Current North Star member Leigh Collins, age 16, won first place in this fall’s Mathematics Competition at Holyoke Community College.  Congratulations to Leigh, and congratulations to everyone who has supported Leigh over the past four years.  Still, this glorious moment allows us to wonder how it came to be, and indeed, it feels like a bit of a riddle.  Even to Leigh, who giddily shrugs off any effort to explain her success.

Leigh arrived at North Star at age 13, thoroughly discouraged about schooling and struggling with some serious social anxiety.  Upon joining North Star, Leigh took on her new name and identity, creating some mental and emotional space from her prior difficulties.  Leigh was cautious about socializing and integrating into our community.

Fortunately, Leigh was in the right place, and her parents fully embraced this concept.  Over Leigh’s first two years here, she took some classes here including Math: From Counting to Calculus, Psychology, Future of the World, and Harm and Punishment.  Leigh led a Debate class, and sometimes tutored other teens in math.  In the past year, Leigh started with some online non-credit courses, (MOOCs) in Law and Economics.  Still, Leigh was not willing to apply to in-person courses at our local community colleges, and had difficulty dealing with people outside of her home and North Star.

During these years of ages 13-15 years old, Leigh avoided much of the world while creating a very positive community for herself inside North Star.  While her parents and North Star staff (and Leigh herself) were patient with this situation, there were moments of wondering how this situation might evolve and when Leigh might be ready to take on more risk. In our weekly advisory sessions, I was routinely told by Leigh, “Not yet! But I’m doing fine and I like my schedule!”

Last year, in addition to the online courses, Leigh chose to self-study with a classic computer-programming textbook recommended through M.I.T.  She felt increasingly pleased with her progress in these fields.  In the spring of 2019, she registered for a summer pre-college engineering course at Greenfield Community College.  Lo and behold, Leigh thrived in that course, and in August Leigh came to North Star with her parents to report that she was now planning to enroll full time and that she was done with North Star!

“Not so fast!” I fought back.  “You can’t go from one course to a full load and abandon us just like that!”  I feared that Leigh’s enthusiasm was a set up for failure.  In the end, Leigh signed up for three courses this fall (Chemistry, Botany, and Calculus – two with labs) while she maintained some time at North Star.  Leigh has earned straight A’s in college.  In addition, Leigh registered for her high school equivalency exam and got a perfect score.  While getting a passing score was never in doubt, the actual signing up and sitting for the exam was far beyond what had been within Leigh’s comfort zone. Now she shrugs off going through the process as simple.

Leigh’s leadership in a chemistry study group at HCC has made her a candidate to receive a $3,000 STEM scholarship for next semester.  Leigh has applied for a work-study job as a tutor in mathematics.  She walks around exuding confidence.

So, how did this happen?  Leigh did not formally study math in a traditional way. She received precious little tutoring or teaching from North Star staff.  Leigh mostly learned math on her own.  Is that even believable?  And what about this shift from suffering paralyzing anxiety to roaming around a community college campus?  North Star did not provide any therapy or offer special strategies to Leigh.  We just welcomed her in, offered her our community, and asked her how she was doing.  For three years.

Leigh is still 16 and would be a junior in high school if she had remained there and passed each of the past three years. 

 I know many of you who read this blog are already believers in self-directed learning and an unschooling approach.  You trust young people to grow at their own pace and find meaningful challenges for themselves.  For those of you who are skeptical, you can write off Leigh’s story as a miracle.  Except for two things:  it’s very unlikely this would have happened as it unfolded for Leigh if she had stayed in traditional school, and despite my waxing poetic about Leigh in this essay, her story is basically unexceptional!  Many North Star teens and alumni have similar stories. 

 For me, this is a common story to celebrate. It offers hope and optimism in the human spirit.  It is a beautiful example of resilience.  We can indeed generalize from Leigh to others, and expect that offering patience and support may be the most valuable items we have to give.