Someone recently asked for links to successful unschoolers’/homeschoolers’ websites and blogs on the Ask Unschooling Offspring Yahoo list.
Here are the links I recommended to him plus more I’ve thought of since posting on the Yahoo group:
Homeschoolers’/Unschoolers’ Websites and Blogs
www.eligerzon.com – This is my site. I travels all over the world, write and speak about travel, unschooling, and worldschooling, and lead travel tours for young adults to learn about the world and themselves.
www.perrykroll.com/ – www.take247.com – www.studiofreeradical.com – Perry Kroll is a fellow Massachusetts unschooler. Does great video, graphic design, and website work (he designed my site actually).
www.yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com – Very interesting blog by a grown unschooler/homeschooler in Montreal, Canada expressing her views on unschooling, education, politics, vegeteranism, civilization, sustainability, etc.
www.financeyourfreedom.com – www.thegrowinglife.com One of the number one sites on the net about “life-style design”: creating the life, money, and freedom you want without being stuck in an office all day. Clay Collins left school at age 15 and started unschooling. Then he went to college, worked in an office, hated it, “killed his day job”, and learned to make a good living while enjoying his life.
www.grownwithoutschooling.com – Peter Kowalke is a life-long unschooler who made a ground-breaking documentary about 10 grown homeschoolers talking candidly about the effect not going to school or following a set curriculum had on their lives.
www.deepgreenbuilding.net/ Sean Ritchey is a grown unschooler/homeschooler who does wonderful work designing and building energy efficient and environmentally friendly buildings and homes that save people money and help keep the planet healthier.
www.allenellis.com – Grown unschooler/homeschooler who does photography, graphic design work, and photography. Really nice quality work. He also designs websites such as this one:
www.theautodidactsymposium.com – Cameron Lovejoy left school at age 12 and started unschooling. He helped his family run the Live and Learn Unschooling Conferences which have influenced many other conference. Now Cameron is running his own unschooling conference that looks very exciting, The Autodidact Symposium, in March, 2009 in Columbia, South Carolina. He also started the Ask Unschooling Offspring group on Yahoo mentioned above.
www.matchingorange.com – www.myspace.com/mandolinisgoodforthebrain – Eric McDonald is another fellow Bostonian grown unschooler and an amazing musical performer and songwriter. He sings, plays the guitar, and rips it on the mandolin all over the northeast. One of his bands is Jaded Mandolin:
www.myspace.com/jadedmandolin – Jaded Mandolin is a folk/bluegrass band originally made up of four unschooling teens. You can listen to their music and order their awesome self-titled CD through this MySpace page.
www.ahem.info/LinkstoHomeschoolersWebpages.htm – List of many more homeschoolers’ websites compiled by my friends at Advocates for Home Education in Massachusetts (AHEM).
www.ahem.info/FamousHomeschoolers.htm – List of famous people who were homeschooled.
There are more! Please feel to comment and add to the list!
The man who asked about this on the list is actually from Germany and having trouble being allowed to homeschool his children there. I assume he wanted both personal support for his choice and maybe help proving the legitimacy of homeschooling to the German authorities.
As I noted in my response to him according to John Taylor Gatto modern compulsory schooling started in Prussia (Germany) in the 1800s so it’s understandable it’s not easy to homeschool there. And it’s especially wonderful and significant to hear about people fighting for the right to direct their lives and education.
(Btw you can view my site in German here or use this imperfect but very helpful translation tool from Google for any site: www.translate.google.com)
My name is Erin and I’m a grown unschooler, and I am in an original band called Please Do Not Fight, along with Zen who was also unschooled!
http://www.myspace.com/pleasedonotfight
Thanks for posting this list Eli! I have people ask me all the time about grown unschoolers and/or what my boys might do when they are all grown up. I’m going to link to this post from my blog. Thanks!
Hi, I am Nkonyezi, a semi-old unschooler and a proffesional photographer based in Dallas. You can check out my worrk @
http://Myspace.com/naroiphotography
or
http://Flikr.com/brightstarsimages
[…] About Links to Successful Unschoolers […]
Hi, I am the german Unschooler 😉
Thank you very much for your great list – everything can help to legalize homeschooling and get the compulsory schoolsystem at it’s roots.
[…] Links to successful unschoolers – Links to blogs and sites of successful grown unschoolers: please add more you know in the comments sections as many already have! I find it inspiring myself. […]
You can link to me!
I left school at 16, but was a homework refusenik from age 11. I even got suspended for taking a stand on civil rights.
Then I found success in the computing field. I wrote about it in my book Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar. I didn’t realize it when I was writing, but my experience can be used by unschoolers to counter the “you’ll never succeed” baloney that they hear from time to time.
http://www.buccaneerscholar.com
hi Eli,
the term “successful” is funny to me!
anyway, I’m a grown unschooler – my family stopped going to school when I was 10, and now I’m 40. I’ve seen you around at unschooling conferences, but I don’t think we’ve actually met.
Hi Coleen!
Thanks for commenting! That’s really cool to know about another second generation unschooling family. Someone posted looking for others on the Unschool Alumni group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39113999562
Anyway, hope to chat at another conference sometime! Sounds like you were part of the real first generation of unschoolers. I know one other family like that: the Griffin family. Peter Griffin (yup that’s his name) is a friend of mine and was in the Grown Without Schooling doc by Peter Kowalke.
Visit radiofreeschool.blogspot.com to read about unschoolers who have grown up to be ‘successful’ adults. We are looking at youth that have entered institutions of higher learning without a high school diploma.
The follwoing series will be about grown unschoolers that have bypassed institutionalized learning-period.
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I’m a grown unschooler. I left high school in 9th grade and deschooled until I found massage therapy. I worked both as a mobile massage business owner and private practitioner. Currently, I work part time doing a variety of things that allow us travel full-time and unschool our 10 year old son.
Hi Tara, I’ve noticed you on the blogosphere but didn’t know you were a grown unschooler who did massage therapy! That’s really cool. And it’s inspiring that you are able to be creative and find a way to travel with your son.