Bay State Shares “Sam’s Story”

Two boys sitting on the stage, collaborating

The stories of young people at Liberated Learners centers who came from a conventional school environment where they struggled to fit in are always deeply moving.

BigFish Inspiration

Diane and Madi on stage at TEDx Portsmouth

On the stage at TEDxPortsmouth, Diane and Madi offer stories about the founding and first two years of BigFish Learning Community.

Ken’s New Blog

15-year-old reading Ken Danfords book, "Learning is Natural, School is Optional"

Ken’s on a roll with some great posts on his newly launched blog. My favorite is a satirical thought experiment, a la Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.

The Self-Driven Child: Making it possible

Teen drawing on a hand-made pattern

The goal of Liberated Learners centers is to support teens to leave traditional school and to start living the lives that they want for themselves now. The approach begins with having kids take more direct control over their lives.

A Cycle of Unlocking Opportunities

Two loaves of bread, donut-shaped, decorated in purple, yellow and green icing and sprinkles

Seth Godin writes at times about education as a system, that it’s more about “stealing dreams” than offering opportunities to learn and master new skills.

Teacher Liberation

Crop of the cover of the book, The Teacher Liberation Handbook, showing birds exploding from a row of desk chairs

Check out my recent TEDx talk, Teacher Liberation. The primary focus was reaching educators who love working with young people, but are frustrated by the traditional education systems.

The Secret Club

Up until recently I didn’t even know that learning could be fun because it was always a set curriculum that you HAD to do. Now that I’m at Embark I have realized that learning can be different.