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.