My Journey

After leaving Camp Redwood I wandered for a bit in my 20’s. I worked in higher education, nonprofit fundraising, and local print and broadcast media. I dropped out of college and re-entered college, finishing my degree in Human Communication with an emphasis in Leadership. Eventually, I met my now husband and we moved from northern California to Atlanta, Georgia where I found my way back into higher education.

During my time in higher education I served in family programming, first-year programming, admissions, and institutional communications. I earned a master’s degree in a unique field specializing in looking at students as whole persons, and designing for their success both in-and-out of the classroom. My research was about how to communicate to ignite empowerment so students would make self-directed choices, understand their agency, and take accountability for their college experiences and learning. The research was well received in much of the community but I also found folks weren’t interested in actually making change.

In my private life my husband and I were battling infertility. I longed to be a mother but didn’t truly believe it was in my future. For two years I sought personal growth, changed my lifestyle for better health, and prayed. I also spent those two years working on an application to a doctoral program in Learning Sciences, where I intended to continue my research, exploring how the motivational state of empowerment, agency, accountability, and learning environment influenced each other in the college setting. I was accepted and prepared to begin my studies.

One week before moving to South Carolina to start my program I learned we were finally pregnant. Suddenly, everything I was studying about child and adolescent development, learning, and the school system wasn’t seen through the eyes of an academic but instead of an expectant mother. I spent one year in the program and it greatly impacted who I’d become as a mother. It also helped me remember camp more and more.

I withdrew, chose a stay-at-home path, and after reading The Call of the Wild + Free by Ainsley Arment, turned my attention to home education.

Without expecting it, my path has led me to continue exploring and researching empowerment in learning – but in the home setting. How do I help my son experience empowered learning? How do I cultivate agency and accountability? How can I design empowered learning for kids in the groups and co-ops I participate in? And more and more, how do I stay convicted, rooted in the empowerment I felt when I chose this path? How can I engage my agency? How do I stay accountable? How can I help other moms feel empowered, connected to their agency, and comfortable with the accountability it takes to home educate?

These are my research questions today, and I explore them here. Not for the purpose of earning a degree or publishing a dissertation. But instead for the purpose of enriching my son’s learning adventure, and the lives of the homeschool community we’re connected with. It’s become my journey and my purpose. It’s my way of loving others and myself as we journey to access our own empowerment as mothers.