When six-year-old Ilana asked her dad to teach her at home instead of enrolling her in grade one at a local Vancouver brick-and-mortar school, Brent embarked on what would become a decades-long educational experiment in personalized learning to support his daughter’s natural curiosity and zest for learning.
In the basement of their home, he created the Wondertree Learning Centre for Ilana, an alternative school based on the then-revolutionary principle that children are natural, intuitive experts at learning and at knowing what they need to learn when they need to learn it. When Ilana reached her teenage years, Brent and fellow educator Michael created Virtual High to allow her journey in personalized learning to continue through her high school years.
The experience and insights gained through those first years with Wondertree and Virtual High informed the creation of the online kindergarten to grade nine school SelfDesign® Learning Community in 2002, which expanded to include grades 10 to 12 in 2009.
All this results from one young girl saying “No” to spending more time inside a classroom learning about things she wasn’t interested in.
We sat down and talked to Ilana, our first learner, about her journey over the last four decades.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview is one of a series of profiles of SelfDesign alumni prepared to help us celebrate SelfDesign Learning Foundation’s 40 years of personalized learning.
Read about other SelfDesign alumni>
SelfDesign (SD): It’s been 40 years since your dad founded the Wondertree Learning Centre for you. How does that feel?
Ilana: I never imagined SelfDesign would turn into what it is today.
You know, in 2012, the year my dad died, I went to the Collaboratory, the gathering and educator-training workshop that SelfDesign held at Quest University in Squamish that year. I saw what a beautiful community had been created around SelfDesign and how many amazing people work there. It made me so happy, just knowing how pleased my dad would have been with what it had become.
SD: You finished Virtual High in 1996. Where did your journey take you after that?
Ilana: Well, partway through Virtual High, I had started studying with a B.C. musician named Veda Hille, and I began to be interested in getting into music school. It wasn’t yet a goal, but it was something I was thinking about.
When I finished grade 12, I took part in a hybrid program that my dad started called InsightOut. It was funded by the government to help people transition into work. I did a horticultural therapy stream.
Then I went trekking in Nepal for a few months. That was really interesting. The other people on this trek were full-on professional mountaineers. One guy was one of the first people to climb every major summit in the world. His wife is a mountain climber, too. And another person was a mountain guide, and somebody else was on Canada’s national ski team.
And then there was me, who had biked around Vancouver a bit and that was about it. I was not sporty at all.
I learned so much from them. That whole experience inspired me to leave Vancouver. I went back to the Kootenays, where I helped my dad build a house. Then, in 1999, I moved to Nelson for music school at Selkirk College. And while I was doing that, I worked as a cook, I did some catering and worked in IT and Communications for SelfDesign. I also worked at a bookstore in a coffee shop. I started taking writing more seriously around then and started a novel about working in a coffee shop, and I decided to make it about a coffee roaster.
SD: And what are you up to these days?
Ilana: I’m still in the East Kootenay, and I’m a coffee roaster. I started a small-batch coffee roastery, and I source the beans myself and roast them in the Kootenays and mail them around Canada.
The company is called Lark Coffee Roasters. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m feeling pretty confident about how I roast and what coffees I buy, and I’m now looking at how to grow the business to make it sustainable and profitable.
It’s been fun to find something that I feel uses the skills that I have, that I’ve developed during all the different careers in my life. I used to be a cook. I’ve catered. I’ve been a musician. And strangely, even those skills as a musician have transferred over into running my own business. I know how to brand it, and I know how to promote it. I also understand flavour and love exploring that and sharing that with people.
In addition to that, I continue to paint and write.
I’m just pretty excited to just keep following my passions and see where they lead.
SD: How did your early experiences with Wondertree and Virtual High prepare you for that?
Ilana: It’s really at Wondertree and Virtual High that I developed the confidence in my curiosity to try out different careers and to start my own business, to pursue music, to join different groups in town to study. I’m just always interested in learning and creating community. Those are values that I learned in SelfDesign and that I continue to foster.
I feel like I’m more resourceful in certain ways than maybe other people are because of how I was taught. I’m always looking to see, “Okay, this is a dead end, but it isn’t really, so let’s figure it out.”
People are surprised by my choices sometimes or see it as bravery. And I’m just like, “Oh, it’s just normal.” Because that’s how I grew up. I got to be creative and curious and just follow that.
SD: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Ilana: As you know, SelfDesign was created for me 40 years ago, and now it’s for everyone else to love. I think that’s kind of wonderful and amazing
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