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Speaker 1: It's sort of a one room school. A dozen children

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Speaker 1: aged eight through fourteen come here Monday through Thursday to

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Speaker 1: share education with Cameron. The bottom line for me is

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Speaker 1: that all children are geniuses, are natural naturally wise initially,

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Speaker 1: and I think that children to varying degrees get restricted

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Speaker 1: and damaged by the way they get treated. Like Raffie.

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Speaker 1: Brent Cameron also had a vision, one that centered entirely

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Speaker 1: around his daughter, Atlanta. I'm Atlanta Cameron, and I'm Brent

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Speaker 1: and Maureen Cameron's daughter. I was the kid that said

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Speaker 1: I don't like school, it's not working for me, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I thought it was extraordinary that they said, Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: do something about that. Atlanta Cameron was put at the

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Speaker 1: center of everything her parents did. They sacrificed a lot

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Speaker 1: to give her the perfect childhood, or rather their version

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Speaker 1: of the perfect childhood. My dad mentioned that he was

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Speaker 1: really scared to have a kid and actually hadn't thought

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Speaker 1: he wanted kids because he'd been so terribly lonely in

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Speaker 1: his childhood. There wasn't a lot of communication or discussion

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Speaker 1: or not no talking about feelings. So it was an

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Speaker 1: epiphany for him to have a child and realize he

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Speaker 1: could do it differently. This episode is about what happens

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Speaker 1: when parents do everything possible to create the ideal environment

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Speaker 1: for their child. It's like Raphie's child honoring philosophy come

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Speaker 1: to life, but does it work. I'm Chris Garcia and

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Speaker 1: this is Finding Raffie, a ten part series from My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch, about

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Speaker 1: the life, philosophy, and the work of Raffie, the man

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Speaker 1: behind the music. It was the early nineties when Raffie

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Speaker 1: came across the Cameron family story across the front of

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Speaker 1: the magazine. Read the headline a new model and Education,

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Speaker 1: and Atlanta Cameron was the future story. Her article would

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Speaker 1: inspire Raffie. It would begin to lay the foundation for

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Speaker 1: his child honoring work. But today's story begins almost a

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Speaker 1: decade earlier. So let me set the scene. If you

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Speaker 1: had walked in, you would have walked into a sixteen

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Speaker 1: foot geodesic dome which was perched down on the lake.

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Speaker 1: We had a fireplace going, we had two midwives there,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, we had a home birth. Wait no, not

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Speaker 1: that far back. Fast forward a few years tone before

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Speaker 1: Atlanta was featured in any news stories. She said something

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Speaker 1: to her parents that any six year old might say,

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Speaker 1: I don't like school. And I think that's a pretty

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Speaker 1: normal thing for kids to say if they're shy or

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Speaker 1: it's just not feeling right for them. They toured me around,

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Speaker 1: tried out different places, and I just said, I don't

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Speaker 1: like it. I can't. I just I don't like it.

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Speaker 1: Why can't I just keep learning from you? Remember she's six.

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Speaker 1: And then my dad said, okay, well I'll quit my

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Speaker 1: job and I'll start a school. It's too bad Brent

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Speaker 1: wasn't here that we could talk more about this. That's

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Speaker 1: Maureen Cameron, Atlanta's mom. Brent Cameron, Atlanta's dad passed away

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Speaker 1: from cancer in two thousand and twelve, which is why

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Speaker 1: you won't hear from him today. But he had a

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Speaker 1: big impact on the people he met along the way.

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Speaker 1: He looked like the epitome of a hippie, six ft

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Speaker 1: something other, big, huge hair coveralls. He was very charismatic,

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Speaker 1: a very strong personality. I was exciting to be with him,

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Speaker 1: like everything was going to be an adventure, you know,

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Speaker 1: because there weren't that many rules. It was all explore

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Speaker 1: this explore that the family relocated to Vancouver, from a

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Speaker 1: rural part of British Columbia. After a recession shut down

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Speaker 1: their small health food store, they moved to the city

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Speaker 1: to find work and eventually to open a school geared

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Speaker 1: specifically towards Atlanta called Wonder Tree. So I've been listed

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Speaker 1: as the co founder, but I always said it was

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Speaker 1: more extraordinary that that they started it. As crazy as

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Speaker 1: it sounds like, it seems like the bigger choice, but

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Speaker 1: my dad had been a teacher in different kinds of

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Speaker 1: schools already, so he could. He knew that there his

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Speaker 1: ways to do it. So I think I was that

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Speaker 1: spark that said like, hey, I'm interested in something different.

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Speaker 1: He's like, I know how to do something different, and

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Speaker 1: and I have the skills and the knowledge and the passion.

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Speaker 1: Let's go for it. He would call newspapers and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a school. I'm starting, and everyone loved

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Speaker 1: it until they asked how many students, and when he

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Speaker 1: said my daughter and that's it, the parents would go

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Speaker 1: I'll wait. Finally, one brave parent enrolled their child in

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Speaker 1: Wonder Treat and the Cameron's learning experiment was off and running.

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Speaker 1: Soon the school was at capacity, that is, twelve students,

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Speaker 1: which is what Brent determined to be the perfect size.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have funding in the beginning, and he didn't

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Speaker 1: want to charge very much for people to come so

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Speaker 1: that people could afford it. I remember that we would

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Speaker 1: go behind office supply companies and would go to their

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Speaker 1: dumpster full of paper that they were just throwing out,

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Speaker 1: and so that's how we got our paper for the school.

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Speaker 1: At first, my dad used to say, we're rich, and

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Speaker 1: I'd say what, And I'd get so excited. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, we're rich. And he'd be like, because

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Speaker 1: we have each other, and I'd go but like, it

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Speaker 1: chokes me up thinking about it now because I don't

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Speaker 1: have him anymore. He just saw that so much of

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Speaker 1: what was going on our society started when we're young,

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Speaker 1: when we're kids, and if we're not seen as whole humans,

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Speaker 1: if we're just seen as you know, that this industrialized

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Speaker 1: model of schooling kind of being in parallel with the

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Speaker 1: industrialization of our society. Right. We didn't always go to school,

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Speaker 1: and it's become such a gospel that you you go

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Speaker 1: to school and this is the only way to learn

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Speaker 1: is if you can't learn outside of school. So we

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Speaker 1: left the classroom and did real world projects as much

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Speaker 1: as possible, because it's really important to understand quote unquote

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Speaker 1: the real world and not just live in a little

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Speaker 1: school bubble. Right. The kids made all of the decisions.

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Speaker 1: They got to decide what to spend tuition money on,

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Speaker 1: meaning they chose who they wanted to hire and what

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Speaker 1: they wanted to learn. Like clowning. They hired an expert

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Speaker 1: clown for that. But they also did things that were

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Speaker 1: pretty incredible, like learn how to code before that was

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Speaker 1: even a thing kids did so I don't know, if

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Speaker 1: you know the old school max they were like a

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Speaker 1: screen and everything. So the carrying case was about, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, three ft by four ft and very heavy.

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Speaker 1: Kids would carry those home for the weekend and bring

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Speaker 1: their computer home as if they were portable. They got

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Speaker 1: so good at computers that a local power company hired

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Speaker 1: them to make a computer program for their business and

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Speaker 1: paid them a lot of money. They got paid was

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Speaker 1: it fifty third thousand fifty dollars? He was very interested

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Speaker 1: in taking away labels and really meeting children where they

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Speaker 1: were and saying, how can I help you learn and

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Speaker 1: be the best you. Meanwhile, the Cameron's juggled a lot

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Speaker 1: to see Prince Vision through the school, finances, the press,

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Speaker 1: parenting workshops, community potlocks. Plus Maureen was also working full

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Speaker 1: time as a nurse to keep the family afloat. But

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Speaker 1: then she had a bad car accident and had to

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Speaker 1: find another source of income, so they opened a home

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Speaker 1: schooling branch of Wonder Tree, which Maureen ran. It was

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Speaker 1: seven practically, I mean not entirely, but we kind of

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Speaker 1: were living, breathing and eating it. It was all consuming,

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Speaker 1: for sure, for my parents to run this school. And

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Speaker 1: so I remember going to bed listening to them working

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Speaker 1: in the office across the hall. For me waking up

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Speaker 1: and they were working. I became very independent because they

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Speaker 1: were too busy working away, and so I'd be like,

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Speaker 1: oh well, and then I just figure it out. He

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Speaker 1: would mythologize things about me because I was part of

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Speaker 1: the school that he was promoting and talking about. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I became a mythology and and this thing. For instance,

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Speaker 1: Atlanta says she didn't learn how to read until she

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Speaker 1: was nine, and Brent would put his own spin on

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Speaker 1: her story. He sometimes claimed she was eleven. It was

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Speaker 1: his way of embellishing the school's narrative that kids learning

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Speaker 1: should be self directed. He had a habit of doing

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Speaker 1: things like that. He would be very good at underestimating

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Speaker 1: some things and overdoing so, as all good storytellers to. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The pressure that I felt was to turn out well.

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Speaker 1: I was the first example of the school of this

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Speaker 1: learning model, and so I better turn out well so

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Speaker 1: that I can show, yes, my parents did this crazy thing.

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Speaker 1: They sacrifice so much financially, emotionally, whatever they've sacrificed so

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Speaker 1: much made this amazing thing. And oh boy, I better

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Speaker 1: turn out well because I'm the one. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm the one as an example of Look, I turned

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Speaker 1: out like this, so that means it works. Eventually, the

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Speaker 1: pressure of all the hours of work took a toll

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Speaker 1: on the Camerons. After ten years, Brent walked away from

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Speaker 1: Wonder Tree. At this point, Atlanta was fifteen. My dad

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Speaker 1: could see that I was a teenager and could use

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Speaker 1: some community, and he needed a break and just needed

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Speaker 1: a little pause. So Hi homeschooled for a couple of years.

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Speaker 1: It was a bit lonely, um and sometimes I wonder like, oh,

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Speaker 1: should I have gone to normal school just to try it?

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Speaker 1: Out or what would have that been like, but he

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Speaker 1: still had so much passion for running an independent school.

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Speaker 1: After a brief hiatus, Brent started another school and once

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Speaker 1: again Atlanta was at the center of it. Yeah, to

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Speaker 1: be the wonder child is what people would often say.

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Speaker 1: I would just go, Okay, I have some understanding what

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Speaker 1: it must be like to be famous, because you get

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Speaker 1: this identity that's like kind of outside of who you

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Speaker 1: are that people are responding to today. We continue our

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Speaker 1: education series with a profile of a Vancouver school so

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Speaker 1: innovative it isn't even called a school. My name's Alanna

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Speaker 1: Cameron and I've been here for about a year and

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Speaker 1: a half. I think that maybe more who knows. And

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Speaker 1: the reason I'm here is I helped create it. They

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Speaker 1: called it Virtual High Virtual because it was originally supposed

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Speaker 1: to be all online. It would be like a wonder

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Speaker 1: Tree for teenagers. The virtual part didn't last long though.

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Speaker 1: We got a house, this large mansion house that like

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Speaker 1: had lots of floors and rooms, but the idea was

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Speaker 1: it could be a meeting place. Well, we ended up

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Speaker 1: going there every day, Like I think almost everyone came

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Speaker 1: every day because it was just so exciting to learn

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Speaker 1: in person and have mentors and be social together. Like

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Speaker 1: at Wondered. The students ran everything and they loved being

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Speaker 1: there so much they slept over by choice. They hired

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Speaker 1: a mom to chaperone. Meanwhile, people from all over, from

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Speaker 1: academics to celebrities, came to visit this ramshackle mansion run

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Speaker 1: by teenagers. My dad had this great idea of giving

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Speaker 1: out awards of excellence to people we thought were doing

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Speaker 1: exceptional things in the world. So Linus Pauling, Jane Goodall,

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Speaker 1: Boba Tundla Tunji. So we got to go to their

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Speaker 1: talks and then go backstage and have a chat and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: we think you're excellent. We run this crazy school, and

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Speaker 1: we're giving you an award from our crazy school. And

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Speaker 1: so Michael Moore actually came after a documentary premier. Now

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Speaker 1: 'am Chomsky. Now I'm chomps Chomsky as well. Yeah, I know,

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Speaker 1: so fun. Gnome Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics and

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Speaker 1: the whole nature versus nurture argument. He had to check

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Speaker 1: out Virtual High. I think a lot of people were

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Speaker 1: fascinated about what was going on. I think it gave

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Speaker 1: people some kind of a wow. This is a possibility,

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Speaker 1: it's a potential. There's something interesting going on here, and

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Speaker 1: I want to be part of it. The school also

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Speaker 1: had weekly coffee houses, kind of like an open mic

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Speaker 1: for students and their families, and one night Raphie showed up,

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Speaker 1: going to take a walk outside today. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: see what I can find today. Going to take a

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Speaker 1: walk outside today. I'm going to see what I can

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Speaker 1: find today. It was like four year old part of

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Speaker 1: me that kept saying, it's fee you know, like I

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Speaker 1: was like there's a little bit of a fan inside

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Speaker 1: was a fifteen sixteen year old saying, oh, it's so

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Speaker 1: nice to meet you and um, and also so exciting

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Speaker 1: that he to see that he truly cares about children,

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Speaker 1: that it wasn't an act. I remember being fascinated with

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Speaker 1: virtual high and the whole idea of learning by a

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Speaker 1: stuff design, you know, on the half of students. So

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Speaker 1: I hung up. I went over there and you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of soaked up the vibe and talk to people.

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Speaker 1: You know. I was just amazed that they trusted the

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Speaker 1: learning process, they trusted life, they trusted their daughters, creative

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Speaker 1: response to a situation and not many people would be

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Speaker 1: able to do what they did, but they chose that.

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Speaker 1: And I was intrigued by the outside today, gonna see

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Speaker 1: what I can find today. I'm gonna take a walk

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Speaker 1: outside today. I'm gonna see what I can find. I

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Speaker 1: think he and brent recognized something in each other. Maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe it was that shared desire to contribute to the world.

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Speaker 1: My dad just felt very lonely most of his childhood. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you've watched Madman and and That, when you see

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Speaker 1: the main character go home and pat his kids on

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Speaker 1: the head as he walks by them and goes to

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Speaker 1: get the newspaper and a drink, like seeing that show

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Speaker 1: really hit home for me because I realized, Oh, that's

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Speaker 1: what he meant, this non emotionally available experience. So I

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Speaker 1: think that's why he liked saying I was a co founder,

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Speaker 1: because for him I was that inspiration to go, Wow,

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Speaker 1: it can be done so differently. It can be done

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Speaker 1: with heart, it can be done with caring, and there's

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Speaker 1: another way to do this. After a bit, Paradise got

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Speaker 1: a little lost. Brenton Maureen ended up getting a divorce,

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Speaker 1: but Brenton Atlanta continued to share a house and a

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Speaker 1: life together because you'd moved out and I had you

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Speaker 1: moved out of our house and I stayed there, so

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Speaker 1: because everything in that house represented a kind of a

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Speaker 1: center point of of what was going on with the

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Speaker 1: move from Wonder Tree to Virtual High. So it's definitely

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Speaker 1: a little confusing. Meanwhile, the school was being run on

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Speaker 1: a shoestring budget and things were starting to unravel. I

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Speaker 1: think there started being a bit of a slippery slope

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Speaker 1: after all the years. I mean, the parents loved him,

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Speaker 1: but it's because of my mother that they stayed. We

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Speaker 1: had some parents leave because they felt like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: my kids aren't following a curriculum. How are they going

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Speaker 1: to be successful in the world. This is crazy. And

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Speaker 1: he would just be like, too bad, That's what I'm doing.

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Speaker 1: And my mom would soften it and try to bring

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Speaker 1: people in and sometimes that worked, and sometimes people would

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Speaker 1: leave because they thought it was just too far out

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Speaker 1: there and they'd get scared. We're flying by the seat

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Speaker 1: of our pants. We were not an official school, so

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Speaker 1: we had to charge tuition for our program, and we

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Speaker 1: charged pretty much a base rate tuition that just allowed

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Speaker 1: us to scrape by. This is Michael Maser. We weren't

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Speaker 1: in it to get rich or to be an elite

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Speaker 1: prep school for teenagers. Michael co founded Virtual High with

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Speaker 1: Brent and he was in the trenches for what happened next.

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Speaker 1: Michael said, as the school initially had support through British

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Speaker 1: Columbia's Ministry of Education. We tried our our hardest to

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Speaker 1: garner that ministry support and they offered it and then

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Speaker 1: took it away, and that left us really flat and demoralized.

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Speaker 1: Raffie even donated money to try and help. He sang

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Speaker 1: it a benefit concert for the school, but it wasn't enough. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: Virtual High didn't make it, and so you can imagine

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Speaker 1: my disappointment when we did have to fold it because

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Speaker 1: we couldn't seal support from the education ministry despite many

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Speaker 1: people's endorsement of what of what we were doing. After

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Speaker 1: only three years, Virtual High shut down. Ultimately it came

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Speaker 1: down to a lack of funding, or maybe people got

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Speaker 1: spooked that the students were running the show instead of

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Speaker 1: sitting at their desks taking tests. Either way, it closed

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Speaker 1: before the world could really see if this experiment worked. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was definitely sad and felt like untethered in a way.

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Speaker 1: It was like suddenly all the strings were cut and

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Speaker 1: then we were all just left to our own devices.

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Speaker 1: It was a community and it had this beating heart,

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Speaker 1: and so once the physical place was gone, it was

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Speaker 1: hard to recreate that feeling for sure, because we have

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Speaker 1: this shared experience that's really hard to explain two people

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Speaker 1: that weren't there. There's this deep connection that just stays. Brent,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, wasn't willing to walk away from

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Speaker 1: his vision. He moved virtual high online and kept at it,

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Speaker 1: and that's what he was doing until he passed away.

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Speaker 1: He did mention when he was in the hospital before

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Speaker 1: he passed away that he regretted not having a little

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Speaker 1: more time with me and knowing that he missed out

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Speaker 1: on some things because he was so focus, so focused

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Speaker 1: on his work. He wasn't a normal dad. He had

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Speaker 1: all the kids in the school where his children in

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Speaker 1: some ways like he was available for everyone. After everything ended,

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Speaker 1: Atlanta backpacked through Nepal, but eventually she enrolled in music

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Speaker 1: college and that was kind of nice for her to

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Speaker 1: try out a place with structure. Then Atlanta found herself

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Speaker 1: back in Creston, British Columbia, the small town where she

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Speaker 1: was born She now owns and runs a coffee roastery.

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Speaker 1: It's called Lark Coffee Roasters, inspired by the saying on

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Speaker 1: a lark to do something just for the fun of it.

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Speaker 1: That's important to me that whatever I do is because

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Speaker 1: of the joined enthusiasm, and that definitely stems directly from

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Speaker 1: going to the kind of school that I went to,

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Speaker 1: and I miss it. That's one thing like I'm coming

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Speaker 1: to terms with is that that it was such a

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Speaker 1: rich experience of community, and that sometimes I forget the

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Speaker 1: loss of that, that I don't have that in my

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Speaker 1: life in the same way since then, just feeling seen

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Speaker 1: and heard and held by a group of people is

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Speaker 1: such a good experience. So I guess I'm coming to

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Speaker 1: terms with the fact that the world is not as

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Speaker 1: safe and beautiful as that experience was. It's a little harsher.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the world isn't as kind of place as

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Speaker 1: as wonder True was. Maureen lives next door to Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: and they see each other almost every day. I think

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Speaker 1: if you as a woman in your own right, doing

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Speaker 1: your own thing, and we kind of keep track of

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Speaker 1: each other. And yeah, and because we live in the

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Speaker 1: same small community, we can go to events together. Which

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Speaker 1: is really nice. I wanted to be seen as myself.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just from the outside world. It was also

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Speaker 1: from my family, like, hey, you guys decided to start

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Speaker 1: to school and do all these things, which is amazing

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Speaker 1: and great, and yet I need to figure out who

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Speaker 1: I am outside of this family. And it was such

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Speaker 1: a strong narrative that it definitely took some work to

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Speaker 1: go like, hey, this is me over here, just as

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Speaker 1: I am. So even when you're seen and heard, there's

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Speaker 1: still an individual. Is very important part of growing up,

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Speaker 1: right m h. Next time on Finding Raffie. Like anyone else.

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Speaker 1: You know, I've had periods of my life where you know,

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Speaker 1: I've had challenges to go through, but it's always a

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Speaker 1: return to love and a return to play. Just a

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Speaker 1: little playful Raffie, yeah, baby, So you know, it's just

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Speaker 1: my way of enjoying every single day. Joy is not

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Speaker 1: something to be postponed. Finding Raffie is a production in

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio and Fatherly in partnership with Rococo Punch.

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Speaker 1: It's produced by Catherine Fendalosa, Meredith Hannig, and James Trout.

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Speaker 1: Production assistance from Charlotte Livingston. Alex French is our story consultant.

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Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Andrea Swahee. Emily Foreman is our editor.

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Speaker 1: Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Raphae's music is courtesy

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Speaker 1: of Troubadour Music Special thanks to Kim Layton at Troubadour

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Speaker 1: and the news clips featuring Brenton Atlanta Cameron Our courtesy

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Speaker 1: of the CBC. Our executive producers are Jessica Albert and

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Speaker 1: John Parotti at Rococo, Punch, Ty Trimble, Mike Rothman and

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Speaker 1: Jeff Eisenman at Fatherly and Me. Chris Garcia thank you

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Speaker 1: for listening.