Unschooling: Learning Without Rules: Recent Episodes
Unschooling.LWR
This week Izzy (13) and single mum, Jen, discuss how the years have been in and out of school for their family of 6, some of whom have special or complex needs. Jen had the difficult situation of passionately wanting to unschool but not always being able or permitted to because of mental health issues. She describes how she felt forced to take her children out of school. Izzy gives her impressions of life in and out of school and concludes that parents should ‘Let them be them’ I’d love to know your thoughts on this podcast. Please email unschooling.lwr@gmail.com with any comments or questions. This is the last episode on the current run of the first series of 5. We’re having a short break while I learn to edit them myself (eek!) then will be shortly returning with a new series two. We hope to include a dads’ panel, more parent and child combos, a main stream teacher and a grandmother’s perspective among others. Thanks for all of your support. It’s been a dream come true publishing these. Massive thanks to my long suffering daughter Nell 😀🙏😀
Our 4th episode features ‘world schoolers’. Olga, raised in Russia , discusses how it was to unschool her three children in Scotland and then full-timing in a campervan for months in Europe as a single mother holding down an online coaching business.
She talks to me about her introduction to unschooling through attachment parenting and how her confidence grew over the years and how she now considers her family ‘world schoolers’. She found that although they may acquire their milestone skills later in life when they are in control of their time and choices, it is with a wholehearted passion.
The three children have independently chosen to attend courses in subjects such as programming, game design, science and maths club at Galileo: a ‘global school for 8-18 year-old self-directed learners’. Leo, her 11 year old son, talks about how much he enjoys it. He talks about how he feels about being a homeschooler and how he can’t imagine ever wanting to go to school.
Books that we mention include: The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff Radical Unschooling by Dayna Martin Green parenting magazine How Children Fail by John Holt Growing without schooling website The Big book of Unschooling by Sandra Dodd
It was such a treat to interview my son Jo about his thoughts on his unschooling life. He describes how his very sense of self is defined by being a home schooler. He talks about his ‘self actualised’ childhood and how ‘unless I missed the memo, I was just enjoying my life which is meant to be the point of being alive, isn’t it?’
He gives a blunt no holds barred assessment of our school system from his own experience when he went in at 14 to take his qualifications. He concludes that school ‘hinders people from professional skills’ and labels it ‘cruel’.
As an unschooling parent I had the great pleasure of being thanked by my 31 year old son for the life we gave him. He asks me how I felt when he went back to school at 14 and I describe the confidence I felt in him to take what he needed - his motivation was what it was all about. He chose it.
His advice to unschooling parents is to have easy ongoing access to many creative resources simultaneously around the house and to relax and have fun.
Jo concludes by throwing down the gauntlet to parents: ‘A happy person can do anything but a miserable person - their options are really limited’.
As always, feel free to email me with any comments, thoughts or questions on this educational and parenting philosophy. Unschooling.lwr@gmail.com
My heartfelt thanks go to my daughter Nell for producing this series.
Jo mentions his publication at the start of the lockdown: ‘A homeschooler’s guide to parents for surviving school closure’ https://medium.com/@Jo_Burnham/a-homeschoolers-guide-to-parents-for-surviving-school-closure-571320832053
Unschooling means 'parents allowing their children as much freedom to explore the world as they can comfortably bear.' (John Holt)
In this episode I talk to Jan and her adult daughter Eloise who were part of my unschooling community twenty years ago. Jan describes the fears and joys she felt when she took her oldest two out of school and unschooled her five children right through to adulthood. Eloise pays testament to her happy, carefree, self-directed childhood and talks about how unschooling impacts on her own parenting philosophy as a single mum of five year old Odetta. She discusses how it was for her to go to college at 16 and how her life progressed as an adult.
Jan’s central piece of advice to unschooling parents is: 'Relax, you’re doing the best you can.'
Eloise concludes that the best advice she could give any families embarking on home education is 'There is no one standard they need to be. They are entirely themselves and the world needs more entirely themselves people.'
Please email me if you have any questions, comments or would like any kind of support. I’m Jackie at: unschooling.LWR@gmail.com.
My heartfelt thanks go to my daughter Nell for producing this podcast series.
RESOURCES: Jan recommends - How Children Fail by John Holt - How Children Learn by John Holt - Summerhill by A S Neil - Support group: Education Otherwise https://www.educationotherwise.org/ - The free academic resource: https://www.khanacademy.org/
Eloise recommends: - My Wild and Sleepless nights by Clover Stroud. She describes it as ‘a gentle portrayal of her parenting experience’.
Unschooling means ‘parents allowing their children as much freedom to explore the world as they can comfortably bear.’ (John Holt)
Welcome to Unschooling: Learning Without Rules, the podcast which helps you let your children take charge of their own learning. I'm Jackie, a retired homeschooling mum of four and I followed the unschooling approach with my children. I felt compelled to start this podcast because home schooling is very much in the news often negatively and I wanted to share my insights into how it can be a joyful and empowering experience for the whole family.
For episode one, I speak to Holly. When Holly, mother of three children under six, discovered unschooling she says: ‘It was like one of those glass shattering moments… now I can’t see us going back.’
In this pilot episode Holly talks us through how it was for her and her three children when she decided to deregister her two oldest a year ago. Her six year old son had started to dread going to school. Holly thought ‘You’re only six, you shouldn’t be counting down to the weekend,’ so she did some research, took the plunge and took them out.
She is a primary school teacher herself and she found a lot of overlap with her teacher’s training. She finds that being at home with them enables her to follow the true philosophy of teaching which supports child-directed learning as a first choice. ‘You cannot stop a child learning’. She describes unschooling as: ‘living and learning without school and putting joy and connection at the forefront.’
We compare experiences around socialisation, coping with the lockdown, and we express our outrage at the media’s portrayal of these lockdown months as creating a ‘lost generation.’ We compare how our unschooled families fill their days, the best resources we have found to support us and what it was like when my own children chose to try school. She quotes Walt Whitman: ‘We were together, I forget the rest’ and talks about how natural it feels to have them at home all the time.
When making her decision she had challenging health issues which was a worrying factor in all this and she discusses how she faced that. She advises unschoolers to ‘find your tribe’ and do lots of research online and follow blogs, podcasts and youtube videos.
Her final advice is: ‘Trust in your children and trust in yourself - you can do this.’
RESOURCES: - The ‘disco circle’ website: www.discolearning.com for a support network - Holly's favourite podcasts are: The Motherkind Podcast by Zoe Blaskey and Exploring Unschooling by Pam Laricchia. - Holly's favourite unschooling book is Peter Gray’s Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.
Please email me if you have any questions, comments or would like any kind of support. I’m Jackie at: unschooling.LWR@gmail.com.