Rachel Papo

As criticism of the U.S. education system grows among parents, so does the appeal of homeschooling. Shortly after moving to Woodstock, New York, in 2010, Rachel Papo began to photograph a small number of families living in the region who follow this path. While much of the discussion about the subject tends to revolve around parents and their beliefs, she chose to focus on the lives and routines of the children, in an attempt to capture their spirit and the meaning of growing up outside the conventional four classroom walls. Papo devoted two years to her photographic research and the result is a quiet meditation on the home education movement from the children’s perspective.