Protecting young people shouldn't be controversial. Most of us agree it is one of society's most important responsibilities. Yet mention transgender youth, and the consensus collapses. Suddenly, the message becomes that all children deserve protection except those who don't fit a particular worldview or political leaning.

Transgender youth are not alone. The same logic is applied to gay youth, to young people growing up in poverty, and to those who are sick, hungry, or in foster care. It extends to immigrant children whose families fled persecution, to kids with developmental or learning disabilities, and even to efforts to keep young women safe from sexual assault and abuse of every kind. Somehow, each is treated as less deserving. 

So it is accepted, even applauded, when gender-affirming care is outlawed, when anything bearing a rainbow is banned, and when safety-net programs are cut. It is accepted when children stand before immigration judges alone, facing deportation to dangerous places. It is accepted when pediatric cancer research funding is slashed, when scientific integrity is attacked, and vaccinations are discouraged, when food safety protocols are decimated, when educational services are gutted, and when young men and the institutions that shield them are not held accountable for horrific acts. The unspoken rationale is always the same: why should I be inconvenienced by protections that only benefit the other, whether the “ungodly," the "lazy," the "illegal," “unhealthy,” or the one who didn't do everything “right" to protect themselves? They are the “other," not "me.” 

Until suddenly it is "me." The policies that seemed intrusive, that were never fully understood, and that appeared to benefit only other people, and therefore didn't deserve funding, collide with personal reality. Consequences have a way of leveling the playing field.

The truth is, "the other" can very easily become "me." Life is a crapshoot. No one gets to control whether their child will come out, whether a devastating diagnosis will arrive, a pink slip will land, or a few missed payments will pile up. No one knows whether their daughter will be hurt, whether a school will eliminate the program that was helping their child make progress, or whether they will one day need the very protections and services they once denigrated. 
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A society that protects children only when the safeguards fit its narrow belief systems is not caring for children at all. It is entrenched in its own entitlement and privilege. Caring cannot come with stipulations, and understanding cannot be a prerequisite. We are all human, and we all deserve compassion and respect, whether or not people "get" our individual circumstances or life choices. Full stop. 

Weekly Wrap-up

Hudson, one of our Monday SLU CBL volunteers, facilitated the beginning of a Rube Goldberg machine in the shed. The crew gathered a few items and began brainstorming some ideas that quickly translated into the start of their machine. Experimentation and problem-solving were the drivers of the activity. Our other CBL volunteer, Raven, got a very old computer working by deleting background programs that kept popping up. She also spent the morning with K continuing to work on their cardboard gauntlets for cosplay. K has decided to leave his easel at the Center in the art studio/music room so he can paint whenever he wants. 

Thanks again to Pete for coming out to facilitate the Treehouse Project on Tuesday and Thursday. First, the DRC Crew cleaned up boards that had been part of an old picnic table by removing screws and sorting them into reusable pieces and firewood. They also saved all of the unbent screws for future use. Then they prepped and moved the treehouse to a flat area of the yard. There were plenty of problem-solving opportunities when figuring out what to remove so it could squeeze back through all of the trees that surrounded it. They started digging out holes for the posts to sit in, but encountered large tree roots before running out of time for the day.

​On Thursday, they tackled more stubborn tree roots. Once they got the dirt out, they put gravel in the holes and topped it with a board in each to distribute the load, making sure everything was level first. They squared up the legs of the tree house base, placed it on the holes, and screwed each post down. This is where the tree house project ends for now. Wishing Pete safe travels; we will see him again in mid-November.

On Tuesday, B made homemade dough and assembled our pizzas for lunch. And then made a loaf of bread to go with our spaghetti on Friday. Yum! 

Ryan, our Thursday volunteer, brought in his fancy electronic chess board again and taught H the fundamentals of the game.
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Friday, we fully embraced the rainy day vibe. We had the first of our effective writing classes. They decided to start with resumes and spent their time coming up with a bulleted list of their skills.  Our afternoon SLU CBLs came in and started a D&D campaign, and Journeih played a very silly game of chess with T.

 Note from Maria: We had several volunteers here again this week, which gave me the luxury of extra time to finish writing the first chapter (only twelve to go) of my book Exploring the Possibilities: Challenging Cultural Norms to Support Young People on Their Self-Directed Learning Journey. I have continued the format from the Introduction—italicized excerpts from thirteen years of blog posts are interspersed within a narrative to tell the Deep Root Center Origin Story in this chapter.  In the book, those excerpts will be indented. This blog format will not let me do that, so I am inserting dividers before and after to separate them visually.  

​This week includes the first quarter or so of the chapter. It is much too long for just one post. This is a first draft; if you are willing, please send feedback.  And for those who have been along for this amazing ride from the very beginning, let me know if my memory of the sequence of events matches yours. Enjoy! 

Saying 2013 was a rough year isn't my attempt to begin this story with dramatic flair. It really was a year wrought with heavy emotion, turmoil, and an immeasurable amount of tears.

First, after a trip to Puerto Rico in March 2012 for a democratic education conference with seven teens and the director of the alternative school where I taught, I found myself solidifying my personal educational philosophy while working in that environment—a place I had considered home for ten years. On the surface, it looked like self-directed education; however, in actuality, it was a progressive school (defined later) that did not follow the principles of self-directed education I had come to consider essential.

After several months of trying desperately to reconcile those differences, both within myself and with the school's leadership, I left the position on April 19th, 2013—coincidentally my son's 19th birthday—ten years, four months and eighteen days after I'd started there as an intern. 

Almost a month after my resignation, my father, of nearly 80, died. I believe I was already so firmly embedded in grief that I was numb to his passing, and to the pain the rest of my family was enduring. I barely remember his funeral and the reception afterward. And I certainly wasn't there emotionally when my mom and three siblings needed me, as the eldest child, most.

A month later, I traveled to Long Island with my second child, then sixteen, to attend the AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization) Conference.  While there, I met Ken Danford, founder of North Star Self-Directed Learning for Teens in Amherst, MA (now in Sunderland, MA). I should mention that I had already discovered North Star before meeting Ken, through my ongoing Google searches—conducted through streams of tears—for educational alternatives that weren't schools.

I was adamant about not starting a school. My negative experiences over the previous year and a half at the alternative school had solidified that position. Schools, especially alternative ones, are most often a form of progressive education, which, as Dr. Peter Gray—author of Free to Learn, my personal self-directed learning bible—describes it, is based on a benevolent teacher's brilliance, not the child's.

Once I learned more about North Star's philosophy, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to create, right here in Northern New York.
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Ken, along with Joel Hammon of Princeton Learning Cooperative (the first replicator of North Star), set up Liberated Learners, a not-for-profit that streamlined replication. Becoming a member of the network—and gaining access to Ken and Joel's help and resources—required a one-time start-up fee. It was an open-source arrangement: anyone who joined the network could access and use any intellectual property they had created over the years.

Excerpt from: This Ain't New—written January 12, 2015

While Deep Root Center is relatively new (we opened our doors almost exactly a year ago), the self-directed learning model is not. We, along with eight other Centers in the US and Canada, are members of the Liberated Learners Network, which replicates North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens in Hadley, MA.

North Star has a proven track record, since 1996, of assisting over five hundred teens in the Amherst/Northampton area to leave school and, as Ken states, "get a life." That is nineteen years of mentoring and advising kids who are miserable, disenfranchised, and who want to engage with the world on their own terms. Nineteen years of providing an individualized, non-coercive education to youth who choose to leave school. Nineteen years of proclaiming: Learning is natural. School is optional. Nineteen years of listening with compassion to teens who are bursting to tell their story. These kids are so grateful to North Star that they are delighted to share their stories with others considering the self-directed learning path, at open houses and info sessions for North Star and the other Liberated Learner Centers.

In truth, however, this method of educating children has been around much longer than nineteen years. In fact, it has been around since anatomically modern humans have roamed the earth. As big-brained primates, we are designed to learn over a long childhood. How could we survive to pass on our genes if that weren't true? And despite current cultural beliefs, that desire to learn does not turn off just because a child turns 5, 8, or 13. It remains with us our entire lives. Personally, I am not entirely happy unless I am in the midst of a learning experience. Think of all the stories on NPR or CBC (for those of you in Canada or on the border), or on the Internet, that capture your attention; you are engaged, thinking, and learning. My beloved Grandma used to say, "It has been a wasted day if you didn't learn something new."

Ken Danford and Joshua Hornick, the founders of North Star, simply took the concept of self-directed learning that has been around forever and built this "new" educational model. I would contend that this form of education only appears revolutionary, unfamiliar, and scary because our society accepted compulsory education as the norm a little over 100 years ago. Public education became the law of the land as a way to combat child labor in factories and mines and to create a pliable, obedient industrial workforce for the future—not necessarily to promote learning. But even then, up until 50 or so years ago, discretion and common sense ruled. For example, children who lived on farms were excused during important seasonal work essential to the livelihood and survival of the family.

Common sense is what the self-directed educational experience encompasses. Each individual is empowered to make the most logical choices based on their own needs, desires, and interests. I'll say it again: it ain't new and it ain't rocket science—we humans have been doing it for a few millennia. These visionaries in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts just brought it into the modern age, and we are very fortunate they decided to share their model with the rest of the world.

After visiting North Star for a replication conference in June, an additional two months of grieving, and following potential leads that weren't right at the time, I decided in August 2013 to jump in and start a learning center using North Star's guiding principles, sooner rather than later, with January 2014 set as our trial opening period.

DRC was one of the first to join Liberated Learners. The process has changed over the years, but the concept of sharing ideas across all the Centers remains the same.
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The St. Lawrence University library became my unofficial office. I set up my computer at a table by a large window overlooking the historic Gunnison Chapel every day. I was very conscious about taking phone calls outside so as not to disturb other library patrons—which meant lots of trips up and down the stairs. It wasn't ideal; however, access to reliable wifi was essential, and I am grateful it was there for me when I needed it.

My second kiddo was also homeschooling for their last year of high school (doubling up to skip a year, like their big brother) and was a regular at the SLU library as well—setting up in one of the double-decker study carrels (known colloquially as "treehouses" on campus) every day to work on an extensive research project, create art, and watch a fair bit of Netflix. They definitely felt a sense of ownership over that particular "treehouse," despite not being a SLU student.

During those first few months, I made my way through the long checklists of everything required to start a not-for-profit. Knowing we needed a board of directors, I held a gathering at the local Cornell Cooperative Extension building to vet potential board members. We had a few folks who were supportive but didn't want to take on a board role. In the end, our first board consisted of myself, my husband, and Paul, a long-time friend and neighbor. Meeting with a counselor from the SBA at SUNY Canton to build a comprehensive business plan was at the top of the list. Registering the business name and DBA with the county; setting up a mailbox; asking for help, and then eventually figuring out on my own how to build a drag-and-drop website; setting up social media accounts and posting regularly; meeting with Seedcorn to ask for fiscal 501(c)(3) sponsorship while figuring out how to apply for our own (they said "yes"); setting up a bank account; and learning accounting skills—these were just a few of the thousands of tasks I completed, all while searching the NoCo for a space to call home.  

DRC Weekly Round-up

The DRC Crew had another very chill week.  We hosted seven volunteers throughout the week.  

Monday. Hudson & Raven, our SLU CBL students, came in to volunteer. Hudson played Monopoly, and Raven continued making a cardboard gauntlet with K. K created another Bob Ross-inspired painting.

​Enormous thanks to volunteer and DRC Board VP, Kris R., for coming in on Tuesday to teach a metal art class. The Crew thoroughly enjoyed the project. In Geography class, C gave a presentation about Angola. We talked about the effects of colonization and missionaries on the people of African Countries.

Huge thanks to Pete for volunteering to lead the crew in remodeling our treehouse on Thursday. After meeting for an hour to discuss logistics, they decided the entire structure needs to be moved from the tight space it occupies to accomplish their goal of adding stairs and other improvements. There was lots of brainstorming and problem-solving going on out there. And thank you to Ryan for coming in with his fancy chessboard to play. He introduced two kiddos to the game

On Friday, we had our first Kitchen Sink Science (KSS) class of the year. We tore up green leaves into tiny bits and put them in rubbing alcohol - filled beakers, which we then placed in a pan of hot water. After they “marinated,” for 45 min., we put a strip of coffee filter paper in to see if the color under the chlorophyll would appear. It did not. We wondered if it would have been successful if we had used leaves whose color change is more dramatic, such as sugar maples. That is something to test another day. B made a delicious apple cake. During the afternoon, Debora and Sara, two of our SLU CBL volunteers, helped begin the process of planning a mural for the art/music studio. They may have gotten sidetracked showing the intricacies of a game that they play and painting a landscape. At the end of the day, Digby Doo took over E's lap for an afternoon snooze.

Our Home
Eight years ago, on September 26, 2018, I wrote a few really big checks, and 48 Riverside Dr. became Deep Root Center’s permanent home. After the closing, I went directly to the house and ate my first of many lunches standing in that kitchen. It is a space we are so grateful for—but also curse every day. It is poorly designed, the floors are beat up, and it's way too small for our crew, but mostly functional; we make and eat good food together, do awesome science experiments, and hang out having amazing conversations. 

The dream is to remodel it to be a space that effectively serves its many functions; until that becomes reality, we will deal with what we have with gratitude, even when we grumble about tripping over each other.

​A few weeks ago, I wrote about the inundation of AI in educational settings and the many professionals bemoaning the prevalence of cheating with this new technology. In that piece, I placed the blame squarely on the system itself. Most simply stated, we have removed curiosity and creativity from our educational system and replaced them with compliance. Our young people are fed the correct answers without being given any context for the whys or hows. They spend their time focused fully on staying inside the proverbial lines, chasing carrots and avoiding sticks. Of course, they will use AI or whatever else to get the answer or the needed product with the least amount of effort. They have learned that creativity can be outsourced—not that it is an essential part of problem-solving, and thus human survival. 

Today, I am stepping outside of education to look at the ubiquitous use of AI in the workplace and in our private lives.

As an extremely independent-minded individual who takes great pride in being creative, I find the prevalence of AI slop appalling and embarrassing—especially when artists and other creatives use it wholesale to generate a piece from a few prompts, simply to save themselves a little time. AI-generated "art" is obvious even to the untrained eye. It's ickily slick and, at least to me, feels deceitful. When I see it, I am immediately turned off and distrustful of that company or organization—the opposite, I have to assume, of the effect they're going for.

With that said, I want to return to an important concept from that earlier post: AI is not inherently evil, and using it doesn't make you morally corrupt. It can be helpful, with the caveat that judicious best practices are applied. For example, I occasionally use Claude to polish a piece when I feel my grammar needs help or things can be tightened up. Once I get the recommendations, I use them as suggestions to revise my original piece. It's one more tool in my arsenal—not to write for me, but to make my writing the best it can possibly be. 
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On the other hand, I avoid using AI features when creating anything in Canva—a task made a bit harder now that they've fully integrated it into the platform. One of my pet peeves, and the reason I actively seek out other resources, is companies with once-great tools that devolve into peddling corporate garbage. Mailchimp and QuickBooks (decidedly not coincidentally owned by the same company) are two more examples, and why I switched to Substack for this blog and Wave for all of our accounting needs. If anyone has suggestions for a free platform similar to Canva, minus the AI slop, please let me know.

Bottom line: if you need a graphic or any other kind of art and don't feel confident creating it yourself, find an artist to make it for you.

If we continue as we are, we ensure the death of creativity, and ultimately the death of society—which may be exactly what the leaders of the AI companies were warning us about this third week of September 2026.
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Creativity is what sets humans apart. Without it, we are nothing. 

This week, the DRC Crew happily welcomed eight volunteers. On Monday, Raven and Hudson from the SLU CBL program and Pete, a community member and DRC supporter from the beginning, all came in. Between discussing cosplay and building cardboard gauntlets, sorting out hundreds of Magic: The Gathering game cards, and brainstorming carpentry and woodworking projects, such as fixing up our treehouse, with cool conversations swirling through it all, we had a busy and productive Monday morning.

On Thursday, Carol, our community volunteer for the day, arrived just in time to help make apple crisp from the two enormous bags of sliced apples that the SLU Campus Kitchens team delivered with our Bear Packs. Afterward, she and E & H went out to our woods to explore. They found some very cool items, including a Pepsi can from 1976.

On Friday, the DRC Crew welcomed four more volunteers. Ryan, a community volunteer, was a former student member and an apprentice for two years. He will be volunteering regularly to play chess and piano. Yesterday, he and T started investigating the piano in the garage to see why many keys aren't working. It seems that humidity, dust, and dirt are the culprits, not a rodent's nest as I suspected. They spent a couple of hours exploring the guts and learning how a piano works. 

Journeih, Sara, and Debora are SLU students in the Community Based Learning program. They are super excited to spend Friday afternoons with us. They created art, played music, sang along to the Hamilton soundtrack, and we happily discovered that Sara will take on the Dungeon Master role for D&D starting next week. I also overheard that they plan on creating a DRC Band. One of them said she would learn to play the electric guitar. Another had the violin out, tuning it. 

We are so very fortunate to be able to tap into the SLU CBL Program; it is an amazing resource. Our student members benefit greatly from spending time with young adults who eagerly and excitedly share their interests and talents with them.  

Making your mark: we humans have been obsessed—since the time our earliest hominid cousins roamed the earth—with leaving something behind to say, I was here. 

As someone who is both neuro-spicy and a trained anthropologist, I have always been intrigued by the patterns that show up on repeat in human behavior. At the very heart of it, I am a people watcher—an observer endlessly curious about what I see. 

A couple of days ago, I noticed tire skid marks all over the freshly paved road I drive on every day going in and out of town. There were too many to be explained by people braking suddenly for a deer or other critter crossing the road. I realized it was intentional—someone was leaving their mark. Frankly, it isn’t all that different from Neolithic humans using their hands as stencils to make handprints on cave walls. 

That got me thinking about the other ways we humans leave our mark, figuratively and literally. Something you might call a legacy.
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Abject cruelty—breaking and hurting things for the sake of breaking and hurting—is one kind of legacy. To be clear, this behavior isn’t accidental. It’s coldly calculated to harm as many people as possible, and I’m sure you’ve noticed it has been amplified and celebrated in recent years by the people with the most to gain from it. There’s also the pettier cruelty, including obnoxious behavior towards service workers and harsh judgment, the kind that shows up in shitty comments from keyboard warriors. 

Related is the particular type of narcissistic vanity that makes sure your name ends up on buildings and the like—whether through “charitable” contributions or straight-up bullying, never through honor or genuine appreciation. I sometimes wonder whether they understand it isn’t the kind of legacy they think it is, whether they’re really just that oblivious, or simply don’t care.

Kindness, empathy, and working for the good of all are another way to leave your mark. Often these endeavors are carried out quietly, without fanfare, with the understanding that the point isn’t performance but the people who will benefit. Frequently, the extent of their giving—whether in dollars, time, or attention—isn’t broadly recognized until after they’re gone. Sadly, we’ve seen a few examples of this in the last few weeks. 

You don’t need fame or fortune to leave a positive mark. All it takes is a dedication to kindness, a willingness to put your talents to use, to recognize your privilege—no matter how large or small—and to utilize it to serve others. To put it simply: make a difference.

The legacy we leave behind is up to each of us. Knowing you have a lifetime to build it, do you want to be known for cruelty and breaking things for the sake of vanity or advancing yourself, or for lifting others and making the world better for everyone? I certainly know where I stand. Honestly, it isn’t that hard—the golden rule of common decency is the only guide you need. Don’t be an a$$.

The DRC Crew had a great first week back from summer break. We're settling into a routine that honors each student member—their interests and goals—which we then build into a schedule that supports everyone's requests and needs. Our morning check-ins are a time to make requests, discuss the things that arise, and review the day's opportunities. The morning academic period is designed for independent study (with support as needed): each kiddo has a folder with a list of activities and resources, whether worksheets, books, websites, or apps to choose from. On Thursday and Friday, I met with each of them to discuss which items they wanted on their lists, typed them up, and printed them for their folders.  

After that session each morning, we usually bake something for lunch. Then have a class that focuses directly on particular requests. For example, on Thursday, we had our first geography class where they decided to begin with the southern portion of Africa. Each week, they will study maps, choose a country to research and share with the group, and ultimately fill in a blank map of that area of the world. One teen suggested the class, and several others wanted to join.

There are usually a few kids who help to make lunch each day. We all create the menu together on Friday during Morning Check-in for the following week—largely based on what we have available in the cabinet and the freezer. 

We decided that our afternoons would mostly consist of hands-on and creative pursuits. This week, we had art sessions with some inspiration from social media reels. After someone brushed Digby and accumulated a pile of fur, B spontaneously decided to needle-felt a tiny sculpture of Digby with it. Luckily, we had some needle felting supplies that a volunteer donated a few years ago.  

This is what self-directed, non-coercive education looks like. Everyone is fully engaged and making conscious choices about their day.  

Imagine a world where every person is unconditionally supported to become the best version of themselves — to be who they're meant to be. Where each of us is not only allowed but encouraged to be fully authentic, follow our interests, explore every possibility, and work toward our own goals and aspirations, without being offered silly rewards for it. Where judgment simply doesn't exist, because everyone practices advocacy instead. This isn't to say such a world is free of hard work, struggle, challenge, or critique — those remain a natural part of exploring possibilities, making mistakes, owning them, and learning from them. We just ask that none of it be dehumanizing or traumatizing. But blame, harsh criticism, and punishment? Those become obsolete. Sounds nice, right?

Instead, we have today's world — one where judgment is the first thing we reach for, before curiosity, before kindness, before empathy. And when we're not judging others, we're blaming them. To paraphrase a popular social media reel: immigrants are not the reason your life sucks. LGBTQIA+ folx are not the reason your life sucks. Black and brown folx are not the reason your life sucks. A different religious affiliation from yours is not the reason your life sucks. These are the groups people in power want you to believe are the problem, because it shifts focus away from what actually matters — the things they have no intention of fixing, since doing so would hurt their own corrupt bottom line.

As a result, creativity and empathy get drowned out — by trauma responses on one end, and the pursuit of ease, perfection, and corruption on the other. Contradictions that seem lost on most people, leaving us with a final result that's utter slop.

So what would it take to get to that imagined world? I believe the first step is providing everyone access to the basics. Because despite what some might claim, everyone deserves — yes, I said deserves — good food, clean water, housing, universal healthcare (including mental and dental), and comprehensive disability accessibility, without gatekeeping. When you don't have to struggle to survive, battle trauma, or fight others' negative perceptions of you, your energy and focus go toward creativity and pursuing your own path instead of judging others. 

The second step is recognizing that the oligarchy actively campaigns for the status quo, pitting us against each other because they want us to believe these ideas are radical — when really, they're simply humanizing.

In the end, for the most part, we each want all of these things for ourselves; why not broaden our wishlist to include everyone?  With enough folx working toward this goal, we can place the blame squarely where it belongs, and absolutely achieve equity for all. 

Ready or not — our first day is Tuesday!  I am looking forward to welcoming the Crew back to an organized and (mostly) clean Center. (Digby is still shedding gobs and gobs of fluff!)  Stay tuned for the first week in photos.  

...currently in an educational environment that doesn't give them the freedom to explore their own interests and goals.

...feeling bored, anxious, or disenfranchised. Many have tried to make school work for them — in different ways, in different places — with similar results each time. School simply isn't for everyone.

...seeking a hands-on, interactive, and dynamic environment where they're free to be creative, imaginative, inventive, and curious — to explore, make mistakes, and get their feet wet, both figuratively and literally. A place to follow their dreams and spread their wings, surrounded by people who accept them as they are and support them unconditionally to grow into their authentic selves.
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If this describes your child, you can learn more about Deep Root Center by clicking here or contacting Maria.

It’s been another week of competing ideas battling inside my head — an attempt to tame and mesh my thoughts on compliance within the system, accusations of laziness, the misnomer of being “behind,” AI usage, and the widespread distrust of non-coercive, self-directed learning (the actual driver of the scientific method) into something cohesive, or at least readable.

In trying to reconcile what connects all these things, I realized they’re all part of a broader attempt to dumb down our society — and I’d argue it’s a complicity most don’t recognize for what it is.

But why would we want people dumber, you ask?

The reason is fairly simple: people who are less likely to think critically and problem-solve are easier to manipulate and control. We’re witnessing this phenomenon in real time.

My job is to recognize and gently break down resistance to anything new and different — to change itself — and, in the process, build an understanding of the dire importance of developing scientific literacy, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving skills, not only for each individual’s growth but for society at large.

That resistance shows up differently in every family I work with. Sometimes the catalyst for seeking an alternative is a child’s refusal to go to school, or their non-compliance while there; other times it’s a recognition that they are not being well served by public education.

Even when that’s the case, and parents seek us out, they often ask, “What if my child isn’t already self-directed, and we jump into a non-coercive educational model, and they just do nothing all day and end up behind?”

Yes, it drives me a little crazy every time I hear it. Nevertheless, this is a genuinely fair question, given our cultural obsession with obedience and our addiction to control. My frustration isn’t with the question itself — it’s that people don’t grasp what compliance costs them. When a child learns to defer to all the rules — from ridiculous dress codes that police young women and girls, to giving the correct answer without understanding the “how” or “why” — they lose out on the benefits of observation, inquiry, experimentation, and productive failure. In short, the foundational components of the scientific method and learning itself.

What parents often miss is that an anxious, stressed-out kid usually isn’t learning much of real value in a coercive system anyway, because they’re too busy avoiding punishment to engage with anything else. And kids notice: chasing rewards is what you do when you’re willing to make yourself smaller to fit in.

My typical response addresses two flawed assumptions incorporated into that question: that any child is unmotivated and lazy, and that our current educational system is the model to measure them against. First, there’s no such thing as doing nothing. Research shows our brains need downtime — not only to recover, but to “file” everything they’ve taken in. Sometimes that looks like shutdown, doomscrolling, or gaming. Other times it looks like unending sleep. Either way, the brain is always working in the background. Second, every individual is a brilliant natural learner with their own strengths, challenges, interests, and internal timeline — which means an artificial developmental schedule based on age and grade level makes zero sense. No child can be “behind.” They’re only ever on their own schedule.

Late-stage capitalism only compounds all these problems. Corporations seek the cheapest way to make a buck — or billions — for their shareholders. With regulations thrown out the window, corruption and systemic complacency within the culture of capitalism become the easiest route to that end.

This all means we’re not only significantly less safe, but also less able to have our voices heard. It shows up in the enormous uptick in food and pharmaceutical recalls over just the past few weeks because of relaxed or non-existent safety protocol, people contracting and dying from preventable diseases, as well as the frustratingly widespread corporate use of AI to handle things like customer service.

Sadly, last week, I too was caught up in a seemingly never-ending AI circle of hell involving a refrigerator that we had ordered. Fortunately, after hours of uncertainty as to where it really had been delivered (hint: it wasn’t in Canton), we finally got it nearly a week later—but that is a tale for another day. 

I don’t want to give the wrong impression: AI is not inherently bad. It’s simply another tool in our arsenal — one that, used wisely and ethically rather than out of negligence, fake creativity, or corruption, can be useful and even life-changing.

Which brings us back to the urgency of cultivating the ability to think for ourselves. 

It’s the theme that connects it all. We aren’t living in a vacuum: the powers that be have enabled an educational system that pigeonholes and demands obedience, corporations that fail basic safety standards and automate personal interactions for profit, and a culture that accepts and promotes corruption and mediocrity, while pitting us against each other. Together, they’re coaching us to be an exhausted, manipulated citizenry — people who fail to ask questions, look the other way, and compliantly nod in defeated acceptance.
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The fix isn’t complex, only potentially unpleasant. Trust is the fundamental mechanism. Every individual has an inherent desire to learn and grow, and it looks different for each of us. We are all natural-born scientists, and when consistently given the opportunity, we can make critical observations, ask questions, experiment, and solve problems creatively. It means understanding that AI is one more apparatus to use intentionally, not something meant to “think” or “create” for us. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel — it simply means refusing to surrender our agency to the oligarchs and billionaires who would prefer we shut up and follow their lead.

Only nine days to DRC’s opening day! This coming week, I will be cleaning the summer dust (and layers of Digby hair) that have accumulated so that our space is bright, shiny, and ready for tons of creative energy. 

We have several volunteers ready to go—but there is always room for more!

​If you would like to share a skill or talent with our members regularly or for a one-off, please get in touch or complete the volunteer form here. 

Open Enrollment:

It is not too late to join us, in fact our enrollment is open all year. We encourage you to reach out with questions about our programs. 

Beyond the obvious moral decay and erosion of empathy in this country, I find myself wondering why so few are addressing a deeper, more dangerous crisis: a failure of imagination and creativity.

You need look no further than the personal attacks, insidious rumors, and bigotry—xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, racism—hurled about in place of fresh, innovative ideas to see that originality is no longer prioritized. 

The readiness to instigate drama, nastiness, name-calling, and plain old bullying against those with an actual vision tells me everything I need to know. There's no genuine interest in anything beyond the self; only a willingness to grasp for power, spread fear-mongering propaganda and hate speech, and chase the long con of grift. Most tellingly, there's no real intellect behind it—no capacity for the kind of empathetic, inventive originality that can solve the challenges facing society. 
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I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about why we’ve reached this impasse. But given my criticism of our current White House and our educational system, you can probably guess where I land. 

In this TED Talk from several years ago, the late Sir Ken Robinson explains why a lack of creativity is so damaging to society as a whole. 

I believe we can emerge from this crisis stronger—more resilient to future attacks on progress and creative ingenuity. However, we first need to recognize the dangers of banality, hypocrisy, and the lack of imagination, and how they affect our ability as a society to prioritize progress. 

Creativity is not a luxury reserved for artists and inventors; it is the baseline for compassion, open minds, critical thinking, and change itself. Without it, we fall back to the familiar, the divisive, the fear-mongering and propaganda that require no imagination at all. If we want something different, we have to believe it is possible—and then find the determination and vision to create it, one person and one innovative idea at a time. And we must support those brave enough to step up and conceptualize a new way forward. 

Another quiet week at the Center—gearing up for the beginning of the academic year on September 8th.. 

Volunteer Opportunity
With summer coming to a close, are you looking for something that will keep you engaged and connected through the long, dark days of fall and winter?

Deep Root Center is seeking volunteers to share their talents, skills, and interests and facilitate projects and activities with our student members. This is an opportunity to build relationships and support our goal of community-driven education.

DRC is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday from 9-3. Our goal is to host one volunteer each day between the hours of 10-2. Beyond that, we are completely flexible and happy to work within your schedule.

Get in touch or find the volunteer form linked here.

We look forward to meeting you!

It is hard to believe that there are only a bit more than two weeks of summer break left! DRC opens on Tuesday, September 8th. In addition to in-person programming, we also provide homeschool consultation services.

​Reach out to [email protected] to learn more.

Note: I have too many competing thoughts swirling through my head this week to untangle and tame into something manageable.  Many of those ideas are a result of spending a good amount of time writing the introduction and the beginning of the first chapter of my book, as well as my everyday observations that run the gamut from the never-ending national nonsense to the back-to-school retail craze.

Therefore, instead of diving headfirst into the mental struggle of unraveling my ruminations, I decided to take a breather and share the first draft of the Introduction with you all this week. Yes, it is very much a draft. If you are willing, please send feedback.  Thanks!

I always knew all those years of essays were a treasure trove of nuggets that could, at some point, be turned into something more solid and tangible. This is the year I finally decided to start that process. I spent three months sorting them — post by post, month by month, year by year — into thirteen chapters that best capture the trajectory of my work. Now, it's time to put them all together.
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As I reviewed all those posts, I realized that the throughline has been my attempt to challenge and change culture — not just in the educational realm, but in every corner of our severely broken system. As a trained anthropologist, perhaps that focus should come as no surprise. It only took reading through hundreds of posts to see that a good portion of them belonged in the "changing culture” chapter, and why the subtitle emphasizes that point.

Each chapter begins with a newly written introduction to its theme. Italicized and indented (This format won’t allow me to indent, so I set them apart with dividers.) excerpts from posts that speak to that topic are then woven throughout the body of the chapter, each with its title and original publication date, as in the example above. 

Thank you again for joining me on this look back at my personal growth and the creation of Deep Root Center — a place where kids are not coerced, but encouraged to follow their interests and curiosity, get creative, experiment, make messes, think critically, solve problems, and become their authentic selves. As mentioned in a later chapter, this isn't a utopia — but in my opinion, it's a hundred times better than a coercive, compulsory system that leaves so many kids struggling and unhappy.

As stated, I spent time this week writing the book, as well as talking to kids to create their homeschooling plans.  I also spent a few enjoyable hours at the Canton Farmers Market on Friday talking to folx about DRC.  

DRC Philosophy
Deep Root Center adheres to seven guiding principles as articulated by Ken Danford of North Star, the OG Liberated Learners Center in Sunderland, MA. This week’s social media posts highlighted three of them. For reference, you can find all seven here.

​DRC's tagline speaks to the sixth principle.
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Principle #6: We should mostly strive to “make possible” rather than “make sure.”
Most of the time, adults working with young people can’t truly make sure that young people learn any particular thing – learning just doesn’t work that way. A group of adults can decide that all fifth graders should learn fractions, but when it comes to each child’s genuine understanding and retention, we can’t actually make it happen or guarantee that it will happen. As adults, what we can do, however, is try to make things possible for young people – provide access, offer opportunity, figure out what kind of support will be most helpful, and do whatever we can to help navigate the challenges and problems that arise.

The second principle recognizes that school is optional. And even though it may sound provocative, it simply means that school is not the only place where learning happens; additionally, it is not always the best environment for everyone.
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Principle #2: Learning happens everywhere.
Conventional wisdom says that children “go to school to learn,” as though learning can only occur in places specially designed for that purpose. We believe that people learn all the time and in all kinds of places. It doesn’t have to look like school or feel like school to be valuable, and it’s not necessary to make distinctions between “schoolwork” and “your own hobbies” or “for credit” and “not for credit.” To answer a frequently asked question: "yes, everything counts!"

The first principle is based on the very real understanding that learning is natural.
Principle #1: Young people want to learn.
Human beings are learning creatures. We don’t have to persuade babies to be curious and to seek competence and understanding. The same can be true of youth. Rather than trying to motivate them, we support their basic human drive to learn and grow...

Open Enrollment
If you think DRC may be the place where your child can thrive, get in touch today. We are scheduling appointments to talk and visit for the last few weeks before the academic year starts—it will be here before you know it! Our opening day is Sept. 8th. After that, my days will be full, and it may be a bit harder to schedule a meeting. 

Recently, I've seen a flurry of educational professionals complaining and commiserating about the proliferation of cheating—specifically the surge in AI usage. I understand their frustration and commiserate with the challenges of the classroom in this era of technological advances.

Sadly, this is a continuation of the same old lament about the younger generation's inherent laziness, only now it includes their tendency to be bored and uninspired by anything that isn't digitized and built specifically for their entertainment.

Let's address the elephant in the room. I don't believe AI is the issue, nor are screens, the students, or the teachers. Unfortunately, they're all caught up in a system that's working exactly as designed, and it's failing our kids, as well as the educators who spend vast amounts of time and take great care to prepare classrooms and lessons.

Students are fed information and then rewarded for correct answers, not for their natural curiosity or their ability to think creatively to solve problems. Everything is pre-chewed, condensed, and canned for their consumption. They're not allowed to follow the joy of experimentation and making mistakes. So, when avoiding sticks and chasing carrots are the drivers of the current methodology, isn't it fairly obvious they'll use AI or whatever else gets them to the correct answer? Self-motivation is abandoned for preservation and compliance. 

When you hear that critical thinking and problem-solving are extinct, and laziness is on the rise, you only have to look as far as the system that's raising our children.
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To be clear, AI usage and cheating are not failures that can be attributed solely to students or educational professionals—they're massive indictments of the system itself. I'm in no way suggesting there's an easy "fix." However, if we want different behavior from our kids, we have to build a system that rewards curiosity, creativity, and a willingness to play, experiment, and potentially get it wrong, rather than conformity and obedience.

It has been another quiet week at DRC. I spent time consulting with families on homeschool documentation and meeting with DRC members to create their plans for the coming year. 

I have also completed sorting all the blog posts. The next step is writing the introduction!

Volunteer Opportunity
We are still seeking volunteers for this coming year. If you have a skill or talent that you are excited to share with our youth, please get in touch or complete the volunteer application here.

What do we mean when we say "explore the possibilities"?
It's not just a tagline. Those simple words hold the potential and promise of opportunities that emerge when students and adults alike are given explicit permission to follow their curiosity, get creative, make mistakes and the resulting messes, think critically, solve problems, and discover their authentic selves. 

Imagine being known as the rudest person in town. I cringe to think that anyone would willingly claim that identity—someone who moves through life with a sense of entitlement, always on the offensive, talking down to people they see as "beneath" them, generally behaving badly. And yet I know these people exist, because I've met a few, out there in the wild making life miserable for everyone around them.

I sometimes worry that my neurospicy, blunt, occasionally snarky comments might come across as disrespectful. But my internal people-pleasing chaperone is usually on duty, guarding every gesture, remark, and observation to ensure I come across as pleasant, witty, and respectful—even when I'm exhausted, stressed, overwhelmed, or angry.

These thoughts harken back to "Is It a Mask?", the post from two weeks ago. Is my people-pleasing chaperone holding up a mask that disguises my authentic self? Honestly, I don't think so.
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Even though I despise conflict, I'll stand up for myself and for others who need my support whenever it's necessary. Still, I always try to remain polite in those interactions while staying focused on what I actually want to achieve. 

These are the attributes I model for the young people I spend my days with. I want them to know I will always have their back. But sometimes I need to be direct and call a spade a spade—especially when behaviors are over the top and affecting others. They know I'll call it out, because I can't believe anyone actually wants to go through life known as the jerk (feel free to insert the less PC version) trashing everyone and everything they encounter.  

I want them to understand that their reputation matters. It shapes not only how other people see them, but more broadly, how they're able to positively contribute to their community and make it better. Alongside that, I want them to know that they can (and will) absolutely make mistakes—as long as they acknowledge them and work hard to make amends. 

That perfectly defines my goal: sending young people into the world who are known for their kindness, flexibility, and curiosity, a willingness to own their errors, to speak up for change when it's needed, and a readiness to use their creative problem-solving skills to make those changes happen—no matter how small they may seem.  

I am very happy to report a quiet week with no crises or other craziness at DRC. This is the time of year when I meet with student members and our many homeschool consultees, mostly by phone, to discuss specific information about what they want to study or accomplish this year so I can write their IHIPs.  I made a good head start on that this past week. 

Book Project
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I am slowly making headway on turning my blog posts into a book.  I have reviewed 10 years' worth and sorted them into their chapters; only three years to go! Once that process is finished, I can begin the actual writing and deciding how each of the posts fits into its assigned chapter. An actual finished book is a long way off, but I will be happy to move on from this tedious part to the point where I can begin to visualize it and use my creative energies. At some point, I will be looking for folx to give it a first read and offer feedback. Let me know if you are interested in helping. 

We currently have six volunteers lined up for this coming year, but would love to have several more to round out our schedule. Get in touch if you are interested in sharing your skill, talent, or general interests with young people eager to learn. Please share this opportunity with anyone in your network you think might be willing to help out.  The commitment is flexible; let us know what works best for you.  You can also complete the volunteer form here.

DRC is here for anyone who wants to join us. Get in touch if you think this may be the place for your child. Or learn more here.

One of the main lessons I've learned over my lifetime—but especially over the last twelve and a half years of running a not-for-profit—is the importance of staying flexible. Sh*t happens when you least expect it. Plans fall through, people don't behave as you anticipated, or a tree falls on the power line in your front yard. Sometimes it's as innocuous as an idea that just needs tweaking. This is why I'm always in creative brainstorming mode; nothing is ever finished in my mind. Everything is up for revision or total revamping—even if that means starting from scratch.

But flexibility and problem-solving aren't always innate, especially for those of us who are neuro-spicy and prefer things predictable, steady, and unchanging. Still, I fully believe these are learnable skills—necessary ones, even, because life can throw major screwballs, and the ability to navigate the resulting chaos makes everything a little easier.

So how do we acquire flexibility when it doesn't come naturally? Everyone's path is different, but I'd say openness to new ideas and the self-confidence to pursue them are key. I'm not saying it's easy to shift your mindset from stuck to receptive. But you can train yourself to notice how you react in those "oh sh*t" moments. Instead of accepting the inevitable and feeling defeated, you can treat them as opportunities to get creative and make change. Like anything, it takes practice—and eventually it becomes locked in, habitual.

Again, I'm not suggesting this mental shift is simple. But it's an exercise worth practicing. My perspective is that every adversity comes with possibility, even when that possibility isn't visible at the outset.

At the core of my personal educational philosophy is the belief that most things can't be explicitly taught—that knowledge and understanding don't come from being talked at, or from the abstract. They come from an equitable exchange between learner and mentor (or facilitator), one that offers individual support through modeling and hands-on practice. Each person learns something from the other.
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These are the relationships I strive to build every day. Learning together, inside a supportive community, is powerful—with the potential to change perspectives and, in turn, lives. 

This week’s blog was inspired by events of this week.  On Wednesday morning, I expected a calm day of admin work; instead, I awoke to find a notification from the  DRC security camera app that showed a video of a Canton police officer knocking on the door at 3:03 am!  As you can imagine, all the scenarios ran through my head. Then, as I was almost to town at 6:40 am, another notification came in showing a second Canton officer at the door. 

I quickly discovered why when I turned into the driveway and found a huge tree down, its top branches hung up on the power line. After several phone calls, the last one to 911 with the message that it wasn’t a huge emergency, someone from the Canton FD stopped by to determine that it was, in fact, resting on the power line to the house and that the main breaker in the house should be shut off. (He kindly did that for me.) He also called National Grid to report it. 

NG showed up along with a tree service. They made quick work of the tree, cleared the driveway, and even cut down other potentially hazardous branches.

​I am deeply grateful that the tree didn’t come down on the Center and that there are skilled people in our community trained to take care of these kinds of emergencies efficiently. 

Other Ways to Support Deep Root Center

Our Amazon Wishlist is filled with things we use every day to support hands-on learning, including art supplies, kitchen equipment, and household necessities. You can purchase items that you think will be the most helpful, and they will be sent directly to our door. Thank you!

Donations and Sponsorships help us keep our promise to accept any child who wants to join us. 

​Or you can order original DRC swag from our Printify shop.

Open Enrollment
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Is school no longer working for your child? Are you looking for an alternative? Deep Root Center is school reimagined, and it might be what you are looking for.
Contact us to learn more.

One evening this past week, at a social gathering, I reconnected with an old acquaintance I hadn't seen in a year. We talked for a while, and at one point the subject of communications and theater came up. They were under the impression that I'm someone who regularly and easily puts herself out there, with no shyness in evidence. I hastily and vehemently denied that label and voiced my intense introversion. They were aghast. For the nearly twenty years we've known each other, they were convinced I'm an extrovert. Of course, they've never seen the me that goes home and crashes from the weight of social interaction, needing a few days to recover.

This interaction got me thinking more deeply about how I present to the wider world. As someone who didn't understand I am neurospicy (AuDHD) until well into my sixth decade—at age 57—I have always been overly conscious of how I'm viewed, both in public and more broadly as a human being. I always attributed my drive to appear uber competent, capable, skilled, creative, witty, smart, and never an inconvenience to being the eldest daughter of four (and a Scorpio); being all of those things has felt ingrained since the moment of my birth. The contradictory piece is that I also want to be invisible. I don't want to be perceived at all.

So the question becomes: have I been masking my authentic self all these years? Is it all performative, or am I really what I present to the world? Is that the real me? If it isn't, I've certainly got people fooled—myself included. The answer gets muddied by the understanding that I need—actually crave—that solitary space to be alone with my thoughts and ideas. Disappearing into my sanctuary is when I'm most comfortable; there's no pressure to be that very long list of perfection.

Or are all the contradictions just my spicy neurology, defined?

Maybe that's the truest answer I have right now: I'm not one or the other. I'm not only the capable version people see out in the world, and I'm not only the depleted, needs-to-disappear version who spends the days after recovering from it. I'm both, running on the same circuitry, powered by the same brain that spent fifty-seven years compensating without knowing it had a name for what it was doing.

I don't think I've been trying to fool anyone. I think I've been doing exactly what I was built to do—performing competence because it kept me emotionally safe, then retreating because retreat is what let me keep performing. The mask and the face underneath it aren't as separate as I once believed. At some point, worn long enough, the mask becomes the authentic.
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So I'll stop asking which one is real. They both are. The confident persona they remember and the self-contained person I know myself to be were never in competition—they were just two settings on the same dial, doing their best to get me through a world that wasn't built with my wiring in mind. That's not a contradiction to resolve. That's just what spicy neurology looks like, up close, defined.

More fully understanding this quandary within myself can only help me support young people who are questioning their own authenticity and what it means to show up for themselves—and to hold empathy and kindness for others along the way.

It has been another quiet week of admin work and continued sorting of old blog posts. Once again, it included a medical appointment on Friday, when I had a laser treatment on my second eye to reduce the pressure.  I also learned that my shoulder surgery won’t be until well into the fall—I won’t know the specific date until September. 

Volunteer Opportunity
We are still looking for 6-8 more volunteers who would be excited to share their skills, talents, and knowledge with our student members for 2 days each month. 

This is an opportunity to build relationships with our youth and help them discover new ideas and fields of interest. If this is something you would like to explore, get in touch, or find the link to the volunteer application here. Please share this opportunity with your network. Thanks!

DRC in the Community

In early 2016, Jake R., a DRC student member, enjoyed a bit of local (and nearly national) fame for his invention, the Posibot, when we held an exciting formal installation in the upstairs lobby of the Canton Free Library on January 12, which the Watertown Daily Times documented.

Jake created Posibot with others in mind. It is a contraption made from an old desktop computer tower and other assorted recycled materials. A notepad sits in a holder on top, where people can write an inspiring or kind message and slide it into a slot on the side. When someone wants to take one of the messages, they can open the door in front and grab one from the basket inside.

For over ten years, Posibot has been an institution at the library. As the librarians have reported, it has brought joy to everyone who has participated in writing or receiving Posibot messages. I've met parents who say their kids insist on visiting Posibot every time they come to the library.

The other day, after checking out my books, Sam the librarian told me this may be the end of the run for Posibot. He's a little worse for wear. Thankfully, Sam and the other librarians have performed maintenance over the past ten years, but poor Posibot now needs a complete makeover.

I hope that some DRC student members will take on this makeover project in the fall-stay tuned! We will keep you updated.

The sunk cost fallacy refers to decisions driven by the amount already invested in something—whether money, time, or personal commitment—even when abandoning it would be the better choice. This "something" can be a project, a purchase, a social construct, or even a relationship. When I looked up the definition of the sunk cost fallacy, every source described it as an instance of irrational decision-making.

This can be found in the impulsive purchases that don't work as advertised, don't solve the problem you expected them to, or turn out to be one more thing you didn't really need, as well as in the mindsets and choices around political ideology, relationships, or education that no longer work for you. It happens to all of us; emotion drives your brain to ignore reality, and you continue to invest energy in the decision. Even though your stance is making your life harder, your heels are dug in, and rational arguments won't change your mind — this is the sunk cost fallacy in action.

I see this not only in the political arena of NoCo, but in the unwillingness to jump ship from traditional school when that model is clearly not working for a child. In some cases, it's because parents have never heard of self-directed learning or "unschooling"; in others, they're so deeply indoctrinated into the current system that they don't view anything else as valid.

Unfortunately, as with most things, in my experience, it's only when the child is in true crisis that parents are willing to cut their losses and break with cultural norms to give it a try. I cannot gloss over the trauma caused by this delayed decision-making. We meet some kids who are either completely shut down or, on the opposite end, belligerent and disrespectful. Sadly, in a few cases, it's simply too late for us to have any positive impact; the damage is beyond our capabilities, and those instances break my heart every damn time. 


When you're in the depths of a sunk cost fallacy, it doesn't seem like there's a logical way forward. So, how do we avoid this pitfall, not only in this example but in every case? I'd suggest that awareness is probably the first step. Every step after that involves the willingness to let go of the feelings that have been driving your decisions, so you can open your mind and think rationally. Once you can do that, the clouds obscuring the other available options will lift, and you'll see them more clearly as the exciting possibilities they are.

None of this means the path forward is easy. Letting go of a stance you've defended, a system you've trusted, or a plan you've poured years into requires a kind of courage that rational argument alone can't provide. But the sooner you can name what's happening — to recognize the sunk cost fallacy for what it is — the sooner you reclaim the ability to choose based on what's actually best, rather than what you've already spent. The investment is gone either way. What's still within your control is everything that comes next. 

It has been another quiet week of admin work at the Center. Once again, it included a medical appointment - this time, with the eye doctor in Watertown. 

Pay-What-You-Can Policy

For anyone who has been considering choosing Deep Root Center as an educational option but has hesitated because of the membership fees, the DRC Pay-What-You-Can Policy is designed to eliminate financial inaccessibility. Our promise to work with any family who needs our services is our commitment to our community.

Get in touch if you think DRC may be right for your child, or visit our website.

Can you help?
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We are looking toward the 26/27 academic year and are seeking 8-10 volunteers who are excited to share their skills, talents, and knowledge with our student members for 2 days each month.

This is an opportunity to build relationships with our youth and help them discover new ideas and fields of interest. If this is something you would like to explore, get in touch, or find the link to the volunteer application here.
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These are a few of the fields we would be keen to include in our programming:

While struggling to figure out what to write this week, I realized I hadn't revisited my old blog posts in a while. Rereading the piece below made me think more deeply about how we grossly underrate the importance of supporting kids to be happy — of letting them feel satisfied with themselves, rather than feeling like they've disappointed everyone in their lives, including themselves. If anything, this problem has only grown worse in the ten years since I first wrote it.
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Many will blame technology for the crisis we find ourselves in. We're told kids are too connected to their devices and not connected enough to real life. But along with Dr. Peter Gray, I'll argue that the real driver of this unhappiness isn't screens — it's that we don't allow kids to be competent. We rush them along, force-feed them information, and rescue them the moment they struggle, leaving them no room to discover what they're actually capable of. They aren't allowed to follow their curiosity, play, make mistakes, and figure things out for themselves. That's the real crisis: we're raising a generation of kids who aren't just unhappy, but less able to find their place in the world. 

What Happens When Kids Are Given the Chance to Be Happy?
2/14/16
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No, this isn't the setup to a joke every five-year-old has in their repertoire, nor is it rhetorical. It's one of the many questions we should be asking ourselves every day. What, indeed, can happen when a child is not coerced, controlled, diagnosed, criticized, punished, bullied, antagonized, shamed, manipulated, or afraid to simply be themselves? 

What if we celebrated differences instead of pathologizing them? What if every child was offered choices instead of directives and ultimatums? What if every student was honored instead of patronized? What if kids were given the space to struggle and learn from their mistakes instead of being reprimanded for making them? What if we revered cooperation over competition? What if we expected equality and justice, not entitlement? What if education became a conversation instead of a lecture? What if flexibility replaced rigidity? What if a young person's ideas and interests were affirmed instead of dismissed? What if no decision a young person made was born of desperation? What would our planet look like if every young person were free to follow their own spirit of independence?

I will argue, quite strenuously, as usual, that we would discover a world filled with people who are creative, intelligent, curious and interesting, witty, empathetic, emotionally healthy, funny, talented, generous, wise, passionate, intuitive, compassionate, resilient, imaginative, courageous, honest, real, ingenious, ethical, hardworking, dedicated, intrinsically motivated, out-of-the-box thinkers — people committed to ensuring others have that same chance to simply be happy.

This is where my work begins — helping young people to welcome challenges, ask the hard questions, prioritize play, discover their passions, and, in the process, discover just how capable they truly are.

It was a quiet week at the Center, interspersed with medical appointments and a visit to The Wild Center to see the Trolls. I spent my days focused on collecting info from families (both consultation and in-person) to write the quarterly reports due on the 30th.  

​If you have not had the opportunity to see the Trolls at The Wild Center, I highly recommend you go. We borrowed passes from the Canton Library and only paid $10 each.  Thank you to our library for offering one more valuable service to the community!

Volunteer Opportunity

As we look ahead to the 2026–27 academic year, Deep Root Center is expanding our hands-on projects and activities for student members — and we need your help to make it happen.
We're looking for passionate people who are eager to share their skills and enthusiasm with young learners. This is a meaningful opportunity to be part of a vibrant, community-driven space where youth and adults come together to explore, discover, and grow.

If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you! Reach out to [email protected] or complete the volunteer application linked here.

Defining DRC
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The best way to describe self-directed learning is to show it in action. At DRC, kids engage in projects and activities guided by their own interests, whether individually or as a group. We aren't confined to "canned" lessons dictated by some nebulous, pre-determined curriculum. This is what allows us to stay flexible and open to any idea that arises at any point during the day.

Learning here is organic and natural — not forced into a one-size-fits-all mold. We're more interested in the long game: fostering growth and the independence that comes with it.

Learn more about our programs by visiting our website.

No one likes a bully — or so the saying goes. Yet here we are, surrounded by them. When they’re called out, we’re met with intimidation tactics, gaslighting, and the familiar deflections: “I was just joking,” “Can’t you take a joke?” or “Why are you even asking that?” — along with whatever slurs and put-downs follow. 
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I firmly believe we find ourselves in this crisis of moral decay because bullies are now fully emboldened by the grifter-in-chief (and his enablers) — the con artist who plays the tough guy, the “big man” who has lied his way through life. He mistreats anyone who refuses to do his bidding, latches onto whatever trend promises him adulation, power, (safety from consequences), and brazenly defies any authority that dares to rein him in. The message it sends is clear: if he can get away with it, so can anyone else bold (man) enough to try.

So why this post, why today? This past week, I spent an entire night composing an opening paragraph in my head — because I am fed up with the blatant hypocrisy of this cult. (Once again, obsessively trying to solve problems in my sleep. The blessings of a neuro-spicy brain.) Their blindness to anything beyond the falsehoods they’re fed daily, their inability to think critically beyond what serves this cult of personality — it is equal parts baffling and infuriating. Which, in a roundabout way, is exactly why I’m writing this.
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These followers claim to be tough on crime — “Back the Blue” — yet when it’s one of their own facing charges, they close ranks, fight the case, and then demand apologies and reparations. Their crusades against trans and LGBTQ people, immigrants, women’s rights, and basic, proven scientific concepts are unrelenting. And yet, as has been well established, every condemnation from this crowd is, more often than not, an admission.

These are the same people who cheered loudest when DOGE made drastic, life-endangering cuts across the board in the name of eliminating government excess. Yet the staggering amounts of federal funding being funneled into vanity projects, unnecessary conflicts, and a mounting pile of lawsuits — all at the regime’s personal whim — go entirely without condemnation. The hypocrisy isn’t just glaring. It’s indefensible.
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Much has been said about what makes someone susceptible to radicalization — to being drawn into a cult. Isolation is often cited: a lack of genuine community connection leaves people vulnerable, open to any group that offers belonging. I believe that. But I also think these movements attract people who already carry a predilection for bullying, along with the phobias and prejudices that come with it — people who are simply relieved to finally find their people.

And yet, many of them would never apply those labels to themselves. They don’t see themselves as bullies, racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, xenophobes, or science deniers. They simply hold — as they’d put it — a particular point of view. “Why can’t we agree to disagree?”

Because when your beliefs put other human beings at risk, disagreement is no longer a matter of preference. It’s a matter of consequence. 
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When faced with a challenge of this magnitude, my first instinct is always the same: How can I help?

I can’t fix this at a macro level. I have little power over how a bully moves through the world. But I can help one kid at a time feel a little less alone. I can build — and fiercely protect — a community where diversity and trust are the foundation.

And most importantly, I can model the world I want to live in: one where empathy, acceptance, kindness, respect, and critical thinking aren’t radical acts — they’re simply how we show up for each other as the wildly different people we are. 

DRC participated in the Spirit Faire in Norwood yesterday. It was great to chat with folx and listen to my husband, Mike Corse, play some awesome music with his friends Christopher Raymo and Lorna Zvingilas on our 34th(!) Anniversary. 

Volunteer Opportunity
As we look ahead to the 2026–27 academic year, Deep Root Center is expanding our hands-on projects and activities for student members — and we need your help to make it happen.

We're looking for passionate people who are eager to share their skills and enthusiasm with young learners. This is a meaningful opportunity to be part of a vibrant, community-driven space where youth and adults come together to explore, discover, and grow.
​
If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you! Reach out to [email protected] or complete the volunteer application by clicking the volunteer button.

DRC Swag
Did you know that Deep Root Center has a Printify Shop with original designs, and all proceeds go toward our programs?

Grab either of the newly updated "Jump in and Explore graphics," available in v-neck, crew-neck, and hoodie styles, in both adult and child sizes.

You will also find a variety of other original designs that celebrate Deep Root Center in our storefront.

At the heart of self-directed education lies a commitment to lifelong learning: the practice of following curiosity wherever it leads, exploring unfamiliar ideas, and continually weaving new discoveries into a rich, personal body of knowledge.

Last week, I had the opportunity to take another deep dive into the learner-centered world of alternative education, alongside colleagues and well-known professionals, at the AERO Conference (Alternative Education Resource Organization) in Manchester, NH — and not surprisingly, I came away with fresh insights.

There were definite highlights. Spending time with my Peeps — the folx from the Liberated Learners network — was number one. These are the people who get it; they're intimate with the joys, frustrations, and the whole spectrum of emotions that come with running a non-coercive, self-directed learning center. They fully understand why I pour so much energy into building and growing Deep Root Center, because they do the same at their Centers. There's really no other way to explain it except to say: they're my Peeps.

A close second was once again meeting and listening to one of my heroes, Dr. Peter Gray, developmental psychologist and author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life — speaking about his forthcoming book, Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety, releasing this September. Yes, I have my copy pre-ordered!  And, I look forward to the next time I have the privilege to see Dr. Gray and have him sign it, like my treasured copy of Free to Learn.  I can’t encourage you enough to subscribe to his Substack to receive regular essays that center on his work around the value of play in children’s lives. 

Along with those highlights, the conference featured several keynotes and breakout sessions. Two had the most impact, both because they made me challenge what I thought I knew about myself and about self-directed education.

The first, led by Kim Swaffield, M.Ed., explored the balance between structure and freedom in educational settings. I generally bristle at the word structure, even though my autistic brain craves the safety of routine. I'd always viewed structure as rigid, coercive, inflexible, and uncompromising, something that is the antithesis of the freedom we offer at DRC. What I learned is that structure can also look like loving guidelines and skill-building scaffolding — the kind that offers the essential sense of safety all kids crave. And, to my utter astonishment, I realized those are things we already do at Deep Root Center. 

On the last day, I attended a breakout session by David Brown titled "Rebuilding Coherence: Designing Schools Where Belonging, Agency, and Rigor Align." After introducing himself, he asked us to define those three words as they relate to our personal views, in terms of education.  I think he expected the word rigor to stir up some conflicted thinking in this predominantly self-directed learning crowd — and we didn't disappoint during the discussion portion of the session.

Upon reflection, I realized that the discomfort and challenges I felt during both of these sessions traced back to how I define, or think about, specific words. 

My first instinct was to define rigor negatively. In my mind, it is a buzzword used in coercive educational settings — shorthand for making things harder than they need to be just to satisfy some nebulous standard, and for forcing people to do things they don't want to do.

Once I got past that initial hit of negativity, I pushed myself to think about rigor differently. I eventually landed on a definition where rigor is a way for self-directed learners to take charge of their own educational experience and seek out challenges that help them grow. In other words, I placed the responsibility on the individual, not on outside forces. Others in the room framed it positively too, but located the responsibility a bit differently — placing it on the instructor and the learning environment to create a space where individuals are then motivated to embrace rigor themselves.

The consensus was that embracing rigor can only happen when someone feels a sense of belonging and agency. Those two things don't happen in a vacuum, and they certainly don't happen in a coercive setting — they simply can't be forced. Most people feel they belong and have agency because the environment and the people in it invite them in as they are, and welcome them to simply be themselves. 

Which brings us full circle back to my original argument: it's only when someone feels safe, fully supported, and at ease with their own quirks that they're able to explore those awkward, uncomfortable places — to challenge themselves, ask questions, seek out fresh ideas, and embrace vulnerability (which, spoiler alert, does not come naturally for me and is definitely a topic for another day) — and find new ways to grow. In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson, another hero of mine, "My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily, then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.”

I left the conference with more questions than I arrived with — which, I've come to understand, is exactly the point. Lifelong learning was never about arriving at fixed answers; it's about staying curious enough to keep digging, even when what you unearth challenges the assumptions you walked in with. My three days at AERO didn't just reaffirm what I already believed about self-directed education — it cracked open new ways of thinking about structure, freedom, rigor, belonging, and agency, and how they all work together rather than against each other. I'm returning to Deep Root Center with a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the work we do, and with renewed gratitude for my Peeps, my heroes, and the colleagues who pushed me to think harder.

​That, in the end, for me, is what a personal body of knowledge is built from: not certainty, but the willingness to keep weaving new threads in, and ultimately to better serve all the young people who walk through our door.  

volunteeAs we look ahead to the 2026–27 academic year, Deep Root Center is expanding our hands-on projects and activities for student members — and we need your help to make it happen.

We're looking for passionate people who are eager to share their skills and enthusiasm with young learners. This is a meaningful opportunity to be part of a vibrant, community-driven space where youth and adults come together to explore, discover, and grow.
​
If this sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you! Reach out to [email protected] or complete the volunteer application by clicking the volunteer button.

I took one photo while at the conference. Not surprisingly, it was of the panel of inspiring teens from North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens and Bay State Learning Center, representing the Liberated Learners Network. Thank you to them and to Ken Danford, founder of North Star, for moderating the lively, informative conversation. 

As mentioned above, it was wonderful to reconnect with a good number of folx from the Liberated Learners Network,  whom I have not seen in two years. ​ We always have so much to catch up on; our time together is never long enough. We actually discussed visiting other Centers during the year and possible student exchanges. 

Other ways to help:
We rely on our wider community to keep the doors open so we can support all of the local youth who choose Deep Root Center. 

•  Straight Donations - one-time or recurring
• Sponsorships
  
•  Purchase items from our Amazon Wishlist

Did you know that some flat earth conspiracy theorists believe not only that the 1969 moon landing was faked, but that the Challenger disaster never happened — that those seven astronauts are out there somewhere living entirely different lives? 

When I learned that, it got me thinking about a piece I came across recently, a video or essay — I can no longer remember which — that examined the nature of stupidity. I've since tried to track it down, but without knowing the author or creator, it's effectively lost to me. It wasn't concerned with intelligence in the conventional sense. Instead, it focused on something more specific: the absence of imagination, a rigid mindset with the inability to think critically or creatively, and the failure to solve even straightforward problems. What struck me most was its portrait of the stupid person as an inherent follower — someone who cannot, or will not, think independently, and who clings to their beliefs even when confronted with plain evidence to the contrary.

The piece obviously made an impression. But I left it frustrated. It dwelt on the pathology of stupidity rather than turning the lens around and describing what genuine intelligence actually looks like. I understand it was built for a specific purpose, and it served that purpose well. I just wish it had done so by illuminating the positive rather than autopsying the negative.

Intelligence isn't simply the opposite of stupidity. It isn't only a high IQ, or the ability to memorize facts, ace a test, or follow instructions without deviation. It is something far more alive than any of those things.

Authentic intelligence is — in no particular order and not exhaustive:

• Admitting when you're wrong and apologizing when you've caused harm.
• Seeing problems not as obstacles but as puzzles worth solving.
• Understanding that the best way to learn something is to jump in, make mistakes, get messy, and try again, while exploring all of the possibilities.
• Knowing that learning is not a performance — it's a natural, lifelong process.
• Standing firmly in your authenticity without using it as a license for bad behavior.
• Possessing profound observational skills and insatiable curiosity, and having the courage to ask questions.
• The ability to take in new information, change your mind, and grow.
• Realizing that there are a multitude of learning styles and no one way is the correct way.
• Caring deeply about the earth and every living thing on it.
• Having humility and meeting others with empathy and kindness rather than judgment.
• Understanding that a learning disability does not diminish intelligence — and that using tools, strategies, and hacks to accomplish something is not cheating. It's resourcefulness.
• Recognizing that intelligence itself is wildly diverse, and that all forms of diversity are a strength.

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Many of the creative, curious, bright, and compassionate students who walk through our doors arrive carrying a deep and mistaken certainty that they are somehow less — because they can't sit still in a classroom, because their handwriting is a mess, because reading for comprehension feels like a battle, because math concepts seem written in another language, because memorizing anything feels impossible. They've been told, both directly and through the quiet cruelty of being dismissed, that something is wrong with them. 
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Our job is to dismantle that belief — with compassion, with affirmation, and by modeling what genuine intelligence actually looks like. When students begin to see themselves clearly, there is nothing they cannot do.

Summer Hours - by appointment only. 
Maria will be in and out of the Center all summer. 
​Please contact her to schedule an appointment to talk by phone or meet at the Center. 315-323-1435 (text or call) or [email protected]

At the river otter presentation, that same teen positioned himself right in front of the naturalist, absorbing every fact and again answering questions with far more detail than I imagined she was expecting. Another of our teens spoke up confidently when the presenter quizzed the large group of onlookers — no hesitation, no prompting needed.​​

Moments like these don't happen because someone planned them. They happen because these kids have been given the time, the space, and the trust to follow their own curiosity — and on Friday, that curiosity led them straight into the heart of everything The Wild Center had to offer. That, in a nutshell, is why we do what we do.

When asked to describe the young people who actively choose DRC, my answer is always the same: they are excited to be here. They arrive curious and creative, eager to explore every possibility, and hungry to spread their wings and chase their dreams. Some arrive unsure, withdrawn, buried under layers of hurt — but the spark is there. It simply needs the right conditions to find its way to the surface and ignite.

The adults here exist for one purpose — to create those conditions, and to champion every adventure and discovery that follows.

But there is one lesson we have learned, time and again: choosing DRC as a last resort — because a parent demands it, or because every other door is shut — is no foundation to build on. It will always fail.  And still, every single time, I hope — and every single time, my heart gets broken by reality. 

This is one of the reasons we built a month-long trial period into our membership process. But if I am being completely honest, we sometimes see the signs and choose to look away — because hope is a hard thing to set down, even when wisdom says you should.

This week, I am revisiting a post from ten years ago that speaks to this very topic — and polishing it now, I find it as true and as necessary as the day I wrote it. 

Offering Opportunities and Honoring Decisions
2/8/2016
Thank you for indulging my storytelling instincts as I share two moments from this past week — small in scale, but perfect in what they reveal about the heart of what we do here.

On Monday morning, a student who had been enrolled to audit a college class came to me with three words I wasn't expecting: "I want to withdraw.”

Honestly, my heart sank. I had quietly cast her as DRC's pioneer at SUNY Canton — blazing a trail for future students, opening doors, all of that. The story I had written for her was already half-finished in my head.

Then she kept talking.

​She explained that after honestly and carefully weighing every factor — including the very real possibility of disappointing me and her family — she had concluded that she belongs here, at the Center, working alongside the other kids, deep in her hands-on projects. She loves the horse farm and her mentor there. And as a sophomore, she has already pored over the catalogs and websites of colleges with equine programs — while leaving open the possibility that college may not be her immediate next step at all.

How could I possibly be upset? She had done exactly what I have always encouraged her to do. The process she followed — honest, thorough, entirely her own — is self-directed learning. There is no purer example of it.

I have enjoyed a quiet Spring Break.  Stay tuned for photos of next week’s return to exploits and shenanigans. We only have six weeks left before we say goodbye for this academic year.  Another one flew by in the blink of an eye!