Ren Allen is a makeup-artist-hard-working-bee-loving-gardening-metal-rocking mum who lives with six other humans, three cats and a goldfish who swims upside down. She started down the rabbit hole of natural learning back in the early 90's and still misses her subscription to Growing Without Schooling.
James Coburn has been working professionally in Production Sound for sixteen years, but his involvement with movie production has been lifelong. He virtually grew up on movie sets and appeared in films starring his dad, Oscar winning actor James Coburn, including his debut - a moment in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid". Look for the child on the raft.
A world traveler, James lived in Zimbabwe in the early 1980's, working as voice over talent for numerous regional film and TV productions. He acted in features, and worked in music production and radio. James returned to the States to attend college, where he studied Physics and Audio Engineering, before discovering his passion, film sound.
Coming home to Los Angeles , James worked as a boom operator on numerous feature and television projects. Since moving to mixing in 1996, he has continued to mix steadily working on some 22 feature films to date and several television series. Since 2008 James has been glad to share his enthusiasm for film sound with students at the Los Angeles Film School, where he is now a full time member of the faculty.
James lives in Los Angeles with his wife, a writer, and their always unschooled daughter, Jayn. He is a licensed Amateur Radio operator (Ham) with the call sign W6JHC. He spends his spare time collecting LED flashlights, creating precious metal clay jewelry designs, and participating in online forums devoted to flashlights, ham radio, geocaching and gadgetry. He is also a past speaker at the Live and Learn Unschooling Conference, and presenter of various gadget and gizmo funshops . But his greatest fame in the unschooling conference world, comes from his continuing tradition of facilitating the Nitrogen Ice Cream funshop at the post-conference picnics.
Robyn Coburn began her career as a creative artist 30 years ago designing and making art fashions and working in freelance costume and set design in Sydney theaters. After graduating from the University of Wollongong School of Creative Arts, Robyn was offered the position of Technical Director and resident Designer at The Rep Theatre, the graduate company of the renowned Ensemble Acting Studios. At the same time she was employed to teach technical theater to the students, and guide their appreciation of scenic, lighting and costume design and realization.
Coming to the United States in 1992, Robyn immediately returned to costume design, designing and building costumes in Texas, before working for several years as a set decorator and production designer of low budget independent movies in Los Angeles. She also designed sets and lighting for several productions at Long Beach Playhouse, before stepping away from the art department to focus on writing, her art doll crafting business and unschooling her daughter, Jayn.
Robyn's handmade art dolls have won prizes and are a growing concern. She maintains blogs about creativity, crafting and textile arts, and is an avid scrapbooker. Robyn wrote a monthly column for Connections e-zine of unschooling and mindful parenting, and has contributed articles to Life Learning and Live Free, Learn Free magazines. She writes the web column, "Crafting for a Greener World" for Natural Life Magazine, including answering reader dilemmas. She is currently working on several scripts, and a crafting book about upcycling your old clothes with traditional fabric art techniques.
Recently Robyn started working and teaching paper crafts at Michaels Arts and Crafts Stores. After watching many of her customers struggling with the demands of their children's school curricula, Robyn realized that parents and their children need technical help crafting their school projects. She and her husband James are developing a series of How-to publications that will provide that help.
Robyn has been a main speaker and presented numerous funshops at Live and Learn Unschooling Conferences, and most recently spoke at Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, a freelance production sound mixer, and industry professional at Los Angeles Film School, and her artistic daughter.
Erika Davis-Pitre and her husband Michael have 4 children - one daughter (33) and three sons (29, 27 & 19). They also have a son-in-law and an 5 year old grandson.
They live in Central Connecticut with their 19yr old (when did that happen!) son. They have been unschooling for many years and love it, so Erika is always looking for opportunities to share their unschooling joy with others.
Erika has spoken at many un/homeschooling conferences, led quite a few funshops/workshops and has hosted and participated in many round table discussions about unschooling all over the US and Canada.
She especially enjoys talking about unschooling teens, sharing the joy of unschooling and celebrating diversity through unschooling. And she is a Artist Trading Card(ATC) fanatic-if you don't know about ATCs please ask!
Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College. He has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology; published articles on innovative teaching methods and alternative approaches to education; and is author of Psychology (Worth Publishers), an introductory college textbook now in its 6th edition. He is also author of a regular blog entitled Freedom to Learn, for Psychology Today Magazine, accessible at <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn>. He did his undergraduate study at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences at Rockefeller University. His current research and writing focus primarily on children's natural, instinctive ways of educating themselves through play and exploration. Peter Gray's own play includes not only his research and writing, but also long distance bicycling, kayaking, and back-woods skiing.
Peter Kowalke is 32-year-old grown homeschooler, journalist and editor of Unschooler.com, a site about unschooling and what it means to be the change you want to see in the world. He's producer of the documentary about the lasting influence of home education, Grown Without Schooling, and currently is working on a book about his other passion, deep relationships, entitled "The Other Half: How to Love and Be Loved More Deeply Than You Thought Possible." He's a former columnist for Home Education Magazine, Life Learning Magazine and Home Educator's Family Times, and he's worked for homeschooling umbrella school, Clonlara, and India homeschooling advocates, Shikshantar Andolan.
Julie Persons is a radical unschooling mom who loves helping her children find their passions. She lives in rural Maine with her children (Jesse (12) and Ruby (8)) and husband Trevor on an old farm surrounded by fields and woods and loves it there, even in the harsh winters when the long driveway is unplowable as this is a chance to play more board games and drink more wine. She works from home as a photographer and bead seller to fund their unschooling life and loves what she does. Things that make her happy include: photography, gardening, playing video games with her children, reading, writing, chasing her husband around the kitchen with a dishtowel (while singing loudly) and saying yes.
Marcia Simonds, a mom of six, lives with her two youngest children, Chad, 15, and Chloe, 13, and assorted animals on their small farm in southeastern Massachusetts. Radical unschoolers for nine years, she is thankful for the journey and is overjoyed to see her teens happy, confident, making their own choices and fulfilling their dreams, and to see her oldest child, Kristen, embrace unschooling with her own young children.
Marcia is passionate about connecting people, especially children, with Nature and natural learning and has started Harmony Woods Earth School and A Nest In Nature. Her website www.harmonywoodsfarm.com http://www.harmonywoodsfarm.com
Raised behind the Iron Curtain, Eva Koleva Timothy learned to internalize a sense of creative freedom and enthusiasm in a very bleak and oppressive environment. Yet her love for the West, its history and culture kept a dream alive that she would someday make her way beyond the reach of the regime.
Now a distinguished fine art photographer and unschooling mother, Eva has combined her love for history and her belief in the greatness of the human spirit to bring us Lost in Learning: The Art of Discovery.
Come and take part in this extraordinary visual voyage through the great minds of history and uncover the keys - from their lives - to cultivating a spirit of discovery and wonder in our own.
