Wes Beach, teen advisor to the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum and founder of Beach High School, will be discussing his experience helping teens (and their families) with untraditional high school paths during two sessions for both parents and teens at the Edina Community Center. Teens can expect to hear about several people who spent their teen years in ways that made sense to them rather than in accordance with the dictates of a school and learn about how they can do the same, with lots of opportunities to ask questions and get answers.
Matthew Snyder spent one year in high school, another year as a full-time student at a community college while he was still enrolled in high school, secured freedom from high school, and continued at another community college, studying engineering and music, until he stopped out for the first time. He worked as a carpenter, traveled to Mexico, and lived in Utah, where he skied and learned a lot about photography. He returned to California, designed furniture while living in Los Angeles, entered California State University, Long Beach, and earned a BA in creative writing. He moved to San Francisco, where he helped design buildings, and then he applied to Harvard, was accepted, and earned a graduate degree in architecture. He taught for a while at Northeastern University, and is now living in Santa Cruz and working as an architect. Matthew has a high school GPA that never mattered in gaining college admission, never took any AP courses, and never took the SAT or ACT.
Wes’s son skipped high school and went on to earn a BA and a PhD. One of his students, who never attended any K-12 school, was accepted at MIT, Caltech, the University of California, Berkeley, and other schools. Another student left formal studies behind at 15 and is now principal dancer with the Houston Ballet.
Wes will tell other varied stories of young people he has worked with who have, because of differing interests, strengths, and talents, stepped around the one-size-fits-all curriculum of traditional schooling and taken divergent paths. Many of these people have been accepted and earned degrees at colleges and universities, while others have been very successful in a wide variety of endeavors and vocations without attendance at college. Some general principles will emerge from these stories.
Target Age Range: teens ages 12 to 20 interested in early college, partial homeschooling, traveling abroad, unschooling, or any other atypical educational path during the high school or early college years
Cost: free
Registration: RSVP to sstrohmer [at] gmail [dot] com – please indicate which event(s) and how many are attending. RSVPs are requested, to ensure that we have enough handouts and chairs. All those who RSVP and attend the event will have their names entered in a drawing for one of two $25 Amazon gift cards!
Event Contact Person: Shaun Strohmer
Event Contact Email: sstrohmer [at] gmail [dot] com
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