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	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 his essays previously published in Life Learning Magazine. He lives, works and writes in Olympia, Washington. Some of his essays include Workbooks (2008) and The Curriculum of Beauty (2007).
	Jake Aryeh Marcus is a writer, editor, lawyer and work-at-home mom to three independently learning sons. Her work has appeared in The Compleat Mother, LEAVEN, Vegetarian Baby and Child, and other publications and can be viewed on her website. She lives with her family in Pennsylvania. Her essay Safe at Home After 9/11 was published in Life Learning Magazine's Nov/Dec 2003 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.
	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 (2008) 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 Principles Not Rules was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2005 and included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	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. You can read all about their learning adventures online at www.danielleconger.com. Her essay 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. She writes and speaks about children’s human rights issues through her website. 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).
	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.
	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. Find more information at: www.SandraDodd.com/unschooling. Her article Unexpected Benefits of Unschooling was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2010.
	Beatrice Ekwa Ekoko lives, works and hikes in Hamilton, Ontario. For seven years, she and her family produced Radio Free School, a show by for and about homelearners, which is currently taking an extended hiatus, although she still maintains the blog . She unschools one daughter and is waiting for the other two to quit experimenting with school and return to home-based learning. 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.
	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 with her husband. Visit Jan at her website. She has written many articles for Life Learning Magazine, including Beyond Common Sense Parenting in 2003 and Living by Consent in 2005.
	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 article Zen and the Art of Unschooling Math was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2005.
	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. Visit his website www.dr.gnaulati.net. His article Mental Disorders or Ancient Traits that Have Helped Kids Adapt for Generations will be published in early 2012 in Life Learning Magazine.
	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 (2007) also appears in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	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. Read her journal and her twice-monthly columns on social issues and B-movie culture. Her article Over-involved Parents? was published in Life Learning Magazine's Jan/Feb 2011 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. For more interviews with grown homeschoolers, visit www.GrownWithoutSchooling.com as well as Peter's blog The Unschooler Experiment. His column Grown Without Schooling featured interviews with grown unschoolers, including Ilana Ofgang (2007) and Brian Walton (2005).
	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." Read more about Pam, her family and philosophy of learning at www.livingjoyfully.ca. 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. Her new book Free to Learn is available on her website.
	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. Read more about her at www.martylayne.com. Her article Play is Self-Directed Learning was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2007.
	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 (March/April 2006) and Walking a Tightrope (Jan/Feb 2008).
	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 is Making Peace With War Birds, published in 2011.
	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.
	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? (May/June 2003), which was also published in the book LLife Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier.
	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.
	Beverley Paine began home educating her children, now young adults, in 1986. She’s an active 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. Visit her website at www.beverleypaine.com. Her essay Learning Through Play was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2003.
	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. For more about Wendy, and to read her blog and selected articles, visit her personal website. Among her articles published in Life Learning are A Life of Learning: Empowering, Trusting, Unschooling and Ready for a Changing World.
	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. Alberft, of the book What Really Matters (which contains essays previously published in Life Learning Magazine. Some of those essays include Workbooks (2008) and The Curriculum of Beauty (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.
	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 family’s further adventures are captured on his wife’s blog at www.embracecreate.blogspot.com. His essay The Importance of Leaping Before You Look was published in Life Learning Magazine in 2008.
	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, The Quickening, 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 americanos in cafés, reading the latest in contemporary fiction and non-fiction. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta. Her article Am I Giving Them Enough? When Unschooling Feels Like Unparenting was published in Life Learning in 2008.
	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.
	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 (Jan/Feb 2007) and Achieving Full Personhood (July/Aug 2007).
	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 The Hall of Mirrors (Mar/Apr 2010), The Curriculum of Play (May/June 2010), Breaking From the Herd (Sept/Oct 2005), and Nurturing Everyday Genius (Jan/Feb 2005).
	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. Among the essays she has had published in Life Learning Magazine is Children and Power (July/Aug 2006), which is also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier..
	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 in (May/June 2007) and Did Einstein’s Mommy Worry? (Jan/Feb 2004), which is also included in the book Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier..
	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.

Marketplace

Challenging Assumptions in Education - why unschooling by Wendy Priesnitz

Home Sewn - clothes by an unschooling mom

Veteran home educator Beverley Paine shares her vast homeschooling and unschooling experience with families looking for alternatives to school for their children

What Really Matters by David Albert & Joyce Reed

Free Range Learning by Laura Grace Weldon

The term "life learning" refers to a form of homeschooling that is focused on the child 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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