A few weeks before turning 16, our oldest son approached us with his plans to drop out of high school as his birthday approached.
His father (my husband at the time) and I took him seriously. Our son had strong urges, and I staunchly supported them. As a biologist with a background in animal behavior and ecology, and fortunately their stay-at-home dad, I was open to raising my two sons in unconventional ways. Even before they were born, I wanted to help them connect with their wild human heritage, something we often forget in our culture of screens, social media, and demanding work expectations. This included co-sleeping and early potty training.
So I wasn’t surprised when my son said he wanted to drop out of high school and learn on his own, because that’s what I’d been teaching him to do all his life.
My son has always enjoyed different learning methods.
Her sons initially thrived in an affordable Montessori preschool, but after a few years in public school, their intelligence began to decline.
One day, I took my kids to try out the K-8 Expeditionary Learning School that had recently opened in our small town. Afterwards, they ran gleefully out to the car, exclaiming, “Mom, that was so much fun! Can we go to this school?”
Since then, they’ve been so excited they barely needed any help with their homework. Meanwhile, they spent their summers in nature-based outdoor school, rooted in social learning. By the time they were teenagers, both boys had gained experience building fires with bow drills, making knives, tracking, and camping alone in the outdoors overnight.
Perhaps it was inevitable that our oldest son would start to feel increasingly confined during his first year and a half at public high school. By that time, he had become one of the first kids we knew to build, fly, and race drones on his own time. He had won a number of photography awards. And a book I gave him called “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” ignited his passion in his second grade. So when he asked to quit school that spring, we immediately said “yes.”
He was active outside of school too.
He quickly studied, practiced and earned his professional drone pilot certification while building his first campervan in his dad’s workshop, and soon was taking drone trips close to home to film.
We had agreed that my son would also do some online learning through Khan Academy, but as he is now 23, he recently told me, “Mom, I haven’t been using it as much as you thought I would.”
He eventually moved out of our house and into a yurt in our backyard. He was effectively in control of his life. We allowed him to travel and become more independent, within reason.
My social life included a close group of friends who had kids the same age that I grew up with, and my son spent a lot of time with that group as a teenager: we often went camping and hiking together, had epic Nerf battles, skied together, and went on road trips.
My son continued to thrive. Between the ages of 16 and 18, he began making films after being contracted by his former K-8 EL school. He made several short documentary films that focused on school learning methods, such as teaching students Native American canoe-building techniques. He then worked with tribes in North Idaho to document their ancient stewardship of the land and rivers.
He then decided to drop out of college as well.
Although my son did well on the GED and SAT, that didn’t really matter to him. He took some college classes but ultimately decided college wasn’t for him.
He now backpacks around the world by bike, and makes videos of his adventures, filmed by himself using his own equipment and a drone. So far, his adventures have included hiking the Ring Road in Iceland last year, cycling from Canada to Mexico, and this spring, a solo bike ride across the UK in stormy weather. He is currently crossing the English Channel on a ferry with some new friends, and plans to cycle across Northern Europe this summer. He is currently getting paid to make travel videos.
In his recent films, I saw the exact same look of joy on my son’s face that I saw when he was a little boy, and while I may worry about his safety while he runs thousands of miles and overcomes all sorts of obstacles (yes, I do), he is becoming his true self, and that is everything I’ve ever wanted for my son.
Rachel Clark is a writer and author. Her work has appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Psychology Today, and Good Housekeeping. Her current memoir explores her experiences as a biologist, wife, and mother, and the impacts of coercive control on people and the planet. Rachel Clark.
