I’m about to leave for five weeks at Not Back to School Camp, so I won’t be posting for a while. It’s one of my favorite times of year. NBTSC is a camp for teenage unschoolers, or autodidacts. What they do for their education varies a lot but it tends to be a kind of homeschooling, where the learning is interest-led and non-coercive. The campers are amazing people–creative, open, intelligent, fun. There are about 100 of them at each session, and there are four sessions this year, two in southern Oregon and two in Vermont. (I’m missing the fourth session this year, much to my dismay–it’s my second session missed in ten years. My graduate program starts before the 4th session ends.) My job is basically to be available to them. I teach workshops, this year on Lindy Hop, the scientific method, and the human bowel movement (based on the in-some-ways-dated but still cool little book, Man’s Presumptuous Brain). I’m doing a music project, too, where the teens that sign up will learn to play together in a band and we’ll write a piece of music to perform for the camp. The staff is amazing, too. They are mostly old friends of mine, now, and a pretty tight and very loving community. I’ve had a great day seeing them again on my breaks from packing.

Have a great rest of your summer, everyone!