Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Learning is Natural, School is Optional

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TRACK 1
WE?RE ALL TAUGHT THAT IN ORDER TO GROW UP HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE, WE HAVE TO STAY IN SCHOOL UNTIL WE?RE EIGHTEEN. IT?S THE ONLY WAY TO GET INTO A DECENT COLLEGE, LAND A GOOD JOB AND LIVE A FULFILLING LIFE. WHILE THAT PATH MAY WORK FOR SOME, FOR OTHERS, SCHOOL ISN?T THE WAY TO A HAPPY FUTURE. SOME TEENS ARE BORED IN SCHOOL. THEY FEEL FRUSTRATED. THEY DON?T FIT IN. THEY DREAM OF THE DAY WHEN THEY?LL FINISH HIGH SCHOOL AND CAN FINALLY GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES. FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD NIA WAS ONE OF THOSE KIDS.

ACT NIA
I?ve been miserable in public school pretty much since preschool which is pretty easy. All you have to do is nap & color & for some people structure really works but I?m a very tactile learner & in the public school situations I?ve been in they didn?t teach so much in the tactile way so I was in special classes for reading & math. It was just a horrible, miserable experience.

TRACK 2
NIA IS NOT ALONE. MANY STUDENTS AREN?T DOING WELL IN SCHOOL BECAUSE IT ISN?T A GOOD FIT FOR THEM. AND WHEN KIDS DON?T FIT, IT?S NOT GOOD FOR ANYONE ? STUDENTS, PARENTS, OR TEACHERS. FORMER MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER KEN DANFORD SAW A SURPRISING NUMBER OF KIDS IN HIS CLASSES THAT WEREN?T MAKING IT IN THE TRADITIONAL SCHOOL SETTING.

ACT DANFORD
A lot of teens were learning to hate learning. We found a lot of students were experiencing a lot of stress rather than a lot of enjoyment with their day and we really wanted to find a way of working with teens that would be more fun for ourselves and more productive and more healthy for the kids we were working with.

TRACK 3
DANFORD BEGAN QUESTIONING THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THAT, IN HIS VIEW, WAS TAKING BRIGHT KIDS AND SQUELCHING THEIR ENTHUSIASM. MAYBE EVEN ENCOURAGING MEDIOCRITY. THEN HE FOUND A BOOK THAT CONFIRMED HIS OBSERVATIONS - GRACE LLEWELLYN?S THE TEENAGE LIBERATION HANDBOOK: HOW TO QUIT SCHOOL AND GET A REAL LIFE AND EDUCATION. LLEWELLYN CLAIMS THAT SCHOOLS CAN DESTROY ONE?S LOVE OF LEARNING. AFTER READING THAT BOOK, DANFORD DECIDED HE NEEDED TO CREATE AN ALTERNATIVE. IN 1996, HE LEFT MAINSTREAM EDUCATION AND CO-FOUNDED NORTH STAR SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING FOR TEENS IN HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS. ALTHOUGH HE KNEW HE WAS OFFERING A RESOURCE FOR THE ALREADY EXISTING HOMESCHOOLING COMMUNITY, HE HAD A BROADER VISION.

ACT DANFORD
The founding premise is to make home schooling available, inspiring, viable for any interested teenager. And so home schooling is really an approach to opening up one?s life, not just bringing school to home. The idea is that home schooling is an approach to learning and living, that suggests that if we give teens their time and space that they will find interesting things to do and they can be literally learning anywhere with anyone about anything.

TRACK 4
NORTH STAR DEFIES THE USUAL HOMESCHOOLING IMAGE. TEENS RARELY SPEND THE DAY AT HOME. THEY MAY BE IN THE COMMUNITY DOING INTERNSHIPS, APPRENTICESHIPS OR WORKING WITH MENTORS. OR MAYBE THEY?RE VISITING A LOCAL MUSEUM OR LIBRARY. THEY ALSO HAVE THE OPTION OF SPENDING THE DAY AT NORTH STAR TAKING AS MANY CLASSES AS THEY?D LIKE. A QUICK LOOK AT THE NORTH STAR MONTHLY CALENDAR REVEALS THE DIVERSITY OF CLASSES OFFERED ? FROM UNCONVENTIONAL CLASSES LIKE THE PEOPLE?S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, THE STUDY OF BANNED BOOKS AND THE PHYSICS OF STAR TREK TO MORE TRADITIONAL CLASSES LIKE PSYCHOLOGY, SPANISH AND CREATIVE WRITING. THEY?RE LEARNING FROM TEACHERS, FROM VOLUNTEERS AND FROM EACH OTHER. THERE?S NO DAILY ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT. KIDS COME AND GO AS THEY PLEASE. DANFORD COMPARES NORTH STAR TO A COMMUNITY CENTER, LIKE THE Y-M-C-A. THEY SIMPLY OFFER AN ARRAY OF RESOURCES THAT TEENS CAN CHOOSE FROM. THE REASONS THAT TEENS AND THEIR FAMILIES CHOOSE NORTH STAR ARE AS VARIED AS THE PATHS THEY TAKE ONCE THEY GET THERE.

ACT DANFORD
Many of them are quite strong students who feel bored in school; some of them are teens who have very strong interests ? and they feel they don?t have time to do justice to their interests. Some of the kids have not had much success in school and they?re not necessarily people who read and write a lot for fun and? giving them the gift of asking them what do you want to work on first and how would you like to spend your day is a real gift and really helps to change people?s lives dramatically.

TRACK 5
LEARNING TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR TIME, THEIR EDUCATION AND, ULTIMATELY, THEIR LIVES, IS WHAT NORTH STAR?S ALL ABOUT.

ACT DANFORD
We?re not about avoiding anything that?s dull. We?re about choosing how to spend our time. It?s really about treating teens as if they?re adults. NS is telling teenagers that if you don?t like the life you are leading & if you want to seize the moment & take responsibility & grow up we can help you do that now & you don?t have to wait. Giving teenagers that opportunity to stand up for themselves & to construct the life they want. We?re about a different way of growing up.

TRACK 6
NIA, THE TEEN THAT WE HEARD FROM EARLIER, KNEW THAT HAVING A DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE WAS WHAT SHE EXACTLY WHAT WAS LOOKING FOR.

ACT NIA
Being at NS is just a wonderful experience for me because I get to decide what I want to do, when to do it by and how to do it. I?m a very independent person so being at NS really allowed me to spend my time the way I want to which is really good for me. I didn?t have to be in a certain place in a class where I felt like I learned nothing & NS just kind of opens it up & says this is your time & you decide what to do with it & its giving you a large responsibility & I feel it?s a great thing to do for teens who are growing into adulthood.

TRACK 7
BUT ARE TEENAGERS READY TO MAKE RESPONSIBLE CHOICES ABOUT HOW TO SPEND THEIR TIME? DANFORD SAYS YES.

ACT DANFORD
People learn time management by having the chance to practice it and being pushed in school from class to class all day with never a free moment at their disposal does not promote time management, it promotes following a schedule and being on time and being where one?s suppose to be at a given second. If we really want teens to learn time management it means giving them the time and space again to make choices about where to be, to make commitments, make promises and then see if they do it. These teens are really mature, really thoughtful, caring, and responsible. They make commitments & stick to them. And while they?re saying we?d prefer to have choices over the promises we make and how we want to live our lives. That?s not what NS is about. It?s about having the time and space to reflect and make those choices.

TRACK 8
NIA AGREES THAT THE NORTH STAR APPROACH IS ENCOURAGING HER TO USE HER TIME WISELY.

ACT NIA
I feel that I?m doing a lot more with my time now. When I was in school, things were forced on me and I wasn?t spending my time well. I was taking classes that I never learned anything in; so now that I have this time to do what I want with, I?m just spending it better. So, I?m really learning time management skills that way.

TRACK 9
IT MAY ALSO BE A WELCOME RELIEF FOR PARENTS TO SEE THEIR TEENAGER HAPPIER, LESS STRESSED, TAKING A MORE ACTIVE ROLE IN THEIR LIVES. IN FACT, SOME OF THE TENSION AND CONFLICT BETWEEN PARENTS AND TEENS MAY BEGIN TO DISSOLVE WHEN TEENS FEEL MORE IN CONTROL.

ACT NIA
I?m definitely more relaxed w/ my parents now that I?m out of public school just because there?s a lot of pressures I have to deal w/ being w/ my family. It?s more stressful on parents to have to be the person who says "did you do your homework? Did you do this?" and then it makes the teen get really angry or upset w/ parents being like why are you always on my back or doing that & really they?re just looking out for them. NS parents don?t have to constantly "Did you do??"

TRACK 10
IN FACT, MANY OF THESE TEENS ARE SETTING AMBITIOUS GOALS FOR THEMSELVES. SOME ARE TAKING COLLEGE COURSES WHILE THEIR PEERS ARE STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL. ABOUT HALF OF THEM GO DIRECTLY ON TO COLLEGE, SOME TO PRESTIGIOUS SCHOOLS INCLUDING BROWN UNIVERSITY, AMHERST COLLEGE AND M-I-T. BUT, ACCORDING TO DANFORD, MORE IMPORTANT THAN GETTING INTO GOOD SCHOOLS, IS LEARNING HOW TO LIVE AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE. HE BELIEVES THAT SCHOOLS SPEND SO MUCH TIME FOCUSED ON PREPARING US FOR LIFE, IT DOESN?T GIVE US PRACTICE IN ACTUALLY LIVING IT. HE HOPES THAT HE?S TEACHING YOUNG PEOPLE THE IMPORTANCE OF ENJOYING THIS TIME IN THEIR LIVES, RATHER THAN SEEING THEIR TEEN YEARS AS SIMPLY A WAITING GAME.

ACT DANFORD
I think what North Star is trying to teach teenagers is that your life is yours now. You should be happy to get up every day now. You should be doing things that are fulfilling and meaningful to you now. It is not entirely, solely yours to make every single decision about but really it is primarily your life to live now & it matters. You can live well right now. You don?t have to live (right now) waiting for that day when you?re 18 or 22 to finally be able to begin your life.

REPORTING FOR ITS ABOUT TIME RADIO, I?M DEB KRUMHOLZ.

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