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Camp With Wings Staff, 2008
Janine Banks, 53,
Toowoomba
Camp co-ordinator
I've been involved in the home education/unschooling movement for over
14 years as a mother, grass roots support and contact person, newsletter
producer(North Coast Home Education Newsletter) and columnist (Grace
Chapman's SHED), and camp organizer. I regard home education/unschooling
as a lifestyle and realize that in my own way, I've been unschooling
myself most of my life, despite my many wasted school years. Independent
learning is my lifestyle, so it has been easy to role model this for
my four children. Apart from formal schooling that ended with the
scholarship to teacher's college (only completed 2 out of 3 years of
physical education teaching), I have completed a photography course at
Brisbane Art College, three separate yoga teacher training courses,
and the Lifeline telephone counselling course. I have had a variety
of jobs including vegetarian chef, governess to 3 children on a sheep
station in central Qld, Brisbane City Council nurseryperson, waitress,
custom colour printer in photography laboratory, library assistant
in Queensland State Library, barmaid, vegetarian cooking teacher, yoga
teacher and organic salad bag producer.
Working at Grace Llewellyn's
Not Back to School camp for 9 sessions inspired me to provide the same
safe but dynamic situation to help home educating teenagers connect and
grow as they move slowly outwards from the family base into the wider
world. My experience with my own four offspring, now moving quickly out
of the teenage years, helps me give the support and parental stability at
camp that young people in new and challenging situations might need. My
yoga training to look for the bright and shining light in everybody
allows everyone the space to be themselves and grow at their own pace
in their own way. I am very excited by the Camp with Wings concept and
its potential role in the growing Australian home educating movement.
Richard Watson, 52,
Toowoomba
Camp Assistant
My education background, ironically, includes a very traditional
academic education; I was continuously enrolled as a full time student
between ages 6 and 23! I later did another four years of study
for a PhD (although this is mostly an autodidactic exercise), which means that
I have been an institutionalised student for 22 years of my life. Eeeek!
And to cap it all off I even earn a living now as a university lecturer.
Recollections of my early schooling are dominated by feelings of
boredom (so much time, so little to learn and do) so it's not
surprising that I have embraced the home education philosophy.
While I've had my share of traditional institutional learning, this
is really only a small part of my lifelong learning experience. I've
taught myself so many skills from calligraphy to plumbing, and exercise
physiology to guitar making, and many more.
With Janine, I have home educated our 4 children, the youngest of whom is
now 19.
The past three years I have helped out at Camp with cooking, first aid, and
general organisation. It's been fun. Oh, and I organise a great game of
Ultimate frisbee.
Dave Thomas, 20
Bala Cynwyd, Philadelphia, USA
Group leader
Oh here we go, to the land of dreams and excellent trophies. My name
is David Frederick Thomas, my age is 20, my power is rocking out.
At my brother's suggestion I will mention here that I own a pair of
awesome pants.
5 things I dig: bicycles (riding 'em, tinkering with 'em, talkin' about
'em), writing simple songs (ask me about all the music I listen to and my
songwriting woes), baking things, being part of a community (though not
necessarily an intentional one, I'm more into accidental communities),
robots (but more as an idea than a reality, real robots scare me, pretend
robots make me smile like a self-assured unicorn at a unicorn cotillion
devoid of judgmental overtones).
I worked at a video store; I'm still kicking myself for quitting that
particular job. I have a friend, we had communication problems, we're
getting better, I can be good for communication advice.
I have 2 younger brothers, they are teenagers, they are sometimes mean
to me.
I don't think I am political.
I revel in goofiness.
At different times in my life I have labeled myself a poet, a songwriter,
an artist, a professional connoisseur, and I probably tossed the label,
"inspirational speaker", around a bit, though I reckon that would look
something like me speaking, and the people in the audience being inspired
to leave the room.
I was unschooled from birth until the age of 18, at which point I ventured
into the university world, a land from which I am on vacation currently.
There's this comic book called, "snake'n'bacon's cartoon cabaret", and
it's really quite funny.
This is the last sentence; it will be a run-on sentence: I have made
fun of Gayatri Janine on multiple occasions during her stints in the
United States, and I am fully prepared for massive amounts of karmic
retribution, both from her, her family, the rest of Camp With Wings,
and the land of Australia in general (here it is: I pronounce my 'r's
differently from y'all and I am completely aware of any tension that
could create, I simply implore you thusly: mock me, but please, don't
sock me - to wit: use your words, not your fists), goodnight moon.
Josie Banks-Watson, 21
Toowoomba
Group leader
Hello! My name is Josephine, though I'm mostly known as Jose or Josie.
I have grown up in a very loving, happy, supportive family. I have
been home educated through all my schooling years. I have three
brothers who rock my world and we had a lot of fun growing up together.
I enjoy doing yoga, reading books curled up under a blanket with a cup of
tea, making yummy vegetarian food for my family and friends to eat,
seeing the sun shine down clear and sparkling all-over this beautiful
world we live in, laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes, wrestling
with my younger brother, playing Frisbee in the park, and many other
things. :-)
Sewing and designing clothes and accessories is my favourite pastime,
along with any other handcraft you can think of. I've made a lot of
cloths for my family and friends and never seem to be able to get over
how cool it is to be able to cut up a piece of fabric and turn it into
something beautiful so fast.
I've worked in childcare, hospitality, retail, carpet cleaning and fruit
picking, and would like to answer any questions you might have about
those areas of work.
I've traveled overseas quite a lot and love seeing new places and
experiencing new things. My last trip to the US took me to Portland,
Oregon, where I fulfilled a life long goal of being a nanny overseas. It
turned out really well, and I had a wonderful time. While I was
in Oregon, I also cooked at the Not Back to School Camp. I've also wwoofed
(willing workers on organic farms) in New Zealand with a friend (Elka),
worked on a Christmas tree farm in Minnesota, USA, and lived in Portland,
OR, with my family for 6 months.
Now I'm home I'm working in a retail clothing store and having a blast.
I'll be heading off to Brisbane after camp to do a tertiary prep course at
TAFE, and sharing a house with a bunch of friends.
Thats all for me, see you at camp!
Loe Stanford-Wilson,31
Toowoomba
Group leader
Well, a bit about me. It's always hard to write about one's self and
I'm notoriously bad at it. Here is my attempt!
I shall begin by writing about my loves as that's always what drives
us. My first loves are my incredible family. I have two absolutely
amazing children. My son is 13 and my daughter is 10. Their father
(my hubby) is pretty fantastic too. They are my first loves and they're
the people that bring light into my life on a daily basis. They make
me see more clearly who I am to them, to me and the face that I portray
to people around me. Children in particular have an amazing capacity to
shine light upon one's good and not so good points and bring them into
focus if you allow yourself to see.
My other passions include reading. Pearl Buck, Aldous Huxley, Irvine Welsh
and Irvin Yalom are all authors I have read fairly recently and adore. I
also am fascinated by people in all their forms especially their faults
and foibles. I have studied psychology at university and only recently
graduated (June, 2007) from my Bachelor of Psychology degree. I intend
to do further study to enable me to practise as a psychologist. This is
and probably always has been my area of interest. I have always wanted
to know what makes people tick and why people make the choices they
make. I do believe life is about choices and that we human's have the
power to create our own destinies. I'd like to help people that have
made choices they aren't so happy about turn things around so they can
move in the directions they want and need to.
Anyway, I am sure this is more than enough about me and maybe it'll make
it through Janine's careful scrutiny.
Meet you all at camp,
Mary Bradney-George, 21
Bellingen/Brisbane
Group leader
Even though I attended school from the age of ten I'm still a home
educated person at heart. And yet I'm currently studying to be a high
school drama teacher at uni. I love drama and performing and I've been
getting up on stage my whole life, first as a dancer, then musician then
an actor. I also think of myself as a writer and thats probably the thing
that comes most easily to me. As long as I'm not writing about myself that
is.
Until this year I was involved in the local youth drama scene. In fact in
the past few years I was one of the driving forces behind local youth
drama. I suppose no one was really surprised when I got into a drama
course at uni except me.
To attend uni I moved out of home and left the small town I grew up in
and found my way to Brisbane. Given my shy timid nature (some of you who
know me may laugh but dont forget I'm an actor and I've been hiding that
reality for some time now) I was surprised how quickly I managed to adapt
to living alone. I think it was Camp With Wings that helped me open my
mind to the possibilities of my new life.
So, I guess this is a blurb from the book of my life. And with my
Hobbit-Ninja abilities (aka, computer skills) I have given you all a
slight introduction to the strange young woman you will meet at Camp.
Toodles.
Sue Belfitt, 49
Toowoomba
Cook
I left school after matriculating in maths and science and was eager to
get a grip on life before committing myself to more formal schooling
subsequently my path has been interesting and varied leading me to a life
full of exploration and learning, my real education. I travelled widely
in Asia and Australia before settling in northern N.S.W. just in time for
the birth of my 2nd son, I have three and all have been unschooled. By
this time I was and still am a committed vegan and educating others
through food has been a major focus in my life over the past 20 odd
years. I have been a tofu and tempeh manufacturer, a cook, and a caterer.
I was encouraged to write a cookbook of vegan cakes, which was published
in 2002 and I also write the recipe pages for the Vegan Voice.
I am looking forward to the next camp, which will provide another
adventure of creative culinary pursuits, hope to see you there.
Louise Cranny
Bellingen
Cook
Camp With Wings Junior Staff
Max Banks-Watson
Nick Banks-Watson
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