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KEYNOTE OPENING SPEAKER
PAT FARENGA
FEATURED EVENING SPEAKERS
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James Marcus Back
Tuesday Night Featured Speaker
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Lisa Cottrell-Bentley
& daughter, Zoë
Wednesday Night Featured Speakers
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Dayna Martin
Thursday Night Featured Speaker
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OTHER SPEAKERS AND PRESENTERS (more to come!)
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Heather Burditt
T. J. Phillips
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Erika Davis-Pitre
Ruth Radney
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Cindy Gaddis
Laura Weldon
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Richard Grudzinski
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PAT FARENGA
Keynote
Opening Speaker
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Pat worked closely with the author and teacher, John Holt for four years until John's death in 1985. He is the president of Holt Association, Inc. and was the president of Growing Without Schooling magazine (GWS) from 1985 until it stopped publishing in Nov 2001. GWS was the nations first periodical about homeschooling, started by Holt in 1977.
Pat and his wife have learned at home with their three girls, ages 23, 20 and 17. In addition to writing for GWS, Pat has also written many articles and book chapters for various publications, as Home Education Magazine, The Bulleting of Science, Technology and Society, The Encyclopedia of School Administration, and The International Encyclopedia of Education, 3rd Edition, 2010.
Pat has also published and edited several pupular books about homeschooling, including his own, The Beginner's Guide to Homeschoolng. Pat's recent work includes a cassette tape, A History of Homeschooling and How You Can Become Part of It and a chapter in A Parent's Guide To Homeschooling (Mars Publishing, 2002). His most recent book is Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling (Perseus May 2003).
Pat also appears on local and national television and radio shows as a homeschooling expert; he has appeared on the Today Show, The Voice of America, NPR's The Merrow Report, and CNN's Parenting Today. Pat has addressed audiences on homeschooling and Holt throughout the world, including Canada, England, Italy and S. America.
Pat has an excellent and very informative website where he actively updates and blogs about various topics on unschooling. Be sure to check it out Pat’s website! Here's the link:http://www.patfarenga.com/
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JAMES
MARCUS BACH
Tuesday Night
Featured Speaker
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Bio to come…………….
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LISA COTTRELL – BENTLEY
Wednesday Night
Featured Speaker
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Lisa is an unschooling mother of two daughters (Zoë 09/1996 and Teagan 09/2000). From the moment she became pregnant with her oldest, she knew that they wouldn't be following a traditional route. From midwives to LLL to homebirthing and attachment parenting, Lisa discovered homeschooling. When it was clear that her daughter already knew everything from a variety of homeschooling curricula, their whole family quickly embraced unschooling (since that's what they had already been doing).
As her daughters grew, they spent many hours searching for children’s books about homeschoolers, but found very few. Since Lisa was already a writer, she decided to create their own. As her family discussed their dream storylines, the Wright on Time book series took shape (http://www.wrightontimebooks.com). While Lisa and her family haven’t found any mysterious devices yet, they have done lots of field research (to over 30 states and 7 countries) trying out many of the activities described in these books. Her publishing company, Do Life Right, Inc. (http://www.doliferightinc.com ) is continuing to grow with more and more authors and books with fun homeschooling characters! She keeps a blog about their personal unschooling and vegan adventures at: http://www.doliferight.com.
Lisa lives and learns while writing in southern Arizona with her husband Greg, two happy always unschooled daughters Zoë and Teagan, and five cats. Her desire in her outreach is to help all people become empowered to live their own personal dreams, now and for always.
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ZOE BENTLEY
Wednesday Night
Featured Speaker
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Zoë is a 14 year old life-long adventurous unschooler from Sahuarita, AZ. She loves all things related to exogeology (astronomy and geology mixed together) and was the 2nd place winner of the 2010 USA Today/NASA – “No Boundaries” National Competition for her Exogeology ROCKS! website on this topic! On her website, she has a series of kid-friendly videos of her interviews with interesting scientists (including an astronaut!). To see Zoe’s award winning website, click here: [http://www.exogeologyrocks.com ].
As a NASA winner, Zoë was invited to their Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA, where she spoke in front of NASA representatives from all ten NASA facilities around the country. They were so impressed by her presentation that they have since invited Zoë to visit all their NASA facilities in the USA as a teen ambassador for NASA and space careers!
Zoë spends her time reading and writing fiction and non-fiction (as well as editing for Do Life Right, Inc.), researching a variety of topics, staying active in Girl Scouts, exploring photography, making jewelry (and donating the proceeds to animal rescue leagues), cooking, planning events and trips, creating treasure hunts, taking classes at her local community college, and traveling with her family. Zoë loves to learn and create all the time.
Be sure to check out Zoë’s story on NASA’s website at: [http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/education/bentley-20100707.html] and her family's recent interview about Unschooling on their local ABC station at: [http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12857943].
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DAYNA MARTIN
Thursday Night Featured Speaker
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Dayna is a passionate Radical Unschooling advocate who enjoys speaking and writing about her unique and joyful family life and inspiring others on their path. Dayna and her husband, Joe became instant Unschooling celebrities after they appeared as the featured guests on the Dr. Phil Show in 2007, introducing 50 million viewers worldwide to Unschooling and Peaceful Parenting. Her family also appeared on Fox News in Sept. 2008 in a segment with John Taylor Gatto, promoting Radical Unschooling . And most recently, her family were on a segment of Nightline, that aired in June, 2010. Dayna also created a YouTube video series about Unschooling and Peaceful Parenting.
Dayna is the author of, Radical Unschooling, A Revolution Has Begun. She's also been published in the book, Life Learning: Lessons from the Educational Frontier, Life Learning Magazine, Live Free Learn Free Magazine, New Beginnings Magazine and the German Version of The Unschooling Unmanual
Dayna has been a La Leche League Leader for nine years and is also a Natural Birth Educator, Attachment Parenting Counselor and Birth Doula. She founded The Babywearing Project featured in Mothering Magazine. She also founded a non-profit organization offering parent to parent support for others on the path to Radical Unschoolng called, Unschooling United.
Dayna and Joe are proud parents of four Always Unschooled children. The Martin family live in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Dayna's personal website is http://www.UnschoolingAmerica.com. She can also be found on her blog, http://www.TheSparklingMartins.blogspot.com, where she loves to share about her rockin' life with her family.
This will be Dayna’s second year in a row as an attendee and speaker at our UWG Gatherngs.
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HEATHER BURDITT
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Bio to come…………….
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ERIKA DAVIS-PITRE
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Erica and her husband Michael have 4 children - one daughter (32) and three sons (28, 26 & 18), along with a son-in-law and a 3 year old grandson. They live in Central Connecticut with their 18yr old (when did that happen!) son. They have been unschooling for many years and love it, so Erika is always looking for opportunities to share their unschooling joy with others.
Erika has spoken at many un/homeschooling conferences, led quite a few funshops / workshops and has hosted and participated in many round table discussions about unschooling all over the US. She especially enjoys talking about unschooling teens, sharing the joy of unschooling and celebrating diversity through unschooling. And she is a Artist Trading Card (ATC) fanatic - if you don't know about ATCs, please ask!
This will be Erika’s 2nd year in a row attending our UWG and first time as a speaker. Erika and her family are all so looking forward to this gathering! They are hoping to see old friends and to make many new friends, too!
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CINDY GADDIS
Picture to come…
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Cindy is the mother of seven children, ages 10-23, from whom she has been living and learning through homeschooling since 1992 with her husband Weston. Her family recently settled on 15 acres in a log home in central N. Carolina where they’re enjoying all that country living offers.
She has been published in Home Education Magazine and Growing Without Schooling. Cindy has been moderating an e-mail list for families homeschooling children with autism (aut-home-fam) since 1999, and another e-mail list for families homeschooling creative right-brained learners (homeschoolingcreatively) since 2005. She continues sharing her experiences and perspectives as a featured author at the Life Without School blog as well as at her own homeschool blog, Applestars.
From birth, Cindy's first child, a strong right-brained learner, led his family straight to unschooling as the best environment to support his natural process to learning. Cindy became interested in researching this learning style and has discovered fascinating information that further enlightens her understanding of these amazing creative learners.
Cindy spoke at last year’s UWG and we’re happy to have her back again, as a speaker!
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RICHARD
GRUDZINSKI, CMP
Picture to come...
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Richard is a regular speaker at local schools and organizations on career counseling and employment. He has over 40 years experience in the employment industry. He has worked as a licensed private employment agent, recruiter, head hunter, career counselor and employment search expert. Richard has demonstrated his competency in the five areas of professional standards put forth by the International Board for Career Management Certification, and was awarded the designation Career Management Professional. He proudly displays the designation, CMP after his name.
Richard is an unschooling grandfather of 9 grandsons, 6 of whom are homeschooled/unschooled! This will be his third year attending our Gathering with his grandchildren, and his second time attending as a speaker!
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T.J. PHILLIPS
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Bio to come…………….
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RUTH RADNEY
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Bio to come…………….
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LAURA GRACE WELDON
Picture to come...
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Laura is the author of Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything. She is a long-time columnist with Home Education Magazine and writes for national publications about learning, sustainability and health.
Laura lives on Bit of Earth Farm with her husband and their four homeschooled children. Her background includes teaching conflict resolution and writing poetry with nursing home residents. Visit her at: www.lauragraceweldon.com
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