Wendy has been on the leading edge of a variety of socio-economic trends over the past 35 years. She is recognized as a pioneer in the fields of unschooling, home-based business and green business. And in 1996, she tried her hand at politics as the elected leader of the Green Party of Canada. For three decades, Natural Life Magazine has helped its readers integrate socially and environmentally responsible self-employment, independent learning and natural parenting, organic gardening, natural healing and renewable energy into a holistic, sustainable lifestyle.

Wendy is perhaps best known as a proponent of informal, self-directed learning, or what is sometimes known as “radical unschooling” – a term she dislikes as negative and lacking in description. In 1979, she founded The Canadian Alliance of Home Schoolers, a national support and advocacy organization that kick-started the homeschooling movement in Canada, cooperating with her colleague John Holt as he breathed life into a parallel movement in America.

In 1987, Wendy wrote School Free - The Homeschooling Handbook, which is now in its fifth edition and has become a best selling classic around the world. Her more recent book on the subject, Challenging Assumptions in Education (2000), is a controversial look at what’s wrong with public education and at the need to deschool society, is on the reading list for some college education programs internationally, and has just been updated and reissued in 2008. About this book, John Taylor Gatto says: “This tough-minded book burns sharp holes in dark places! Priesnitz argues that every school procedure that mutilates children is based upon some invisible assumption about children and human nature, which all arise from rational applications of false premises. This is an eye-opening guide to the most damaging of these hidden operating principles, which lurk in the nicest of people...perhaps even in yourself! I heartily recommend this book.”

An advocate of educational freedom for people of all ages, Wendy continues to be a popular keynote speaker on the subject and a guest on radio and television programs. In 2002, she masterminded the launch of the magazine Life Learning, of which she is the editor. Life Learning has become a trusted international source of inspiration and support about unschooling, and the term “life learning” is rapidly becoming a substitute for “unschooling.”

In 1986, Wendy realized that families wanting to help their children learn without schooling could create a source of income via home-based business. So she founded The Home Business Network, a source of advocacy, information and support for home-based businesses. Her book Bringing it Home – A Home Business Start-Up Guide for You and Your Family was published in 1996.

Over the past 30 years, Wendy has mentored many women, including those who support attachment parenting, home business and environmental journalism, as well as those who are in the second wave of promoting unschooling.

A prolific writer who wishes she had more time to write, Wendy is also a poet, with two published books of poetry, and a web blogger. She is currently trying to find time to write her tenth and eleventh books, a collection of memoir-style essays and a book about natural, life-based learning. Her life history as a woman pioneer in the homeschooling movement is being written by a PhD student at OISE/UofT and she continues to be in demand as a mentor to other women.

One of the hallmarks of Wendy’s life and work is her belief in the selfless sharing of information and inspiration. She has served on the boards of countless public and non-profit organizations and seldom misses an opportunity to be generous in giving her time, money, support, advice, enthusiasm and ideas in the name of furthering the causes in which she believes. A strong believer in cooperation rather than competition, she understands that alternative ideas become mainstream only when their proponents work together in their name.

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