Unschool Adventures Trip Leaders
Blake Boles
Director, International Trip Leader,
and Leadership Trainer
Ag Age 27
Blake first adventured abroad as age 13 during a month-long homestay in Chile (with virtually no Spanish under his belt!). Since then he has traveled widely across North America, South America, and Europe, with dreams to explore the Himalaya next.
Blake got involved in the world of alternative education in 2003, when half-way through an astrophysics major he read a John Taylor Gatto book. He is the author of College Without High School, an advisor at Not Back to School Camp, and the former acting Director of Deer Crossing Wilderness Camp (from which he brings five years of experience running an intensive teen leadership program). Blake is trained in both urban and wilderness emergency medicine, and he is a Red Cross CPR Instructor, Wilderness First Aid Instructor, Lifeguard, and UC Berkeley graduate.
Visit Blake's personal site at blakeboles.com.
Previous trips: Argentina 2008, NaNoWriMo 2009, Australia 2010, Spring Retreat 2010
Cameron Lovejoy
Leadership Mentor
Age 22
Cameron is an on-the-road traveler who enjoys organic farming, live music, drumming, cooking, partner dancing, and backpacking. He's a former Not Back to School Camp staffer, NOLS graduate, and Wilderness First Responder. As a grown unschooler, Cameron presents at international unschooling and alternative education conferences about his experiences as a self-directed learner.
In March 2010 Cameron organized his own conference for teenage unschoolers and their families, The Autodidact Symposium, which was a total hit. His big goal for the upcoming year is to do some serious international traveling.
Previous trips: Spring Retreat 2010
Julie McPherson
International Trip Leader
Age 21
A longtime outdoors and teaching enthusiast, Julie's interest in global culture and travel bloomed after she organized a solo trip to Bulgaria to volunteer at a children's orphanage. Julie has worked for three years as a backpacking, winter, and rock climbing guide and program coordinator for Outdoor Adventures at UC Davis, where guiding college students, professors, and foreign exchange students across Northern California's wildernesses constitutes a normal weekend.
Julie is currently finishing a B.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology and plans to work as a guide in South America. She is certified in Wilderness First Responder, American Heart Association CPR Instructor, Lifeguard, and Avalanche safety.
Brenna McBroom
Leadership Mentor
Age 21
Brenna McBroom lives, eats (off of), and breathes wheel-thrown pots. She is a long-time unschooler and former Not-Back-To-School-Camper, and she's been working in clay for three years. When not at the pottery wheel, glazing table, or kiln, Brenna loves traveling, taking photographs, reading quirky novels, writing speeches, and making books. She left New College of Florida in order to become an 'Artodidact' in 2009, and she's in the midst of writing a book about self-education as an artist. She recently returned from a self-designed internship with a ceramic artist in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
While her medium of choice and area of expertise is clay (specifically: functional, wheel thrown, mid-range stoneware), Brenna is passionate about all manner of visual art.
Cooper Westerkamp
International Trip Assistant
Age 19
In his senior year of K-12 public schooling, Cooper convinced his teachers to let him join the Unschool Adventures Argentina trip. He was the only non-unschooler on the trip, but having read The Teenage Liberation Handbook and College Without High School, he fit right in!
Cooper enjoys cooking while traveling and learning to prepare local specialities. He is lifeguard certified as well as a former emergency medical technician. He's currently pursuing a nursing degree at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
Previous trips: Argentina 2008 (student)
Ingmar Nilsen
International Trip Assistant
Age 19
Traveling the rocky crust of planet earth since he was old enough to breathe, Ingmar has been taking over the world by understanding its ancient secrets.
With a home base in beautiful historic New England, "Iggy" teaches rock climbing in New York and ecology to unschoolers of western Connecticut. He interests include the culinary arts, world history, geology, herbology, zoology, rock and roll, Jay-Z, Ti-Chi and, of course, care for the wounded. Certified in CPR and Wilderness First Aid, Ingmar is ready for whatever world travel has to offer.
Previous trips: Australia 2010 (student)