When I first metAriana, she explainedthat her involvement incircus and gymnasticsmade it really difficultfor her to keep up withher schoolwork.Accepting responsibility for doing

well in school meant late nights and a lot of stress.Ariana could see the potential of homeschooling inher life, and she enlisted me as an ally to help herconvince her parents to give this a try. Mostly,Ariana did the convincing. Now, two years olderand nearly 17, Ariana has been true to her word.She has used the flexibility of homeschooling toadjust her schedule around her chosen activities,and she has worked to honor the academiccommitments that she made to herself and herparents. While this process has not been stress-free,the maturity that comes from it is evident. Arianahas a strong self-awareness about her strengthsand about the support she needs to accomplish hergoals. Her focus, thoughtfulness, and generalconcern for others have led to her to become amainstay our community. I am deeply happy thatshe has had this opportunity to spend her mid-teenyears with such a degree of self-direction.—K.D.

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Spr

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2008

Ariana

Readers of LiberatedLearners know thatmost North Starmembers are teens whocome to our program from school.While many of theseteens come with somedegree of distress orcrisis, one interestingpoint is that the vastmajority of ourmembers would havestayed in school andgraduated if North Stardid not exist. NorthStar, and homeschool-ing, is a wonderful wayto improve a life,particularly for thosenot taking satisfactionfrom the superficialsuccess they areachieving in school.Two current memberswho were doing well inschool prior to joiningNorth Star are ArianaFerber-Carter andOliver Spiro. BothAriana and Oliver weregetting good grades inschool when theydecided to homeschool.They each have stable,loving, and supportivefamilies. When theyattended school, theydid their homework,behaved well, andappeared to bereasonably kind andwell-adjusted youngpeople. In this issuethey explain how“doing well” in schoolfelt unsatisfying, and

I’ve never hated school, but I’ve never put it beforereal life either. When I was 12, I joined CircusSmirkus and have been touring with them duringthe summers for the past 4 years. I also dogymnastics and take circus classes in Brattleboro atNew England Center for Circus Arts. Theseinterests are more important to me than school,though I’ve always tried to do well in school.

I went to the Hilltown CooperativeCharter Public School for grades K – 8 and then Idid ninth grade at Northampton High School. I’dnever been to a traditional school before, and insome ways it was freeing; I was just another fish inthe sea. I could doodle in class and the teacherswouldn’t mind for the most part, as long as I waspaying attention. I had some close friends and Iwasn’t unhappy, but it was sapping up all of mytime. By the second semester of 9th grade, I wasdoing five hours of homework a night for one classalone and I was begging my parents to let me go toNorth Star.

I’d heard about North Star from friends,but it seemed too good to be true. I suppose I wasa little worried that my parents’doubts were valid

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why they jumped at thechance to leave thecomfort of the familiarbehind for theunknown adventure ofhomeschooling. Theyeach have a parent whohas written for thisissue as well, sharingthe adult view ofwalking out on atraditional approachthat they thought washeaded in the rightdirection. I hope thesestories inspire you asmuch as they fuel mypassion for this work.Sometimes we can’tsettle for everythingbeing “fine”. We wantsomething more. Thankyou to Ariana andOliver and theirfamilies for sharingtheir version of thisdesire for a better wayto live.

News and Notes

North Star now hasnearly fifty-fivemembers; in additionwe have welcomedseveral new excitingstaff members. Mostnotably, we are honoredto have Evelyn Harris,former member ofSweet Honey in the

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and that I might well waste the next three years ofmy life if I began homeschooling, but the lure offreedom was stronger than the fear of what I mightdo with that power. After months of conflict, Kentalked with my parents during the summer and theyagreed to let me begin homeschooling for tenthgrade. My parents and I had long discussions thatsummer over the phone while I was on tour withSmirkus, and we arranged a curriculum. I had bigacademic plans. I was going to read religious textsand study culture. I was going to write fiction, keepa journal, and continue learning French. I wasgoing to learn trigonometry and physics. I wasgoing to use North Star as much as I could. I wasgoing to be able to schedule my circus andgymnastics activities as I wished.

That first year, I ended up taking a lot ofNorth Star classes and playing games out in thesun. I was as happy as I could imagine, and I waslearning. I was learning what it is to be free.I would get to North Star around 9:00 a.m., takeabout 3 classes, do some writing, and climb a treeor play chess. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I’d go togymnastics. I hated Wednesday (North Star isn’topen on Wednesdays). Wednesday was my bigtextbook day, where I’d try to learn math or physicson my own with a book. That didn’t work very wellfor me, so I started tutorials at North Star and thatworked better. Although I didn’t do all of theindependent academics we had planned, myparents and I got along well. Homeschooling wasan improvement.

This year I am homeschooling quitedifferently. I go to North Star three days per week,but I only take classes (Logic and WritingWorkshop) on one of those days. With friends atNorth Star, I’ve learned to solve a Rubik’s cube inunder three minutes. I’m doing a math tutorial oncea week outside of North Star. I audit a class onearly medieval history at Smith College. I am stilldoing gymnastics, and I go to Vermont to traincircus once or twice a week. One highlight of thisyear was in October, when I got my first paidcircus gig. Cirque du Soleil productions had aconflict at the Canadian border and I was asked tofill in for a show in Boston. In my free time, I do alot of art. Mostly I draw pencil sketches of people,but recently I’ve discovered digital art.

My life feels creative, and I’m very happy

q Ariana

Karen, Ariana’s parent, writes:

I am grateful for North Star. I’m not sure howthings would look if Ariana weren’t going to NorthStar. I think that it would have been difficult forAriana to have found her way in the high schooland I know that we would not be attempting tohomeschool on our own. Ariana is happy at NorthStar and I put a very high premium on that. I alsovalue what North Star has to offer in terms of avery safe place where the kids can truly bethemselves; they are not under any pressure toconform. I love the interesting and varied classes.Ariana is a thinker and an analyzer and she loves todiscuss things. North Star is a perfect fit for that. Ialso think that it is really great to hear about thespontaneous conversations that happen betweenthe kids as they are spending time in the commonspaces. I value that a lot.

I think that taking charge and self-directing one’s learning is challenging and it isn’talways smooth. Sometimes I wish that Ariana weregetting more exposure to language and math. Forus that has been the hardest piece of the puzzle.Ariana enjoyed those things during her year at thehigh school and we haven’t been able to providethose things as readily and because of the nature ofhow things work at North Star, it’s hard to haveenough kids with the same interests and schedulesto create ongoing classes in those areas. Or that’s

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Rock, offering a musicand songwriting coursethis spring. Other newclasses include UltimateMedicine Ball (only atNorth Star!),Introduction toEconomics, MathGames,Mountaineering Lit.,Outdoor Cooking, 2012,and Controversies inU.S. History.

Over our Marchvacation week,Catherine Gobron led agroup of ten to Vieques,Puerto Rico. The groupspent most of its timeworking with the peoplewho led the successfulprotest movement toclose the U.S. navalbase in Vieques. Thegroup did someconstruction work at apeace and justice campso that more visitorsmay come and learnabout this historicchange and contributeto the communityrevitalization. The tripalso included some timefor touring, snorkeling,and beach-walking.Mostly, the teensexpressed a sense ofhaving their political-awareness sparked bymeeting such incrediblepeople in Puerto Rico.The reflections on thistrip have been compiled

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about it. North Star isn’t the academic core of mylife anymore, but I still value my time there. It’s aresource, not a school without rules. Differentpeople use it in different ways, but it can help insetting up a functional life, and that’s a lot morethan most schools can say. I’ve been at North Starfor almost two years now, and I can honestly saythat this is my utopia. I’m not always self-motivated, I don’t always feel happy, and I havedays when I take my freedom for granted, but Ihave never once wished to go back to school. Inthis time, my art has progressed from faileddoodles to completed pieces that I am proud of. Mycircus training isn’t perfect, I still have a hard timegetting all my conditioning done, but I’m able todevote as much time to it as I wish.

I am now sixteen years old. I don’t knowwhat the next few years will bring. I expect theywill bring more time with circus and more collegecourses. When I imagine what I would be doinghad I stayed in school, I fear I would be someoneworking for someone else’s vision. At North Star, Iam working for my own.t

p Self portrait by Ariana

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in a newsletter. Pleasecontact Catherine ifyou would like to readthese stories.

how it has seemed to me. Ariana has dyslexia solearning things on her own from books doesn’tcome so easily and so doing those things on herown is more daunting.

How much a given kid can take charge oftheir own learning varies. It can also look reallydifferent from person to person or even in the samekid it can look different at different times.Developmentally different kids are going to be indifferent places with taking over the reins.Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. In ourfamily, the biggest struggle is around where we letgo and what we expect Ariana to do. It’s really allpart of the parenting continuum with many of thesame challenges we’ve faced all along. I know thatI really want Ariana to be happy and to have asmuch success in what she wants to do as possible.Sometimes it is obvious and clear what things areon Ariana’s plate and what things are on ours butoften things seem to fall into grayer areas. It’s alsosomewhat fluid as Ariana grows into moreresponsibility. I want her to rise to the task oftaking things on yet I don’t want to see herflounder. I want to push her in the areas where shecould work harder and yet I want to give her roomto find out how she needs to go aboutaccomplishing her goals.

I love it when Ariana is in her element andsucceeding, like when I see her perform a newcircus act or when she is on tour performing withCircus Smirkus in the summers. I feel happy whenshe and the family friend who is tutoring her inmath get excited about some abstract esoteric maththing or when she is working on the details of herlatest work of art. I also love it when she takes onmore responsibility and is able to handle it. Hermind is so alive and she has so much integrity. Fornow, she is preparing to take the GED test this Mayand is considering taking some studio art classes atGCC next semester.t

Oliver is among thequietest, calmest, andgentlest membersNorth Star has everhad. (Does he everraise his voice? Doeshe ever run?) He isalso one of thestrongest characters I

have known here. He firmly chose to do no busy-work to satisfy anyone: his mother, the superinten-dent, me, even himself. He had a vision that heshould wait for inspiration to do something heknew was meaningful, and that to get that visionhe needed to be fully free. Busywork might keephim from having that moment of awareness. Howmany 13-year-olds can articulate this feeling: Imust be open to the universe and what I will dis-cover that I need to do. Obviously, this was a diffi -cult position for Oliver’s parents to accept, butOliver wouldn’t budge. He even expressed how sadhe felt that he was making his mother so miserable,but even so, he couldn’t do stuff just to make herfeel better. She would have to wait, just like he waswaiting. I can claim that I said, “Don’t worry, itwill work out okay,” but I certainly had no ideahow long this process would last. Weeks? Months?Years? I had no idea, but I felt confident thatOliver was doing no harm to himself and goingthrough a necessary, if frustrating, process. Thisyear, for fun, Oliver and some friends (includingAriana) saw a video about a child who had mas-tered the Rubik’s cube. They decided to find outhow to do this for themselves. They downloaded,studied, and memorized various algorithms, andsure enough, within a few weeks our commonroom was something of a street-corner show, fullof timers and competitions. Oliver was the fastest.

Having arrived at North Star at age 12, Oliverremains in the middle of his North Star career.How lucky for us..—K.D.

vvv

I never had much trouble in school. My gradeswere good, and things were fine socially as well.Everything was just that -- fine. Looking back now,it all seems a bit odd. Most teachers could teach,most students could learn. The mark of a good

Oliver

p The Puerto Rico group

and I would usually adhere to it. Life wasnice socially as well. I made many friendsand few enemies.

When the next September rolledaround, socially, little changed. When itcame to education, however, I did a life-time's worth of nothing, and I was whole-heartedlyconvinced that it was exactly the right nothing todo. Maybe I'm stretching the truth here. I did dosomething: I constantly defended my right to donothing. I would repeatedly say that I'd wait to beinspired, that I wouldn't do busywork just toappease others. This worried my parents; it evenworried me sometimes. I never knew how my edu-cation would turn out. Although I'd attend a classoccasionally, I would spend the majority of mydays at North Star on the couch, or perhaps acrossthe street for lunch, and my time at home was a bittoo similar. It seems, looking back, that there wassome form of defiance in this inactivity. Perhaps Iwas trying to establish this "self"-education as trulymy own, but whatever my now-forgotten reasonswere, it worked. Halfway through that same year,my (now fully self) education picked up. Fromthen on, nearly all academic decisions were on me,and I, for the most part, happily made them.

After I won the battle over my home-schooling freedom, my home life changed greatly.Home became, largely, where I got my work done.

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teacher was not the ability to drive knowledge intothe heads of their pupils, but the ability to make theneed to drive it in disappear. Though good teacherslike this didn't redeem school for me, theycertainly created a set or two of 180 days that I'llnever forget nor regret.

I left school halfway through sixth grade.The only major problem I had in school wasboredom. My assignments were meaningless, myteachers disinterested, and my peers eitherapathetic or pressured into overachieving. Whetherit was being forced to spend my time both in schooland out of school coloring maps, reading books Ihated, and memorizing lists, or if it was watchingthe art teacher play a semi-hidden game of solitaireduring class, something led me to believe I wasbored.So bored.So bored.

I voiced to my mother my desire to takeclasses outside of school. She made calls to SylvanLearning Center and a few local communitycolleges but, of course, my mother’s last call wasto North Star. The call was picked up by Ken. Kensaid that although North Star did offer classes, theywere only for those not in school. Up to this thispoint, homeschooling was far from being on themind of any of my family members. In fact, weweren't fully aware of what North Star was.Despite never before considering pulling me out ofschool, my mother asked Ken for more informa-tion. After coming home that day and hearing whatKen had said, I never set foot in school again.

Although my transition into the North Starmentality was quick, it was an odd experience. Theclasses were voluntary, which allowed theirsubjects to vary widely. Attendance was basedentirely on interest, whether your interest wascomputer programming, writing, or maybe aweekly role-playing game session. There were nodesks, just chairs, tables and a few couches.Despite this alien (for a place dedicated toeducation) informality, the true purpose of NorthStar was to help its members grasp that, being nolonger in school, they were ultimately the onesresponsible for their education.

My first half year at North Star was fairlystructured academically. I would usually figure outa weekly or monthly agreement with my parents,

Upcoming Events:

Our theater group willbe performing theirspring production May23-25.

North Star is planninga large-group end-of-the-year trip to FerryBeach Ecology Schoolin Saco, Maine May28-30. This school isnow the home offormer North Starmembers Abby andMikey Mann.

Our fourth annualCelebration of Self-Directed Learning willbe on Sunday, June8th, at theNorthampton Centerfor the Arts, 11:00a.m.– 1:00 p.m. Thisyear’s Self-DirectedLearning Award will bepresented to JohnRobison, author of lookme in the eye: my lifewith asperger’s.Wehave discovered manyconnections betweenNorth Star and JohnRobison, and we arethrilled that he will joinus for this event.Additional speakers willinclude North Staralumna JordanaHarper-Ewert, now theprincipal of LitwinElementary School inChicopee, and current

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I've worked in math from the very basic algebra Ihad started in school, to the calculus I'm currentlyworking on. Though I was tutored through parts, Imainly worked in math on my own from a text-book.

I've certainly read many books over theyears, fiction and non-fiction, classic and obscure,and, of course, all of my own free will. I've read afew biographies of famous scientists, notably theparticle physicists Richard Feynman and RobertOppenheimer, the latter being a subject of an essayI wrote. My focus has largely been on hard scienceand technology, with home studies of chemistryand physics being my main route.

In past years North Star had been entirelya social place for me. I had never taken manyclasses. With this past September, however, camemuch greater participation in courses here. Inkeeping with my earlier studies, I've been taking aphysics class, Relativity, as well as an experimen-tally oriented chemistry class. Offsetting mynormal interests, I've taken the biodiversity classesof Evolution Biology and Hotspots, along withMathematical Biology, a math in nature class. I'vealso taken a social science class, Economics, thevery philosophical Logic Class, and, in the greatestcontrast to my usual path, Electronic Music.

This year brought about another, evenlarger academic shift. School. In December of2007, I applied to Holyoke Community College.After a brief bureaucratic scuffle about my age(15), I was accepted. My goal in applying had beento take a calculus course. After studying thenecessary pre-calculus material in the month and ahalf I had before the spring semester, I took aplacement test. I passed the test very well overall. Itook the higher math section twice in order to scorehigh enough for the class I was hoping for. I amnow two months into Calculus I, and will attendmore classes over the summer.

My decision to leave school was veryquick. I just threw myself at this idea of freedom ineducation. Despite a long time of uncertainty aboutwhether homeschooling could work for me, Ireally knew from day one that I never would, norcould, go back.

Admittedly, I was wrong. But, who am I tocomplain? College was my idea.t

Martha, Oliver’s parent, writes:

Ha! Ken told me a few years ago that one day I’dbe so confident in my son’s homeschooling paththat I’d be writing this. I didn’t believe him, but Iagreed to the wager… “Sure, if you can make thathappen, I’ll be happy to…”. And here I sit. I amamazed at my son, but it has been a hard road.

Oliver had a wonderful start to hiseducation at the local elementary school. We hadbumps, but it was working well. He left JacksonStreet School, having had an amazing year with his5th grade teacher. He seemed ready to move to themiddle school. He was solid – bright, athletic, agood student, a kind person, funny…and he wasexcited.

He hit 6th grade like a wall. In so manyways, it seemed like his world fell apart. Over afew months he quit all his sports, rarely hung outwith his friends and he became seemingly veryunhappy. And at school (the only problem he couldidentify, though I grant you there were probablyothers), he was “bone-chillingly bored.” While allof this was worrisome, his lack of interest in schoolwas the biggest concern for me. He had always hadan incredible inquisitive nature. What washappening to him?

He had reached this turning point in hiseducation where he would theoretically be moreindependent and have choices and variety, butinstead of succeeding here, I saw him for the firsttime becoming increasingly indifferent towardsany kind of learning. That was terribly unsettling tome. That was his core. We met with his teachers,set up a plan to keep him engaged…but at the sametime, unbeknownst to me, I was simultaneouslyclearing a path to pull him out of school. It was amatter of days.

One night I was sitting with him in hisroom. He was very down and I was talking to him,trying to fix things…trying to figure out what waswrong. All he could tell me was that he was bored.I tried a lot of parental lines. Nothing worked. Hedenied being depressed or upset or anything. Hejust kept saying he was bored. I guess I finallyheard him…he was bored...bored, bored, bored! Itwas that simple. So I asked if he’d like to take aclass after school somewhere. And much to myparental surprise, he lit up a tiny bit. “You think

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member Abe Jenkins.Brunch will be courtesyof our friends fromBueno y Sano, Seeds ofSolidarity Farm, andThe Hungry GhostBakery. This event is afundraiser; guests willbe asked to make ameaningful gift tosupport North Star’spolicy of working withall interested families.

p Oliver at North Star

you could find me a class in Japanese or Latin?”So here’s my home schooling naivete

revealed…The next day I started calling different

schools and programs, and eventually unwittinglycalled North Star. The conversation with Ken wentsomething like this: “Do you offer after-schoolclasses in Japanese or Latin?” “Well, we offer bothof those classes but they are for kids who are nolonger in school.” Oh…. Silence. “Can you tell memore about that?”…. and so he did. And by the endof the conversation I was in tears…quietly but intears. It felt right.

To cut the story short, Oliver neverreturned to the middle school. Within two days myson made the decision to leave school and go toNorth Star. And our lives turned upside down.

For a few months we constructed anillusion of structure and the walls held. It was in thefall of what would have been Oliver’s 7th gradeyear that we were truly tested -- and painfully“unschooled.” Oliver wanted to be in charge, andwithout a clue what that meant, we agreed. Thiswas NOT a good time. We watched him donothing. Nothing. It was hard. I was worried. No, Iwas completely shaken. Oliver was doingabsolutely nothing! He did so much nothing that Ibelieve even Ken was surprised at the capacity fornothingness. But, Oliver stood his ground and

refused to do anything that didn’t deeplyinterest him. But for the outsideobserver…NOTHING interested him! Hesat on the sofa at home and did nothing; noTV, no video game, no computer, no book,no pencil, no words, no music.NOTHING!!!!! He attended nothing at North Star.He did nothing. I was completely unnerved. As aparent…this was a nightmare. This was a hugeabyss of nothingness.

I held onto Ken’s reassurances and myobservations through the window of North Star.Inside, he was always smiling -- beaming really.That was for me the first turning point; there weremany others. Then many agonizing months later,he started moving and then running and now he isso hungry for knowledge, it is hard to supply.There was a moment last year when he lost faith.And it dumbfounded me to hear my own words:“You know, Oliver, you are fine, in fact you aredoing great! This was a good decision. It’s just hardat the moment. It’ll be ok…” So we walked thewalk, and now…now?… I couldn’t feel betterabout the whole process. Oliver is an amazinglyinterested and interesting person. He is steady andsolid and happy. And he is so completely him; nopretense. The kid is exceptional. (Oops, that’s hisparent speaking).

That huge abyss of nothingness nowseems to be equally proportionate to the amount ofknowledge he craves. It is hard to keep himsatisfied. Is there some poetic conclusion to draw?Probably! But practicalities call and instead welook over college catalogues and figure out busroutes and try and figure out how to get him whathe wants now, and plan out how to get him what hewants after that. He’s fifteen years old and out ofthe system and it wears me out sometimes. Ha! If Icoulda only known then what I see now! What anamazing kid. What an amazing journey it’s been sofar for us all. It’s just flying by.t

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135 Russell Street (Route 9)Hadley MA 01035

413. 582.0193 or 582.0262www.northstarteens.org

Help support

North Star

Contributions like yourshelp fund our operatingcosts. We rely on dona-tions to generate memberscholarships, staffsalaries, and improve-ments to our space andresources. Please help uscontinue to grow.

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Contribution:

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North Star is a project ofLearning Alternatives, Inc, anon-profit corporation underMassachusetts Law andSection 501(c)(3) of theInternal Revenue Code.

Contributions to North Star aretax-deductible.

Thanks for yourgenerosity.

# clip and mail to North Star 135 Russell Street Hadley MA 01035

t Trip toPuerto Rico