We are a not for profit social enterprise.
This project was conceived by Helena, at 11, when she knew that being homeschooled/unschooled wasn’t giving her the opportunities for long term group projects (writing a play) and that doing them at peoples’ houses didn’t allow for the project to grow. She wanted somewhere like Playcentre, but for big kids.
Anne is a education nerd. She has a science degree and trained as a primary teacher in 2003. She has also done Montessori training and taught in an older primary class… She has also been to art school… She is currently doing her Masters in Education (I just love learning new stuff!) and felt her course Transforming Education was a call to action. Before Teaching Anne was a nanny (promoted to godmother and honorary aunt) and is still in contact with most of the kids, now adults, she nannied. She has self taught herself a plethora of skills and is a night class junkie but don’t give her a list of learning objectives….
Anne has been working in Place Based education for the last 6 years at Everyone Out
We want to be the place kids go to work on their ideas, where as Ms Frizzle (Magic School Bus) says “take chances, make mistakes and get messy.” We want to be a space where kids feel at home and empowered to be themselves and have control over their learning. Where they feel safe to ask for help from other kids and adults and to get help finding the right expert for them. Somewhere kids feel free to use resources and don’t need to ask permission to follow what they want to do – even if it is big, weird and could possibly fail!
You can read about Helena and Anne’s previous exploits at Homeschoolery.
Helena Bieleski
Lead Strategist
Editor
Librarian
Anne Bieleski
(See! We need a website kid)
You
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The future
We hope to build a community of people who are interested in learning stuff. Anne and Helena have taken the lease on the building as a start to develop a base – a place for kids. We really want to involve other adults and kids with a passion for ideas to help kids to be prepared for our uncerrtain future.
Other ideas we have had include: clubs – philosophy, books…, tutoring and opportunities for adults to learn what they didn’t at school as individuals should and do decide when and what they want/need to learn and should not be penalised if this happens after they have left school.
We would like to work on how to use portfolios as a measure to enter employment and further education rather than standardised measures that don’t actually measure what employers want out of employees… or better – skills to be the innovator, a problem solver and in charge of their lives.