from Life Learning Magazine, November/December 2007
Passionate (About Unschooling) in New Jersey
by Pauline Mary Curley

Nancy Plent founded The Unschoolers Network 30 years ago as an inclusive homeschooling support group based in Farmingdale, New Jersey. This energetic and dedicated homeschooling pioneer continues to advocate for homeschooling freedoms and guides a new generation of homeschooling families along the path to life learning. This personal tribute is one of a series of articles about life learning pioneers around the world.

I’ve known for some time that I would homeschool my children, but only admitted it to myself about three years ago, and only dared confess my “crazy notion” to others within the past two years. My introduction to homeschooling was through La Leche League, and I admired the families around me who learned together. For me, their parenting philosophy could be summed up in three words – these parents were loving, kind and respectful in their interactions with their children.

However, I was a slow and cautious convert and went through a number of stages. Initially I thought that it was wacky and impractical; then I thought that maybe it was a good idea for others but not for me; and finally I had to accept that I was hooked! At that point, I felt a need to connect with other homeschoolers, for two main reasons. Firstly, I needed to find a new circle of friends for my two daughters as all their existing friends had started going to school. And secondly, on a more personal note, I was hoping to garner some moral support for myself as I embarked on this whole new phase of parenting.

“This picture of John Holt and I was taken in the late ‘70s I believe, at the Good Life Get Together. This was an annual gathering for folks into self sufficiency and they had workshops on wind power, growing and storing your own food, building your own dwelling, etc. Even for this rugged bunch, John’s workshop on homeschooling was quite a new and startling idea. First homeschool workshop I ever remember hearing about.”                                                           Nancy Plent

I surfed the net, sent numerous emails and made countless telephone calls, looking for a local homeschool support group, but instead of finding my tribe, I felt increasingly frustrated and isolated. In fact, I became angry because many of the groups I contacted were disingenuous and less than honest in admitting that they were Christian-based.

I didn’t really know, at the time, what I was looking for in terms of a homeschool group – I just knew that I didn’t want a group dominated by a version of Christianity far removed from my relatively liberal Irish Catholic upbringing. I wanted to homeschool my children, not to shield them from the world, but to open the world up to them.

Feeling overwhelmed and intimidated, I came close to giving up on homeschooling, but thankfully, a couple of empathetic moms managed to restore my sanity and my faith along the way. Their kindness and generosity persuaded me to carry on – whether they described themselves as Christian or not, they were true good Samaritans in my book.

Luckily, I had been introduced to the work of John Holt at a La Leche League conference and was devouring his books. I came from a rather conventional educational background and his writing opened up a whole new world to me – radical and exciting. And his books led me to the works of others, like George Dennison, A.S. Neill, Ivan Illich, John Taylor Gatto, Jean Piaget and Paulo Freire, equally mind-blowing and eye-opening. I was fascinated with this progressive and unorthodox approach to education and it deepened my desire to home-educate my two girls.

The turning point for me, however – the point when I knew that I could and would homeschool my daughters – came after I found Nancy Plent of the New Jersey Unschoolers Network. Nancy was on my list of homeschool contacts from the La Leche League conference, but as luck would have it, the Unschoolers Network was way down the page (which was probably in alphabetical order!) With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that I was instinctively drawn to the more fluid, less formal approach of unschooling and Nancy was my first real unschool contact. Finally I had found my tribe and I’ve never looked back!

Together with John Holt’s books, Nancy has been an invaluable source of strength, support and information since that first email I sent her a couple of years ago when I tentatively embarked on my unschooling adventure. My daughters Grace and Eleanor were then aged five and three, and I was very nervous and unsure about my choice. My struggle with self-doubt and the difficulty of locating other like-minded families threatened to overpower me.

However, with Nancy and the Unschoolers Network, I was able to navigate my way through all the uncertainty and opposition. She lifted the fog for me. She understood my frustrations and put me right on some of my rather naïve assumptions regarding homeschooling – I had been laboring under the misconception that the few homeschoolers I had met were a representative sample of homeschoolers generally, not realizing that they were in fact at the more liberal edge of the movement! Nancy helped me see this, and gave me an insight into the wide and varied world of homeschooling.

On a practical note, she pointed me in the direction of a wonderful and welcoming homeschool co-operative. And most importantly she put me in contact with an unschooling mom in that group, thus opening the door for me.

Nancy has always been warm, friendly and honest in giving of her time and advice in our numerous emails back and forth. So, you can imagine my excitement last Spring when I heard that she was guest speaker at a Holistic Moms’ Network meeting not too far from me. I couldn’t believe my luck at having an opportunity to meet her and hear her speak in person. And I was not disappointed – listening to Nancy’s story was one of the more moving events of my life.

Funny how we create a picture of people in our minds before we meet them; because of the tremendous and pioneering work done by Nancy over the past 30 years, I somehow imagined her to be a big, imposing, powerful woman! Well, powerful she is, but I suppose I was a little taken aback when this slight, gentle, unassuming woman was introduced at the meeting. My surprise was quickly replaced by awe, however, as her story unfolded.

Nancy and her husband Mac were married 10 years before their son was born so, as she says, they had a long time together to think about how they would like to raise their family. When their son came to be school age, Nancy knew she didn’t want to send him to school. She remembered her own happy childhood in a busy and fun household, and how she hated having to leave the warmth and security of home to go to a “boring place like school.” So she agonized over how to keep her son out of school, and although confident in her belief that he would be better off staying home with her and being educated in a family setting, she didn’t know how to go about it. She didn’t know how not to send him to school.

This was indeed a very unconventional and radical way of thinking, especially in the 1970s. Her first step down the road was an advertisement she placed in Mother Earth News magazine asking for advice from other parents who had gone this route. The replies she received however, instead of offering useful information, were seeking information; they were from other parents out there just like her asking if she would pass on any advice she received. So Nancy was still no further ahead in her quest and, to boot, she now had a whole host of families looking to her to lead the way!

“This photo was about 2004...me addressing other New Jersey homeschoolers on the steps of the state house, in reference to a pending anti-homeschool bill. Group leaders and homeschoolers from all over the state gathered that day, a couple of hundred I remember, and ultimately we defeated the bill. It was also the best thing that happened in the state to draw all segments of the movement together. We worked together well.”                                                          Nancy Plent

Feeling a sense of responsibility to these like-minded parents, she turned for guidance to John Holt, the only person she knew at the time who was publishing homeschooling information. She threw herself into the task, doing all the necessary research and learning as she went. She then bravely put herself forward as the New Jersey homeschool contact. Realizing the importance of surrounding herself with people “who didn’t think I was nuts,” she established a homeschool newsletter...in the days before email, of course. She and her husband carved a way for themselves and their family, and for the many others who followed in their footsteps. Now, 30 years on, there are a number of homeschool groups in New Jersey, but Nancy and the Unschoolers Network remain a focal point for unschooling in the state.

It was a humbling experience to hear Nancy’s story as she explained, eloquently and simply, how she dealt with criticism and opposition along the way – humbling because we today have so many more resources at our disposal and homeschooling is becoming less unusual. She gently quelled our fears and dispelled the myths surrounding homeschooling. “Yes, it’s legal,” she said emphatically to a group of moms who might have had some doubts about even that.

She outlined the reasons why some families might chose to remove their children from school and why others might chose not to send their children in the first place, acknowledging that it’s not for everybody. She gave good, sound, honest and practical advice on how to deal with some of the difficulties that may arise. And she spoke of the wondrous journey that is homeschooling and of the joys of watching your children grow and develop alongside you.

Nancy is passionately committed to homeschooling and to helping others who want to avail themselves of their right to educate their children elsewhere other than at school. Even now, when her own son has reached adulthood, she continues to “fight the good fight.” Her quiet determination comes through as she speaks. “School makes the child fit the curriculum,” she said in her talk that day, whereas homeschooling puts the child at the center and “makes the curriculum fit the child.”

Throughout the meeting, Nancy respectfully and authoritatively answered questions from new mothers, most of whom were hearing of this option for the first time. She explained that there are as many variations of home-education as there are families who homeschool – “we don’t fit a mold” she said. She described the wide spectrum of approaches, from school-at-home to unschooling, and all the various shades in between. “Find out what makes your child tick, and follow it,” was Nancy’s advice.

When concern was raised about children themselves asking to go to school rather than be homeschooled, Nancy suggested that we look deeper and find out exactly what it is that appeals to them about school. For some kids, it’s simply that they want a ride on a bus – so, give them a ride on a bus! Other kids just want to have their lunch out of a lunch-box. Such fantasies are easily realized, she said, with a little ingenuity on the part of parents, without actually having to send their children to school. And Nancy was quick to dismiss the notion that kids need the rough and tumble of the classroom and the playground to toughen them up in preparation for life.

She reminisced fondly about how, in those early days, flexibility and accommodation were paramount in terms of their survival. Even unschoolers like Nancy realized that sometimes, in order to achieve a particular goal, they had to adopt the sitting at a desk approach to learning. And equally, when she and her more structured school-at-home friend wanted to get together, her friend happily set aside her family’s formal schedule for a day to make time to visit with Nancy who lived at the other end of the state. Such was the determination and pragmatism of those homeschool pioneers, who recognized that even though they may have had different approaches to homeschooling, they had a lot to gain from working together.

I found Nancy to be brave and non-judgmental, kind and forthright, and even after her long years struggling with authorities, neighbors, legal issues and opposition and suspicion from a myriad of sources, she still retains her sense of humor and dedication to home-education and, in particular, unschooling. What a wonderful role-model she is for those of us starting out! I cannot presume to do her justice here. I can only say that meeting her was an honor and a privilege, and hearing her speak was an inspiration. Thank you Nancy...you have certainly smoothed the bumps on my homeschooling journey!

Pauline Mary Curley is an Irish unschooling mom, lucky enough to divide her time between the West of Ireland and New Jersey. In a previous life (pre-children) and in other countries, she worked as a structural engineer, trade union representative and adult literacy teacher. Though still new to homeschooling, she is enjoying the fun, flexibility and challenges of unschooling her two daughters, Grace aged seven and Eleanor aged five. One of her dreams is to encourage American homeschool families to visit and explore Ireland.

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