PUN Organizing Meeting

January 13, 2020

Present: Jim, Jordan, Katherine

Original Agenda:

1. Introductions and Icebreaker.
2. Who is PUN for?
3. How should PUN support existing unschoolers?
4. How should PUN support “wanna be” unschoolers?
5. How should PUN support other people/groups mentioned during discussion of agenda item #2?
6. What is PUN’s mission statement? 

Technical Issues:
– The PUN video chat had issues working on Safari browser.
– The Doodle Poll mistakenly gave a later time zone for many people.

Who is PUN for?

– PUN should serve both existing self-directed learners and those interested in pursuing it.
– PUN should focus on serving young people, but adults are welcome as allies.

How should PUN support young self-directed learners (and wanna-be self-directed learners)?

– Key problems young SDE’s face are: resources, mentors, loneliness.
– Though there are many resources around the web, PUN has those curated by youth.
– Create+Connect mentorship program was great, should find a way to amplify that.  Should run again in summer 2020 being more explicit that the program will connect PUN members to mentors.
– Need to find more ways of building connections/friendships to combat loneliness. Events could help with that.
– Most valuable aspects of PUN are: resources (especially the book list), the Create+Connect mentorship program, and the connections/friends people make.
– We need more “introductory” information on the website to support people new to SDE.
– Add more links to resources of grown unschoolers (like the ‘yes I can read/write’ blog) and school survival
– Add a ‘text’ content type for Creations so people can share stories
– Website should be more visual with less text.
– Should rename the main menu items from Connect, Create, Learn, to Social, Creations, and Resources.  Also rename the “Bulletin” as “Forum”
– Ideally, the content would be organized by tags or subject rather than by medium.  Also along these lines, “Search” should be site wide, not needing to do it for each individual section.
– We’d like to see more testimonials/stories from current unschoolers sharing ‘what their unschooling looks like’ and what problems they face and how they overcome them.

Mission Statement:

Current Mission Statement:  

PUN is a digital community that helps young people pursue self-directed learning by providing resources, events, and friendships.

Follow up

Decided that organizing meetings will happen quarterly, the 2nd Monday of the month at 8:00 PM Eastern Time.  Next one will be April 13.