Presenters
Ren Allen lives in the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Tennessee with four radically unschooled children, a husband that got dragged into the unschooling life before he knew what hit him, a garden-munching rabbit, neurotic cat and more guppies than she can count. She has been passionately speaking and writing about unschooling for a number of years, all the while ingesting large amounts of tea and truffles. Her children are her greatest "bhodisatvas" whom she considers partners in this journey called life. Believing that all humans are born as creative geniuses she spends much of her time encouraging healing discussions and creative exploration for anyone who has forgotten this truth. In between learning adventures, tea or truffles, you can catch up with her at www.LearningInFreedom.com, or by joining the yahoo groups ImaginationTribe or UnschoolingBasics.
James H. Coburn IV’s Biography: My wife of 11 years is Robyn, and Jayn is my wonderful always-unschooled kid (almost 9 at conference time). I work as a motion picture Production Sound Mixer and play with amateur radios, scanners and short wave; my ham call sign is W6JHC. I am a computer and gadget geek, X-box gamer, and War driver. I love to play games on the DS and PSP. I dig digital photography and am a confirmed LED flashlight freak. As one of the first Geocachers in the world, I placed the first cache in California and still moderate the first Geocaching e-group in the world. This will be my sixth Live and Learn Conference.
Beth Fuller lives in New Mexico with her favorite people; her husband Kevin, their daughter Emma and her mother Nina. She and her family try to approach life with creativity and goofiness. She is always on the lookout for new ways to think about and interact with the world. Beth does not aspire to be the busiest, wealthiest, prettiest or most successful; she simply wants to relish the delight of being alive and being with her loved ones. She pursues happiness and has stopped expecting it to knock on her door uninvited. Now she spends time opening those doors and inviting it in. She can sometimes be found moderating the Peaceful Partnerships yahoo group, playing Guitar Hero or on her blog, http://web.mac.com/elizabethfuller/iWeb
Eli Gerzon is a 24 year old unschooler and worldschooler from Boston, MA. He likes to use the term worldschooling which is about the whole world being your school, instead of schooling being your whole world. Since the age of 18, Eli's been to many countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, traveling slowly and cheaply and really experiencing the cultures. When asked why he chose to leave school at 15 he likes to say, "If you saw a monkey swinging in a tree, would you ask it why it left the zoo?" But for a more serious explanation, photos from his travels, to read his travel newsletter, and to see brochures for travel tours he's offering for unschoolers check-out: www.eligerzon.com. Eli has great gratitude for all that makes it possible for him to lead a full life.
Cameron Lovejoy is 20 this year and still lives at home with his amazing parents and incredible younger brother, but he plans to be moving out on his own next summer. He appreciates many things: the Earth, friends, animals, live music, veggie burritos, strangers, books, hugs, learning, his imagination, and his partner of five years, Carly Ridgeway. Cameron has been an autodidact for 8 years now, since he left private school after 6th grade when school started getting in the way of his passions. Now learning has happily consumed his life. His current passions are cooking, wilderness leadership and survival, entrepreneurship, writing, travel and art. He doesn't eat meat, and beans give him gas.
Ronnie Maier is mom to two teenagers, MJ and Chloe, and wife to her partner in crime, Frank. She overcame her Traditional Parenting Syndrome and has been unschooling with her family for more than five years. They have regular travel adventures together, including a misguided attempt to cruise their sailboat through hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. A lifelong resident of Washington State, Ronnie runs a social group for teen unschoolers, regularly hosts unschoolers and their families in her home, and is thrilled to be part of the growing unschooling community in the West. In her spare time, she is a technical writer in the software industry and actually gets a thrill out of writing Help topics. You can find Ronnie online as "dragonfly" or "hmsdragonfly," and on her blog at www.zombieprincess.blogspot.com
Brenna McBroom is 18 and an unschooler from Jacksonville, Florida. She first attended the Live and Learn Unschooling conference in Colombia, South Carolina in 2003. The case of strep throat she contracted there
(and the accompanying vacation from her home school co-op) was the catalyst that liberated her from school once and for all. (Super Cool Mom Gail played a pretty integral role too.) Lately, Brenna has been
experimenting with unschooling while in college. Her most recent success was convincing the dean of her local community college to let her take a British Literature class with her favorite professor even though she (gasp!) didn’t have the prerequisites. She enjoys singing, baking pies, and planning big projects. She’s very flattered that she was asked to speak this year, and she’s also very excited about receiving the coveted speaker bag.
Scott Noelle has marched to his own drummer since he was old enough to march! But he didn't realize he was an unschooler until he had kids and read John Holt's, How Children Fail. In 1997, Scott worked with Jean Liedloff to create an online support organization for readers of her classic book, The Continuum Concept, which Holt considered one of the most important books ever written. Formerly a professional singer and voice coach, now Scott works as a parenting coach, offering support (by telephone) for the unique challenges of continuum/attachment parenting, unschooling, and more. He also writes and publishes The Daily Groove, designed to help parents internalize the new paradigm of creative partnership with children. Scott is married to Beth Noelle, and they have two lovely girls who will be age 11 and 7 at the time of the conference. They live in Port Townsend, WA. www.EnjoyParenting.com
Anne Ohman and her family found their way to unschooling because of her radical idea to respect, listen to and learn from her children (the fact that her first born child would allow nothing less may have had something to do with it, too!). Ever since Jake (her oldest child, now 17 1/2) showed her the path to a rich, full life via unschooling, Anne has been thinking about it, learning from it, writing about it, talking about it, and joyfully living it with her family. She and her sweet honey (husband, Dave) and her always unschooled teenage boys (Jake and Sam) joyfully live, learn and grow together on top of their rural mountain in New York State. Anne's inspiration can be found at her *Shine with Unschooling* community (a Yahoo list). She is also currently working on checking off an item on her *Vision Board* by writing her first book.
Funshop and Round Table Talk Presenters
Get a temporary henna tattoo with Maria Bannister, that is all natural, made from henna leaves and eucalyptus oil. If you feel creative and want to try, I will be bringing some extra material and patterns.
Kathryn Baptista is a long, long time unschooling parent, writer, and unschooling conference coordinator, recently the Northeast Unschooling Conference. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her patient and goofy wife Beth, rock star/College student/ grown unschooler Julian, and a couple of mushy cats.
Amy Bowers and her Barber kids live in Florida where they have adventures and rabble rouse daily. They like art, music, insects, food, things that move and things that explode!
Evelyn Bunch is a fun loving unschooled 10 year old from Collingswood, NJ. She loves all things arts and crafts, hanging with her friends, video games, and online virtual pet sites. Aileen Bunch is Evelyn's mom and trusty assistant. She is 42 and likes to grow vegetables and sing silly songs.
Robin Clochard's 30-second bio: Unschooling has been part of my journey for six years now, ever since my oldest son Lucas (now 16) began to show me that maybe school wasn't such a helpful place. Jason (9) and Alice (6) have yet to discover that for themselves. Instead, my husband Jack and I spend most of our time doing our best to help them discover a lot of other things. After a year and a half spent defending our right to unschool in French courts, we emerged victorious last year and decided to move to the States for a breather. We're currently unschooling in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, doing as little serious work as we possibly can.
Jayn and Robyn Coburn love crafting of all kinds. We are veterans of Live and Learn. Past funshops include Barbie skirts, fairy flower crowns, and cloth doll decorating. When not at conferences we live in Los Angeles with James Coburn and do something crafty every day.
Deborah Cunefare became an unschooling mother in 1989 when she liberated her then 11 year old son. Her only regret is not doing it sooner. She loves sharing her collections of building toys and games, and hopes to have lots of time to play this week.
Jessica Harmon is 15, lives in Arkansas and loves to crochet, listen to music, talk to friends, give hugs, make jewelry, wear crazy clothes, read, will play pretty much any board game, loves to travel and just have fun! Jessica is also a firm believer that you are the age that you act : )
Seth Hundley is 9, and LOVES Bionicles and he wants to become a drummer.
Jennifer Johnson shares her NJ home with her husband of 9 years, Chris, and their two kids Charlotte, 2 and Jackson, 4. She is working on a book about RU for the rest of the world called Up The Down Staircase. Her belief is that unschooling involves finding poetry in everyday life and that if more people practiced unschooling, there would be poetry on every billboard on every highway in the land. Jennifer and her husband are thankful to be a part of this inspirational gathering of people.
Hi! I'm Terri Johnson, the one all the way on the right & the others are my wonderful daughters~from the left are Jenna Grace,Thena Sky & Caitlin Rose. It's one of my favorite photos.We all live in Maryland but Grace is the last one living at home with her Dad & I. I'm the 'finder' in our house but will just provide the list for this hunt.
Andrea Katin (or Andy) is mother to 14 yo Adli (awesome Rock Band expert and computer guru) and wife of Patrick Morris (artist, stay-at- home-dad and founding father of the WOW unschooling guild). In her non-dance life Andrea is a psychoanalyst/therapist. She has found belly dance to be a deeply healing body practice. It also channels her passions for world music, soulful dancing and dress-up.
Caren Knox-Hundley has been drumming for 8 years, and has been facilitating drum circles for 3. Caren feels very strange speaking in the third person. I (there!) love to see how different people can come together and form a cohesive, energetic group through rhythm. Drum circles are magic, and I'm blessed to play as often as I can, and share drumming with as many people who'll let me.
Darlene Martin lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Steve and son, Stephen. This will be their third Live and Learn Conference.
Lisa Row lives in coastal North Carolina with three other Sandy Souls: husband Jim, and sons Daniel (7) and Ryan (6). When she's not at the beach rearranging sand with the boys, Lisa enjoys creating food art, reading, playing piano, and singing Karaoke (only at home).
Ginger Sabo is the peaceful Mama to Kai and Kade and a soul-mate to Jeff. I seem to be on a slower path to discovering all there is to discover and explore in the world…taking time to truly enjoy our children and our surroundings. You can usually find me watching our kids, knitting, reading or joining in a great game or two.
Jeff Sabo is the lucky dad of Annie (18), Kai (9), and Kade (6), and is still amazed and grateful to be the husband of Ginger (29 and 36/4). The Sabos make their home by the beach in Carlsbad, CA, but have also laid their heads in Monterey, Nashville, Austin, and State College. When he's not making puppets, he works in biotech, plunks the bass, and plays in the ocean with the family.
Some call me Erik Schroeder...most call me Skooch, some are a bit more colorful....my kids call me Dad....I am happily married to Woogie for over a decade and am an Unschooling convert. I play Saxophone and love 60's Ska, Jazz, Soul, R&B, Garage Rawk, Psychedelic Jazz, Scooters, Lounge, Space Age Pop, Kosmische Musik, Space Rock, Avant Garde, Punk, Exotica and other assorted subcultural noise.. I am a devoted fan of the Legendary Pink Dots since 1988 and a fan of Horror and Euro Film Soundtracks. I am also into Surrealism, Dada, Hammer Horror, Jess Franco, Vedic Scripture, Zen Buddhism, Veganism, Trains, Model Railroads and being a walking encyclopedia of useless information. For those keeping score at home I have played with Inspecter 7, The Hub City Stompers, The Brimstones, The Cosmic Brotherhood of Ra, The 138s and have sat in with more bands than I remember at this point...As for what else I am up to these days....I play Trad Ska with Silver Dollar, fill the Tenor Sax chair in Inspecter 7 (since 1992), do occasional sits with anyone who will have me and create whatever else I feel like creating at the time. I read Beat Poetry, ride my Scooter, dig Sculpture, practice the Horn, obsess over Kitaro, dream of the ultimate Bachelor Pad and wonder if I will ever get to Europe.
Barbara Splett makes her home a hour north of Chicago in the sleepy little town of Ingleside, IL. She lives with her husband John, two beautiful boys Reed (11) and Blair (10), and their awesome standard poodle named Beauregard. Her own pursuit of education at the great books college Shimer led her to discover other alternative learning styles. After doing a thesis on Unschooling, she felt there was no other route to take for her family as a whole. She thankfully discovered all this before the boys would have traditionally gone to school.
We're the Traaseth family. Tim, Kelli, Alec, Abbi and Kyra-- we've been living, learning and unschooling for the last 7 years. I guess we've been living and learning a lot longer than that but unschooling for 7 of those years. We do lots of fun stuff but we're going to be chatting about video gaming. Most of our family does some sort of gaming. Tim does the least but would probably do more if he didn't have to support our fun financially. Thanks Tim!