, and, astonishingly, she found her area seriously lacked such an outlet for teenagers! What's more, she found that many of the forums that did try to cater to teens were more narrow-minded than she felt comfortable with. So, after a bout with some scissors and her mom, she decided to make such an outlet. Youth Writes has no religious affiliation, welcomes submissions from all young people, and uses a very cool typestyle.

Andra will host:

The RE-Write – A Joyous REvival of the RE in-Conference Newsletter!
Not only will we be creating a memory for the 2008 RE conference, we will be learning about what goes into making a publication a success. Any unschooler interested or gifted in writing, art, computer literacy, editing, photography, literature, journalism, advertising, entrepreneurs, DIY, interviews, poetry, comics, scrapbooking, and even unschooling itself is whole heartedly invited- all of these things will play a part in making this a success. We will create the entire publication at the conference!


BERNIE DEKOVEN and STEVE COOPERMAN
Steve Cooperman, aka Iowa Steve, spends as much time as possible in the gap between work and play.
While reading "Teenage Liberation Handbook" a couple of years ago, he discovered that he was a lifelong adult unschooler, and so did the obvious – began unschooling himself about unschooling! He has since worked on staff at Not Back to School Camp (NBTSC), attended Rethinking Education, and co-organized several unschooling events, including one with Ren Allen in Tennessee. He has recently helped launch a center for unschoolers of all ages in Fairfield, Iowa. In true Gemini fashion, he has led a peripatetic professional life, with stints as newspaper editor, school teacher (yes, it's true), marketing manager, corporate trainer, organizational development consultant, business coach, and entrepreneur. He has called New Hampshire, Massachusetts, California, Iowa, Arizona and Colorado home. Besides hanging out with unschoolers, he enjoys swing dancing, music, reading, sports and games of all kind, and Human Design (ask, if you dare).

Bernie Dekoven:
One day, when I was in second grade, I remember thinking to myself: "this could be a lot more fun, Bernard" (I called myself "Bernard" back then). I mean, really. I remember thinking how even workbooks used to be more fun than having to sit here, at my desk, still, silent, with all these kids around me, half-listening, when we could be totally mucking about with some marvelously educational materials, inventing physics. And I'm pretty sure it was then that I began to devote myself to the pursuit of what I have decided to call "the Playful Path." Because the very next thing I remember was me, Bernard, joking. toying. playing, talking pretty much all the time. Even sitting in the hall, waiting to see the principal, I was always on the alert, always looking to make it fun, for me, for anyone I could get to play with.

Since then, I've explored everything and anything I could find that has to do with fun, play, games, toys, joys and happiness. I designed toys, games, computer games, events. I developed a curriculum that was all about playing games for fun. I wrote a book, The Well-Played Game, on that very subject. I worked with the New Games Foundation to create large scale public, playing-for-fun events. I set up my own retreat center for people who wanted to get deep into fun (I called it "The Games Preserve"). Apparently, the idea of playing for fun was something that, for a lot of people, was weird, wacky, kind of irreverent, even - which, naturally, turned out to be the very thing that I did and taught and made my whole life about. 

For me, playing for fun has really been playing for life - not only as a lifetime commitment, but also as a day-to-day focus on life itself. We are currently living in southern California, a block-and-a-half from the beach. We've been married now for 41 years. We've two children and six grands. And we play very well together, in deed.

As for you Unschoolers, I happen to believe that you are the very people who can help make this world more fun, because you are the very people who have experienced the unity of learning and play, the harmonics of life and joy.  Because you know the power of fun, you are the very ones who can become Defenders of the Playful.

Bernie and Steve host:

Junkyard Sports The ultimate in unschooling sports! Participants will be inventing sports using a variety of objects and material (balls, socks, cardboard boxes, whatever is around) and one or more traditional games or sports. We will be inventing sports that everyone, regardless of age or skill level, can play and enjoy. This is definitely an activity you can bring back and share with your local unschooling group/friends. We will also be documenting the sports invented for the Junkyard Sports online community.

Why Sports? Why not Junkyard Games? Glad you asked. Because sports are institutionalized games, institutionalized and ultimately commercialized. And by demonstrating to ourselves and each other that we can in fact create our own sports, and that the sports we can create can be focused on fun and spontaneity and creativity and inclusion and sensitivity to the environment, we can do the same thing for sports that we are doing for schooling. We can take them back. We can make them ours.

Steve hosts:

Unschooling in a Goldfish Bowl
We're going to gather two groups together with the goal of greater understanding and connection: one of unschooled kids, teens and young adults and the other of unschooling parents and other adults. One group will form a circle inside another circle made up of the other group. The group in the outer circle will do nothing but listen to a discussion about unschooling challenges, joys, pros and cons of the inside group. After a time, the groups will trade places and the other group will have a chance to talk while the second group listens. Later, individuals will have a chance share their insights and new perspectives. Intriguing, fun, insightful, enlightening.


AMYSUE VOGEL
describes her self as a Mom first and foremost. After waiting many years and after many failed attempts - she was eventually blessed with two boys through the wonderful world of adoption. Becoming a mother changed her in many ways - especially in her view of the "normal" world - or what our world sees as the norm.

If asked to draw her self portrait with only words - it would go something like this:

I was an outdoorsy child. I played in creeks and trees and loved to create secret hideouts. I was blessed with two adoring parents. I was granted with a Mother who loved me more than life itself. I am an adoptee. I flew through childhood with a smile on my face.

Later, I found a very patient partner. I married a hard-working firefighter. I creatively worked as a teacher for many years then this world relinquished to us 2 young spirits of our very own. I am an adoptive mother - I am Mom. I am drowning in A.D.D. - just like the children around me. I share this life with incredible creatures. I am an animal lover - ask my Boxer, my Maltese, my rabbits. I volunteer with a rabbit rescue - I foster bunnies and raise two of my own. I am a nature lover and live in the country where I run free with my boys in our gardens and on our trails. I like to pack up and go fossil hunting after a good rain. I yearn to find arrowheads. My favorite place in the world is the beach - a deserted beach where exploring is only interrupted by great finds on the seashore or screams of delight. I am messy. I am loud. I am an artist and a soul searcher. I want to see ghosts. I love coffee and books - oh I love those books. I love my quiet times and my loud times. I like to share soft cuddles and football tackles. I like to make stuff - freely - which is why I look forward to hosting a session for the kids on THE MAKING OF MAGIKAL STICKS AND STONES. To say my world is chaos is putting it mildly. To say I love our life - well that's putting it mildly also.

AmySue hosts:

The Making of Magikal Sticks and Stones
Become spellbound! Come get Charmed! Who doesn't want their very own wizard wand?! How about an enchanted amulet?! Using only your imagination and things from nature you are free to create your very own talisman. Come cast some magic for yourself and with your friends. You may even learn a spell or two!


BOB SKIMIN
Little Bobby Skimin spent his first years on a from in Belden, Ohio, not far from Lake erie - where it got brrrrrr cold every winter. When he was five years old, a big neighbor kid threw a bottle at him, putting a big cut on his face. (Yes, little Bobby had been teasing him.) What's the lesson he learned? Don't tease BIG boys! He also fell in love with Little Wilma, whom all the other boys loved as well. That was when he lived in Homerville, Ohio, a tiny village of just 25 houses, a farm with a big barn to play in, a store, a post office, and a church.

He was in 4H and had a beautiful red pig he named Wilma, but the girl he loved didn't appreciate that, not at all! One year he raised watermelons in 4H, but no matter how he watched the vine that grew from the seeds he planted… only one tiny half-formed melon grew on the vine! He decided no more of that! When he was eleven, he got to be a big star in an operetta entitled "Jack and the Beanstalk." He played Jack and loved being the star. But little Wilma never learned to love him.

On his 18th birthday, he went into the army and was an artist there, but he wanted to be an officer, so he went off to officer's training and became the 4th youngest officer in the whole army. Nest, he became a paratrooper and jumpted out of airplanes. Then there was a war, and he had some big adventures… but later, he became a pilot and wore a green beret. Now he writes books for kids. See more about Bob on his website: www.robertskimin.com

Bob hosts:

We're All About History!
This is for all ages, including the big kids who are now parents. Bob will read from some of his books and try to answer just about any question anyone can come up with on any historical subject… can you stump him?

Jumping Out of Airplanes and Flying Them Before Becoming an Author
Also for all ages.
Hear some of Bob's great stories, and ask your questions galore!


MIKE JACOBS
was born Mendel Jakubowicz in 1925 in the small Polish town of Konin, a town whose Jewish community dated back to 1397. On September 1, 1939 when Mike was just 14 years old, the Nazi Army invaded Poland. Two months later, Jacobs and his entire family were herded into cattle cars and moved to the war ghetto in Ostrowiec, and later to Auschwitz, Birkenau and Mathausen-Gusen, when Americans liberated him in 1945. During the five years Mike was confined in war ghettos and concentration camps, he kept hope alive in his heart. He shared that hope by helping others whenever he could - and by undermining Nazi efforts, no matter the risk to himself. His parents, two brothers and two sisters were murdered in the Treblinka death camp. Another brother was later killed while fighting the Nazis with the partisans.

Mike has spoken entensively on the Holocaust and written a book of his experience entitled Holocaust Survivor: Mike Jacobs' Triumph Over Tragedy in 2001. He is founder and past president of the Holocaust survivors in Dallas and is founder of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies, now called Dallas Holocaust Museum and the Center for Education and Tolerance, dedicated to the memory of the 11 million people who perished at the hands of the Nazis from 1939-1945.

Mike hosts:

Holocaust Survivor
Mike will present his own slides of photos he has taken during his tours of Nazi camps and share both his experiences as victim, survivor and, in the end, an optimist. He welcomes all ages and all questions.


LIYA BROWN
Most people think of growing up as a gradual process. I remember it as a moment. The day my father walked me into the Addis Abeba airport, in Ethiopia, I was 15. I had begged my parents for a whole year to send me to the U.S. Ethiopia was going through a lot of political turmoil at that time and schools were continuously being closed due to riots so they finally consented. My father gave me some advice, hugged me and let me go. I stared at his back but he never turned around. I did not know then, but I assume now that it was because he was crying. Within the next 2 days, I traveled to the United States and unbeknownst to me towards abrupt adulthood. I stayed with my stifling, strict relatives for 6 months. Now, I recognize that my relatives were strict because that was their way of keeping me safe. On top of that, I missed my family so much that I could literally feel my heart breaking. My carefree childhood memories were drowned out by my grief.

My school counselor noticed my depression and placed me with a host family from our school. I lived with this family, on their farm, the rest of my junior year and senior year in high school. I did not know the word for it then but I would say this family was the first one I knew that practiced some 'unschooling' parenting. The children did attend private school but I loved how much the parents trusted their children and modeled responsibility and respect for others. The kids helped out around the house and the farm without being asked, they did not have curfews, they were never spanked, the parents did not check their schoolwork but waited for the kids to come to them. I remember thinking that was how I wanted to raise my kids.

Here I am, now with a B.A., a husband, 2 daughters and 15 years later. Lucky for me my life-changing moments happen every 15 years. At 15, I grew up. At 30, I am being a kid again. At 30, it finally hit me what happiness is: To discover my God given purpose and to trust myself to fulfill that purpose and make this a better world for others. The truth is my husband and my daughters have taught me to be a better parent and to trust my feelings. Now I realize that there are more important things than teaching them Math and Language Arts. I want my daughters to realize their gifts and talents early in life, to not ‘find' themselves but instead to create themselves and the lives they want to live.

Liya hosts:

Ethiopia- the Land of the Queen of Sheba, 13 Months of Sunshine, One of the Wonders of the World and the Birthplace of Human Civilization Come learn about one of the oldest nations in the world. Often mistaken as a drought-stricken, severely impoverished nation, Ethiopia is actually rich in tradition, culture and hospitality. This will reveal the land of the Queen of Sheba and the alleged resting place of the Arc of the covenant. We will explore the land of the Queen of Sheba and why it is only the year 2000 in Ethiopia! I will come dressed in the Ethiopian national outfit to share traditional stories (one about how the coffee bean was discovered) and sing traditional songs.

Everyone Can Dance: Hip-Hop for Beginners
If you can enjoy upbeat music and add your own personality, you are well on your way to becoming a hip hop dancer. We will learn popular, kid-friendly hip hop moves such as the one two step, the slip and slide, theWU Tang move and many more. We will put these moves together and create a routine that will serve as a basis to your intro to hip-hop dance. Understanding that dance is a form of expression, participants are encouraged to build on these basic moves and add their own personal flair culminating in a performance at the end of the session.


ANNETTE IOTT and RUTH MINTLINE
Annette has 30 years of professional experience working with children from birth through college age. My teaching experience includes both teaching and tutoring in large and small groups, in public, private school, college and in in-home situations.

I started rethinking education when every teacher prep course began with "expect 1 in 10 students to learn what you teach." A fantastic goal for the mediocre but for a teacher of future leaders?

I am a weaver of fun-filled, self-study learning approaches. From backyard lizards to a child's name; using the internet, library, and imagination, I develop ideas for learning around any interest for any age. My mantra for any study, day or life is: may it be filled with LAughter, WOnder, and MUsic, (Lawomu, a Harmony Ranger greeting).

Contact me: Phone: 757 286-7666 E-mail: fewami@sbcglobal.net

Ruth Mintline
I have spent a lifetime exploring what a learning environment feels like. I have found it in the kitchen, bathroom, every room in the house, all outdoors and in the community. Once sought in a loving, logical way, learning happens everywhere.

I have volunteered in my children's classrooms putting on plays, doing science and botany (gardening). I became interested in John Holt and Marie Montessori and read much of their work in the 70's. I was introduced to the Waldorf method briefly at that time but did not pursue it until in 1992, my youngest daughter, Erin, became an 8th grade self educator. At that time I began attending the Rethinking Conference. I went to Joseph Pearce workshops and read his works. I found Alfie Kohn and Howard Gardner and read their books. I attended 3 intensive Educational Kinesiology (brain gym) workshops and was introduced to Carla Hannaford.

In 2001 I decided to pursue my life long passion. I opened an in-home daycare to provide a laboratory where I could test all these theories first hand. I observed children from infants to age six picking up reading from an environment rich in words, word games, writing and reading. Simple math is a part of life as we measure, weigh, add, subtract and multiply our way through the dinner preparation and grocery shopping. We also observe evaporation, condensation, liquids, solids and gasses as we work our way around the kitchen. Floor maps and puzzles are a fun way to learn geography. We have a garden and observe the phases and parts of plants.

I have Mastered creative diaper changing, introducing ABC's, numbers and reading in the bathroom. I have a PHD in toilet repair with 2 yr olds. I have earned the highest degrees in keeping the mess to a minimum and playfulness and joyful learning a maximum.

Learning happens then you live. Annette and I are sisters, run our in-home daycare together, and have attended too many Rethinking Education conferences to count.


Ruth and Annette host:

WALL WALKING Thursday 9 to 3 or until tired
Guided tour of Dallas' Arts District
Enjoy the freedom of a train ride to Thanksgiving Square, a great city park with lots of walls. Walk to the Arts District, maybe buy lunch (a variety of eateries is available on the way). Find the hidden Asian Museum. Explore the Arts as Dallas displays them and be a silent presence as your children enjoy the displays. Walk back to the train station through the Plaza of the Americas. Optional visit to Dallas Museum is $10 for adults $7 for seniors and $5 for students; to the Nasher Sculpture Garden is $10 for adults and kids free. This is a family outing with one responsible adult with each family. Bring water. Lots of places for picnics.

Euclidean Breakfast, 8 to 9:30 Friday AM
Become kids again, play with your food as you experience a Mimi's Magical Garden ritual breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Experience math and writing and probably some debating as Ruth gives a hands on demonstration of a usual(?) breakfast with 6+ kids. It is an experience well worth getting up early to attend. Cost is the price of your chosen breakfast.

SCIENCE LUNCH 11 to 1 on Friday

Explore Mimi's Magical Garden itself and listen as Ruth uses the scientific terms for what happens in the Lab that is your kitchen. For $7 a family, enjoy an organic lunch and play with the materials our (unschooled) daycare kids use to learn and explore the world around them. Discuss with us how to make self- directed curriculum using the interests of the moment. Note: We will take a free hotel shuttle bus to Mimi's Garden, explore and have lunch there, return to the Westin after approx. 2 hours.

ANRHU Join us for an evening discussion of being a silent presence in your child's education with its hidden rewards.


All these activities we host will be punctuated with Brain Gym and Heart Math exercises so we can get the most out of everything we do.


LAURA OFENO
Her life is a field trip - emphasis on trip; no.... emphasis on field; well, it's been an odyssey. With her husband Vincent and kids Nicole and Quinn, ages 22 and 15, she has followed a path to illuminate truth and to know stuff. The road has been interesting and observations abound. You never know what you'll hear, but it may make you think.

As a horticulture and biology major in college, she "branched" out into an interest in environment and a houseplant hobby. Observing the effect of nurture on all living things, once babies came, it was only natural to nurture, to seek truth about nurturing and to question the experts. This led naturally to unschooling as the only nurturing path to authentic learning.

Most important in her expanding circle are friends, community and music. She is the cantor at her church and learned to play the pennywhistle in her car while waiting for trains to pass in Saginaw, TX. One dog and a cat round out the household, a new minimum in the 4-legged, or 2-winged family membership. Meet her and find out more fun facts at the 2008 conference. This family has attended every one since 1996.

Laura hosts:

Owl Vomit
It's amazing what you can find when you keep your eyes open, and it's even more amazing what you can learn when you explore and question what you find. Come play with owl puke! This is one great example of stuff to find and explore in the environment. There will be owl pellets to dissect and vermin bones to find. Find a whole new meaning for the term "hairball"


COSTON JONES
Introducing Aspiring Inventor, "Power Ranger Red" - well, actually my name is Coston "C.J." Jones and I am 8 years old. My family and I live in Murphy, Texas. I enjoy skateboarding, juggling, laughing, playing Super Hero dress up and my Favorite thing in the world to do is build spy gear.

I love to build things, especially spy gear. I use all types of blocks to build, like Legos, Tinkertoys and K'nex are my favorite, because they bend. My brother and sister like to reconstruct everything that I make, but that's o.k. because I can always create a cool new weapon or gadget to use when I play Power Ranger. I make gadgets for them too, because it is more fun to play with someone else.

I use my imagination to build most of my toys. I just put pieces together and if they don't work I start over. Watching Power Rangers & movies like Spy Kids is what inspired me to build all my cool gadgets. I want to be an inventor when I grow up. Inventing gadgets for the C.I.A.

I am excited about sharing my gadget ideas and bringing some to show at the conference. I would also like for some of you to help build some cool spy gear.

Coston hosts:

The Extreme Inventor
If you enjoy using your imagination to build things, be here for my workshop. Come build gadgets with me. I would love to share how I come up with my spy gear ideas. Everyone aged 0-100 is welcome to participate in building their own Gadgets.


CHRIS O'LEARY and ERIC PALMERDUCA
Chris is a freshman at Rockwall High School, but has been unschooled by osmosis through years of hanging out at the Palmerduca household. His passions are Magic The Gathering, and his trombone, video and card games. He is teaching himself Japanese for the purpose of watching original Japanese anime episodes without bad dubbing and mistranslations. Chris doesn't get cold and prefers life sans shirt and shoes, even in the winter.

Eric's unschooled interests led him to the Fulton School in Heath, TX for his first year of school. He has four classmates and nine teachers. His favorite classes are math, science and PE. His passions include alto and soprano sax, piano, Magic The Gathering, cards, video games, magic tricks, Rubix Cube, puzzles and mysteries.

Eric and Chris host:

Master the Deck!
Learn card tricks and games such as Poker, Black Jack, Egyptian Rat Screw, Speed, and The French Game. Get tips and tricks on how to win, including counting cards as seen in the film "21".


JORDYNN SWEENEY
Wound tighter then an eight day clock, spazzy as a cat, more off track then a de-railed train, Jordynn was born 4/15/93, but is accused of being a secret child from the 80s. Perpetually out of date, vintage and retro is her specialty. Home/unschooled since 2000, Jordynn's fallen down the path of a musician-artist and has been avid about the world of creating since. She was introduced to the world of anime and manga in 2000 as well (let's not mention how her early sketches looked like Inuyasha in pants), and though she's since switched to semi-realism, she hasn't abandoned her roots. If she doesn't have pad and pencil, she can commonly be seen with Baby Blue (Her guitar pictured above) See her unique twist to a already crazy world in Mangafy Life!

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

We're all connected to each other. We all have hearts that beat the same blood. The idiots, the geniuses, the creative, and the bland are all connected. So why must we hate upon one another?

Jordynn will host:

Mangafy Life
Ever wanted to draw those characters in your head? Or write out a storyboard to that story you thought up all that time ago?... Well I can't guarantee you'll get that here, but I can teach you the basic idea behind the Japanese sensation that captured our hearts. Things like proportion, scale, those crazy anime hair styles, and their favorite accessories. Please bring your own sketch pads, a 2H, HB, and 2B pencil! (Eraser and sharpener is advised as well, ruler's if you'd like!)



- Babes in Toyland was such a hit last year that we will certainly offer this again.  It will be open all day, with hundreds of toys and tools available to take apart and re-create brand new toys with superhero, magical powers!  

- Balloon Architecture - NEW this year. will have you blowing up and building with hundreds of balloons to create buildings, bridges and who knows what else.

- Rock Painting - NEW this year.  We will supply hundreds of smooth-faced rocks, paint and other adornments to create your own hand-painted, hand-created rocks.

- Glass Stone Art - NEW this year.  We will supply paint and brushes to help you create your own piece of mini-artwork which can then be used as a pin or magnet.

- Kids Take Apart Electronics.  Back by the popular request of kids, teens and Dads.  We will have gobs of electronic devices and tools to take them apart and try to figure out how they once worked.

- Stupid Sock Creatures - NEW this year.  Tons of socks, needles and threads, yarns, etc. will be available to sew and stuff your own creatures, either completely from your own imagination or with our ideas.

-  Egg Drop Contest.  What would a Rethinking Education conference be without the Egg Drop Contest?  We will provide tons of recycled stuff which you will use to create a contraption to hold a raw egg, which, when dropped from a high place at the Westin, will survive the fall without being broken (you hope!).  There will be prizes for the smallest and lightest contraptions.

- Build a Flying Machine - NEW this year.  We will provide lots of stuff and books and pictures and space for you to design and build a flying machine.  There will be prizes for the smallest and largest flying machines that fly the furthest.

- Leonardo DaVinci Invention Contest -NEW this year.  We will have 100 bags of identical supplies for you to pick up and use to create something of your own unique design.  You will have an opportunity to display your inventions in the categories of Useful Inventions, Artistic Inventions, Belongs in the Garbage Inventions, Can You Figure Out What This Might Be Good For Inventions.  


ABBI MILLER
I came into this world one particularly brisk morning in November of 1984 (Year of the Rat), with dark curly hair, shrieking my lungs out, and demanding to be fed. I believe that description is still undeniably accurate.

I was pulled from a Montessori school at age 8, by a mother who was sick of volunteering all of her time there, just so she could see her own damn kids. I have an amazingly patient family who suffered through long evenings, while I inundated them with queries, "I don't even take tests! How will I learn anything!?". But as I've confessed earlier, I am a hungry girl. And we all know that curiosity = learning.

Since falling into the land of unschool-dom, I have had a swell time creating my life and the adventures that any true Scorpio dreams of. I have worked at a raw foods restaurant, been in national commericals, given haircuts on the beaches of Maui, hopped a boat to Indonesia, tap danced on the Eiffel Tower, and attended the NBTSC!

I still shriek and scream, but found a way to make money while doing so. I've lived in NYC for many years, enjoying a profession where people pay you to be someone else. I was cast in a play last year for my laugh alone. I am still deciding if that was a compliment or insult. As an actress, I've worked in: Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Illinois and in an International Broadway Tour of Grease that went all over southeast Asia. I've done the hand-jive more times than I care to admit.

I've been a dancer since a young age. If you like to dance, come find me and I will promptly join you, as I'm a fan of shakin' what yo' momma gave ya. My most recent dance endeavor was performing with a Chicago-based Modern company in a cavernous, vacated mansion! (No I did not meet any ghosts.)

A few years ago, my physical approach to learning led me to a beautiful thing called Yoga. Upon taking my first class, I was instantly smitten, and consider it one of my favorite things to do. I recently completed my certification to teach children and teens, at Karma Kids Yoga, in NYC.

Assuming that I've already eaten and am well coiffured, here are some things that I like to think about: getting more dark chocolate in my diet, how I can live more consciously, playing guitar, what songs I want to sing in the shower, dissecting Anne Sexton's poetry, reading about natural health and fertility awareness, geeking out on music theory, convincing people to give me a back rub, and finding ways to travel.

Which leads me to my VERY important closing statement: Come travel with Blake and me in our unschooler adventure trip. Check us out: www.BlakeBoles.com/arg2008

Abbi hosts:

Improv Jam
This workshop is for anyone who likes to be ridiculous! Improvisation is an absolute blast, and also builds incredible confidence that is directly applicable in real-world situations. This Jam will be a high-energy uproarious fest of games and exercises, running the gamut from quiet and focused to big and unbridled wackiness! Regardless if you are a savvy improv champ, or a complete newbie, come join us (or just watch) for some major FUN!


ANGELA McGINN
Angela McGinn lives in Austin, TX with her husband and their three book-loving, library-obsessed children. Her method of unschooling them includes a steady stream of exposure to thought provoking ideas and big doses of encouragement to fix their own breakfast. As their full-time live-in personal Tour Guide, she's always scouring the local pubs* looking for fun family adventures to be had. To further evolve the multiple interests of her family and to introduce them to new ones altogether, she gets her kicks cherry picking from the plethora of local community events she finds listed online. On any ordinary day the McGinn kids could be found dancing in a music video for a local children's musician, experiencing what's it's like to be an extra in a Hollywood film, or learning how to spit out a mouthful of water from a professional circus clown. To replenish her mom-o-meter, she employs this same method to curiously scout out intriguing activities for herself. The flying trapeze, belly dancing, slam poetry, kayaking and poi spinning have all done their part to ensure her love of learning is nourished and her sense of adventure is fulfilled.

(*as in publications, of course!)

Angela hosts:

Poi Spinning for Beginners
One day I made plans to meet a friend at the park. She showed up with these homemade contraptions she called "poi" (which rhymes with "toy" and is different from the Hawaiian paste you eat with your fingers.) There were two tennis balls, each attached to a piece of arm-length metal chain. Handles made from old pillowcases were sewn on the opposite ends of each chain. One chain is held in each hand.

As soon as she started spinning them in the air around her body in ways that seemed to defy the laws of physics, I was hooked! I then spent the next three hours knocking myself in the head with those tennis balls. Before I called it quits for the afternoon, I had knocked my jaw out of alignment and begged my friend to make a pair of poi for me to call my very own.

Poi spinning is an ancient tradition of the Maori tribe in New Zealand. It began when Maori warriors would use rocks in flax baskets at the end of flax ropes all in the name of improving their strength and hand-eye coordination. Maori women would dance with their poi. Now people all over the world spin and dance various forms of poi, including fire, to entertain others and amuse themselves.

This class is for beginners who would like to learn some basic and intermediate Poi moves. We will use a soft version of poi so all body parts remain unharmed. Everyone should experience the joy of poi at least once. Hope to see you there!


STEVE HOPE
is really excited to be participating in his third R.E. conference! He and Erica, his wife of 9 years, are bringing from Austin: Sam, their eight year old, Maya, 16...uh, make that 6 year old, Grandparents from both branches of the family tree, friends from their homeschool community, Otis their dog, Victoria the rat snake, Jenna the leopard gecko, Serena the African spurred tortoise, and any wildland creatures that pile in the car with them. Whew!

Steve, born and raised in Virginia, was an active unschooler throughout his entire public school career. After struggling through elementary, jr. and high school, then flunking out of college a couple times, he did his tour of the 20's. Passing from northern Virginia through Seattle, then NYC before finding the Texas oasis of Austin.

He believes he's taken every 101 course offered by Austin Community College. From creative metalworking and automotive shop to music, biology, sociology and English comp. Steve has also studied Chinese Medicine and hard style Qi-gong. Still no degree but lots of functional knowledge.

After Sam was born, naturally and at home without vaccines, the Hopes figured they would continue on their path of holistic, family- oriented living. They spent two years in Baltimore where they gave birth to Maya with the help of the underground midwife black market in Maryland.

During that time Steve figured he wanted to be his own boss and established his own home improvement LLC. Later, after applying to the Austin Fire Department in 2003, they all moved back to Texas. Now the Hopes are living happily in S.W. Austin with their cornucopia of pets, unschooling, and trying to live as sustainably as possible. Steve attended the Natural Building Colloquium this past fall in Kerrville, TX and has dreams of building a cob home someday.

Steve is a Firefighter with the city and extremely happy with his chosen profession. He will be hosting a discussion about his profession and how it dovetails with an unschooling mindset. He also will be hosting a functional movement strength class. He will also be answering questions and offering his insight at the Dads Panel discussions. Finally, Steve is anticipating his grand premier as emcee of the RE Talent Show! He can't wait to see what will happen this year.

Steve will host:

Unschool Career Day - The Firefighter Option
There is a scene in the movie "Say Anything" where the protagonist, Lloyd, played by John Cusack, offers a reply to the father of his romantic interest. The dad asks what he wants to do with his life. Cusack replies, "Considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed or process anything bought or sold or prepare anything sold, bought or processed . My dad wants me to join the Army but I can't work for that company."

That line, which I first heard as a sophomore in high school, stuck with me. I too wanted something different. Middle management was not an option for me. I wanted to do something that would make a difference - a way to give back to and be part of my community. Something that would engage me physically and mentally and emotionally. A job that was always changing and that required me to problem solve on the fly. A career I could be proud of, where I could make enduring friendships and where I could help others. The fire service is the career I found. It provides me with all that as well as a steady paycheck, health insurance for me and my family, diverse options of career advancement opportunities and a fantastic retirement plan. In short, security for me and mine.

I believe the fire service is complementary to the unschooling lifestyle. So, I will discuss preparation and application to a fire academy, what six months in an academy is like, skills, knowledge and training needed to be successful, diversity in the fire service, what station life is like, the medical mission, what it's like advancing up a flight of stairs with a hose and the smoke is so thick you can barely make out the flames, what it's like cutting open a car to pull someone out or what it's like to perform CPR on someone in the middle of a Walmart. If you've ever considered becoming a firefighter and would like to find out more I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Functional Movement Strength Class
Exercise is fundamental to having a healthy, productive, long life. This class is not about testosterone and bulging muscles. No bench presses or bicep curls. One look at me and you will understand that. This class is about developing competent bodies to be able to live long and healthy lives. Embracing a philosophy of little to no specialized equipment, I'll be instructing a multi-joint functional movement class. We'll use a combination of gymnastics, Olympic weight lifting and core strengthening techniques to provide a quick, intense, and hopefully enjoyable workout that'll get you to sweat!

The class is scalable to allow all fitness levels to participate. I'll teach some fundamental theory that will allow participants to develop their own fitness routines at home. I'll be hosting two, one hour sessions on Friday that will allow me to teach the fundamentals and help with correct posture and forms. One class will be for females the other for the males. I want to establish a setting where everyone is comfortable with what they bring with them. This is not just for the guys! I'd specifically like to invite the mothers and other women who are interested in having a leaner, stronger body but can't filter through all the (sometimes contradictory) fitness information available. The functional strength I'm referring to is the ability to deal with all of our daily tasks, from picking up the kids or the laundry hamper, carrying bags of groceries or lifting the stack of clean dishes up overhead into the cabinets. Additionally, I will host two 30 minute classes on both Saturday and Sunday where we'll go through a standard workout.


Part V. A Program for Young Adults

Self-directed learners (homeschoolers, unschoolers, etc.) have a hefty amount of support and guidance available to them in the traditional k-12 years. Once the 'high school years' end, many self-directed learners finds themselves in the wilderness of young adulthood without a clear set of support tools to help them lead empowered lives. While learning to be an adult is difficult for many, making the journey as a self-educated person presents its own challenges. The Young Adult Program is designed specifically to address the needs of self-educated people at this exciting time in their life. The unique program has been created specifically for the 16-24 age group and has been crafted to inform, inspire, and empower participants to take on the future with confidence and create fulfilling lives. Lively workshops, thought-provoking discussions, challenging activities, and exceptional mentors will make the Young Adult Program a powerful experience. While the material is prepared specifically for young adults, the program is constructed as a seamless addition to the Rethinking Education Conference, and is open to all of the conference participants.

This program will have a dedicated space available around the clock, to talk, have fun and create community. There will be many focal points taking place throughout the weekend (see the click through above to see what's on the docket so far), and this group will be anchored all weekend by Evan Hunter Wright and Sean Ritchey from the Education Empower Project (click here to see Evan's Bio; click here to see Sean's Bio).

The weekend is focused around three aspect of leading an empowered life:

• Figuring Out What You Want
• Creating Your Path
• And Making It Happen


CORE CONTENT:

Part 1 - Figuring Out What You Want

We will start the weekend at the beginning of everyone's journey, by:

• Understanding that most people, at some point, didn't know what they wanted to do. "I don't know what I want to do, let alone how to do it! How do I take a first step if I don't know which direction to go?"
• Defining Success
• Busting the Myth of 'One Life, One Career' – the Myth that you should know what you want to do with your life
• Drawing Parallels Between Traditional Schooling and Traditional Jobs – Make sure you want what you're working toward

We will then look at:

• Some great tools to support you in figuring out what you want to achieve in all areas of your life – a certain job, lifestyle (simple or grand), or dreams (e.g. a trip around the world, publishing a book, releasing your first album, etc.)

Next we'll look at tools and methods to create a vision that is a clear and powerful road map for you as you move forward

Part 2 - Creating Your Path

Built on the foundation of the goal setting tools, we will explore how to create the first steps in your personal path to achieving your desired results. This will include looking at:

Educational Opportunities for your "college years" and beyond (Part 1: College)
• Why it might be a really good idea, and why it might be a really bad idea
• Higher education: programs to look at/options/schools – self-directed-learner friendly colleges
• Applying to college as a self-directed learner
Educational Opportunities for your "college years" and beyond (Part 2: Opportunities in addition to or instead of college)
• Looking at what some people have chosen to do instead of college, and looking at what your personal version could look like
• Networking, Support, Accountability
• Apprenticeships, Internships and Jobs as learning tools
• Accrediting Self Directed Learning
• Self Advocacy
• Selling Yourself: The Pluses of Being A Self-Directed Learner
• Turning Your Passion into a Profession

We will then look at a crucial aspect of young adults education that gets overlooked by almost everyone, both inside and out of school – Financial Literacy. Beginning by exploring the fear so many experience around money we will move on to consider:

Why it's crucial to be educated and empowered about finances. No matter what lifestyle you want to lead, simple or extravagant, financial literacy is an enormous advantage for living the life you wish to create for yourself
• Personal Finance 'Basics': cash flow, assets and liabilities, credit, money systems
• Which type of financial life to do you want? –Employee, Self-Employed, Business Owner, or Investor
Entrepreneurship
• Why self-directed learners make great business owners
• Why entrepreneurship is one of the best educations you can get

Part 3 - Making It Happen

Once we've explored different ways people have created powerful paths to their goals, and tools that will help you craft your own path, we will look at how you can kick you plan into action; how you can really start making it happen:

• Putting Traction to Your Goals
• Creating Support
• Mentors
• Advisory boards
• Peer Accountability


Here are some of the sessions we will host for the Young Adult Program.  This list will grow through July.  Stay tuned!

"Pick -My-Brain" Entrepreneur Sessions, with a wide range of unschooling entrepreneurs, both adults and young adults.

Tarot Cards, with La Vonne Parker.  If you find tarot cards mysterious, interesting or fascinating then come check out this workshop. Did you know that Tarot can be used for provoking honest communication, clarifying a situation, building relationships and even inspiring creative applications? Bring a pillow, blanket or sleeping bag to make yourself comfortable on the floor as we gather in a circle for tarot fun and games that will give you introspection, insight and guidance on the future along with exposing you to the many possibilities of tarot. Guaranteed to invoke a fun time and broaden your possibilities.

Creating Yourself, with Tracy Liebmann Life is not about *finding* yourself it is about *creating* yourself. What do you want to create in your life? This is truly the question, it's not what are you going to do when you "grow" up, it's not about college majors and career choices…it's about creating your life. This is all about YOU! In this session we will connect with our inner most selves, we will excavate our pasts to move boldly into our futures. *Knowing* our true selves is the key to creating the life we want to live! We will come together as a group and share our dreams, aspirations and ideals for our future. After we get connected and share you may choose to create a vision board that will represent the life you want to create for yourselves, I have found vision boards a powerful tool in helping me manifest the things I want to attract into my life. I hope you will join me in this exploration of self and the creation of what you want NOW!

Life in the Real World Discussion Group, with Jody McLaughlin
Jody will facilitate a discussion about:
- how to choose a partner
- birth control methods
- how men in our culture are shortchanged
- sex - yep, you heard that right


LINDA BALL
Many of you know me as the mother of unschooler, Michael Ball, now 18. Others of you know me through my holistic healing practice in Dallas, "Lighten Up" Healing Therapies, my full-time business since 1990. I offer classes and sessions in Reiki, BodyTalk, Craniosacral and massage. I also serve clients as a medium and psychic channel. (I'll be taking some private appointments at the conference. You can email me with a request.)

What you may not know about me, however, is that I started my career in education with a private tutoring firm first and then later with the Sylvan Learning Corporation. I helped to create Sylvan's Study Skills Program, which I then adapted into a workshop for parents and "troubled" teens through Bedford Meadows Psychiatric Hospital. My specialization? Working with children with learning differences, who were most often diagnosed as such because they were right-hemisphere dominant, whereas school curriculum is usually left-hemisphere dominant in approach. I was taught to test for learning styles and to use a multi-sensory approach, but there was another dimension to learning that made the biggest difference: helping a child tap into his/her innate understanding or intuitive wisdom. Plato tells a great story about Socrates helping a slave-boy to intuitively "remember" geometry, drawing forms in the dirt, with a stick, even though the boy had no formal education.

Math education, in particular, has always been a big disappointment to me, focused more on memorization of equations, formulas and axioms than on uncovering the larger truths that inspired the early thinkers. Is math only for counting and quantifying or is it also an expression of music? Is geometry only useful for building or does it reveal our human relationship with the cosmos? If you'd like to know...come to my class on Sacred Geometry.

Linda hosts:

Sacred Geometry: "I Wish Math Was Always Taught Like This!"
Appropriate for all but very young children who might get bored!

Want a way to fire up your child's passion for mathematics while investigating the great mysteries of life?

Sacred Geometry explores the intersection of math, nature, science, art and music. In fact, it is letting Nature be the teacher, for within Nature you find the active expression of numbers such as the five petals on a fruit blossom and the six arms on a snowflake. Sacred geometry explores symbolism of numbers and the specific ratios (the Golden Spiral) that Nature uses to design her life-forms.

Our modern math is derived from the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, such as Pythagorus, who acknowledged that ancient Egypt, the great architects and pyramid builders, were the true founders of the principles known now as Sacred Geometry.

We will discuss how geometry tells the story of matter emerging from energy, first in a point, then a line, then a circle, then intersecting circles. Participants will be given a "Mandala" of intersecting circles called the "Flower of Life", described as Nature's first pattern of creation. Armed with crayons, we will find the hidden geometric forms - like the triangle, square, hexagon, pyramid, tetrahedron -that encompass all of creation. (Kind of like looking for hidden objects in a Highlights magazine.) Then we'll discuss how these forms have been used in ancient art and architecture to inspire people with beauty and a remembrance of our interrelationship with a Greater Unity or Holiness (nowadays called a holistic approach to life.)

Sacred Geometry is not only a fun way to learn about the roots of our mathematical traditions but is also considered a legitimate path of Enlightenment through contemplation of these mathematical archetypes. I will provid resources for parents to purchase materials for the home.


BRENDA MORGAN
worked as a professional actress in New York City; fell in love twice; ate her way across Italy; moved from a big city to the middle of nowhere to practice photography; camped in the San Juan Mountains; taught ESL to international students at the university; talked to coyotes; directed and created the educational program for gifted middle schoolers; dreamed of India, went to New Zealand instead; campaigned for Ralph Nader; studied astrology, listened to great horned owls; worked as a peace activist, wrote speeches, organized rallies; followed the song of western bluebirds; wrote audio essays and produced programs for public radio; moved closer to wilderness where she got caught in the migration of butterflies and tarantulas; chopped firewood, lived with an outhouse, shared territory with a bobcat, composted her own waste, has been awakened by meteor showers, learned to tango, swam in the sea and rejoiced at the sound of life sans television and telephones.

Having fallen in love with the world she wrote a book. Change the World by Living with Less addresses how we as citizens can change our lifestyles and in the process find a less harmful, more sustainable, creative life.

Brenda hosts:

Change the World
If you are concerned about the state of the planet and feel compelled to leave your children something more than landfills and unswimmable waters, this session is for you. We will reflect on our attachment to information, money, material possessions, identities, youth, beauty, automobiles, speed, convenience, comfort, and technology. In contemplating change, we will explore our relationship with death.

Tools of Astrology
This session has been designed for our young adult Program-within-a- Program, but all are welcome. Learn how to use Astrology as a tool for understanding your own nature and how to maintain balance during tides of change.


REBECCA DeHATE
is a mommy to Ian Hunter and Garrett Ryan, the most beautiful humans that come into my life in order for me to learn. I've been an "official" unschooler since mid-January when Ian and I had enough of getting up in the morning and struggling to get on the bus. However, unschooling was introduced to us at least 3 years ago when a friend didn't know what else to say -- when it came to my "disciplining" my son. WOW, did the light bulbs come on when I began implementing some of the ideas presented to me from the unschoolers. Yet, again the true learning had not really begun until I decided to fully jump into unschooling this January! Lo and Behold - besides all the "dis- service" and how much "I've lost my mind", unschooling is an adventure worth delving into! Soooo, here we are coming to our very first conference to re-think ....

Even though I didn't realize it until I sat down to write a bio, I have already been some-what of an unschooler. I have definitely allowed myself to follow my own path and try a variety of things. I've been a waitress (which I still do now), an airmen in the US Air Force, a manager, a pre-school teacher, and substitute teacher, and, and , and.... I've learned along the way that it really doesn't really matter what I do that makes me worthy - flippin' burgers or obtaining a master's degree really doesn't matter if I am not doing what I enjoy.

Along this journey somehow I met a part of me that yearned to "know" more and more. With some practice, lots of meditation and resolution, I met my spirit guide Artaysia in 1997. Once I realized that I wasn't just imagining her, nor was I nuts, I began to utilize her in her entirety via channeling her wisdom. Artaysia uses my body and voice as a vehicle to communicate to others. While in a light trance, Artaysia leads those who are receptive in meditations/ visualizations, talks to you about your life, guides you in all areas of your existence and even shares some energy exchange or healings of all sorts. With much delight, I am happy to say she is patient, delicate, peaceful and kind, she tells the truth yet allows you to interpret what you wish in your own time.

I look forward to sharing with everyone during this conference a part of myself and Artaysia. In turn, I come to open up fully and learn more from all of you.
Along with offering a yoga and meditation class we will be having a 2 hour long exploration into your Yin with Artaysia leading the way. I will also be available for further readings ($1/min) if anyone wishes throughout the conference.

Rebecca hosts:

Unity through Yoga
Using the physical, meditative quality of yoga everyone can find that tie that unites us all. Come join us in a basic hatha-type yoga class that will enliven, enlighten, and unite us to the all that is.

BAM - (Balancing All Meditation)
In the throws of life sometimes we need to just take time to breath, relax, and meditate. BAM is a guided meditation designed to help you to become balanced -- connecting your breath, heart, and your life force with the divine.

Exploring your Yin
Come explore your Yin through meditation, energy exchange and exploration. Allow trance channeler Rebecca to share her beautiful guide, Artaysia, in a 2 hour exploration of yourself. As Artaysia takes us on a journey, we will be especially working with the positive, feminine side of us, our Yin. This session is geared for everyone who is willing to delve into what is unknown in order to allow it to become yours.


DAWN RADCLIFFE-SNELL
began the childhood she can remember in Colonial Heights Virginia, near the banks of the muddy Appomattox River water, collecting arrowheads and encrusted bullets in her backyard. At times she was allowed to be a gloriously independent child, spending her freedom on the river, riding her bike throughout her southern neighborhood, or at the Violet Bank Civil War Museum that sat just a stone's throw from her back yard.
Her respite there was a tiny library in the basement of the museum, and the ancient and huge magnolia tree with it's wonderful drooping arms on the small museum's front lawn. But as she became older, many days she spent as a surrogate mother to her four younger siblings. When her family lost that home, and moved upstream to a stucco flat topped house, her mother's mental and emotional state deteriorated, her ex-Church-of-Christ karate-teaching father's dark side showed itself to her, and years of sexual abuse began. Her mother left, and Dawn became the full-time mother to her siblings, and found herself emotionally battered and trapped. Afraid to speak, knowing her family would be ripped apart, she was silent until she uncovered that her father was a prolific sexual predator, and she had loved ones in his path. Dawn testified against him for sexual abuse in 1984.

Dawn considers herself what Marianne Williamson would call a "patchwork" woman. She has worked successfully as a playground supervisor, cashier, portrait artist, karate instructor, aerobics instructor, waitress, bartender, graphic designer, illustrator, flight attendant, art director, published writer, account executive to companies like Hallmark and Mattel, and in the winter of 2007 the Judith Dawn Memorial Funds for the Arts awarded Ms. Radcliffe grant money to pursue her songwriting. Now, not only has she found her voice, she is singing her story.

Last summer she was a guest speaker for the largest sexual assault support center in the United States, The Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center, just north of Chicago in Gurnee, Illinois. She shared her survivor story with their largest crowd ever with the intent of helping others bridge the gap from surviving to thriving.

Dawn now lives with her mate, Steve, surrounded by beautiful Wisconsin farmland, unschooling their four very lively and thriving children Hunter, Echo, Hayden and Emma (with the help of their four happily independent cats Sparkles, Frisky, Double Trouble and Black Cat. :)

Dawn hosts:

Recovering from Childhood Sexual Abuse as an Unschooling Parent
I believe children are molested every day as they are forced to take things into the very intimate space called their minds. Unless it gets very brutal, and the line gets crossed into actual physical sexual molestation, it is often not seen as abuse. And even then it so very often goes unseen.

Those of us that experienced sexual abuse as children are in a unique position as unschooling parents. We know, in very real terms, the danger and pain of mental, emotional, and physical molestation. And so we understand in passionate terms that children must be allowed to remain connected to their spirits, to know their intrinsic worth, to embrace naturally their rights to choose, to speak and to be who they are in safety and in love. And yet... as we find ourselves happily parenting these bright and beautiful beings we also find ourselves challenged. Bright and beautiful childhoods can feel foreign to us at times, and as adults the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse can stay with us deftly hidden until brought to the surface by one of our children. The often constant and encompassing shame, the disconnection from our hearts, and the tendency to either shut down under stress or become overly reactive, becomes self-evident. It can be maddening for those of us desperately wanting so much better, and it carries with it a true need for self-honesty, patience, faith, and kindness.

Yet most of us have precious few points of reference for this sort of happy and secure self-parenting, and plenty of modeling for authoritarian control, judgementality, emotional neglect, and pain. Still, we have come far from that, and we DO hold a very strong desire for reunion with our childlike selves, or we would not have traveled down this wonder-filled road known as unschooling. And that is our strength. Our power lies in our incredible desire to be go where we need to go to be who we came to be, so we may allow our children the same intrinsic right.

Our children shine, and so do we. We only need to allow that shine, to allow ourselves to enter that sparkly realm with them, unafraid, natural and worthy. Come and let's dig deep together, so we can give this gift to our children.


KONSTANTIN POPOV
was born and grew up in Bulgaria, small country that is often presumed to be part of the Soviet Union. Abandoning the quiet and rustic traditional lifestyle of a Slavic villager, he moved to the US only to rediscover the natural ways of building a home among the cob builders of southern Texas. After participating on several projects in the American Southwest, his partner and he decided to reclaim an abandoned oil well site in central Oklahoma and construct a small cottage of mud, sand and straw.

Konstantin hosts:

Building With Earth
I will present a slideshow and discussion of natural building techniques, including sculptural adobe/cob, straw bale, earthen plasters, etc.


HEATHER BROWN
was born and raised in Covington , Kentucky in 1959. As a wild and freedom-oriented teenager she ran away from her abusive home and hitchhiked around the country.
On one of her hitchhiking journeys she made a connection with a fellow hitchhiker who told her of a Nirvana of Hippies in Summertown, Tennessee. Instantly interested, they arrived 6 hours later and her life was forever transformed as she was introduced to the infamous community called The Farm, learning and experiencing communal living at it's best, including high school, "Teenagers Bunkhouse" where all the teenagers lived, as well as experience pregancy, natural childbirth, midwifery, and marriage. All in a place where the True Agreement was fundamental: we were all One and want to make a difference in our world.

Heather has since left The Farm and lives in Austin ,Texas with her Loving Significant Other and her wonderful animals.

Heather hosts:

Communal Living: Living a Vision
- This session will be about what it was like to live in a true communal setting.
- The attitude of all members to look after one another.
- What it was like to be totally self-sufficient.
- What it was like to not worry about food or housing.
- What is was like to feel safe.
- What it was like to have True Agreements for the commune and to follow the Agreements.
- Communal childbirth, schooling, child rearing, the importance of good vibrations and the attitudes of the people that live there as well as solar heating and the true importance of life above consumerism - the "more is better" attitude - and learning to let go of the "things'" we use to honor ourselves, our children, and our fellow man.
- What I have learned from my experience and how it is possible today to initiate a communal living setting, setting us free from the mainstream establishment lifestyle in a safe and nurturing way.
- No one should have to do without in this world.
- No child/teen should have to be homeless, much less homeless and pregnant.
- Let's give the people of this world the opportunity to live in harmony with others.

"Imagine"
John Lennon
Re-listening to this song will say it all.


COURTNEY SMITH
has been an unschooler for all her 26 years, which provided the wonderful opportunity for her to play all day, imagine and create new worlds, and pursue her many interests including dance (ballet, swing dancing, and more), figure skating, immersing herself in books, music (guitar, piano, pennywhistle), a 3-year community college experience studying music theory and acting/theater performance, organizing made- up structures (including 3 of her own businesses), traveling (she lived in Hawaii on an organic fruit orchard for a year), gardening, and communing with nature.

Her interest in health began during her teenage years when she noticed certain dis-ease symptoms and chose to know why she experienced them at all. She also noticed her energy levels and mood would change depending on her food choices. She eventually reached what she considers her "rock bottom" of intense dis-ease (adrenal burnout, asthma, massive food addictions, chronic digestive challenges, and much more), and understood that if what she had been doing was producing such poor results, her best choice was to make a lifestyle change of similar grand proportions. She had very little attraction to "diets", as they all seemed arbitrary, nonsensical and restrictive. Instead, she discovered the foods that produce the most vitality, ease and nourishment according to our human bodies' specific design are raw plant foods, a wonderfully abundant category of foods which are delicious in their natural state without processing or cooking. She began eating only raw plant foods, and her dis-ease symptoms began turning into continuously expanding ease. After 7+ years of raw fooding, she still experiences new levels of vitality, joy and ease daily, and is enthusiastic about sharing what she's learned with others.

She now lives with her brilliant, gorgeous, creative divine partner Brian, and runs her business Loving Foods (www.loving-foods.com), which provides Raw Food Resources and her and Brian's favorite Raw Super Foods. Her other current interests include conscious community building, dancing, poi spinning, creating inspirational/informational videos and audios, and finding new ways to play every day.

Courtney hosts:

Raw Foods, the Un-Diet
You may have noticed how the more obsessive we become about how to eat (with all the numbers, grams, percentages, and other such mumbo- jumbo), the less healthy and happy we are. How about taking a completely different approach to our food choices?

Centering our eating around Raw Plant Foods, which are delicious in their natural state without processing or cooking, can result in the wonderful effect of UN-learning all the dietary mental noise we've been taught, and RE-awakening our own bodies' innate intuition and wisdom. We already know how to eat in a healthy, balanced fashion, and our only task is fully remembering that we know!

Join us for this Raw Food discussion group and Q&A with Courtney Smith, lifetime unschooler and 7+ year raw fooder. She'll share her experiences and the valuable insights she's gained about reclaiming our power to create our own health, vitality, ease and joy.


RITU LEBOUEF
has blended East and West!! Born and raised in India, she brought her deep Eastern spiritual heritage over two decades ago across the continents to plant new roots in Dallas, TX. Even when little children her age were busy playing with dolls and toys, Ritu was always the weird one for frequent loud laughing and being pre- occupied with questions: "Who am I?", "What is the meaning of everyone's life?" Very observant of all life she met and listened to people from a wide spectrum of life and eventually realized that all of creation is connected with the same subtle thread of cosmic energy!
She has been teaching Meditation, practicing Massage Therapy, Reiki and other holistic healing modalities for 11 years and providing spiritual counseling to many.
After a degree in english lit. and psychology, leaping over to successful 11 year career in computer programming, being a guest chief-editor of a magazine, substitute teaching in public schools, taking a bold step to be a radio show host, holistic work, being a wife to a cajun American and mother to two teen