0:03

It's sort of a one room school. A

0:05

dozen children aged eight through fourteen

0:08

come here Monday through Thursday to share

0:10

education with Cameron. The bottom

0:12

line for me is that all children are

0:15

geniuses, are natural naturally

0:18

wise initially, and

0:20

I think that children

0:22

to varying degrees get restricted

0:26

and damaged by the way

0:28

they get treated. Like

0:33

Raffie. Brent Cameron also had

0:35

a vision, one that centered

0:37

entirely around his daughter, Atlanta.

0:40

I'm Atlanta Cameron, and I'm

0:43

Brent and Maureen Cameron's daughter. I

0:45

was the kid that said I don't

0:48

like school, it's not working for me, and

0:51

uh, I thought it was extraordinary that

0:53

they said, Okay, let's do something about

0:55

that. Atlanta

0:58

Cameron was put at the center of everything

1:00

her parents did. They sacrificed

1:02

a lot to give her the perfect childhood,

1:06

or rather their version of the perfect

1:08

childhood. My dad mentioned

1:10

that he was really scared to have a kid and actually

1:13

hadn't thought he wanted kids

1:16

because he'd been so terribly lonely

1:18

in his childhood. There

1:21

wasn't a lot of communication or discussion

1:23

or not no talking about feelings. So

1:26

it was an epiphany for him

1:28

to have a child and realize he

1:31

could do it differently. This

1:33

episode is about what happens when parents

1:36

do everything possible to create the ideal

1:38

environment for their child. It's

1:40

like Raphie's child honoring philosophy

1:43

come to life, but

1:46

does it work. I'm

1:51

Chris Garcia and this is Finding Raffie,

1:54

a ten part series from My Heart Radio and

1:56

Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch,

1:59

about the life, philosophy, and

2:01

the work of Raffie, the man

2:04

behind the music. It

2:11

was the early nineties when Raffie came across

2:13

the Cameron family story across

2:16

the front of the magazine. Read the headline a

2:18

new model and Education, and

2:20

Atlanta Cameron was the future story. Her

2:23

article would inspire Raffie. It

2:26

would begin to lay the foundation for his

2:28

child honoring work. But

2:30

today's story begins almost a decade

2:32

earlier. So

2:37

let me set the scene. If

2:40

you had walked in, you would have

2:42

walked into a

2:44

sixteen foot geodesic dome

2:47

which was perched down on the lake. We

2:51

had a fireplace going, we had

2:54

two midwives there, and

2:57

yeah, we had a home birth. Wait

3:01

no, not that far back. Fast

3:05

forward a few years tone before

3:07

Atlanta was featured in any news stories.

3:10

She said something to her parents that any

3:12

six year old might say, I don't

3:14

like school. And I think that's a pretty

3:16

normal thing for kids to say if they're shy

3:18

or it's just not feeling right for them.

3:21

They toured me around, tried out different places,

3:23

and I just said, I don't like it.

3:26

I can't. I just I don't like it. Why can't

3:28

I just keep learning from you? Remember

3:30

she's six. And then my dad

3:33

said, okay, well I'll

3:35

quit my job and I'll

3:38

start a school. It's too bad

3:40

Brent wasn't here that we could talk more about this.

3:42

That's Maureen Cameron, Atlanta's mom.

3:45

Brent Cameron, Atlanta's dad passed

3:47

away from cancer in two thousand and twelve, which

3:50

is why you won't hear from him today. But

3:52

he had a big impact on the people he met

3:54

along the way. He looked

3:56

like the epitome of a hippie, six

3:58

ft something other, big, huge

4:01

hair coveralls.

4:05

He was very charismatic, a

4:07

very strong personality. I was

4:09

exciting to be with him,

4:12

like everything was going to be an adventure,

4:15

you know, because there weren't that many rules. It

4:17

was all explore this explore that the

4:24

family relocated to Vancouver, from a rural

4:26

part of British Columbia. After a recession

4:28

shut down their small health food store, they

4:30

moved to the city to find work and

4:33

eventually to open a school geared specifically

4:35

towards Atlanta called Wonder

4:37

Tree. So

4:40

I've been listed as the co founder, but

4:44

I always said it was more extraordinary

4:46

that that they started it. As

4:50

crazy as it sounds like, it seems

4:52

like the bigger choice, but my dad

4:54

had been a teacher in different

4:56

kinds of schools already, so he

4:58

could. He knew that there his ways to do

5:00

it. So I think I was that spark

5:03

that said like, hey, I'm

5:05

interested in something different. He's like, I know how to

5:07

do something different, and and I have the

5:09

skills and the knowledge and the passion. Let's

5:12

go for it. He

5:17

would call newspapers and say,

5:19

hey, I'm gonna have a school. I'm starting,

5:22

and everyone loved it until they asked how many

5:24

students, and when he said my daughter and

5:27

that's it, the parents would go I'll

5:30

wait. Finally, one

5:33

brave parent enrolled their child in Wonder

5:35

Treat and the Cameron's learning experiment

5:37

was off and running. Soon the

5:39

school was at capacity, that

5:42

is, twelve students, which is

5:44

what Brent determined to be the perfect size.

5:47

We didn't have funding in the beginning,

5:49

and he didn't want to charge very much

5:51

for people to come so that people

5:53

could afford it. I remember

5:55

that we would go behind office

5:58

supply companies and would go to their dumpster

6:00

full of paper that they were just throwing out, and

6:03

so that's how we got our paper for the

6:05

school. At first, my

6:07

dad used to say, we're rich, and I'd say

6:10

what, And I'd get so excited. I'm

6:12

like, oh my god, we're rich. And he'd be like, because we have

6:14

each other, and I'd go but

6:18

like, it chokes me up thinking about it now because I

6:20

don't have him anymore. He

6:24

just saw that so

6:26

much of what was going on our society

6:30

started when we're young, when we're kids, and if

6:32

we're not seen as whole humans,

6:34

if we're just seen as you know, that

6:36

this industrialized model of schooling

6:39

kind of being in parallel with the industrialization

6:41

of our society. Right. We

6:43

didn't always go to school, and it's become such

6:46

a gospel that you you go

6:48

to school and this is the only way to learn is

6:50

if you can't learn outside of school. So

6:53

we left the classroom and did

6:55

real world projects as much as possible,

6:58

because it's really important

7:01

to understand quote unquote the real world

7:03

and not just live in a little school bubble.

7:05

Right. The kids made

7:08

all of the decisions. They got

7:10

to decide what to spend tuition money

7:12

on, meaning they chose who

7:14

they wanted to hire and what they wanted

7:16

to learn. Like clowning. They

7:18

hired an expert clown for that. But

7:21

they also did things that were pretty incredible, like

7:23

learn how to code before that was even a thing

7:25

kids did so I don't know, if you know the

7:27

old school max they

7:30

were like a screen and everything. So

7:32

the carrying case was about, you know, I

7:34

don't know, three ft by

7:36

four ft and very heavy. Kids

7:39

would carry those home for the weekend

7:42

and bring their computer home as if they were portable.

7:47

They got so good at computers that a local

7:50

power company hired them to make a computer

7:52

program for their business and

7:54

paid them a lot of money. They got

7:57

paid was it fifty third

8:00

thousand fifty dollars? He

8:03

was very interested in taking

8:06

away labels and really meeting

8:09

children where they were and

8:11

saying, how can I help you learn

8:14

and be the best you. Meanwhile,

8:17

the Cameron's juggled a lot to see Prince Vision

8:19

through the school, finances, the

8:22

press, parenting workshops, community

8:24

potlocks. Plus Maureen was

8:26

also working full time as a nurse to keep

8:28

the family afloat. But then

8:30

she had a bad car accident and had to find

8:32

another source of income, so they

8:34

opened a home schooling branch of Wonder Tree,

8:36

which Maureen ran. It was seven

8:39

practically, I mean not entirely,

8:42

but we kind of were living,

8:44

breathing and eating it. It

8:46

was all consuming, for sure, for my

8:48

parents to run this school. And

8:50

so I remember going to bed

8:53

listening to them working in the office across

8:56

the hall. For me waking up

8:58

and they were working. I

9:00

became very independent because they

9:02

were too busy working away,

9:05

and so I'd be like, oh well,

9:07

and then I just figure it out. He

9:09

would mythologize things about

9:12

me because I was part of the school

9:14

that he was promoting and talking

9:16

about. So yeah, I became

9:18

a mythology and and this thing. For

9:21

instance, Atlanta says she didn't learn

9:23

how to read until she was nine, and

9:26

Brent would put his own spin on her story. He

9:29

sometimes claimed she was eleven. It

9:31

was his way of embellishing the school's narrative

9:34

that kids learning should be self directed. He

9:37

had a habit of doing things like that. He

9:39

would be very good at underestimating

9:41

some things and overdoing so,

9:45

as all good storytellers to. Yeah.

9:49

Yeah.

9:59

The pressure that I felt was

10:03

to turn out well. I was the first

10:05

example of the school of

10:07

this learning model, and so

10:10

I better turn out well so that I

10:12

can show, yes, my parents

10:14

did this crazy thing. They sacrifice

10:16

so much financially, emotionally,

10:20

whatever they've sacrificed so much

10:22

made this amazing thing. And oh

10:24

boy, I better turn out well because I'm

10:26

the one. It's like,

10:30

you know, I'm the one as

10:32

an example of Look, I turned out like this,

10:34

so that means it works. Eventually,

11:06

the pressure of all the hours of work took

11:08

a toll on the Camerons. After

11:11

ten years, Brent walked away from Wonder

11:13

Tree. At this point, Atlanta

11:15

was fifteen. My dad could see

11:17

that I was a teenager and could

11:20

use some community, and he

11:23

needed a break and just needed a little

11:25

pause. So Hi homeschooled

11:27

for a couple of years. It was a bit

11:29

lonely, um

11:32

and sometimes I wonder like, oh, should I have gone

11:34

to normal school just to try it? Out or

11:36

what would have that been like, but he

11:38

still had so much passion for running

11:41

an independent school. After

11:43

a brief hiatus, Brent started another

11:46

school and once again Atlanta

11:49

was at the center of it. Yeah, to be

11:52

the wonder child is what people would often

11:54

say. I would just go,

11:56

Okay, I have some understanding

11:58

what it must be like to be famous,

12:01

because you get this identity that's

12:03

like kind of outside of who you are that people

12:05

are responding to

12:07

today. We continue our education series

12:09

with a profile of a Vancouver school so

12:11

innovative it isn't even called a school. My

12:14

name's Alanna Cameron and I've

12:18

been here for about a year and a half.

12:20

I think that maybe more who knows. And

12:24

the reason I'm here is I

12:26

helped create it. They called it

12:28

Virtual High Virtual because

12:30

it was originally supposed to be all online.

12:33

It would be like a wonder Tree for teenagers.

12:36

The virtual part didn't last long

12:39

though. We got a house, this

12:41

large mansion house that like had

12:43

lots of floors and rooms, but the idea

12:45

was it could be a meeting place. Well,

12:48

we ended up going there every

12:50

day, Like I think almost everyone came

12:52

every day because it was just so exciting to

12:55

learn in person and have mentors and

12:57

be social together. Like at Wondered.

13:00

The students ran everything and

13:02

they loved being there so much they slept

13:04

over by choice. They

13:07

hired a mom to chaperone. Meanwhile,

13:10

people from all over, from academics

13:12

to celebrities, came to visit this ramshackle

13:15

mansion run by teenagers. My

13:22

dad had this great idea of giving out awards

13:25

of excellence to people we

13:28

thought were doing exceptional things in the world.

13:30

So Linus Pauling,

13:33

Jane Goodall, Boba

13:35

Tundla Tunji. So

13:37

we got to go to their talks and

13:40

then go backstage and have a chat

13:43

and say, hey,

13:46

we think you're excellent. We run

13:48

this crazy school, and we're giving

13:50

you an award from our crazy school. And so Michael

13:53

Moore actually came after a

13:56

documentary premier. Now

13:58

'am Chomsky. Now I'm chomps Chomsky

14:00

as well. Yeah, I know,

14:03

so fun. Gnome Chomsky,

14:06

the father of modern linguistics

14:08

and the whole nature versus nurture argument.

14:11

He had to check out Virtual High.

14:19

I think a lot of people were fascinated

14:21

about what was going on. I think

14:23

it gave people some kind of a wow.

14:26

This is a possibility, it's a potential.

14:28

There's something interesting going on here,

14:31

and I want to be part of it. The

14:34

school also had weekly coffee houses,

14:37

kind of like an open mic for students

14:39

and their families, and one night

14:42

Raphie showed up, going

14:44

to take a walk outside today. I'm

14:46

going to see what I can find today.

14:49

Going to take a walk outside today.

14:51

I'm going to see what I can find today.

14:55

It was like four year old part of

14:57

me that kept saying, it's

15:00

fee you

15:03

know, like I was like there's a little bit of a fan

15:05

inside of me at all times.

15:08

But on the outside I was a fifteen

15:10

sixteen year old saying,

15:12

oh, it's so nice to meet you and um,

15:14

and also so exciting that

15:17

he to see that he truly cares about

15:19

children, that it wasn't an

15:22

act. I remember

15:24

being fascinated with virtual high

15:26

and the whole idea of learning by a

15:28

stuff design, you know, on

15:30

the half of students. So I hung

15:32

up. I went over there and you know, kind

15:35

of soaked up the vibe and talk

15:37

to people. You

15:40

know. I was just amazed that they

15:42

trusted the learning process,

15:45

they trusted life, they trusted

15:47

their daughters, creative

15:50

response to a situation and

15:53

not many people would be able to do what

15:55

they did, but they chose that. And

15:57

I was intrigued by

15:59

the outside today, gonna

16:01

see what I can find today. I'm

16:04

gonna take a walk outside today.

16:06

I'm gonna see what I can find.

16:12

I think he and brent recognized

16:15

something in each other. Maybe maybe

16:18

it was that shared desire

16:20

to contribute to the world. My

16:23

dad just felt very lonely

16:25

most of his childhood. Yeah,

16:29

if you've watched Madman and

16:32

and That, when you see the main character

16:34

go home and pat his kids on the head

16:37

as he walks by them and goes to get the newspaper

16:39

and a drink, like seeing that show

16:42

really hit home for me because I realized,

16:44

Oh, that's what he meant, this non

16:47

emotionally available experience.

16:50

So I think that's why he liked saying

16:52

I was a co founder, because for him I

16:55

was that inspiration to go, Wow,

16:57

it can be done so differently. It

17:00

can be done with heart, it can be done with

17:02

caring, and there's another way

17:04

to do this. After

17:07

a bit, Paradise got a little

17:09

lost. Brenton Maureen ended

17:12

up getting a divorce, but Brenton

17:14

Atlanta continued to share a house and a life

17:16

together because you'd moved out

17:18

and I had you moved out of our

17:21

house and I stayed there, so because

17:23

everything in that house represented

17:25

a kind of a center point of

17:28

of what was going on with the move

17:30

from Wonder Tree to Virtual High.

17:33

So it's definitely a little confusing. Meanwhile,

17:39

the school was being run on a shoestring

17:41

budget and things were starting

17:43

to unravel. I think

17:45

there started being a bit of a slippery

17:47

slope after all the years. I

17:50

mean, the parents loved him, but it's

17:52

because of my mother that they stayed.

17:55

We had some parents leave because they felt

17:58

like, oh my god, my kids aren't following a curriculum.

18:01

How are they going to be successful in the world.

18:04

This is crazy. And he would

18:06

just be like, too bad, That's what I'm doing. And

18:09

my mom would soften it and try

18:11

to bring people in and sometimes that worked, and sometimes

18:13

people would leave because they thought

18:16

it was just too far out there

18:18

and they'd get scared. We're

18:32

flying by the seat of our pants. We were not an

18:34

official school, so we had

18:36

to charge tuition for our

18:38

program, and we charged pretty

18:42

much a base rate tuition that just allowed

18:44

us to scrape by. This is

18:46

Michael Maser. We weren't in it

18:48

to get rich or to be an

18:50

elite prep school for teenagers.

18:53

Michael co founded Virtual High with Brent

18:56

and he was in the trenches for what happened

18:58

next. Michael said, as the school

19:00

initially had support through British Columbia's

19:03

Ministry of Education. We tried

19:06

our our hardest to garner

19:08

that ministry support and

19:11

they offered it and then took it away,

19:13

and that left us really flat and

19:17

demoralized. Raffie even donated

19:19

money to try and help. He sang

19:22

it a benefit concert for the school, but

19:24

it wasn't enough. Ultimately,

19:27

Virtual High didn't make it, and so

19:30

you can imagine my disappointment when we did

19:32

have to fold it because we couldn't

19:35

seal support from the

19:37

education ministry despite many

19:40

people's endorsement of what

19:43

of what we were doing. After

19:45

only three years, Virtual

19:47

High shut down. Ultimately

19:50

it came down to a lack of funding, or

19:53

maybe people got spooked that the students

19:55

were running the show instead of sitting at their

19:57

desks taking tests. Either

19:59

way, it closed before the world

20:01

could really see if this experiment

20:03

worked. Yeah, it was definitely sad

20:06

and felt like untethered

20:08

in a way. It was like suddenly all

20:10

the strings were cut and then we were all just

20:13

left to our own devices. It

20:16

was a community and it had this beating heart, and

20:18

so once the physical

20:20

place was gone, it was hard to recreate that

20:22

feeling for sure, because

20:24

we have this shared experience that's really hard

20:27

to explain two

20:29

people that weren't there. There's this deep

20:31

connection that just stays. Brent,

20:34

on the other hand, wasn't willing to walk

20:36

away from his vision. He moved

20:38

virtual high online and kept

20:41

at it, and that's what

20:43

he was doing until

20:45

he passed away. He

20:55

did mention when he

20:58

was in the hospital before

21:00

he passed away that he regretted

21:03

not having a little more time with me

21:05

and knowing that he missed out on

21:07

some things because he was so

21:10

focus, so focused on his work.

21:13

He wasn't a normal dad. He

21:15

had all the kids in

21:17

the school where his children in some ways

21:20

like he was available for everyone.

21:29

After everything ended, Atlanta backpacked

21:31

through Nepal, but eventually she

21:33

enrolled in music college and

21:36

that was kind of nice for her to try out a place

21:38

with structure. Then

21:42

Atlanta found herself back in Creston,

21:44

British Columbia, the small town

21:46

where she was born She now

21:48

owns and runs a coffee roastery. It's

21:50

called Lark Coffee Roasters, inspired

21:53

by the saying on a lark to

21:55

do something just for the fun of it. That's

22:02

important to me that whatever

22:05

I do is because of the joined enthusiasm,

22:07

and that definitely stems directly from

22:10

going to the kind of school that I went to, and

22:13

I miss it. That's one thing like I'm

22:15

coming to terms with is that

22:18

that it was such a rich experience

22:22

of community, and

22:24

that sometimes

22:26

I forget the loss of that, that I don't

22:28

have that in my life in the same way since

22:31

then, just feeling

22:34

seen and heard and held by

22:36

a group of people is such a good experience.

22:39

So I guess I'm coming to terms with the fact that

22:43

the world is not as safe

22:45

and beautiful as that experience

22:47

was. It's a little harsher. I

22:50

mean, the world isn't as kind of

22:52

place as as wonder True was. Maureen

22:58

lives next door to Atlanta, and they see

23:00

each other almost every day. I

23:02

think if you as a woman in your own right, doing

23:05

your own thing, and we kind

23:07

of keep track of each other. And

23:11

yeah, and because we live in the same small

23:13

community, we can go to events together.

23:16

Which is really nice.

23:23

I wanted to be seen as

23:25

myself. It wasn't just from the outside world. It was

23:28

also from my family, like, hey, you

23:30

guys decided to start to school

23:33

and do all these things, which is amazing and great,

23:35

and yet I need to figure out who I am

23:37

outside of this family. And it was such

23:39

a strong narrative that

23:42

it definitely took some work to go like, hey,

23:45

this is me over here, just as I am.

23:50

So even when you're seen and heard, there's still

23:52

an individual. Is very important part

23:54

of growing up, right m

24:00

h. Next

24:22

time on Finding Raffie. Like

24:25

anyone else. You know, I've had

24:27

periods of my life where you

24:30

know, I've had challenges to go through,

24:33

but it's always a return to

24:35

love and a return to play. Just

24:37

a little playful Raffie, yeah,

24:40

baby, So

24:43

you know, it's just my way of enjoying

24:45

every single day. Joy is

24:47

not something to be postponed. Finding

24:53

Raffie is a production in My Heart Radio

24:56

and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo

24:58

Punch. It's produced by Catherine

25:00

Fendalosa, Meredith Hannig, and

25:02

James Trout. Production assistance

25:04

from Charlotte Livingston. Alex French

25:06

is our story consultant. Our senior

25:09

producer is Andrea Swahee. Emily

25:11

Foreman is our editor. Fact checking

25:14

by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Raphae's

25:17

music is courtesy of Troubadour Music Special

25:20

thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour and

25:22

the news clips featuring Brenton Atlanta Cameron

25:24

Our courtesy of the CBC. Our

25:27

executive producers are Jessica Albert and

25:29

John Parotti at Rococo, Punch, Ty

25:31

Trimble, Mike Rothman and Jeff Eisenman

25:33

at Fatherly and Me. Chris Garcia

25:36

thank you for listening.