Taaaaa.....Daaaaaaa! We Are Pleased to Introduce the HOME Conference Committee.....
Last year we were quite remiss in not properly introducing ourselves to you. So, here are the people responsible for all the ideas, planning, and worrying that go along with staging an event like this. It's our hope that knowing something about us will give you a better sense of what you can expect at this event.
Jodi Bubenzer and her husband, Brian, live on a farm in the rolling hills of southern WI (outside of New Glarus) with their four sons, Joseph (12), William (9), Thomas (5) and Peter (3). In addition to corralling these four enthusiastic boys, they also live and learn as they raise sheep, llamas, chickens (meat and layers), bees and tend a large garden and hope to add cows (beef and milking), hogs and goats in the spring. When not tending the farm, the Bubenzers love to travel/camp visiting National Parks all over the US. Live joyfully and the learning will happen!
Tanya Cunningham lives joyfully in Madison with husband Neil and their teenage son, who has not attended conventional school, with rare exceptions, such as driver’s ed. She became interested in personal freedom for all children after reading A.S. Neill’s Summerhill: a radical approach to childrearing at the age of 11. Her adventurous parents enrolled her in a parent cooperative “free school” in Madison in the 1970s, which was committed to unschooling principles, though the term was not in general use at the time. She is committed to the premise that all humans – children and adults alike – are natural learners, and believes that the hardest parts of living an unschooled life for most adults are to de-school themselves, and to keep out of the way of children’s learning in most cases.
Jennifer Falkowski writes of her experience with unschooling that when her two children were very young, she spent inordinate amounts of time in the search for the perfect curriculum. When not hunting for this white whale she and her children were following their noses by playing, going to the park and exploring the world. One day a friend told her that she was already unschooling her kids. Aha. That changed everything.
Heidi Hankley and her husband, Chip, live and learn with two young and energetic daughters in the hills of southwest Wisconsin. Besides stewarding their land and caring for a garden, a dog, and a small flock of happy hens, the family enjoys creating art of all kinds and most recently making music on several instruments that have made their way to the family. Heidi came to the idea of homeschooling by a suggestion from her mother-in-law, a career teacher, who envisioned the family doing school-at-home. It became clear in a matter of days that this approach was not going to work and the family then embarked on the wonderful path of unschooling- and nobody's looking back!
Alison McKee You can read Alison's bio here.
Jenina Mella is the mother to Luke and wife to John. Luke, who is 13, has never attended conventional school. Because of her essentially rebellious and independent nature, she has been an autodidact all her life, even during her many years of conventional schooling. She credit’s her son’s appearance in her life with allowing her to fully embrace an autodidactic lifestyle. She is committed the idea that learning is a natural consequence of living, and is a life-long activity for all human beings. Interspersed with her family’s many involvments, she finds time for many creative pursuits, including cooking, socializing, event planning, sewing, knitting, ironing, mosaic-making, and anything else that requires interesting tools and equipment. She considers that her years as an unschooling parent have given her the broadest opportunity for self-learning, and exploration of books and ideas. Her personal sacred texts are Dumbing us Down by John Taylor Gatto and School is Dead: Alternatives in Education by Everett Reimer. She is currently reading Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich.
Becky Powers lives in Sauk City, WI with her husband and three boys. They have been an unschooling family from the start, but really see it as continued excellence in parenting. She enjoys gardening and good cooking, reading, creating, having friends over, and living a few blocks from the Wisconsin River. Some current book favorites include Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
