The skills alumni Emma-Jane developed at SelfDesign® Learning Community from 2008 to 2020 have transferred into her work in public service at BC Housing, where she supports housing development through the BC Builds program. Looking ahead, she has clear goals [...]
From rural isolation and housing instability to meaningful work helping others, Hayden’s learning journey has been shaped by real-life experiences and regular self-reflection. Growing up in challenging circumstances and witnessing the realities faced by unhoused communities across British Columbia, this [...]
When Austin transitioned from SelfDesign to public school to complete Grades 10–12, and later applied to university, he began to fully understand how deeply his earlier learning experiences at SelfDesign had impacted him. This different way of learning turned out [...]
Most high-school-level wrestlers join a school team. At SelfDesign, Tristen Beaudry is the team. As the only wrestler representing the SelfDesign® Learning Community team created specifically for him, Tristen proves that not even politics or injury can hold him back [...]
It was the fall of 1985, and I was a few weeks into the second grade when my parents grew concerned. I was returning home from school decidedly miserable. My teacher was strict. Her classroom felt rigid and stifling. As [...]
When Wyatt Miller-Unser commenced from SelfDesign® Learning Community in 2013, he had basically completed a curriculum that he had designed to further his own interests in photography, videography and graphic design. The Kelowna-based learner was one of hundreds of learners [...]
Katherine’s Virtual High story Katherine Muncaster joined Virtual High in 1993, one of the first 35 learners to enroll with the revolutionary new learning program for teens that Brent Cameron and Michael Maser created in an old Vancouver mansion. She [...]
Freedom is what Tallisen Soong Smith appreciates most about her four years with Wondertree and SelfDesign. That, and the ability to mix learning and play. “It was only in my later years, in my 20s, that I realized I’d been [...]
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 [...]
Drawing on almost 20 years of experience producing video games in the U.K., Kalev Tait recently co-founded video-game company Ludic Lemur in 2023 in Vancouver. The Virtual High alumnus had returned, with his young family, to the city where he [...]
