NORTHEAST UNSCHOOLING CONFERENCE 2020
WHEN
Every Saturday and Sunday in August
1pm - 4pm EST
WHERE
Virtual Zoom meetings with access codes provided on our Virtual NEUC 2020 page, and via events on our Facebook page
ABOUT US
The Northeast Unschooling Conference is an annual gathering of unschooling families. The conference is located in Wakefield, MA, at the beautiful Sheraton Four Points in the greater Boston area.
NEUC provides a dynamic mix of speakers, presentations, hands-on arts workshops, opportunities for reflection, connection with a broader unschooling community, and conference activities geared towards engaging, entertaining, inspiring, and empowering each member of your family.
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Virtual NEUC
We are thrilled to announce our FREE, month long virtual Northeast Unschooling Conference!
This four week long à la carte event series will come to you every Saturday and Sunday in August, with each weekend’s events surrounding a unique theme. These events will be open to anyone in the community, anywhere in the world, completely free, with options to attend both live or view recorded sessions (with the exception of support spaces and certain discussions which will not be recorded).
Come one come all, we look forward to seeing old friends and new faces and having a time to connect with our community.
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Help us Keep NEUC Going in 2021
Since 2003, NEUC has been a second home to many of us, however, due to COVID-19, our in person conference had to be canceled this year. As first year organizers, we inherited the conference with debt and limited funds. Because of this, we are entering 2021 conference planning in a deficit.
Although our virtual programming this year is entirely free, we ask that you consider donating to our GoFundMe to help keep the conference alive for next year.
The money raised through this GoFundMe will help contribute to the general operating costs of the conference including rental of the hotel space in 2021, and hiring of a keynote speaker. Any additional funds raised will go directly towards NEUC scholarships to help ensure all families are able to attend our conference.
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Our Programs
The Northeast Unschooling Conference boasts a variety of robust programming designed to appeal to all members of your family. Our programming comes in four categories: funshops, panels, discussions, and presentations.
Funshops are hands-on, interest driven programs where people share skills, create community, learn, and play!
Panels aim to represent a particular demographic, such as grown unschoolers, or address a particular topic, such as concerns around math. Three or more presenters with a depth and breadth of knowledge will speak about their own unschooling journeys, and answer your questions.
Discussions provide an opportunity for our community to come together around a particular topic, sharing wisdom, talking, and listening. These may be unschooling specific topics, closed identity groups, discussions about social issues, and much more! Each discussion will have at least one facilitator to keep the conversation on track.
Presentations allow one facilitator to take the lead, creating a workshop or speech on a specific topic. Some presenters may choose to take the podium, while others may sit in a circle to share their wisdom.
Programming for folks of all ages will be offered in every timeslot. We appreciate your patience as we put together the program booklet for 2020. Stay tuned for an announcement about our keynote speaker, and a full schedule jampacked with programming options.
Attending NEUC has been helpful in my unschooling journey as a mother of 4. It has helped reconfirm and support our lifestyle. It has given me confidence in the way we are raising our children.
A dynamic conference we left feeling secure in our choice to unschool. Each member of our family left more confident, inspired and connected.
As a grown unschooler, I remember the feeling of relief that my siblings and I felt at NEUC. It was a haven. A place full of people who learned like we did and who helped us feel like we weren't alone in our unique journey of living life and learning.
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Event Organizers
The Northeast Unschooling Conference is the first-ever unschooling conference to be organized entirely by grown Unschoolers! Our conference organizers, Emmett and Rhianon, met at NEUC as young children in the early 2000s!
Emmett DuPont (they/them)
Rhianon Small (she/her/they/them)
Emmett DuPont is a 24-year-old always unschooled adult living in Western MA. Emmett started attending the Northeast Unschooling Conference at the age of nine and attended every year ever since. NEUC gave them the space to come into their own as an adult and allowed them to grow up surrounded by other children and teenagers who understood the unique struggles, joys, and challenges of unschooling.
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Emmett graduated in May 2019 from Hampshire College with a B.A, double majoring in Public Health and Entrepreneurship, and double minoring in Culture, Health and Science and Reproductive Rights. Emmett is now a high school teacher at an alternative learning school called LightHouse Holyoke, whose mission is to bring unschooling philosophy and interest-driven exploration to ALL teenagers, regardless of family structure or socioeconomic status.
Rhianon Small is a 23-year-old, life-long unschooler currently living in southern RI. Rhianon graduated from the Community College of Rhode Island in May 2018 with an A.A in General Studies and from the University of Rhode Island in May 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and Political Science. Rhianon is currently looking to work in psychological research with an emphasis on multicultural issues with the aim of creating social policy proposals.
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Having attended every Northeast Unschooling Conference since its inception when she was 6 years old, Rhianon has grown up in the community and views it as a second, vast, and loving family. Her goal is to share the joys and hardships of unschooling and to foster an environment where unschoolers can feel safe and understood, regardless of their sexuality, gender, race, religion, or ethnicity.
community guidelines
This is what we believe. Please take a moment to read through what we stand for.
frequently
asked
questions
Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about NEUC here!
Land Acknowledgement
We want to acknowledge the original and rightful inhabitants of the land our conference is held on.
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