About this NFEer
Growing up, many of my most memorable learning experiences that brought me joy and taught me lessons that helped shape me into who I am today were born not in the classroom, but beyond it. For fourteen years, I spent part or all of my summer at a Girl Scout camp in the woods of New Hampshire, evolving from a camper to the trip director. There I learned more than just fire building and crafting skills – I learned to shift the way I looked at and interacted with the world, and skills of all sorts that I used in my life beyond camp. It brought me joy and helped me become the person I am. Naturally I wanted to be a part of giving back, leading to the 8 years I worked there to help create magical learning experiences for campers.
Learning to embrace girl-led programming design in a way that allows youth to choose their own experiences showed me the empowering nature of giving choice to kids that are so often constrained in more typical, formal schooling-filled lives. I loved providing the means for girls to build a community where they built their skills and left the session standing taller with increased confidence in themselves. I didn’t have the words for it at the time, this participatory and learner-driven model for learning exemplified ideals of nonformal education (NFE).
This love for engaging and creative learning methods for people sparked my interest in NFE, which I later developed across several other learning roles in my career. I love that NFE offers the flexibility and adaptability to thoughtfully and intentionally design inclusive, engaging learning opportunities for learners across their lifespans. My goal with the NFE Network is to create another spark that will offer others the chance to share their NFE stories, learn about other individuals and organizations in the NFE realm, collaborate in this new community, and visualize NFE to those both new and experienced in the NFE field.
Beck Waghorne
My Latest Posts
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou
NFE Network 