It’s Anarchy Out There! Bring It On in 2020!
Sarah Tavernetti with North Star alum Ben Rosser in Brooklyn, NY. Research! Happy New Year! While we are in celebrating a new year, I would like to share my joy and optimism for the wide range of educational experiments involving self-directed learning...
Celebrate Success! But Can You Explain It? The story of one North Star member poses a pleasant riddle.
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...
Annual Alumni Party on Giving Tuesday, 2019!
This week we are hosting our Annual Alumni Party, and we welcome our entire community to celebrate our longevity and success. While serving as our “alumni fund drive” on Giving Tuesday, the party also offers a chance for current families to meet some of the...
The News from North Star
I’m mildly out of commission with a broken fibula, so this blog is a high quality shortcut, the pdf of our just-printed North Star newsletter called Liberated Learners. This publication includes profiles of teens, staff members, photos, and our general...
Interior Decorating at North Star
Many of our members are creative artists. Some of them in their exuberance choose to share their work by hanging it on the walls at North Star. Sometimes they decide to liven up a room with stickers. These teens are well-intentioned, but when we told them...
Thank You, Whistleblowers!
Our current political drama involving a courageous whistleblower reporting on the President of the United States of America offers a powerful teaching moment for all of us who work with young people. Over the years, we have always encouraged our teen...
An Alumna Update: Laura Gilbert
A happy outcome of publishing my book has been having some older alumni read it and sending along some kind words. One of the first to do so was Laura Gilbert. Laura teased me a bit that her story wasn’t included in the book, and I offered to include her in this blog as an “Alumna Profile.”
“It’s Madness” (College Admissions)
This month I have encountered several close friends and family members going through the throes of the competitive college admissions process. Coincidentally, I also read the book Excellent Sheep: the miseducation of the American elite by William Deresiewicz (2015) that questions the impact of competitive college admissions on the young people involved in that process.