Life Learning Magazine's Contributors

	*The magazine for homeschooling, unschooling, and life learning families*
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Meet Some of Our Contributors

	David H. Albert is a homeschooling father, writer and speaker. He is the author of a number of books, including And the Skylark Sings with Me, Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery, Have Fun. Learn Stuff. Grow. Homeschooling and the Curriculum of Love, and What Really Matters (which contains some of his essays from Life Learning Magazine. He lives, works, and writes in Olympia, Washington. Some of his essays for Life Learning Magazine include The Tenth Intelligence, Workbooks, Socializing Remy, Parts is Parts, The Curriculum of Beauty, and Ovum Organum and The Killer Shrew: Science as a Subversive Activity (July/August 2012). Check out David's website for speaking engagements and books.
	Robbie Anderman could never decide on a career. His father always told him “one must keep learning every day”... and so he does, having been blessed by five life teachers who share his genetics. Educated to play the piano and French horn, he moved over to the 5-holed Shakuhachi bamboo flute. He cares for his organic pear orchard and vegetable gardens, records flute and percussion CDs, promotes industrial hemp as a boon for the environment and the rural economy, shares an off-the-grid hilly rocky “farm” in Ontario, Canada, enjoys his grandchildren, and is learning the dance of life alongside his wife Christina. His article Natural Fields of Vision was published in Life Learning Magazine's March/April 2005 issue.
	Judy Arnall is a professional parenting and teacher conference speaker, and trainer, mom of five children, and author of the best-selling book Discipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery and the new DVD Plugged-In Parenting: Connecting with the digital generation for health, safety and love as well as the new book The Last Word on Parenting Advice. Find her at the website www.professionalparenting.ca. Her article the $120 Swim Lesson was published in Life Learning Magazine's July/August 2012 issue. Learn more about Judy's work at her website.
	Stephanie Bachmann Mattei is a certified Trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. She was born and raised in Florence, Italy, where she earned her Bachelor in Languages and a Ph.D. in Philosophy. She moved to the USA in 1993, where she and her husband are parenting their three self-educated children. Stephanie's core intertwined themes in life are: spirituality, parenting and healing. Her article Rocking the Boat Without Drowning Everybody appeared in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2012 issue.
	Deb Baker learns alongside her husband and children in Concord, New Hampshire. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies in Japan, Europe, and North America. She sings in the Songweavers a cappella women’s chorus, volunteers with a refugee resettlement program and blogs about her family’s reading. Her article The House That Heather Built was published in Life Learning Magazine's September/October 2002 issue.
	Melony Beens is a Canadian military wife and mother to two boys, ages ten and eight. Her family has been life learning since the day their oldest was born. Melony spends her days supporting her two busy boys as they follow what excites them. Right now, this means fostering animals for a local animal rescue, setting up aquariums, and discovering the history of the automobile. She also leads a local naturalist club for home learners and has recently reconnected with her love for writing and hopes to do more of it as the boys begin to need her less. Her article Supporting the Battle is published in Life Learning Magazine's January/February 2013 issue.
	Blake Boles is an author, entrepreneur, and educator. His latest book is Better Than College: How to Build a Successful Life Without a Four-Year Degree (Tells Peak Press, 2012). He currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and he travels widely. He owns Unschool Adventures, the travel company for self-directed teens. His article Good Reasons to Skip College was published in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2012 issue. Learn more at Blake's website.
	Becca Challman firmly believes that the most important lessons she has ever learned, she learned from experience. Those experiences have taught her that she would rather live to learn than live to earn, that there is more joy in helping a child discover her truest self than in making sure she attends school every day and that if there were no other reason to live, there would still be books. Becca and her creative genius husband Scott reside in the present, reject regimented education and embrace life learning, each other and their daughter Grace Lillianna. Her essay Reading With Grace was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2008.
	Gaye Chicoine is a photographer by trade, mom to six life-learning young adults and partner to husband Ed. She has authored two books, loves to travel and after 18 years of unschooling, still enjoys helping her children with their life directions and family business when it is requested of her. Gaye has published a book Living Dreams, the story about her family’s South American journey and the learning that resulted. Her Life Learning Magazine essay Prospering in the Real World is also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons From the Educational Frontier.
	Amy Childs mentors homeschooling teens and their families around the country through workshops, classes, conference calls and personal support. She also works as a "Happiness Consultant," helping clients uncover their true selves and create lives that are authentic and fun. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her own three self-directed young people who make her laugh all the time and who constantly remind her how precious and amazing human beings truly are. You can find her at www.amychilds.com. Her Life Learning Magazine article Birthing Our Selves, Our Children and Our World was included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Robyn L. Coburn had to start calling herself an “unschooler”, despite her daughter’s young age, in self-defense against the numerous early academics pushers surrounding her in her neighborhood and local support group. In her past life Robyn has been a set, costume and lighting designer in the theater, and a production designer and set decorator in film. Robyn is also co-owner, with another Life Learning contributor, Danielle Conger, of the Always Unschooled discussion group on Yahoo. Her essay Unschooling is About Principles Not Rules was published in Life Learning Magazine and included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Marion Cohen is a grandmother with four children who are now grown. The two youngest learned at home for eight years and the family hosted a homeschooling support group in Philadelphia. Marion is a writer and math prof, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania. Some of her published books are about pregnancy loss and chronic illness/caregiving. They include The Days and Nights of a Well Spouse (Temple University Press) and a poetry book about the experience of math entitled Crossing the Equal Sign (Plain View Press.) Her article The Many Subtle Faces of Authority was published in Life Learning Magazine's January/February 2007 issue.
	Michelle Conaway lives and learns with her supportive husband Stacy and their three children in the Houston, Texas area. She has many passions, one of which is experiencing this wonderful life journey with her family and friends. When she’s not writing or playing Minecraft with her kids, she works as a Master Gardener in her county, cooks, reads, gardens, and supports her kids in all the things they are interested in. She is passionate about the unschooling philosophy and loves supporting others on their journey to life learning. She founded the Texas Unschoolers Yahoo and Facebook page, as well as the Katy/West Houston Unschoolers Facebook group. Her essay Whispers is in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2013 issue. Michelle blogs about her life experiences at www.michelleconaway.net.
	Danielle Conger is a freelance writer who has a PhD only because she didn’t want to stop learning. She says her three wonderful children Julia, Emily, and Sam have taught her how unnecessary school is for learning and for thinking great thoughts. The family currently enjoys a busy unschooling lifestyle outside of Washington, D.C. with dad Jim, a puppy, 12 chickens and lots of wonderful wildlife. Her essay Rules vs. Principles was published in the November/December 2004 issue and An Unschooling Landscape was published in Life Learning Magazine's March/April 2005 issue.
	Laurie A Couture is the author of Instead of Medicating and Punishing: Healing the Causes of Our Children’s Acting-Out Behavior by Parenting and Educating the Way Nature Intended, a licensed mental health counselor, writer, artist, photographer, and voracious reader of attachment parenting and unschool theory who is passionate about human rights and Nature and writes and speaks about children’s human rights issues. Laurie and her son live an active life in beautiful New Hampshire. She has written a series of articles for Life Learning about unschooling her adopted son as a single mother, beginning with Freeing Brycen (Jan/Feb 2006). You can learn more about her work on her website.
	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 in Europe (pre-children), she worked as a structural engineer, a trade union representative and an adult literacy and numeracy teacher, and co-founded a Women’s Center in Luton, England. She offers “All About Ireland” library programs and homeschool workshops, and one of her dreams is to encourage North American life learning families to visit and explore Ireland. Two of her essays for Life Learning Magazine are Eye Opener: Changing my perspective on the importance of reading and Passionate (About Unschooling) in New Jersey, a profile of veteran life learning advocate Nancy Plent.
	Gea D'Marea Bassett lives in Seattle with her partner, Doug and their homeschooling son, Zizi. She was unschooled from birth until college and has an MA in Education from Goddard College. Her thesis was on contemporary homeschoolers in the Seattle area. Aside from traveling, cooking, and wearing flip-flops, her current projects include pursuing a doctorate in Education and unschooling, establishing a haven of exotic edible plants in her backyard, and continuing to practice life learning with her family. Among her contributions to Life Learning Magazine is Self Reliance in Life and in Learning (Sept/Oct 2007), which was included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Linda Dobson's family started homeschooling in 1985. Since then, she has coordinated support groups, provided keynote addresses and advocacy, written dozens of articles, and authored eight books, including the classic The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child, The Homeschooling Book of Answers, Homeschoolers' Success Stories, The Art of Education, and Homeschooling the Early Years. She continues offering news, information, and resources via her website Parent at the Helm. Her article Short But Sweet: Homeschooling’s Lasting Effect was published in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2002 issue. She now runs the Parent at the Helm website.
	Sandra Dodd grew up in northern New Mexico, and now lives in Albuquerque with her husband Keith and her son Marty. She maintains a website and discussion list for unschoolers and has a book, entitled Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling. Her article Unexpected Benefits of Unschooling was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2010.
	Deborah Dyson is the mother of six children. She lives and learns in Evanston, Illinois and any other place that she happens to visit. All six children have been unschooled from the start and that has been her life work and passion. From the beginning, she was determined to learn with them and that is what the family has done. She believes that no one is always the student or always the teacher; learning is, instead, an organic process in which we all participate and thrive. Her article What Happens When They Grow Up? was published in Life Learning Magazine's January/February 2007 issue.
	Tirzah Duncan, aged nineteen, is a thoroughly unschooled fantasy writer. She spent her childhood dashing after whatever fascinated her, which mostly consisted of online games, books, Scotland, business, and martial arts. Then she fixed upon writing, and has been working to make a career of it ever since. You can check out her upcoming novels Ever the Actor and Scriptless at her website. Her article Secondary was published in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2012 issue.
	Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko lives, works and hikes in Hamilton, Ontario. For seven years, she and her family (including three unschooled daughters) produced Radio Free School, a show by for and about homelearners, Her essay Learning Love of the Natural World was published in Life Learning in 2002 and also appears in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Valerie Fitzenreiter is a radical unschooling/attachment parenting mother and the author of the book The Unprocessed Child: Living without School. Her unschooled daughter Laurie, who is the subject of the book, is now an adult. Valerie's article The Unprocessed Child Goes to College was published in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2004 issue.
	Jan Fortune-Wood lives and works in Wales, UK as a freelance writer, publisher, parenting adviser and humanist liturgist (developing ceremonies and rites of passage.) She is author of four titles on home education, autonomous education and non-coercive parenting. (Doing It Their Way; Without Boundaries; Bound To Be Free and With Consent, all published by Educational Heretics Press). She home educated her own four children. She has written many articles for Life Learning Magazine, including Beyond Common Sense Parenting in 2003 and Living by Consent in 2005.
	Susan Gaissert lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughter. She is currently working on the book she feels born to write: a memoir of her mother's family and growing up in the 1960s. Susan is passionate about life learning, books, crocheting, walking, and New York City, which is her favorite place to take a walk.
	Rachel Gathercole is a freelance writer and the proud mother of two delightfully autodidactic children. She is utterly fascinated with children and motherhood, and can’t help looking on in awe at the incredible, inscrutable learning process that daily unfolds before her eyes. Her articles for Life Learning Magazine include Zen and the Art of Unschooling Math and Of Swimming and Schooling.
	Enrico Gnaulati is a psychologist in Pasadena, California. In his book, Emotion-Regulating Play Therapy with ADHD Children: Staying with Playing, he is critical of medical approaches to the sort of behavior that gets labeled ADHD in children. Instead, he views ADHD phenomenon as rooted in children’s difficulties containing and expressing intense emotion, and he offers a model of active play therapy to healthfully intervene. In his forthcoming book, Back to Normal: Common-Sense Explanations for Kids’ ADHD, Bi-polar, and Autistic-Like Behavior, he strives to lay out the normal human meanings, motives, and developmental glitches behind kids’ troubled and troubling behavior. His article for Life Learning Magazine is entitled Mental Disorders or Ancient Traits that Have Helped Kids Adapt for Generations.
	Daniel Grego is the Executive Director of TransCenter for Youth, Inc. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of his major interests is exploring the confluence of the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, Ivan Illich and Wendell Berry. He lives with his wife Debra Loewen, the Artistic Director of Wild Space Dance Company and their daughter Caitlin Grego on a small farm in the Rock River watershed in Dodge County, Wisconsin. He has written a series of three essays for Life Learning Magazine. One of them, The Educator’s Dilemma and the Two Big Lies also appears in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Debbie Harbeson lives and laughs with her family in Indiana. She planned on offering her book Okay Kids, Time For Bedlam for a fee, but a renegade letter “r” on her keyboard has forever doomed her to offering it up for free. An excerpt entitled The Cardboard Box Theory was published in Life Learning Magazine's January/February 2005 issue.
	Anne Hodge lives in New York State with her husband and three children. She has been a support group organizer, workshop facilitator, speaker and writer on local and state levels but is really just a mom having fun learning about the world with her kids. Her article Out of the Box and Into the Carton? was published in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2003 issue.
	Kelly Hogaboom is a writer, sewist, wife and mother living in a semi-urban little green coastal smudge of Washington state. She cooks, raises kids, cats, and chickens, and spends her days joyfully living. Her articles for Life Learning Magazine include Over-involved Parents?, Understanding, Intimacy, and Mutual Valuing, and The Conference (July/August 2012). You can read more of her writing and keep up with her family at her website.
	Rachel Johnson writes poetry, children’s stories, and narratives. She also teaches English as a second language, tutors online and unschools her two daughters. She loves to read, explore nature and train for marathons. She lives with her husband and children in Kansas City, Missouri. Her article Choosing to Participate was published in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2004 issue.
	Peter Kowalke grew without schooling and now he is a journalist and the producer of “Grown Without Schooling,” a documentary about grown homeschoolers and the lasting influence of home education. His Life Learning Magazine column Grown Without Schooling featured interviews with many grown unschoolers, including Ilana Ofgang, Patrick Meehan, Laura Brion, Selina Hunt, Sarabeth Matilsky, Brian Walton, and Zoe Blowen-Ledoux. Check out Peter's website.
	Rue Kream is living happily ever after with Jon, Dagny, and Rowan in Southeastern Massachusetts. She is a passionate advocate of unschooling and respectful parenting. Her articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including Educational Freedom Press Newsletter and Pandora’s Box Magazine. She is the author of the book Parenting A Free Child: An Unschooled Life. Her article of the same name was published in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2005 issue.
	Pam Laricchia and her family live and learn joyfully in Ontario, Canada. She loves seeing her kids living with such intention. Choosing the best path for themselves from the rich palate of life gives them so many opportunities to learn about themselves: it's not always easy, but it is incredible." Her article I Can Read, You Know, was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2005 and Whose Goal is it Anyway? appears in our March/April 2006 issue as well as in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.. Her article Choices is in the March/April 2012 issue. She has recently authored a book Free to Learn.
	Marty Layne has four adult children who learned at home from k-12. She wouldn’t trade the years they spent playing in the park, at the beach, in the backyard, or in the house for anything. She wrote a book to answer people’s questions about why she chose homeschooling and started her own publishing company to publish Learning At Home: A Mother’s Guide To Homeschooling, now in its third edition. She has also recorded a children’s music CD, Brighten the Day – songs to celebrate the seasons. Her article Play is Self-Directed Learning was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2007. You can read about her books and CDs at her website.
	Ann Leadbetter homeschooled her daughters with her husband Gig in Grand Junction Colorado. Her articles have appeared in Home Education Magazine and GWS. Her articles published in Life Learning Magazine include Curriculum Schmiculum: Kate and Molly Have Doubts and Kate and Molly Go To College.
	Denise Leduc has been homeschooling her two daughters for the past fourteen years, for most of that time with a life learning approach. They are now seventeen and twenty-one, so their homeschooling days are drawing to a close. Believe in life-long learning, Denise has recently returned to school to study English and Sociology. The family has had the privilege of living in various places throughout Canada and are currently settled in a small town in Saskatchewan. For the past two years, Denise has been experimenting with urban farming and plans to continue to work towards producing more of the family’s food.
	Ann Lloyd is an unschooling veteran and the author of two books: Just 'Til I Finish This Chapter and Tips and Tricks for Homeschooling Survival. She has recently completed doctoral studies in Housing/Family Studies at VA Tech. Her work has been published in a number of homeschooling magazines. Two articles published in Life Learning Magazine were written with her two unschooled teens: In the Blink of an Eye and Unschooling is Walking a Tightrope.
	Claire Madgwick, her husband, and two home educated children live in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has been home educating for eight years; her oldest left school at seven and her youngest has never been to school. Claire and her daughter are running a social experiment for 365 days (January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013). Using twitter @365DaysLearning as a diary, they are tweeting every significant ‘doing’ or ‘learning’ element of their day. Once a week, they each blog a summary of their learning for that week at www.365DayLearning.com. The idea of this process is to demonstrate the nitty-gritty of one family's approach to life learning unschooling. Claire's article The Importance of Context: How Boredom is to Integrated Learning as Cyanide was to Roman Emperors appears in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2013 issue.
	Suzanne Malakoff and her husband are raising three incredible kids who have always learned at home in their community in the Pacific Northwest. She earns her living working as a communications specialist for a non-profit research and advocacy group focused on a clean energy future. In her spare time, she enjoys writing, gardening, spending time with her kids and animals, and getting outside whatever the weather. She has published several articles and essays on a variety of topics that include natural learning and parenting and is currently working on pieces of fiction. Among her many essays for Life Learning are Seeking Peace, Unlearning Literary Analysis, Filling in the Dots: What An Unschooling Family Learned From Tests, and Making Peace With War Birds.
	Dayna Martin lives with her “radical unschooling” family in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Dayna founded the group Radical Unschoolers New England and enjoys supporting others as they walk the unschooling labyrinth. Her article The Unschooling Labyrinth was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2006 and also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier. You can learn more about her work at her website.
	Sarabeth Matilsky is forever indebted to her parents for giving her a free childhood. Twenty-nine years of adventures have taken her many places, including on a cross-country bike ride where she met her True Love, Jeff. Sarabeth and Jeff live in a cohousing community in upstate NY, with their two boys, Ben and Jem, who have unschooled since birth. Among the articles she has written for Life Learning Magazine is What is Education?, which was also published in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Susan McLeod-Harrison earned an M.Div. and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology before embarking on this life learning adventure with her seven-year-old son, Micah, and her philosopher husband, Mark. Her passion is exploring the intersection of gender and media, culture, psychology, parenting and faith, especially on her blog, Gender-Wise, at susanmcleodharrison.wordpress.com. Her book is Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Mends a Divide (Barclay Press, 2008). Her article Life Learning With Asperger's is in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2012 issue.
	Roland Meighan is an “educational heretic” who believes that mass compulsory schooling is an obsolete, counterproductive learning system which abuses human rights and should be phased out as soon as possible. Dr. Meighan believes that schools should be recycled as part of a flexible learning system that is invitational and learner-directed. Author of ten books, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Director of Educational Heretics Press, Director/Trustee of the Centre for Personalised Education Trust Ltd., and formerly Special Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. Among his essays for Life Learning is Restructuring Education, which was also published in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Charlie Morris and his family live in Chapel Hill, NC. At home, he juggles the roles of home-based business owner, writer, and unschooling, stay-at-home dad. He loves sharing his passion for perspectives that may lead to open minds and open hearts. Through being at home, he has had the opportunity to ponder the less obvious aspects and impacts of unschooling on life and society at large. He is an avid practitioner of Tai Chi and Chi Lel and loves all outdoor wilderness pursuits. Charlie is the author of two books, including Voyage Home: One Family’s Experience of Unschooling. His article Living for the Future appeared in Life Learning Magazine's July/August 2007 issue.
	Alan Oak is, first and foremost, husband to Annette and stay-at-home stepdad to two unschooled children, Kyle and Andrea. He is a passionate Dungeons and Dragons player; a writer; and an activist for peace, unschooling, sustainable living, and local foods. He lives in Richardson, Texas. His article Giving Up the Gold Stars was published in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2006 issue.
	Beverley Paine began home educating her children, now young adults, in 1986. She’s an active and inspirational member of the Australian home education movement. As an author she’s published several homeschooling books and writes fiction for children and young adults. Her other passions include permaculture, alternative technology, and web design. Her essay Learning Through Play was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2003, and Learning Naturally at Home the Permaculture Way was in the November/December 2011 issue. You can learn more about her and her work on the Homeschool Australia website.
	Julie Persons lives on a farm in rural Maine with her children, husband and various pets. Her interests include unschooling, painting, photography, gardening, reading, knitting and playing outside. Her article Fear of the TV Beast: Unschooling - Freedom, Trust and Letting Go was published in Life Learning Magazine's January/February 2007 issue.
	Wendy Priesnitz is Life Learning's editor, an author, journalist, and change-maker. She and her husband Rolf unschooled their two daughters, beginning in the early 1970s, when she established the homeschooling movement in Canada. She co-owns Life Media, which publishes Life Learning, Natural Life, and Natural Child magazines. She has written ten books, three of which focus on unschooling; her latest is Beyond School: Living As If School Doesn't Exist. Among her articles published in Life Learning are A Life of Learning: Empowering, Trusting, Unschooling, Unschooling is Education Inspired by Nature, and Ready for a Changing World. You can learn more and read writing samples at her website.
	Joyce Reed is the parent of five successful home educated college grads. She served for 14 years as Associate Dean of The College at Brown University where she reached out to homeschooled teens. After retiring, she began consulting with primarily international and homeschooling families seeking to attend college. She is the co-author, with David H. Albert, of the book What Really Matters (which contains essays previously published in Life Learning Magazine. Some of those essays include Workbooks, Parts is Parts, and The Curriculum of Beauty.
	Carlo Ricci teaches in the faculty of education’s graduate program at Nipissing University and edits the journal JUAL. He incorporates the spirit of unschooling, democratic and learner-centered principles in his classes. He is the father of two children. He says that everything of value that he has learned, he has learned outside of formal schooling; he has never taken a course in school connected to what he now teaches and writes about. His personal schooling experiences as a student and later as a teacher have inspired him to revolt against institutional schooling, and he continues to heal from the wounds inflicted on him by formal schooling. His articles published in Life Learning Magazine include The Value of Unstructured Free Play (May/June 2007).
	Karen Ridd is an activist, educator, retired clown and delighted unschooling mother. Her children Daniel and Ben are responsible for the biggest growth curve in her life – and she appreciates that! Karen lives with her partner Gord and their boys in a fledgling co-housing community in the bush east of Winnipeg. She has contributed a number of articles to Life Learning Magazine, including an interview with her mother about unschooling and her grandkids. Entitled The Hardest Thing is the Unknown, it was included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Ellen Rowland is an American living in Senegal, W. Africa in an off-the-grid earth house she helped build with her husband and two homeschooled children. She is a writer of sustainable issues, fiction, humor, and poetry and is currently working on a book about her experiences in sustainable family living. She has contributed two articles to Natural Life Magazine and is a nascent life learner. Her article Reflections on a Day Dreamer was published in Life Learning Magazine's July/August 2012 issue. You can keep up with Ellen's family adventures on her blog.
	Sara Schmidt is a full-time writer, life learning mom, artist, wife and activist from the St. Louis area. Before homeschooling her sister and unschooling her daughter, Sara taught in various capacities, from a European at-risk program and college support services to American Red Cross service corps. She has written for I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write, Daily Kos, the Institute for Democratic Education in America and dozens of other publications. She also writes paranormal fiction. Sara is inspired by nonconformists, guerrilla learning, autodidacts, peaceful revolution, living outside the box and above all, kids. You can visit her online at http://sarajschmidt.wordpress.com/ Her article Because I Said So was published in Life Learning Magazine's March/April 2013 issue.
	Susannah Sheffer edited Growing Without Schooling magazine for many years. Her books include “Writing Because We Love To: Homeschoolers at Work” and “A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls”. She enjoys mentoring young writers and is on the staff at North Star, a program for unschooled teens. Among her articles published in Life Learning Magazine is Learning to Write in Freedom, which appeared in the first issue, March/April 2002. You can learn more about Susannah and her writing at her website.
	Nathanael Schildbach lives and learns in western Massachusetts with his wife, three sons, dog, cat, and some racing pigeons that are supposed to be breeding but haven’t got around to it yet. His essay The Importance of Leaping Before You Look was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2008.
	Christy Severn-Martinez is first and foremost a mom, wife, sister, and daughter. She runs a small business from her home (thebabyfeettee.com,) works part-time out of the home and loves to learn about life all over again with her daughter. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband, daughter, and a multitude of pets. Her articles for Life Learning Magazine include Saving Brianna (November/December 2011) and Screen Time (January/February, 2012).
	Theresa Shea is the mother of three unschooled children. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in several magazines and anthologies in Canada. Her first novel has just been published; The Unfinished Child deals with the complex moral issues surrounding contemporary conception and birth technologies. An amateur violinist, Theresa spends much of her time trying to get her children to do their music practice. Any free time she has generally involves drinking ion. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Her article Am I Giving Them Enough? When Unschooling Feels Like Unparenting was published in Life Learning in 2008.
	Anna Simmonds is a life learner living in the UK with her husband. Until the age of fifteen, she went to public school, when she discovered homeschooling and then life learning. She wrote How Unschoolers Get Over Math in Life Learning Magazine’s May/June 2011 issue and We Are The Web in the March/April 2013 issue.
	Amy Spang and her husband Michael unschool their three sons in West Shokan, N.Y. She is a certified teacher who has worked in public schools and as a private tutor. She now lives and learns at home with her family, cats, dog, chickens, fiber rabbits and vegetable gardens. Her essay The Flow of Self-Directed Learning was published in Life Learning Magazine's May/June 2003 issue and was also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Jim Strickland lives in Everett, Washington with his wife and three children. He is a community-based educator in nearby Marysville where he works to promote non-coercive learning and the development of true learning communities. Jim invites response from readers who are interested in joining the conversation on integrating learning with the rest of our lives. He can be reached at livedemocracy@hotmail.com. One of his contributions to Life Learning Magazine was A Week in the Life of an Unschooled Teen.
	Eva Swidler lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their daughter who has never been to school. She juggles spending time with her family, being part of an anarchist bookstore collective, seeking out community and teaching history at Goddard College. Her essay Culture and Community was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2008 and also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her family in Southern California. She writes at her blog Just Enough, and Nothing More. She has had a number of essays published in Life Learning Magazine, including Low Marks for Good Grades in the January/February 2007 issue, and Achieving Full Personhood.
	John Taylor Gatto was New York State Teacher of the Year prior to resigning from teaching because he didn’t want to do any more harm to children. He is the author of the best-selling Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, The Underground History of American Education, and Weapons of Mass Instruction. He is also a popular speaker at homeschooling conferences around the world. Among Gatto's articles published in Life Learning are Schools do Violence to Children in Society (in the first issue, March 2002), The Hall of Mirrors, The Curriculum of Play, Breaking From the Herd, Don't Worry About College, and Nurturing Everyday Genius. His article We Need Experience More Than We Need Algebra was published in the November/December 2012 issue.
	Penny Tuggle and her husband have mostly unschooled their children for the last fourteen years. She hopes that one day her children will turn Star Wars: Episode IV into a fully staged ballet. Her article Homeschooling as Redemption appears in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2012 issue.
	Laura Grace Weldon's essays and poetry have been published in many magazines, including Christian Science Monitor, The Mother, Atlanta Review, and Geez. She's the author of the book Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything. She lives on Bit of Earth Farm with her family, who ever cheerfully suggest she take her singing outdoors where the cows and chickens might enjoy it. Her articles for Life Learning Magazine have included Expanding The “10,000 Hour” Rule; Climb, Swing & Snuggle: Reading Readiness Has to Do with the Whole Body; The Drive to Discover in the January/February 2013 issue; and Where Fascination Leads in March/April 2013. You can visit Laura online, and learn about her book at her website.
	Suki Wessling is a writer and the homeschooling mom of two children. She writes fiction and articles about parenting, gifted children, and education. She is the author of the book From School to Homeschool. Her article Re-educating the Inner Reluctant Homeschooler is in Life Learning Magazine's November/December 2012 issue and Life Learning in the Internet Age is in the March/April 2013 issue. You can visit her website for more writing and to learn about her book.
	Susan Wight is a homeschooling mother, the coordinator of the Home Education Network in Australia, editor of Otherways Magazine, and co-author of the book Tales Out of School. She’s big on informing and empowering new home educators but critical of anyone who sets themselves up as a home education guru. Among the articles she has written for Life Learning Magazine are The Joy of a Reading Childhood, which apeared in the September/October 2012 issue, and Liberate Your Education: Unschooling Is Not One-Size-Fits-All in Life Learning Magazine's March/April 2013 issue.
	Lael Whitehead is a writer and musician who lives with her husband, architect Richard Iredale, in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Lael and Richard raised their three daughters without any sort of formal schooling. The girls have grown into curious, creative and compassionate young adults who probe deeply and enjoy heartily the wonder of being alive, and their life learning experiences are the foundation of an upcoming book written by Lael. Among the essays she has had published in Life Learning Magazine is Children and Power, which is also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier..
	Theresa Willingham is a freelance writer living in Tampa, Florida with her husband Steve and their three children, all life long learners. She manages the national home education support and networking group, UU Homeschoolers, and directs the state support group LIFE (Learning Is For Everyone) of Florida, as well as the local Tampa LIFE chapter. She has written for Home Education Magazine, Teach-at-Home, and a variety of other periodicals and websites. Her first book, entitled The Food Allergy Field Guide: A Lifestyle Manual for Families (Savory Palate Press) was published in 2000. She contributed The Language of Learning to Life Learning Magazine in 2003.
	Jeanne Yardley lives with her husband and family in a converted schoolhouse near Cambridge, Ontario. Now that her two children, aged 12 and 16, have chosen to explore the school world after seven years of unschooling, Jeanne is keeping the life learning torch burning by pursuing her interests in writing, pottery, and improvements to home and health. Her articles published in Life Learning Magazine include It's About Time and Did Einstein’s Mommy Worry?, which is also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier..
	Patricia Zaballos is a homeschooling mother of three who lives in Northern California. Once upon a time, she was an elementary school teacher, which has been as much hindrance as help in her life as a homeschooler. For many years, she has facilitated writing workshops for homeschoolers. Her book on nurturing the voices of homeschooled writers has just been published. Her article How Do Kids Really Learn to Write was published in Life Learning Magazine's March/April 2012 issue. You can learn more about Patricia and her book at her website.
	Nathalie Zur Nedden left her home in Montréal, Québec and quit school at the age of 13. She has been learning ever since, both through life experiences, including world travel and university. Her Ph.D. dissertation at OISE/UT was the life history of Life Learning Magazine editor Wendy Priesnitz. Among the articles she has written for Life Learning Magazine is Home-Based Learning Inspiration From the Mocha Moms, published in 2006.

The term life learning refers to a form of homeschooling that trusts children and avoids the trappings of school. It is sometimes called unschooling, radical unschooling, or natural learning. Life learning children live and learn naturally, with the support of their families, based on their own interests and their own timetables, and without curriculum, tests, or grades. Go here, here and here for a more comprehensive explanation.

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