Podcast appearances and mentions of naomi fisher

A huge part of the shifts we want to see in schools and in education more broadly is more agency, choice-making and self direction for young people. There is an increasingly compelling story about why this is important for them, as well as for the kinds of challenges we're facing in local communities and national and global society. But sometimes what isn't highlighted is the impact of not having those things. What toll does it take on youth well-being and mental health? So this week I'm joined by renowned clinical psychologist and educator Dr Naomi Fisher to help me find out.Naomi is a clinical psychologist, author and EMDR-Europe Accredited trainer. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative ways to learn. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Kings College London (Maudsley), a PhD in developmental cognitive psychology also from Kings College (IoPPN), and a degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Naomi is also an alumni of UWC Atlantic College, Wales.Whilst in the NHS, Naomi worked in primary care and specialist trauma services in London, as well as neurodevelopmental services. She has worked for the Metropolitan Police and third sector organisations. She now works in private practice with adults, adolescents and children. She runs self-help webinars for parents on how to help their children with common mental health difficulties.Naomi is the author of several books on psychology, mental health and alternative education. She is the author of Changing our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning, A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education, When The Naughty Step Makes Things Worse, The Teenager's Guide to Burnout and What Can We Do When School's Not Working?: An Illustrated Handbook for Professionals (with Abigail Fisher). Most of Naomi's books are beautifully illustrated by Eliza Fricker. Social LinksNaomi's substack, Think Again: https://naomicfisher.substack.com/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/naomicfisher/?hl=en LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-fisher-psychologist/Naomi's website: https://naomifisher.co.uk/

Welcome to Episode 44 of That Greenwich Life! This episode marks the final episode of Season One, and I'm taking a moment to reflect on the incredible journey this podcast has been.When I launched this show last year, I had no idea what it would become—how many people it would positively impact, how deeply personal it would get, and how much it would push me to grow. Over the past year, I've shared my own stories and the stories of my incredible guests about motherhood, grief, career pivots, personal reinvention, and all the messy, beautiful, complicated moments in between. But as I always say on this show, we have to listen to what's right for us. And right now, I know it's time to pause, reset, and make space for what's next. In this episode, I'm sharing:• Why I'm taking a break—and why pausing is sometimes the most powerful decision.• How stepping away from something can help us grow in new ways—personally, creatively, and professionally.• What's next? I may not have all the answers, but I'm embracing the “we'll see” mindset. Thank You to This Season's Sponsors:I am beyond grateful to the sponsors who made this season possible. Your support has meant everything! Thank you to Xplorearth and all of my past sponsors, including Illume Fertility, Steam Greenwich, The Big Picture Art, Jonathan's Travels, Room for Paws Pet Resort, Jauja Pet , Naomi Fisher at Wellness Insights and more—your belief in this show has been incredible. Special thanks to Podpopuli for having me every week in your Greenwich, CT studio. Stay Connected:Even though the podcast is taking a pause, I'm not going anywhere! Stay connected with me:• Instagram: @DorothyOnTV• Website & Merch: DorothyOnTV.com• Past Episodes: All episodes will remain available on Apple Podcasts & Spotify, so revisit your favorites anytime! If this show has meant something to you, please leave a review, share an episode with a friend, and know that this is not goodbye—it's just a “see you soon.”Thank you for being part of this journey. And remember—don't just live your life, love it!

This week, we sit down with Dr Naomi Fisher, psychologist and co-author of The Teenager's Guide to Burnout, to discuss how modern schooling, social media, and pressure to achieve are pushing teens towards burnout.

Unlock the secrets to helping teenagers overcome burnout with insights from Dr. Naomi Fisher and Eliza Fricker, authors of "The Teenager's Guide to Burnout." Our conversation dives deep into the pressures faced by today's teens, examining how academic demands and societal expectations contribute to chronic stress. We question the traditional education system's role in this growing issue, advocating for a shift towards more personalized and compassionate learning environments. Through engaging illustrations and straightforward advice, this episode promises to equip parents and teens with the tools to navigate these challenges effectively.Discover the powerful impact parents can have on their children's stress levels, intentionally or not, and learn strategies to foster a nurturing environment that prioritizes mental well-being over mere academic success. By drawing parallels between toxic work environments and school settings, we challenge you to reconsider the conventional paths to success often touted as the norm. This episode also highlights the importance of understanding teenagers by meeting them where they are and supporting them in finding balance amidst the chaos of modern life.As we explore pathways to recovery from burnout, you'll be introduced to a compassionate four-step process designed to guide teenagers toward a more balanced and fulfilling future. Real-life stories illustrate how alternative routes to success can be both rewarding and enriching, emphasizing personal fulfillment over traditional achievements. Whether you're a parent seeking to support your child or a teenager grappling with the pressures of adolescence, this episode offers invaluable perspectives on redefining success and nurturing happiness. Join us for this enlightening conversation that champions the well-being of young people and empowers them to forge their own paths. The Teenager's Guide to Burnout: Finding the Road to Recovery by Dr Naomi Fisher and Eliza Fricker Please click here if you would like to join the SEND Parenting Community on WhatsAppwww.sendparenting.com

Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist, writer, and speaker with a focus on self-directed learning, unschooling, and child development. A mother of two, she draws on her professional expertise and firsthand parenting experiences to challenge conventional educational models and help families nurture children's natural curiosity and autonomy.Together, we explore self-directed learning, the nature of freedom in education, and what happens when children are trusted to follow their own interests. We talk about the impact of traditional schooling on a child's autonomy, the challenge of parental expectations, and the importance of empowering children—at any age—to discover their true wants. Naomi also shares insights from her books and professional work with families, offering a fresh perspective on how to nurture independent, confident lifelong learners.

Naomi Fisher is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. She earned her Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 2016, and prior to that earned her M.S. in physics from UC Davis.Her research focuses on Kant and German Idealism and Romanticism, specifically the relationship between nature, freedom, and rationality in Kant and Schelling. Currently, she is working on projects related to the impact of Plato and Neoplatonism on Schelling's philosophy. She also has interests in the broader history of philosophy, philosophy of science, and philosophy of religion.In her talk, she discusses: The disconnect between epiphanies and everyday thoughtOn the function of imagination in philosophyThe philosophy of art according to SchellingManifesting the divine through the power of imaginationComparing Schelling's work to the RomanticsOn accessing transcendent realitiesTo learn more about Naomi, you can find her at: Website: https://naomifisher.weebly.com/ Email: naomi.luce@gmail.com This episode is sponsored by:John Templeton Foundation (https://www.templeton.org/)Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/)Support the show

To discuss Dr Naomi Fisher's new book "When the Naughty Step Makes Things Worse", we hear from psychologist Aisling O'Connor, from Connections Child Psychology in Sligo.

↓Click here for Limited Edition 'Magic in the Mud' merch! ↓ www.children-of-the-forest.com/forestsschoolpodcastshop Summary: In this milestone 200th episode, hosts Lewis and Wem reflect on their podcasting journey, discussing the evolution of their content, memorable guest interviews, and the growth of the Forest School movement. They explore the integration of technology in outdoor education, the importance of inclusivity, and share personal anecdotes that have shaped their perspectives. Timestamps: 00:01 – 00:09: Celebrating 200 episodes and the podcast's evolution. 08:50 – 09:30: Memorable guest insights, including Naomi Fisher and Merlin Sheldrake. 13:21 – 14:08: Transition from activity-focused content to deeper discussions. 14:12 – 14:40: Dream field trips to unique outdoor education settings. 21:12 – 22:39: Debate on the role of technology in Forest School. 27:14 – 28:56: Wishlist of future podcast guests, from philosophers to modern educators. 28:40 – 28:54: Philosophical musings on play and education. 18:44 – 19:28: Gratitude to listeners and aspirations for future episodes. Resources Mentioned: Naomi Fisher's Work: Dr. Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma, autism, and alternative learning methods. Explore her publications and insights on her official website: Naomi Fisher Merlin Sheldrake's Research: Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and author known for his work on fungi and mycorrhizal networks. Learn more about his research and publications here: Merlin Sheldrake Nonviolent Communication: Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg. It focuses on empathetic listening and expressing needs without judgment. Find more information at the Center for Nonviolent Communication: For the Wild The Art of Holding Space: This concept involves supporting others without judgment, maintaining an open and empathetic presence. For a comprehensive guide, refer to Heather Plett's work: Subscribe to the Forest School Podcast on your preferred platform to stay updated with our latest episodes. Leave a review to share your thoughts and help others discover the show. Follow us on social media for updates and discussions: Forest School, outdoor education, podcasting journey, inclusivity in education, technology in outdoor learning, nonviolent communication, play-based learning.

Join the SEND Parenting Community on Whatsapp either Click Here or  send a message to  07856 915 105  and I will personally add you to the private group where we can connect and support each other.What if traditional parenting methods are doing more harm than good? Join us as we welcome Dr. Naomi Fisher and Eliza Fricker, co-authors of the enlightening new book "When the Naughty Step Makes Things Worse," to challenge popular parenting wisdom. This episode promises a fresh perspective on raising neurodivergent children and the liberation that comes from understanding each child's unique needs. Naomi and Eliza share their personal journeys, illustrating how low demand parenting can transform pressure-filled homes into nurturing environments.We unravel the concept of low demand parenting, emphasizing the importance of respecting a child's stress limits and sensitivities. Naomi and Eliza argue that good parenting cannot be judged solely by a child's behavior, especially when dealing with neurodivergence. By embracing empathy over control, parents can foster deeper connections and encourage true growth. We also delve into the science behind the genetic and environmental factors that shape our children, urging parents to let go of societal expectations and focus on their child's individual path.Screen time often gets a bad rap, but this episode reimagines it as a tool for connection rather than isolation. Learn how to engage with your children's digital lives constructively, turning screen time into meaningful moments. We tackle the pervasive fears parents have about their children's futures, discussing the importance of being present and supportive through their unique journeys. Finally, Naomi and Eliza highlight the necessity of authenticity and self-care in parenting, ensuring that we're not only meeting our kids' needs but also nurturing our well-being.Click here to order When the Naughty Step Makes Things Worse before October 9th to get a free ticket for a live webinar based on their book scheduled for October 9th @7:30-9:30. You can also buy tickets for this webinar as usual. Click here for link to sign up for Live Webinarwww.sendparenting.com

Brilliant chat with Naomi Fisher about low demand-parenting, how parents unwittingly create pressure for their children, how to choose the right school, how to collaborate when things go wrong, and why saying less can be the hardest lesson for parents!

Lucinda Miller is back to talk about her new book Brain Brilliance. It looks at how what you eat affects your health and mood. The book is described as a nutritional toolkit for neurodivergent kids, and is full of healthy and delicious recipes, as well as chapters on what to eat for certain symptoms. It is heavily academically-referenced (550, I think!), and she recommends nutrients and foods that support the immune system. She talks about every day supplements most children can tolerate, growing incidences of high-histamine and what this means, the three different stages of immunity and how to move children back into a place of safety and out of auto-immune issues through diet and supplementation. Some links about things we spoke about... Here is me from my time as a food blogger - at Crumbs Food - making Cake in a Cup. Here is the study on auto immunity, and the Adverse Childhood Experience Study Next month is devoted to PANS PANDAS and education. We kick off a mini series with Naomi Fisher and her latest book When The Naughty Step Makes Things Worse. Then we have PANS PANDAS UK's very own Tina Coope who has loads of good tips, and whose work on the charity's education and care steering group will make a real difference to many of our community's lives.

Today I am joined by Dr Robyn Koslowitz, expert in trauma and author of upcoming book on Post Traumatic Parenting.    In this insightful episode we will talk about how school can cause trauma and the ways in which home education can uniquely heal those wounds. Robyn also guides us in how to differentiate trauma from the usual childhood ups and downs, and gives her advice on healing those trauma wounds in our children.    Often, the act of removing your child from the mainstream education system and having witnessed their distress can have an extremely traumatic effect on us as parents and so Robyn has some great advice for how we can go about healing our own parental trauma.   It was great to have Robyn on the show and next week, as part of our 'School's Out' series, we will have an interview with a parent for whom school was hugely traumatic both for them and their child, so watch out for next week's episode.   And for those interested in the episode mentioned on the podcast on supporting your anxious child and how the school system is uniquely manufactured to create anxiety, here is the link to the episode with Dr Naomi Fisher from last year: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-w2tkg-14253c5   This podcast is a labour of love but if you would like to support the show to continue broadcasting the wonders of home education, you can now Buy Me a Coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/HomeEducation

Lucy Neuburger and Nathan Gynn talk to clinical psychologist Naomi Fisher and teacher Nathan Burns about the Twitter/X storm currently blowing around school trips. Do you exclude ...? Do you include ...? Listen in as passions rage and debate rumbles.

Screen Addiction: How to Support Your Teen's Healthy Relationship with Technology Tea and Guest Episodes are on 'Early Release' to LivePlayLearn Monthly members. You can find out more and join at https://ko-fi.com/liveplaylearn/tiers In this episode Dr Naomi Fisher and Heidi Steel discuss the complexities of Screen Addiction. So, pop the kettle on, grab a cup of tea, and listen in. We jump straight in with answering the question that we all need the answer to:  How can we tell if our child is addicted to screens? But you won't find any gaming shaming here.  Listen to the whole conversation if you can, or jump to the part that peeks your interest: 1:00 The signs of screen addiction 9:00 Why do teenagers engage in online gaming with such ferocity?   11:00 Social Media and red flags of negative engagement.   15:00 What to expect and the process of lifting restrictions around screen use, including the myth of self regulation.   29:00 Four Signs that technology use is problematic   32:00 What happens when things go wrong?

 Drew Perkins hosted this ThoughtStretchers Education Community discussion on February 25th, 2024 with clinical psychologist, Naomi Fisher and the Executive Director of the Adolescent Flourishing Initiative at The University of Austin, Michael Strong. We discussed this question: "Does traditional schooling lead to poor mental health for students?" Click To View Links & Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Nathan Gynn is joined by clinical psychologist and author Doctor Naomi Fisher for an extensive discussion about attendance in schools. They discuss the psychology of attendance: Does attendance matter? What are the barriers to attendance?  Have young people changed? How do young people feel about school? Fines for non-attendance? What powers to individual teachers have? What should schools do more or less of to improve attendance?   All of this and more in a show supported by John Catt Educational. 

CME credits: 0.50 Valid until: 05-03-2025 Claim your CME credit at https://reachmd.com/programs/cme/ultrasound-renal-denervation-interdisciplinary-approach-to-better-patient-outcomes/16625/ Dive into the realm of hypertension management through a chapterized expert interview CME activity on ultrasound renal denervation. In the first chapter, explore the significance of addressing hypertension. Delve into the sympathetic nervous system, ultrasound renal denervation mechanism, and clinical trial data in the second chapter. The third chapter offers dual perspectives on the role of the Hypertension Center, and walks learners through the development process for effective implementation. Gain comprehensive insights from leading experts, Drs. Naomi Fisher and Florian Rader, in this educational series. =

In the last episode, almost 300 people tuned in to our first ever live podcast, when I was joined by Naomi Fisher, Ellie Costello and Ben Davis to talk about the attendance crisis. In case any of you listened to that and were wondering ‘Hey, who is this Ben Davis guy? Why don't you do a full episode with him?' Well, strap yourself in! Ben is the headteacher of St Ambrose Barlow RC High School in Salford. I've had the great pleasure to get to know Ben a little over the last year or so, as part of the Education Policy Alliance. He is one of the loveliest people you could wish to meet - and that view was echoed in many of the comments we received during last week's episode. A passionate, principled headteacher who embodies the principles of public service, Ben has recently been one of the courageous headteachers who have raised their heads above the parapet to talk about the pernicious impact Ofsted has on schools and school leaders. LINKS Full video, audio, show notes: https://rethinking-ed.org/ben-davis Education Policy Alliance: https://educationpa.org Sign up to the Rethinking Education Round-up Newsletter: https://rethinkinged.beehiiv.com DON'T BE A STRANGER The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at rethinking-ed.org/contact SUPPORT THE RETHINKING ED PODCAST: Become a patron: https://patreon.com/repod Buy James a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/repod

Since the COVID pandemic, persistent absenteeism in England has more than doubled, from 10% to 22%. According to recent reearch by the Centre for Social Justice, more than one in four parents agreed it is not essential for children to be in school every day. Both the major political parties have announced plans to tackle the attendance crisis. Often, there is an assumption that school is the best place for children to be, and blame is laid at the feet of the parents. What's going on? Why are so many young people voting with their feet? Are the politicians correct - is school the best place for young people to be? Do the parents have a point - is it 'essential' for children too attend school every day? How do we think about attendance currently - and how else could or should we think about it? In this interactive webinar, Dr James Mannion (Director, Rethinking Education) is in conversation with: * Ben Davis - Headteacher, St Ambrose Barlow RC High School in Salford * Ellie Costello - Director of Square Peg and author of Square Pegs: Inclusivity, compassion and fitting in: A guide for schools * Dr Naomi Fisher - Clinical psychologist, homeschooling parent and author of 'Changing our minds' and 'A different way to learn' LINKS No to the surveillance state: notoschoolsbill.uk/surveillance-state Square Peg: teamsquarepeg.org Naomi Fisher: naomifisher.co.uk Education Policy Alliance: educationpa.org Sign up to the Rethinking Education Round-up Newsletter: rethinkinged.beehiiv.com DON'T BE A STRANGER The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at rethinking-ed.org/contact SUPPORT THE RETHINKING ED PODCAST: Become a patron: https://patreon.com/repod Buy James a pumpkin frappacino: https://buymeacoffee.com/repod

Episode 52 *Bitesize*It's time for the second in our 'bitesize' series of episodes in which our host Olivia and returning guest Tamsyn Hendry discuss and summarise past impactful episodes! This week they are revisiting Episodes 16 & 27 with Dr Naomi Fisher on the subject of self-directed learning. This is an incredibly candid and honest episode in which they discuss the ways Dr Fisher's work has profoundly reshaped their own concepts of schooling and parenting. We talk about moments with our children we look back on with regret, changes we have made, illuminating the importance of self-direction, listening to our children's instincts, and getting rid of heavy expectations. www.sendparenting.com

Have you ever questioned the traditional education system and its one-size-fits-all approach? If so, this episode is a must-listen as clinical psychologist and education advocate Dr. Naomi Fisher embarks on a deep discussion about alternative pathways to learning. Dr Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist who specialises in autism, trauma and alternative ways to learn. She is the author of two books, both about self-directed education, and she is the mother of two children. For full show notes head to

A Different way to learn: https://amzn.to/3FYWwIG Changing Our Minds: https://amzn.to/40Ed81W When the naughty step makes things worse: https://amzn.to/3QDs6QP Support The Forest School Podcast on Patreon for bonus episodes and ad-free main episodes at ⁠www.patreon.com/childrenoftheforest⁠ . --- Join our vibrant community on Facebook Group at ⁠www.facebook.com/groups/384058572484783⁠ . --- Elevate your skills with virtual consultancy and in-person training at ⁠www.children-of-the-forest.com⁠ . --- Looking to ignite your culinary adventures in nature? Check out Forest School Cooking at ⁠https://amzn.to/3pEFQ4A%E2%81%A0 for a sizzling experience! --- For bookings, training, and more, visit ⁠www.children-of-the-forest.com⁠ .

On today's conversation we explore trauma, child development, education and self-directed learning.What is trauma? How might trauma show up as an adult.She also talk about the modern education system. What is it like? What needs to change?We also delve into boarding schools. What is the opinion of clinical psychologist, who specialises in education about boarding schools? Dr Fisher also attended boarding school in her sixth form. What was her experience like?Are boarding schools developmentally damaging for children?---Dr Naomi Fisher is an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR-Europe trainer. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative approaches to education. She works with children, adolescents and adults. She is the author of Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning (Robinson, 2021) and A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education (JKP, 2023). Questions for Naomi:I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you now do?Could you please talk about trauma and child development? How does trauma impact a child?How might these trauma symptoms show up as an adult?In one interview you mentioned “School is restricting children from a natural developmental process.” Could you please explain and expand? Is school the best way to educate your child?What is your assessment of modern day schools? What needs to change?In your clinical experience what do you think of boarding schools?In my research it seems that no child development theory suggests that taking children away from parents is a good thing. If this is true, why do you think that we still say that boarding school is 'the making of us.'What is neurodiversity?What is a different way to learn? What is self-directed learning?What is your vision for the future regarding education of our children?How do people learn more about you?To learn more about Dr Fisher and her work please visit: https://www.naomifisher.co.uk/#trauma #childdevelopment #boardingschool #educationsystem #education #neurodiversity--- Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community Many blessings, Piers Cross http://piers-cross.com/

Dr Naomi is a clinical psychologist and author of the books, Changing our Minds and A Different Way to Learn. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative ways to learn.    She is extremely knowledgable on how to manage parenthood that is “outside the box” and in this episode we discussed:   Home education and the many different ways to do it Neurodivergence and how we can support neurodiverse children within school or with alternative modes of education How to manage kids and screens (her view may shock you!) Managing anxiety in children   You can see more of Dr Fisher's work at www.naomicfisher.substack.com or www.naomifisher.co.uk where you can find all her webinars.   The website Dr Fisher mentioned was www.progrssiveeducation.org    THE RECONDITION YOUR LIFE ACADEMY OPENS FOR ENROLMENT ON 5TH OCTOBER! IT ONLY OPENS TWICE A YEAR SO IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE THING THAT WILL HELP YOU TRANSFORM EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE FROM THE INSIDE OUT, MAKE SURE TO BE READY FOR WHEN IT OPENS! CLICK HERE TO ENROL.   ***   Our partners for this season are SENSATE and AMRITA NUTRITION.   Sensate is the palm-sized, infrasonic device that will not only help reduce anxiety, but will also deepen your meditations. Visit getsensate.com and use code LAUREN30 for £30 off.   Amrita Nutrition is where I buy 95% of my supplements, and have done for a decade, due to their commitment to quality. Visit amritanutrition.co.uk and use code LAUREN for 10% discount. You can also view my Amrita collection of all my favs, here.   To join my Purpose Membership for only £35 a month, click here.   The Female Entrepreneur Academy is now open for enrolment! Click here to join.   Access my FREE shadow healing mini-course HERE.   For more info on The Recondition Your Life Academy (only open for enrolment twice a year), memberships, products and events, as well as hundreds of articles, recipes and recommendations, visit www.laurenvaknine.co.uk   If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with friends, and please also make sure to subscribe / follow and leave a 5* review! It really helps us to reach more people!   If you'd like to connect with me, get in touch on Instagram. You can also see me over on my YouTube channel where all these podcasts are posted.

This episode with trainers and EMDR Consultants Caroline Van Diest and Naomi Fisher was recorded a few months after their successful presentation at the 2023 Glasgow conference on working with EMDR and autism.This is a Laura Beech production for EMDR UK.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and presenters and are not endorsed by the Association.

Episode 27Have you ever felt like the current schooling system just does not suit or help your child? This week we talk to the enlightening Dr. Naomi Fisher, psychiatrist and author of A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education, about how to think about educating and parenting our neurodiverse children differently.   Dr. Fisher shares her expertise on the detrimental effects on the mental health and self-esteem of young developing minds when they find themselves falling short of a rigid system of timelines and expectations. We discuss how we, as parents, we can combat this and best support our young people in finding success in their own way.This brings us to the focus of our episode - the powerful concept of self-directed education, which allows children to follow their own passions and interests. Tune in to discover how you can empower your child by creating an environment that offers opportunities for exploration, autonomy, and critical thinking, while avoiding the pitfalls of over-controlling their learning experience.Click here for Dr. Naomi Fisher's websiteEnter NFISHER20 to get 20% off new book A different Way to Learn Neurodiversity and Self Directed Education click here Jessica Kingsley Publisherwww.sendparenting.com

Suze and her husband homeschool their three girls aged 10, 7 and 2 from their suburban home in Adelaide. Not only is she the primary homeschooling parent, Suze is also a teacher by trade and in this episode we discuss how she reconciles educating her own children at home whilst working in a school setting and the importance of advocating for all children, not just our own.SUMMARYSuze reflects on the contradictions of her own schooling - uniform mandates, compulsory sport - and the hangovers of people pleasing and authority intimidationHow the introduction of the national curriculum shifted things for her professionally, witnessing the effects of the academic push down to do more youngerHer eldest daughter's apathetic experience of school and how Suze reacted to the commonly touted advice "She'll adapt" Her husbands (hilarious in hindsight) reaction to her suggestion of considering homeschool and how he came around to the idea“I actually can't reconcile what I know and believe about learning now with being a classroom teacher.”How Suze and her husband structure their week with support from her parents so they can both work and homeschoolTime, freedom, front row seats and watching her children choose to be friends are just some of her favourite things about this lifestyleThe challenges of homeschooling aren't that different from parenting and they are far outweighed by the benefitsNot every family is able or willing to homeschool and her aim is to make education and life more joyful for all childrenThe importance of defining what they value as a family and knowing if the decisions that they make pull them closer to or take them further away from those valuesThe joy of living intentional, purposeful and meaningful livesINSPIRATIONChanging our minds - Dr Naomi Fisher (book)CONNECT@wonder.and.flourish instagramHave you got a story to tell?Connect with us on instagram @australianhomeschoolstories or email australianhomeschoolstories@gmail.comThis podcast is recorded on the land of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, always will be aboriginal land.Original music - Hazel by Daniel Garrood @garroodcomposerListen on Spotify here

We have a system of education that creates and feeds anxiety - it tells children and young people that their interests don't matter and they're not good enough. My guest today knows this all too well but the solution, as she explains, may not be as complex as you might think. Dr Naomi Fisher is an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative approaches to education. She works with children, adolescents and adults. She is the author of ‘Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning' (Robinson, 2021) and ‘A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education' to be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2023. She runs online courses to support parents and offers training for professionals. Changing Our Minds, written by our guest, is only 99p on Kindle during June and Thier next book, A Different Way to Learn is out on June 21 and the code NFISHER20 will give readers 20% off if they order it directly from the Jessica Kingsley Publishers website. I'll pop the links in this episodes show notes.

It's great to be joined again by Dr Naomi Fisher as we discuss how best to support your anxious child. We discuss the anxieties inherent within our education system (in fact integral to them) and also lots of practical advice for how to help your child navigate their anxiety, coping with it as a family and supporting them through it and out the other side.  - If you enjoy this episode, do give us a 5 star rating on your streaming service! -

It is exam season in the UK: For most of us, the thought of school brings back some pretty strong memories…and not just about school dinner. Our nostalgia might reflect on all the good memories, a simpler time maybe, for others it might bring back more difficult or even painful experiences. Depending on your era and background, the level of support you received - if any - to help you navigate the potentially challenging path through school, will have massively varied. Is our mental health in schools outstanding? Or does it require improvement? Let's head back to school and chat to Louise Clarke and find out what an ELSA is. Links: ​ Website link with show notes and previous episodes: https://www.thehumanish.co.uk Background on the ELSA role and Sheila Burton. https://www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/educationalpsychology/training/elsa ELSA network: https://www.elsanetwork.org Link to clinical psychologist Dr Naomi Fisher. https://www.naomifisher.co.uk ​ Music: Gods Among Men by Prox-c. freemusicarchive.org/music/Prox-c ​ Winds Howl by Ketsa https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/ ​

My guest this episode is Naomi Fisher, who I am delighted to have back for a second conversation (see #5 for our previous chat). Naomi is a clinical psychologist, mother of two children who are at a self-directed learning centre, and author of the book Changing our Minds, which is about the importance of choice, autonomy and self-direction in education. Naomi has a new book coming out in June entitled A Different Way to Learn, which looks at how neurodivergent children learn in self-directed environments. Today, among many other things, we talk about how children naturally learn and develop, and why our education system undermines these natural processes. And how a competitive environment focused on content and exams quashes our children's innate curiosity and motivation. Naomi also shares her thoughts on how parents can best accompany a child who has come out of mainstream school after a difficult time. Find out more about Naomi's work at: https://www.naomifisher.co.uk/You can find my blog, workshop and courses at:www.esther-jones.comOr, connect with me onInstagram: @_esther.jonesFacebook:@theunschoolspace

Episode 16:School starts back on Monday and for many neurodiverse children this can lead to feelings of dread and anxiety and a desire not to ever go back to school. The child's anxiety is often looked upon as the problem rather than looking at the potential that the school is not the right environment for the child. In this episode we will speak Dr Naomi Fisher a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, autism and alternative approaches to education. In this insightful discussion Dr Fisher will talk about the need to prioritize our children's emotional well-being over the need to learn facts and stick to a curriculum.  What if we let go of our preconceptions of what learning should be and instead let our children take a self-directed, autonomous approach to learning through self directed education.Dr. Fisher's book Changing our minds: how children can take control of their own learning really broke down a lot of my preconception about school education and even made me question some of my parenting techniques.www.sendparenting.com

We are super excited to have the excellent Dr Naomi Fisher on the podcast for our end-of-season finale! Naomi joined me for a ramble all about home education. A few key points in this week's podcast - Naomi chats about her home ed journey, SEN and mental health, deschooling and recovery, the current school system and exams, and of course chats all about her new book 'A different way to learn - Neurodiversity and self-directed education' (being released on 21st June) Grab a cuppa, its a corker! Dr Naomi Fisher is an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative approaches to education. She works with children, adolescents and adults. She is the author of ‘Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning' (Robinson, 2021) and ‘A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education' to be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2023. You can find Naomi here - https://www.naomifisher.co.uk/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hefa/message

I'm very excited to be joined by Dr Naomi Fisher today, author of hugely popular home education book: Changing our Minds. Join us as we discuss unschooling and the delicate balance between protection and freedom. We look at teen development and educating with respect and equality, with a focus on screen use. Have you ever wondered how to incorporate screen use into your family with honour but also caution? This is a fabulous episode which really dives into the difficulties but also the privileges of parenting our home educated children. Would you like to come on the podcast, or suggest guests or topics for upcoming podcasts? Join us on our Facebook group: Home Education Matters. 

From Earning to Learning is the podcast where Dave Frangiosa shares research backed philosophies, thoughts on student engagement and classroom tested techniques that can help move students towards learning. In this episode, I discuss the difference between control and structure. This was inspired by a thread from Naomi Fisher (@naomicfisher), a clinical psychologist and author. Here is the thread that was referenced in the episode. You can find more information on her website. Twitter: @DavidFrangiosa Website: www.reimaginedschools.com

Hello! New year, new term and this week Ed and Geoff are going back to school. Too little has changed about our education system since the Victorian times, and for too many young people it can seem an outdated and rigid system - geared simply towards passing exams - which is letting them down. We speak to three experts who tell us that it doesn't have to be this way: Dr James Mannion, clinical psychologist Dr Naomi Fisher and to Andy Sprakes, the co-founder of Doncaster's most oversubscribed school, about how they're already doing things differently and why it's beneficial for everyone involved.Plus: want a chance to live out your Geoffocracy dreams? We hear from Suzanne Heywood about a new prize looking for our listeners' policy ideas!GuestsDr James Mannion, Director of Rethinking Education, a teacher training organisation (Visit his website or follow him on Twitter @RethinkingJames)Dr Naomi Fisher, Clinical Psychologist (Follow her on Twitter @naomicfisher or subscribe to her Substack)Andy Sprakes, Chief Academic Officer and Co-founder, XP School in Doncaster (@SprakesA & @XPschool) Suzanne Heywood, Chair of the Heywood Foundation (@HeywoodFndation)More infoDo schools kill creativity? TED Talk, Sir Ken RobinsonThe crisis of the last six months has exposed five damaging myths in education Blog, Peter HymanRethinking Education James Mannion's teacher training organisationHow to Change the World James Mannion's TEDxtalk on 'vertical slice politics'Above all compassion, the story of XP School FilmLearn more about the Heywood Prize and enter here.Contact Reasons to be Cheerful via our website, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Let us know your episode ideas, your comments and feedback! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We are socialized to believe that schooling is synonymous with education, and that if you don't conform the problem is you". Today we are joined by Dr Naomi Fisher, an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant and author of ‘Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning'. We discuss how the school system often fails to meet peoples needs; the children, the teachers and the parents. How schools enforce compliance and alienation instead of educating children to follow their natural curiosity. How those early experiences of success or failure can shape ones self-conception into adulthood, and how we are taught from an early age to see others as competition. We also cover 'self-directed education', how learning is a process of meaning making, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation, studying subjects because you're 'good' at them opposed to what actually interests you, consent and control, why it's a mistake to demonize video games and how empowerment can't start with forced compliance. “Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it's more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety. This is not inevitable. Self-directed education puts the child back in control of their learning. This enables children, including those diagnosed with special educational needs, to flourish in their own time and on their own terms. It enables us to put wellbeing at the centre of education.” References: Changing Our Minds by Dr Naomi Fisher: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/ Naomi's Substack: https://naomicfisher.substack.com Naomi's Website: https://www.naomifisher.co.uk Naomi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/naomicfisher Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502429-troublemakers -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet's other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message: This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any health decisions or management. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/itsnotjustinyourhead/message

Dr Naomi Fisher is both an expert in the conventional sense and an expert by experience as she talks about her own time at school and her later challenges in understanding the pros and cons of home schooling. is an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant. She specialises in trauma, autism and alternative approaches to education. She works with children, adolescents and adults. She is the author of ‘Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning' (Robinson, 2021) and ‘A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education' to be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers in 2023. She runs online courses to support parents and offers training for professionals. https://www.naomifisher.co.uk/

This conversation comes at an interesting time in the broader context of the future of education. In the wake of progress 8 results in the UK and NAEP scores in the United States, there appears to be a narrowing of educational possibilities toward a very particular model of schooling, or at least a model whose proponents have been the loudest in proclaiming victory. It has has gone by many names over the years but recently solidified under the umbrella of #ResearchEd or the “science of learning”. The claim here is that we understand and agree upon the ends of education - that is to raise standardized achievement scores - and it's simply a matter of aligning the means around “what works” to close gaps, raise scores - and at least in the context of pandemic schooling since 2020 - combat & reverse “learning loss”. “What works” of course, is the reiteration of adult authority with a laser focus on high expectations and results, the centrality of explicit/direct instruction, and above all a strict approach to school discipline. It's a model listeners in the United States might associate with Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion and listeners in the UK with Katharine Birbalsingh's Michaela School, where I imagine the notion of a self-directed education would be greeted with the same incredulity as geocentrism. Bolstered by these measures of success in national contexts, this model is increasingly decontextualized and exported as the solution to educational ills the world over.GUESTSDr. Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and mother of two self-directed learners. She has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Developmental Cognitive Psychology, focusing on autism. She combines years of hands-on experience of self-directed education with an in-depth knowledge of the psychology of learning and well-being. Her work has been published in The Green Parent, The Psychologist, SEN Magazine, Juno and Tipping Points. She is a regular speaker on self-directed education, presenting at the Freedom to Learn Forum, Homeschooling Summit, and recently was a keynote at the Rethinking Education Conference in London. She is also the author of “Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning”, which I would highly recommend, and the upcoming book “A Different Way to Learn: Neurodiversity and Self-Directed Education” to be published in 2023.RESOURCESNaomi Fisher's websiteNaomi Fisher's TwitterChanging Our Minds by Naomi Fisher Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist. She has written a book: Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning. The book is an excellent look at self-directed education also known in the UK as home education, or in the US as home school or unschooling. We discuss her background as a psychologist and her work with autistic people. We chat about her experience of eleven schools and why she has ended up asking questions about control. Why we control people and particularly why we control children. Naomi discusses the different schools of thought on education and why progressive doesn't necessarily mean child-led education and why she likes the idea (Alison Gopnik) of a child as scientist. We chat about what Naomi views as the problems of the current system such as the overuse of exams and why behvaiourism only covers a tiny slice of what learning is in the real world. Naomi highlights some of the benefits of a self-directed education process and what home education can bring. We talk about the amount of time we have spent in the world of Minecraft. Why parents may be overworried about the use of technology and screen time. Why YouTube might be more beneficial than not. Naomi answers my question on how to deal with child meltdown and outlines the idea of zones of tolerance. I pose a question on to what extent we should influence a child's learning “syllabus” and Naomi outlines her view that a child should always have agency and not be forced into “learning” but that does not mean we should not seek to give a child a rich environment and opportunity to learn. Naomi answers listener questions. First, if home education is only for rich people, and, second, the impacts of the pandemic on home educators. We play overrated/underrated and Naomi rates: the government setting the curriculum, the role of exams, social media and technical colleges. Naomi talks about her latest projects including a second book on neurodiversity and self-directed education, called “A Different Way to Learn” available in 2023. Naomi ends with advice: “my number one advice for parents would be trust your instincts about what your child needs and how your child is. There are a lot of parents I talk to they say, "I think that my child is really unhappy or I think that my child needs these things, but the professionals are telling me that I'm wrong." I think you need to just retain your knowledge that you know your child better and you probably have a really good sense. You don't just know your child better, but in most cases you share genes with your child. Therefore you often have a kind of intuitive understanding of the experiences that your child is having and that you can get inside their heads in a way that professionals often can't. So I would say really listen to your instincts, give yourself space to think about what you think as sort of apart from what everybody tells you, you should be thinking. The other thing is lean into the things that your child likes; whatever they are, lean into them and embrace them because this is a short time of life when they're like this and when they're young and it is an amazing opportunity to connect with them if you choose to do that rather than choosing to pull them away from the things that they love.” Transcript available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/8/31/naomi-fisher-home-education-unschool-agency-in-learning-meltdowns-child-led-learning-cognitive-psychology-podcast

In this episode I am joined by Ian Cunningham, the founder of the Self-Managed Learning College (SMLC) in Brighton; Dr Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist who sends her children to SMLC; and Ellie Costello, the Director of Square Peg, a social enterprise that supports young people and families with barriers to attendance. We are here to discuss the Schools Bill currently going through the English Parliament, which presents a significant challenge for people seeking to rethink education; indeed, if it goes through largely unamended, it looks like it will be a hugely retrograde step in many alarming ways, all of which we will get into in the podcast. And so, with apologies to international listeners, this episode is strongly Anglocentric. CORRECTION: Regarding Andy Bilson's research: 44% of all children will be referred to children's (social) services before their 16th birthday. RESEARCH LINKS: The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report A child-centred system: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175391/Munro-Review.pdf Bilson et al - How child protection's ‘investigative turn' impacts on poor and deprived communities: http://bilson.org.uk/Family_Law_prepub.pdf MacDonald & MacDonald - Safeguarding: A Case for Intelligent Risk Management: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article-abstract/40/4/1174/1631451 Munro - Predictive analytics in child protection: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332528200_Predictive_analytics_in_child_protection Hardy (2017) - In Defence of Actuarialism: Interrogating the Logic of Risk in Social Work Practice: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02650533.2017.1394828 Contact your MP - or member of the House of Lords: https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp Petition - We must stop the Schools Bill: Act now to protect vulnerable families from persecution: https://www.change.org/p/updated-attendance-guidance-encourages-prosecution-and-fines-of-families-facing-barriers-to-attendance-undiagnosed-children-with-send-are-particularly-at-risk-time-for-positive-action-for-send-in-education LET'S GET TOGETHER - THE RETHINKING EDUCATION CONFERENCE 2022: Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lets-get-together-the-rethinking-education-conference-2022-tickets-226415834857 Share our social media links: Youtube (trailer): https://youtu.be/JKz8ALX2QFM Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rethinking_Ed/status/1528046472444485638 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100004976851081/videos/706113054004294/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-mannion_too-often-the-education-debate-is-dominated-activity-6933887283146207232-53h0 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tv/Cd1b__3svlV

Guest  Philip Mott Philip is a former elementary school teacher who now offers parenting advice for busy and frustrated parents. He and his wife home school their three young children. He's a regular contributor to Fathering Together and First Time Parent Magazine. www.philipmott.com www.fatheringtogether.org https://www.firsttimeparentmagazine.com You can also hear an interview with him on the podcast Front Row Dads. There are two parts:    Part One   https://frontrowdads.com/philip-mott-part-1/     Part Two   https://frontrowdads.com/philip-mott-part-2/ He is interviewed by Living Joyfully With Unschooling on the Exploring Unschooling podcast. View here on YouTube:  SHOW NOTES: In today's episode Jenna and Philip have an open and honest conversation about how each of their households handles things like screen time, bedtime and other common hurdles in unschooling.  Before we begin Jenna reminds listeners that she is always looking for new topics and questions you would like to hear addressed on the podcast. For instance, would you like to hear more from Jenna herself, more experts, other ideas? Also, remember to please leave a review as this helps grow the community.    Jenna begins the interview by asking Philip to explain his journey into self-directed learning.  Philip says that he began reading a lot about child development, student engagement, and why students are not fully engaged. He realized that he was becoming the teacher he himself would not have wanted when he was a student. His experience in school was not a good one which was one reason he wanted to become a teacher himself. At that time he felt he had fallen into an authoritarian role. After doing some reading he began to try to make his classroom more child centered. But he says that the writings of Magda Gerber,  a parent child advocate who founded the  Resources for Infant Educarers usually referred to as RIE, was a great inspiration for him. He found this resource when his child was thirteen months old and followed her advice on letting the child lead in play and learning. He had always followed a self-directed path in his own learning but hadn't made the connection that it would be the same for even very young children. He and his wife were surprised and pleased that a child that young could be so self-directed. This was when they became hooked on self-directed learning and knew that they wanted that for their family.      Jenna notes that she is always surprised at how many educators there are who have an epiphany and says that she can relate to the feeling of becoming that teacher that you don't want to be. She says that it felt uncomfortable and wrong but was brought on by stress and expectations which were out of her control. Philip agrees and says that when he was teaching fifth grade at an online school he was on a team that kept him from implementing some of the things he wanted to try. He did create a program he called ‘Connect' in which he would engage with students in order to build a relationship beyond just academics. He tracked grades during this time and saw that the extra engagement with his students did improve their interest and success in class. But, it still didn't make up for the fact that trying to teach everyone the same thing at the same time was really not working. The curriculum keeps teachers bound to a timeline teaching specific skills at specific times.  Jenna asks if there is in his opinion any time that any one skill MUST be learned. Philip says that it is less about when or even what is absolutely needed to be known or learned, but is much more imperative that the child not be made to feel inadequate if they fail to learn something at the time we expect them to learn it. Even if parents don't criticize or punish their child for not learning a skill, they receive the message of unworthiness from standardized testing, the grading system etc.  Jenna mentions that some teachers put the scores on the board following a test. She wonders if this is supposed to motivate the students. Philip says he wonders if it has become more valuable to beat another person rather than to learn and nurture relationships. He says that some of the philosophical reasoning within racism and feminism can teach about children and learning. He mentions the book ‘For Her Own Good' by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. The book addresses the wife having no say, and kids often find themselves in the same position. A power over vs power with mentality. Jenna mentions a podcast episode by Brene Brown, where she discusses the Power Over vs Power With paradigm.  Jenna goes on to ask Philip if is familiar with Peter Gray's assertion that language is the only subject that must be learned by age four and does he agree.   Philip says that in his own experience it has been the case that timelines on learning are very individual. He gives the example of his own learning. As he said before he was not a good student even in high school. But, in college he was ready to learn and did well. He supposes that exposure to one's native language would most likely occur naturally.  Jenna says she was speaking with a friend recently and they brought up the fact that as students they didn't learn much about technology as it hadn't been invented yet. Now, everytime new tech comes along they all learn to use it. An example of learning when the need occurs.            Philip mentions that people are even learning things about how things were done ages ago. There are many YouTube channels dedicated to learning skills and tasks of old. Jenna mentions a project in Germany where they've used  period-appropriate tools, materials, and techniques.   Jenna points out that the driving force in self-directed learning is curiosity.    Philip states that within their home school ‘Curiosity is the Curriculum' is their motto. An example he gives of a typical day is this. His kids are really into Pokemon right now. So, they will watch an episode or two and then go downstairs to the basement and act it out. His older son has learned all of the characters, cards, hit points etc. He is using a lot of skills including math. He advises parents to stop and observe what kids are doing and be able to see and recognize that their learning is fun and they are using valuable skills.  Jenna mentions that she has observed her kids especially on excursions and that natural conversations occur that inspire learning. As a teacher she could see the learning but it was very subtle. With her son, his big interest at the moment is video games. He has learned by trying and failing and trying again. As he improved and learned organizational skills as well as the tech, he now shares his skills on Twitch. He learned a lot of soft skills that could one day be applied to a career. Academics she says can be learned and proven, whereas soft skills are more fluid.  Philip agrees that academics have all these benchmarks and soft skills are harder to master. Even though Jenna's son is showing leadership skills, there may be times when he doesn't take a leadership role and that's okay. He goes on to talk about labeling kids. One label he hears a lot is regarding ‘the strong-willed child.' Once you decide your child is strong-willed, you tend to see everything they do through that lens. He wonders how it helps a parent to label a child strong-willed. While they may have been strong-willed yesterday, he believes we should give our loved ones a new chance everyday.          Jenna says this reminds her of a podcast she listened to by Blake Boles interviewing Naomi Fisher on the topic of Nature vs Nurture. Perhaps it is the dynamic between parent and child. For instance maybe the parent is very authoritative and that impacts the child's behavior. It goes both ways and can be very different between children within the same household.  Philip says it is impossible to be the same parent to all of his kids. His kids are very different people.    Jenna mentions that she isn't even the same person around her different groups of friends, so of course it makes sense that it is impossible to parent each child exactly the same way.    Philip says that his wife came back from the store one day and said that she needed to remember what it was like to shop with a three year old. This conversation reminded him that we even tend to label age groups of children. We put expectations of behavior and more on them. He says we need to look at it more individually. This is not A child, this is MY child. She isn't a problem, she is having a problem.    Jenna agrees and says that it might be you that is projecting and actually creating a problem. Everyone has good and bad days.    Philip says we need to not be hard on ourselves as parents, since there are no ‘perfect' parents.    Jenna says that within self-directed learning there is a tendency to strive for peacefulness and avoid conflict at all costs. She asks Philip's thoughts on this.    Philip states that there are only two things in their household that they are firm on. Bedtime and Screen Time. As for bedtime they have ‘room time.' The kids have to spend time in their rooms at night, but there is no requirement as to when they actually go to sleep.    Jenna says that for her, sleep is a number one priority. In her household with her kids, as they are older, and with some experimentation they agreed that everyone would be in bed by 9:30 PM. They don't have to go to sleep, but they need to be quiet.    Philip says he really likes that Jenna discussed her need for sleep with her kids and asked her kids to help her out with that.           Jenna prompts Philip for his thoughts on screen time.     Philip states that he and his wife didn't initially agree on this subject. (She wanted to limit it.) Now that his kids no longer have nap time, this has become Screen Time. They also have another screen time session in the evening. Although it is limited, it has not been a problem. Screens are now part of our culture and kids will most certainly be using them a lot in their futures.    Jenna says she is glad that he and his wife were able to negotiate as it demonstrates what everyone goes through. Parents are hardly ever in complete agreement on every issue. For her family they had years of limited screen time. She says she wouldn't change that because it is impossible to explain to a two or five year old how video games are designed to be addictive. Now that her kids are older, she can discuss it at a higher level. Her son now spends the majority of his time on a screen since his main interests include gaming, tech related everything, 2D animation, 3D modeling, YouTube, Twitch etc. If she sees that he is losing interest in all of the other things he loves such as basketball, rock climbing and swimming, then it would be time to have a conversation with him. She says that one of the superpowers of self-directed parents is that they know their children so well that they notice more when something is off.     Philip discusses the fact that even if a self-directed parent were concerned they wouldn't panic or try to solve the problem on their own. They would as Jenna stated have a conversation with the child and participate together in a solution.    Jenna and Philip wrap up the interview by agreeing that there are so many variables in play. Personalities, ages, etc. There is no rulebook. Parents have to be kind to themselves and their children.   Jenna asks Philip the four questions that she asks all of her guests:    How do you like to learn? Philip says he really likes to learn in tandem with others. Something like an apprenticeship.  What are you curious about? Philip states that he is currently into meal prep and meal planning. Jenna asks if he has resources for that to share. Philip says that he just pulls things from the pantry and experiments.  Do you have any educational resources that you want to share? Philip says that he has found some great courses through Masterclass               Some of the classes he has tried are Graphic Design, Cooking and Guitar Playing.                What is a book, blog or podcast that you recommend? Philip says that Rogue Learner is of course on the list as well as Teacher Tom, an inspiring, friendly and authentic blog about living and learning with preschoolers.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show Philip Mott Fathering Together  https://frontrowdads.com/philip-mott-part-1/ https://frontrowdads.com/philip-mott-part-2/ Exploring Unschooling podcast - YouTube Magda Gerber For Her Own Good Brené Brown on Leadership and Power Masterclass Teacher Tom   Ways to Connect Join me on the Show! Leave a voicemail! Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

In this episode Sarah interviews Dr Naomi Fisher, author of the incredible book Changing Our Minds. They talk about putting children back in control of their learning and enabling all to flourish in their own time.Bookhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Changing-Our-Minds-children-learning/dp/1472145518Website Self-directed.org https://www.self-directed.org/tp/changing-our-minds/Naomi Fisher https://www.naomifisher.co.uk/Collage app www.collageapp.co.uk

We are taught that an education is a vital component of success.  We define education as going to school.  Whether through public schooling or the more expensive version of the same concept, private schooling, children are shepherded through a system that makes learning a 12 year long process of mastering how to follow the rules and perform for rewards. On today's Quantum Revolution episode, we're talking to Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist, about her book, Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning (https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Our-Minds-children-learning/dp/1472145518/)  According to Fisher, children today have easy access to an enormous amount of information, from all around the world. The news is not hidden from them and much of the news is not reassuring. In addition, most of them spend their days in an environment which makes very specific competitive requirements of them, and over which they have almost no power. When they refuse to cooperate with this, they are said to be suffering from school refusal, or perhaps school phobia. This is often thought of as an irrational anxiety, a bit like being scared of spiders. But is it irrational to refuse to go to school? Instead of assuming that distressed children must be disordered, let's think about whether school is an environment in which all children can thrive. About 33% of children in the school system manage to do well.  Some even thrive.  But what about the other 66%?  Even more frightening, approximately 30% of children in the United States have been diagnosed - and some are even medicated for - having learning problems.  Have we really bought into the idea that only 33% of us are smart and capable of success? Could 30% of children be incapable of learning or be somehow educationally “broken” and often in need of medication to make them compliant? We've talked to several scientists and thought leaders this season about the importance of a healthy foundation for life.  When we get disconnected from the value of life and the arc of time that is the lifespan of a human, it's easy to forget that being a child isn't a static state.  Children grow into adults.  Adults who are eventually tasked with running the world and creating the future we dream of. While we could blame computers or over scheduled lives for this crisis, we might also have to reckon with the idea that some of this crisis is being amplified by our education system.  We have a school system that has normalized punishments and rewards - a way of motivating children that has been proven again and again to actually DECREASE creativity and, over time, compliance. We have a culture that has normalized the experience of bullying and being bullied in school.  It's so normal that most of the young adult fiction that has won any kind of book award in the last few years centers around the theme of bullying.  Just this week in the news, a 10 year old Black girl with autism killed herself because she was being bullied.  I have long held the view that disempowered children have to seek their normal human need for power somewhere and that bullying is a dysfunctional response to feeling powerless in school and at home. We have normalized treating children the same way we treat our pets.  It's normal for teachers to use shaming language and yelling to manage a classroom of rowdy students. We use clickers to count how many times students interrupt the teacher, take away recess if they are too frisky in class, encourage them to go for extra credit and gauge their value based on how well they follow the rules and how much they are willing to do beyond the regular work in the classroom. 6.1 million children in the United States alone are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, a diagnosis rate that is not supported by post-mortem studies that show that the actual rate of brain changes consistent with ADD/ADHD is closer to .01 percent of the population. I could go on and on with a list of how the system is broken but I want to end on an inspired note. In Howard Gardner's original research on Multiple Intelligences, he came up with over 100 different kinds of giftedness that children exhibit.  He was told to narrow it down because we couldn't construct an education system complex enough to meet all the needs of all the different ways of learning. What if we can? What if the pathway to incorporating all these ways of learning is to let the children lead us?  To let us know what they need and how we can support them as they follow their natural, adaptive way of following the right educational path for them? What if we trust that children contain within them a deep connection to their own inner wisdom that sparks them to follow their innate, unique and natural path of learning  - the one that is theirs to follow?  What if we redefine the parameters of success and the skillset necessary for adulthood and instead give children the space, freedom and support to grow into the people they are born to be? Dr. Fisher in her book, Changing Our Minds brings together research, theory and practice on learning. It includes interviews with influential thinkers in the field of self-directed education and examples from families alongside practical advice. This essential guide will give you an understanding of why self-directed education makes sense, how it works, and what to do to put it into action yourself.  You may find the book on Amazon – click here or find it at your favorite book seller. Dr Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant specializing in responses to trauma. She works with adults and children, including those with diagnoses of special educational needs. She has a PhD in Autism. She has hands-on experience raising two children as self-directed learners. Her writing has featured in The Psychologist, Tipping Points, The Green Parent, SEN Magazine, Juno and more. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Fisher on how we can change the education system to help children to learn and grow in whatever way works best for them. You can find out more about Dr. Fisher on Twitter https://twitter.com/naomicfisher  Thank you for joining me for Quantum Revolution.   Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite platform so you don't miss any of the amazing shows we have in store for you.  Join us next time when we talk with Dr. Eric Kaulker about emotional effects of trauma and stress. If you'd like to learn more about how you can connect to your innate wisdom and live a life rooted in well-being, please visit our website www.quantumalignmentsystem.com. 

The frustrating part of science is that it takes time.  It takes time to validate an experimental process, duplicate the process enough times to verify that the results are relatively predictable, and to calculate and demonstrate the statistical probabilities. When it comes to doing research about health and wellness, it's hard to wait out the time for scientific validation for compassionate reasons.  The Hippocratic oath starts with the promise to “first do no harm." But the science behind healthcare can sometimes create a dilemma.  In today's Quantum Revolution episode, we're going to be talking with Dr. Peta Stapleton who has been building a body of scientific evidence behind the Emotional Freedom Techniques, EFT.  Some of you may know it as “tapping."  What if the “doing no harm” means taking a risk and implementing something that seems anecdotally “harmless” and truly beneficial before science has time to validate a healthcare innovation?  Sometimes we have to stand in both places at once.  We can take a calculated, intentional risk to implement a process that is seemingly beneficial and - with caution - inform our clients that the science behind the choice is still emerging, while we wait for the patterns to be scientifically verified and validated over time. This process takes pioneers who are willing to take a leap of faith.  Both the practitioner and the patient have to be willing to trust that the experiment is worth trying and understand that the results are not guaranteed.  But then again, with healthcare, to a certain degree, the results are never quite guaranteed.  There is no one size fits all approach for treating people. Only statistical probabilities that treatments will work… The decision to take a calculated risk for the sake of healing is a personal choice, provided the outcome doesn't impact the well-being of others.  But, collectively, we have to understand that these calculated risks, while they may be end up being a “Hail Mary pass" on the personal level, are not scientifically valid.  While the practice of EFT tapping has not been around as long as acupuncture, one of the main components of EFT is the gentle tapping on those same energy lines, or meridians, used in acupuncture and acupressure. When combined with some current psychotherapies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure Therapy, tapping yields amazing results. EFT was developed by Gary Craig in the 1990s based on his study of work done by Roger Callahan in Thought Field Therapy (TFT). TFT was one of the first methods in what is now called Energy Psychology. As Craig realized the potential of this approach, he worked to refine and simplify the techniques while maintaining positive, measurable results: an evidence-based methodology. He ultimately developed a simple yet very profound set of techniques which he made available to everyone on his website emofree.com. Dr. Peta Stapleton is a registered clinical and health Psychologist and Associate Professor at Bond University (Australia) who embraces evidence-based and innovative techniques.  Dr. Stapleton is a world-leading researcher in Emotional Freedom Techniques (‘Tapping') and led a world first study investigating brain changes after EFT.  She was awarded the Harvey Baker Research Award for meticulous research (Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology), and was named 2019 Psychologist of the Year (Australian Allied Health Awards). Dr. Staplteon has also authored The Science Behind Tapping: A Proven Stress Management Technique for the Mind and Body (Hay House), which won Best Self-Help Book (2019 Best Book Awards, American Book Fest). Find Dr. Stapleton on social media, she would love to connect! Website: petastapleton.com Training: evidencebasedeft.com Email: admin@evidencebasedeft.com Facebook: facebook.com/drpetastapleton Twitter: @petastapleton , Instagram: @petastapleton LinkedIn:      linkedin.com/in/petastapleton YouTube:  youtube.com/DrPetaStapleton Research publications: research.bond.edu.au/en/persons/peta-stapleton Dr. Stapleton's clinical food craving program based on research trials: weightmanagementpsychology.com.au/onlinecourses/tappingforweightmanagement Thank you for joining us for the Quantum Revolution Podcast with Karen Curry Parker. Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite platform or at quantumrevolutionpodcast.com so you don't miss any of the amazing shows we have in store for you. In the education system, that are more than two generations of students moving through the school system who do not benefit from the most current educational research, something you'll learn about in our next Quantum Revolution episode. We hope you will join Karen Curry Parker and her guest Dr. Naomi Fisher on our next episode, we'll see you there!

Hi everyone, thanks for coming back for more! This is just a short update after a few weeks of finding our way through this new way of life. Some resources mentioned in this episode: Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning by Dr. Naomi Fisher Tranquility Parenting by Brittany B Polat Rethinking Education by Dr. James Mannion - an awesome podcast and I would urge you to listen in particular to his conversation with Dr. Naomi Fisher.

Ollie Lovell · ERRR 059 Naomi Fisher on Self-directed Education The ERRR podcast can also be listened to on Spotify,… The post ERRR #059. Naomi Fisher on Self-directed Education appeared first on Ollie Lovell.

Cognitive Psychologist Naomi Fisher discusses some of the negative impacts that standard schooling can have, as well as what can happen when we give students control of their own learning. Want to learn about teaching and education in Australia?

Psychologist Naomi Fisher has been actively involved in Self Directed Education both as a parent and in her professional role as an advocate and supporter of children and their families.Naomi recognized that there was much in the education system that is actively working against children's needs and best interests, and wanted to promote a better way of learning, both for her own children and the families she works with.After extensive personal and professional experience and years of research, Naomi has valuable insights and wisdom to share about the journey of self-directed education.In this discussion, she will share What she thinks school is getting so very wrong for children How parents and children can prepare themselves for Self Directed Education How to research the best approach for your family How schooling harms children in the short AND long term, and why you might still be carrying some emotional baggage from your own school days You will be able to ask Naomi questions and share your own experiences with her.Join us to dig deep into this fascinating topic and benefit from Naomi's years of experience and research.Let's keep the inspiring discussion going! Discover our events, articles, and more with these links:inspirEd MagazineinspirEd EventsMailing listYou Tube

JOIN ME ON THE SHOW!!!   Guest    Megan   IG @theunschoolfiles www.theunschoolfiles.com   I'm a mama + unschooler from Austin Tx - kiddos are 10, 12 &15 i parent from the heart, and unschool just the same. the liberation of all people is the reason, for me - once I understood how oppressive school was, there was no stopping what came next. sometimes I podcast about it :)   Show Notes   Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Rogue Learner podcast, I'm Jenna Reich. Every other week, I interview researchers, educators, entrepreneurs and families about their experiences with self directed learning. The off-weeks, I co host my show with a listener and we focus our attention on the previous podcast episode and share our biggest takeaways from it.    This week, I have a very special guest co host joining me on the show. Meghan is an unschooling mother of three and the podcast host of The Unschool Files. She has interviewed a number of amazing guests too and I've had the pleasure to get to know her and talk with her over Zoom. Go ahead and stop listening right now to subscribe to her show. I'll wait right here!   We'll be talking about our takeaways from last week's episode with Summer, a grown unschooler who shared how her life without school was fulfilling and how her relationships were strong. If you subscribe to conventional thinking (which I'm guessing you don't if you're listening to this show), you'll find yourself questioning everything! She challenges those ideas and provides us with some incredible ways to reflect and process our thoughts about life. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, it was number 25. FYI, I always share the links and resources mentioned during the episode in the show notes so no need to write anything down.    Before we get started, I have a couple of announcements to share. Firstly, this podcast is being listened to in 17 countries at the time of recording and I just want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to tune in. I value your time and I hope I am doing a good job of bringing you content that's informative, relevant, and concise. Also, we had our first book winner this week! For every 5 reviews I get on Apple podcasts, I give away 1 free book. In order to enter the giveaway, all you  need to do is send me a quick email saying what screen name you left the review under. It was a great pleasure to send off a copy of Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher to a listener this week!    Last thing before we begin today's show, please subscribe to the Rogue Leaner YouTube channel. I'll be uploading all of the episodes there and am preparing to add a variety of content there that will not be on the podcast. If you're interested in getting a more in-depth look at our unschooling lifestyle, you'll want to head over there!    Okay, let's get on with the show shall we. Enjoy!   Jenna asks Meghan to share a bit about her journey into unschooling and how she got into podcasting. Meghan says she's a mama of three, 10, 12 and 15. Her 10 year old has never been to school but she pulled her oldest out of school when he was in 3rd grade. She describes their unschooling as an ever-evolving emergent practice. She dabbles in podcasting over at The Unschool Files as and when she has the time.    Jenna says she knows the difficulty in balancing podcasting and unschooling because they both take up a lot of time. Meghan reminisces a bit on how unschooling can take up many days at a time as you're living life with community - the days sort of blend together. Jenna explains how her and her family haven't actually experienced that side of unschooling yet due to the constraints of lockdowns and the pandemic. She had initially wanted to take the kids on a trip around Europe, but they found themselves isolated instead. Meghan reassures her that the days will come and they aren't too far away, at least she hopes.    Jenna asks Meghan to kick off the show with her first take away from Episode 25 with Summer. Meghan says for her, what really stood out was that there are so many interpretations of unschooling and the idea that the word ‘unschooling' is sort of on trial -  people want to scrap the word altogether.    Jenna adds that unschooling is based on each family's personal values, so there is no playbook. There is no guide to tell you exactly how it should look in your home. It's going to vary wildly depending on the individuals in your home. You don't choose unschooling if you want precise guidelines or something to follow. Jenna says she's considered mentoring or coaching in the future, but she doesn't really know how that would work because what works for her family may not work for another family.    Meghan agrees, she sees many parents looking for that support. She knows not everyone gains enough confidence by just researching it on the internet. But she is curious to know how a mentor or coach could guide a family since you'd really have to have a deep understanding of the complexities of the relationships within the family.    Jenna says she could see it being useful as an accountability check in or just overall support when you've had a lousy day or your confidence is waning. You could get ideas on ways to fix problems and have someone there to reassure you when you inevitably make mistakes. Meghan adds they could certainly encourage and cheer you on. She still wonders what is being taken away from those kinds of mentorships. Are parents being asked to examine the balance of power in their homes? Sharing power is so critical to unschooling and self-directed learning. Parents would need to have an intersectional look at what unschooling can do so we can get rid of some of these problems in our society that could go away by liberating everyone.    Jenna adds that Summer talked about some questions parents can ask themselves which are helpful when you're challenging your thoughts. She said, “What response was I trying to elicit? When fear comes up, where did I get the idea? Where did it come up? Why do I believe it? Is it true for me? Jenna says she uses these questions all day long, even though she admits that she isn't perfect and there are still times where she makes mistakes and has to go back and apologize.    She shares an example of when she really needed to ask herself whether she was operating from fear or power over when she noticed her son wasn't leaving his room and getting any exercise. She thought about it for 24 hours before deciding that she truly does have a concern about his health and that she needed to approach him about her concerns. They are considering karate, but Jenna also had to stop herself from demanding a solution right away. Her son wants to take it slower and try one thing out at a time before making a decision.    Meghan says the pandemic has brought on really special circumstances when it comes to health and safety. They're finding it more challenging and are forced to occasionally play the parent power card when it comes to things that could be dangerous. The conversation has to be really honest. Meghan says you can tell your kids that you don't want to have control over this and you want them to make these decisions for themself. You want them to be sovereign in their decision making, however if you're noticing that there is a health or safety concern you can make suggestions.    Power is rooted in colonialism, says Meghan. It's rooted in systemic racism and spreading American Puritan beliefs. And we've been convinced that this is the only way to live. It's a lie and there's another way to live. Meghan adds that we're all holding ourselves hostage within this paradigm and we can walk away.    Jenna adds that Summer pointed out how all of our beliefs and societal norms are just made up. The curriculum, the American dream, the 9-5 is all just made up. We could have been following completely different norms and we just go along with it because we've always done it. We could have included anything in the curriculum and we would have just accepted it and learned it because that's what we're meant to do.    Meghan says, yeah, we'd just be going along. It has so many angles. She says she knows that there are people who can't walk away from the schooled path though, due to the fact that they have special needs they rely on from the school system. For example, students who are neurodiverse, deaf, blind, etc. Jenna points out that there are also people who don't have any problems in the school system, and therefore they have a degree of privilege in being able to use public education without being negatively impacted.   Meghan shares that a listener she often talks with has a child with hearing and wants to be referred to a school for the deaf, but the local public school says she can manage just fine there (even though that isn't the case) and won't give her the referral - they are essentially acting as a gatekeeper. People then feel lost and unsupported. Meghan says she tries to be careful when talking about unschooling and all the things it can do for us because she knows there are people out there that just don't have the access to it or can't for whatever reason.    Jenna points out that living an unschooling lifestyle still has enormous benefits, even if you're forced to choose a public education. Having respectful, democratic, power balance in the home percolates down and changes the way kids interact in the world. Jenna says she notices the difference in how her children perceive the world from before unschooling and after. She says for her, unschooling goes beyond academics and is more of a lifestyle.   Meghan defines unschooling as living without oppressive relationships, ideally without forced academics but she thinks that's negotiable. Parents can talk with their kids about the oppressive systems we are subjected to and learn how to advocate for themselves and ask good questions.   Jenna agrees and adds that parents can also advocate for their children within those oppressive systems too. Jenna adds that with her own daughter, she was able to talk very openly and honestly with the teacher to ensure that her daughter's wellbeing is the priority. In her experience, the teacher was really receptive.    Meghan points out that there will be challenges, having to maneuver dynamics that are not similar to your own family's mutually consensual relationships vs. the top-down hierarchical place, but that doesn't mean you can't go into an hierarchical place and meet the moment there if it's desired by the individual.    Jenna shares how her daughter noticed a sexist remark in her first week of school from one of the teachers, and it's good to see that she is noticing those things and forming opinions about that at such a young age. Meghan laughs and says she thinks Jenna's daughter is going to do just fine!   Meghan's second take away from the episode with Summer was that she was raised to always trust herself. Meghan says she tried to imagine if she felt like her children felt the same way, and she thinks they do. Summer talked about how she was never explicitly told that she could trust herself, it was more in the way she was treated - she was in charge, she was a sovereign person, she could make choices for herself.    A quote that stood out to Jenna was when Summer said that “a ‘good education' doesn't have anything to do with joy, passion, love, health, wellness, and happiness.” Meghan and Jenna ask in unison, “what is the point?” Why even be in this world if there aren't any of those things. Meghan takes it further by asking what is the point in wealth if you can't ever spend it, what's the point in climbing the corporate ladder if you can't have a family if you want one or travel or start a side business, or have a stand at the farmer's market on the weekend? We're supposed to be living, not just working. Productivity is not the natural state of a human being. She says she thinks we've learned to be productive in order to survive, and she doesn't discount the very real realities of being productive in order to pay the bills and travel. We have to be careful not to slip into “bourgeoisie” unschooling where you think you're in an elite club and ‘above' school. It can be a slippery slope.     Jenna shares how she didn't want to box herself in when she created this podcast. She knew that SDE would be much more inclusive and she never wanted to sound high and mighty or dogmatic. She laughs about how she now has a daughter in public school so it's probably best she didn't do a podcast dedicated solely to unschooling.    Meghan says that she thinks where Summer was coming from is, if relationship and partnership come first, even if it's outside of the parent child relationship, if the space the children are raised in is not oppressive, it can still be unschooling.    Jenna says that people who claim that unschooling doesn't work for them may truly be struggling with trust, because unschooling can't not work since it's principles are defined by everyone getting their needs met. Those parents may just need more time deschooling in order to fully trust the process. They may be operating from fear. Meghan adds that power is really hard to let go of.   Jenna admits that she was a control-seeking person before she started her unschooling journey and it caused her to feel anger when someone would cancel plans or anything happened that was out of her control. With the unschooling lens, she is able to recognize those situations of control-seeking and be empathetic to the needs of others. Her daughter recently objected to a snuggle and Jenna (although somewhat saddened by it) felt proud  of her daughter's ability to set boundaries with someone she loves and cares about. Jenna says she still struggles to set boundaries with people as an adult.  Meghan points out that on the flip-side of that boundary discussion, some absolutists in unschooling may use their boundaries as an excuse to be unkind. I think you start to lose some control over those boundaries when they become so inconvenient to everyone else around you. You may notice that fewer people will want to hang out with you.    Jenna quotes Summer, “Any time someone's freedoms are being sacrificed for another person's freedom, then it's not true freedom. She says she's all for boundaries but we need to be respectful of where they overlap with other people's freedom.    Meghan brings up the part in Summer's interview where she talked about her mom not wanting to buy factory-farmed meat for her kids and not having a television. She says this can be a really tricky subject. Jenna adds that her family is vegan and in her family they've had to make a few boundaries when it comes to meat, like she won't prepare it, but she doesn't mind buying her son a burger. It's really up to the family and the individuals to decide what their boundaries are and how they can meet everyone's needs.    Meghan talks about her experiences with food. They had food issues in the family. Her family moved to Japan though and she remembers before that move, she was able to be very selective about what her family would eat, particularly no fast food. It was much more difficult to eat that way in a foreign country. She even remembers a time, which she is ashamed about now, where she got super frustrated when someone fed her kids fast food. At the time, she was very righteous in what she felt about food. Living in a foreign country changed her perspective for many reasons and she found herself in line at McDonalds one day with her kids. Her daughter looked up at her and asked if it's okay that they eat it now. It was a really pivotal moment for her because she realized just how much control she had over the types of foods her kids had access to and the types of people they met up with. It was an explosive moment for her where she realized she had been controlling things for so long. She said at the time she had been listening to Akilah's podcast and she felt like her unschooling was fake because she was controlling all of the inputs.    Jenna says that in her episode with Naomi Fisher she talked about the inability of parents to release control of everything in their children's lives because in some small way, we are always controlling their environments. Jenna says she thinks the best way to navigate that is to be aware of it and limit it as much as possible. Meghan says everyone has different levels of comfort in what they're willing to let go of control in. Meghan adds a point Summer talked about; we all need to keep asking why - why am I doing that? Who am I leaving out? Who doesn't have access to this? What is being left behind when I reject this idea and move onto this other idea. It's challenging.    Jenna reiterates, this is your own. Everyone's needs! Meghan says it's an emergent practice. Our lives change, people change, our circumstances change. We need to continue evolving in unschooling. Meghan says she loved the point Summer made about how hard it is to unlearn the beliefs we've developed about yourself compared to learning math, for example. Summer had said, if you take care of the relationship and the connection and your child's emotional and psychological wellbeing, the academic learning will take care of itself - it doesn't need you to manage it.    Most of us learn negative things about ourselves, Jenna says. It's an accumulation of negative experiences throughout childhood. We try to limit that with unschooling. Meghan adds that those stories about ourselves are pretty solid by the time we're adults. The goal then is to surround your children with people who are invested in them and whom your children are also invested in. You can do that when you break away from oppressive relationships because when that's not there anymore, we don't have this need to hold power over and control over, you're all free. And when everyone's free and everyone's needs are being met, there's really not a lot that can go wrong there.    Jenna says that her giving up control really elevated her relationship with her husband. They both feel supported in their interests and hobbies and feel free to pursue their passions. It makes everyone much happier. It's a byproduct she hadn't originally thought about when deciding to unschool since her focus was more on her children and the impact it would have on their lives.  Deschooling is where it's at, says Meghan. We are the real problem, us parents. Jenna says that it's becoming so apparent to her that trust, respect and connection are the foundation of unschooling. Everything else just seems to work out.  It's such a simple concept, but one of the hardest hurdles to overcome without continual deschooling.  Meghan agrees saying all other things are a byproduct of the deschooling process. Deschooling is for everyone. The colonial mindset is perverted and we have the opportunity to change that through our relationships with our partners and our kids.    Meghan asks Jenna what she meant by wanting to deschool longer before taking her kids out of school - what would that have looked like for her? Jenna says that's a really good question and basically, she thinks she pulled them out before she really trusted the process which made the transition turbulent and confusing. She wishes she would have waited until she could handle her fear and completely throw out the academic learning for a while. She rushed things and ended up trying to recreate school at home.    Meghan thinks it's better to pull kids out right away, so they aren't continually subjected to the oppressive system. She says the deschooling can happen together and parents can be really honest with their kids about what they are doing and why. They can tell them that they don't know exactly what they are doing! Kids are really receptive to honesty. Jenna thinks it would be impossible to have that experience though, if the parent is still having major doubts about whether it's going to work for them.    Jenna asks Meghan as a wrap-up question; what does deschooling mean to you and do you think there's a point when you feel prepared for unschooling? Meghan says she doesn't think there is ever a time when you are prepared for unschooling - you can't deschool ‘enough' to prepare. It's kind of like coming up with a perfect time to have kids. There's always something that could be done more. Unschooling will crack you wide open. The idea of letting go of this entire formula for life and saying, not only am I going to reject that formula but I'm gonna trust that this process that is not laid out, has no rubrik or framework other than just being in non-oppressive relationships with other people and non-forced and coerced academics and just hold on for the ride, it's hard work to lean into that trust. If you wait, the stories your kids are developing about themselves are still carrying on. She thinks pulling them away from that and deschooling together is a great way to start. Be honest with your kids, because honest parenting leads to freedom. We need to liberate ourselves from these oppressive ways of thinking and realize there's not just one way to live. There's a lot of ways to live.    Jenna pushes back on that a little because in her experience, she thinks because her kids were doing okay in the system, it would have been really advantageous for her to wait until she really trusted in the process. She would have been able to completely disregard all academic learning. Meghan says that parents need to be prepared for that - they need to be okay taking a long break from any academics. She encourages parents to sit down with their kids and pick a time frame on the calendar of when they will not be doing any kind of schooled learning, where you'll all just hang out and have fun.   Meghan says, when you mess up you can apologize and let your children present their grievances. They may need to let that out. It could help you settle any turbulent moments that have come up.    Jenna says she feels like they're in a good place now. She tries to give herself a little credit, seeing how their entire unschooling time has been during a pandemic and the things she'd imagined they would do together have all been canceled. In fact, they've spent a good majority of their time in lockdowns.    Jenna thinks this might also depend on the family - when to pull the kids out of school. Perhaps this will depend on the circumstances, the family, and a whole slew of other variables.    Meghan adds that every parent has a different language they use with their children, but honesty is helpful when talking with kids because kids are so gracious. All they really want is a close, connected relationship. Accepting when you're wrong is really important. If you can't be told that you're wrong, SDE won't be very successful because kids will call you out when you are inconsistent, don't make sense, or when something is not adding up.  Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Rogue Learner YouTube Channel Rogue Learner Podcast Episode 25 with Summer Meghan - The Unschool Files Akilah Richards - Raising Free People Podcast Free Resources for Homeschoolers Episode 11 and 12 with Naomi Fisher Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher   Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

  Join me on the Show! Leave a Voicemail! Guest  Summer   FB @thisbeautifullivingfreedom www.mermaidartglass.com   I am a mostly self taught successful glass artist and entrepreneur who has had absolutely no formal education or instruction of any kind. I am a student of life itself, and I could not have had a better teacher. Not only was I unschooled, I was raised by the most incredible woman, whom I am honored to call my best friend and mother. Her parenting philosophy of love, respect, humility, authenticity, and nonviolence, is what has allowed me to be and grow according to my own natural development, passions, and impulses. As an adult I have found it fascinating to try an analyze why my relationship with my mom, myself, and life in general, is so unusual. I am extremely passionate about parenting and education. I have spent many years providing childcare to a wide range of children and have spent that time observing and studying adult child interaction, how it compares to my own experiences, and what makes it so different. Show Notes   You are here because you're curious about self-directed learning. You want inspiration, practical tips, information, and a community of people to share your experiences with our guests. Advice and tips will help us all to create the most enriching learning environment we can for our kids. If that makes you curious.   You've come to the right place. So let's learn how we can best facilitate our children in their learning pursuits. Welcome to the rogue learner podcast.   Hey, hi everyone. And welcome back to the rogue learner podcast. If you're just tuning in for the first time. Welcome. I have been so busy the last four weeks, and we have a ton of catching up to do. I do plan to fill you all in, but I'll wait until next week since today's interview is already a super long one.   Welcome to all my new listeners. I'm so glad you're here. My name is Jenna. I'm the host of the rogue learner podcast. And I'm a mom of two awesome kids. My husband has joined me on the show periodically too. And his name is Chris. We are one year into our unschooling journey in episode 24, my husband and I review our year of unschooling.   So you can check that out. If you're interested in hearing more about our experience, I started this podcast as a way to connect with other people on the same path and to learn along the way, I've been lucky enough to interview some of the most influential researchers in this space. And I hope to continue on with a quality show that provides you and me with some invaluable information that will help guide our decisions about how we live peacefully with our kids.   I thought the show was going to focus mostly on education, but I'm realizing that so much of what I was searching for. A little to do with academic learning and so much more to do with my connection with my kids and family. I hope this podcast inspires your family to connect and live a more peaceful existence together.   One that puts respect for each other above all else. Today, I have the perfect guest on the show to speak on all of these specific topics. Summer is a grown unschooler who has never been to any formal schooling whatsoever. She's a unique find even in the world of unschool. Because many children at least take some formal classes along their unschooling journey.   At some point, her and her brothers were raised by their mother who saw the value in building relationships with her kids and trusted that her kids would become the best versions of themselves if she just supported them and loved them unconditionally. This was before the days of internet and unschooling forums.   So today you'll hear summer's unique perspective on growing up in an uncoerced home. There are so many moments where I actually paused the interview while editing to write down a quote, because she made so many profound. Summer is located in Hawaii. And the day we recorded, they had a pretty big storm blowing through, which means that during the last segment where I ask my guests the same four questions, summer's audio went out.   So we couldn't get a connection after that point. So I missed asking her the last few questions, getting her contact details and saying goodbye. So I do apologize in advance for the abrupt ending to the episode. Last thing before we kick off the show, I'm giving away free to learn by Peter Gray or changing our minds by Naomi Fisher, to enter into the drawing for your chance to win.   All you have to do is leave a written review on apple podcasts. Then email me with the book you'd like to win. And the screen name you left your review under. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. And I really hope you enjoy the interview. If you would like to be added to the conversation in some way, you can connect with me in the Facebook group on Instagram or click the voicemail link to leave a response to today's show and or co-host to show with me by clicking the link that says, join me on the show either way.   I can't wait to hear from you. All right, let's get on with today's show. Here's my interview with summer. Enjoy.   Show Notes   Jenna: Hi summer. Welcome to the show.    Summer: Aloha Hi.    Jenna: You are in lovely Hawaii and I'm quite jealous. I hear all your lovely sounds in the background.    Summer: Well, the birds morning here, so all the birds and roosters are pretty active.   Jenna: I love it. Um, I'm wrapping up my day. So I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, very tired and drained from being out in the cold.   Summer: That's so fun. I love that we can communicate like through time and space all at time.  Jenna: It's so awesome. Isn't it? I love that. That's the one good thing about technology? Well, I guess there's a few things, but I really like that too. So I am so eager to talk to you because I think it's a really rare treat to find somebody who has thoroughly been unschooled their entire lives.   And not only that, but has never had any formal schooling or formal classes or anything like that in their lives. That's I think quite rare. I think you even mentioned that you haven't met, have you met anyone that has had that same experience?    Summer: I don't think so. I've met a lot of homeschoolers and I've met a few unschoolers over the years, but I haven't actually met anyone that was like a hundred percent unschooled from the start.   Most people that I've met, who are unschooled did do some schooling. Either some public school or some Waldorf for, you know, a little bit of something in the beginning before their parents chose to go the unschooling route. So it's, um, it's my brothers and I seem to be kind of an anomaly and I didn't actually really realize that until somewhat recently.   I mean, I knew there weren't a lot of us out there, but I didn't realize that I was one of the oldest, fully unschooled people willing to even talk or share my experiences. So I've been getting a lot of interest lately.    Jenna: You're like museum worthy, right? Like, like, woo. Look at this specimen. Um, yeah. I think, I mean, for the most part, a lot of unschooling or homeschooling families have their kids take some sort of classes along the way, or yeah.   They go to high school for a year or, and try it out or, you know, they get curious and or then they go off to trade schools or colleges and in their adult lives. Right. So I wanted to actually get started with the word unschooling, because I think you have a different definition than maybe what other people have.   And I think your perspective is really important to be shared because you're the one who's actually experienced it. And I think for parents who are unschooling their kids or sending them to self directed schools, it's really comforting, not, not only comforting, but just it's something that we all are really curious about is to hear from someone who's experienced it, obviously, because we are choosing this for our children.   Right. And so we want to know that this is a good choice and who else to ask, but somebody who's actually experienced it for themselves. So, so yeah. Let's start there.    Summer: Well, I've heard, it's funny. You said that like wondering if it's a good choice because I've had people ask me that before. Like, um, do you think unschooling is good for, for all children or is it just like school where some kids do well and some kids don't and I kind of boggled by that question sometimes.   Cause to me, unschooling is really, yeah. Life without this idea that you have to force human beings against our will to do things you think they should do. So to me, it's like, how can that not be good for anyone? Like life is good for everyone. Life is good for every child. Every child is good for life.   And I, so I don't understand how it can be not good for some people and people are, well, my kids aren't self-motivated and I'm like, I just, I, it's hard for me to wrap my brain around this idea that unschooling wouldn't be good or wouldn't work quotations for some children, because I feel like it's life.   How can life not be good for someone it's just life without this idea that we have to be, he compelled, manipulated, coerced, bribed, forced into becoming something that other people think we should do. Or learning things that we're not interested in learning things that aren't useful to us of following some program that someone else made up somewhere that never even met you.   So I don't see how that could be. It's just doesn't it doesn't make sense to me. I think I come from this really different place of not having this lifetime of programming. So I get questions from parents sometimes, and it honestly takes me a minute to respond because I don't understand the question. I like won't understand where it's coming from.   I'm like, what do you, what do you mean? Why would you think someone would need. It's really interesting to me. So the term unschooling is, I've kind of grown uncomfortable with the term to be honest, because I used to use it very proudly. And it was a term that my family kind of fought for over the years.   I mean, I'm 32 now and my oldest brothers, uh, were they going to be 40? So 40 years ago when this all started for my mom, like there wasn't even a thing. Like no one had even heard of homeschooling in the area I grew up in let alone unschooling. So it was kind of this term that we, we protected and we fought for, and lately I've been realizing that this term unschooling means some really different things to different people.   And it does not mean what I thought it meant. And so that's been a little sad for me. I'm kind of needing to let go of and move on from that term because to me the most basic definition of the term unschooling is no forced education. Like that's the absolute, most basic, you know, boiled down version and it has no force education.   And I'm hearing people sometimes say this thing where they're like, um, well we do some required math and then we unschool for the rest of it. And I'm like, that's not, that's not even possible if you understood, like, to me, if you understood the first thing about unschooling, you would understand that if there's any kind of required, if you're requiring your child to use their brain in ways that they are uncomfortable with on interested in, on ready for or unwilling to, then you go against everything unschooling stands for.   So to me, unschooling isn't like a part-time thing. It's not like a method that you can  use on your kids sometimes when you feel like it, it's not like this thing that you can  throw in. So that's been interesting for me to like, come to the scene. That people have, like, I don't know what it is that people think unschooling is.   If it's something that you can use sometimes like, to me, it's not something you can use. It's actually, oh, it's a whole way of life. And it's a philosophy based on, on respect, absolute respect and honor of a human being. And it's, to me the obvious, it's almost like a by-product like unschooling to me as more of a symptom or a by-product of choosing to live in peace and harmony with children.   Because the way that I was raised was so much more than just not going to school like unschooling. Yes. It means no forced education, but it's about where that comes from and why you choose to do that. And if you're choosing to not put your kids in. It kind of goes into a whole thing, but basically in my family, for my mom, she chose to unschool and it wasn't like this conscious choice of like, I'm going to unschool so that it was actually like, I want to live in peace and harmony with my children.   Oh, I guess that means we're unschooling because that is what she felt like was the most respectful and nonviolent way to raise her kids was to not force us against our will. And she didn't feel like she was in a position, like a higher position than her children, like who she felt like, who am I to, to tell another human being how they should be or what they should do with their.   And so it was really more of, um, like, uh, we were a very, like a small tribe, the five of us, my mom and my three brothers and myself. And it was more about friendship and partnership and cooperation and living in peace and harmony together. My mom really trusts our natural human instincts to evolve. You know, she just could see that, like we would walk and we would talk all like with very little assistance and, um, she probably couldn't have stopped us if we tried.   And she just was like, why would anything be any different? Of course they will just continue to grow and evolve. Like everyone wants to thrive and be independent. So why would they not learn all the things that they would need to do that?    Where do you think she got this original thought? I mean, it's such a progressive thought too, especially if you have… you know, like I found it through Googling. I mean, this is not an era of time where there was just information, you know, information laden.    Summer: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we didn't have the internet, we didn't even have computers. We didn't, you know, it wasn't, it was not the time of screens. And so, no, my mom, well, I mean, she tells the story better.   I tend to get the details jumbled up because it's not actually from my own memory, but, um, she had my oldest brother really young. She was 21 and she didn't actually know that she was going to do anything different than anyone else when my brother came along and she just fell madly in love with this tiny human.   And she's like, I don't know. She has a really deep maternal instinct and she just gave her life to us. She did try to put my older brother in like a daycare at one point and she just thought it was the most bizarre thing. Like she's in love with this child. Why would I hand him to random strangers to be raised?   Like, this is weird and why would I leave him in a group of children where there's like one adult and they're not going to get enough love and attention. And I think she really just, something in her just thought it was odd. And it just went against her intuition. And my mom was very heart-based and intuitive and really listens to her gut instincts.   And somehow she was able to get in touch with that and listen to that. And she just knew something in her, told her that it was wrong to just leave her kid with strangers that didn't even love or care for him the way that she did. And why would she. Everything. So to her, it was actually kind of a selfish, um, choice.   And she likes to say, she did it for herself. She didn't do it for us. She did it so that she could hang out with us cause she liked us and a lot of other reasons, and it was just kind of little by little. It was one thing after another, you know, unschooling kind of came a little bit later, but it was like, why would I put my baby in a crib to cry themselves asleep?   Like that's denying their own natural impulse to be connected to me and my natural impulse to be connected to them. Like, why would we have these impulses if they were. And so it kind of came from like trusting life, like growing this trust in life and nature and just the natural bond between mother and child.   And she just didn't, she didn't understand why you should break that forcefully. And she felt like it was there for a reason why we have this draw to our mothers and why we have this attachment is healthy attachment. So it kind of, it stemmed from something different. It didn't stem from education. It stemmed actually more from, from this mother, child bond, this connection, this relationship, she just felt like there had to be another way, like why we don't have to break this and we don't have to push our children away and we don't have to be fighting and angry at each other.   And we can have a peaceful, beautiful harmonious home and be friends and be close. And she was right. She was absolutely right. And it took, you know, it was a really long journey for her. It was like many, many years and a lot of really. Self-inquiry and discovery and working on her own personal issues in order to stay connected with us and to recognize the things that break that connection and why we do them and what they cause and the psychological and emotional trauma that we cause children all the time, like completely unconsciously.   Jenna: Yeah. I think that's what's really difficult for a lot of parents today. And I mean, I speak for myself is this deschooling that has to go on, on the adults side to even get to a point where you can trust and live that lifestyle. I always say it's going to be a lifelong process because they don't.   Yeah, because I, you know, we're inundated with so much information from all areas of our lives that don't live this way and don't have these ideals and it's just a constant reflection and yeah, reframe and... Summer: It's daily, you were trained like most adults are trained their whole lives to not follow their instincts to not, they're not free to make their own choices.   They're told that they're not smart enough. They're not good enough. Other people know best for you, you know, you should do what other people say and what other people want. And that's how you're trained. Your whole childhood is. To trust yourself, not to listen to your own instincts. And so when you get to be where you have your own children, that's like, you don't even know how to get in touch with that anymore.   And how can you allow your children that kind of freedom if you don't allow it for yourself, that's her kind of her place that she likes to talk about is it's about freeing yourself. And now we have this term D schooling, which I've only discovered recently, actually just in the last year, like, oh, D schooling.   That's a thing my mom's like, yeah, actually you call it what you will, but to her, it's about freeing yourself and right. Because how can you allow someone else to be free if you yourself are not, you know, emotionally and psychologically and, and how can you trust your child if you don't? So it's, yeah, it's definitely beautiful.   I think that people have come up with this, the schooling idea and that there's a lot of resources and support for that now. And that's really cool because, um, I think it's really, really important that it's, the kids are fine. Kids are fine. They're fine. It's the parents really that have the struggle and it's a lot of work.   It's hard work. It kind of reminds me the more and more I get into these conversations with parents. It very much reminds me of deprogramming, someone from a cult. It's like, you're in this cult mindset of what education is and how children learn and how we have to train them to make them behave properly in society.   And that's a whole belief system which is part of a much larger system. When you start to deprogram from that, it's like you're leaving a cult and you have to deprogram this whole thought system in order to be able to see something.    Jenna: Yeah, it's a struggle. I, it is, it is work. It's a job.   Summer:I can't personally relate, obviously.I mean, to some degree, we all have programming of some kind, you know, so I'm sure, you know, I've got some of it as well. Well, I don't have the same from like the public school system. I was raised to always trust myself. And I was always told that I know what's best for me and that no one has the right or authority to tell me what I should or shouldn't do with myself and my life, with my mind, with my body, with my emotions, with my beliefs.   I was always told that I know that it's up to me, that I know that I'm responsible for myself. And I know what's right for myself and my life. And I was told that through. And when I say, yeah, when I say I was told that it's not just that I was told that verbally, like my mom told me that I was told that every day and how I was treated.   Actually I, what I could say is I was never told otherwise, and it's more like, it is more like I was allowed to keep that and I was never told otherwise.    Jenna: Yeah. That's uh, that, there's a difference there isn't there?   Summer:  Yeah. There's a difference. It's not like I had to be taught that I really just had to not be taught the opposite of that.   Jenna: Right. Yeah.    I talked about this with, uh, Naomi Fisher. She's a psychologist who just recently published a book about self directed education. And we talked about how there's a lot of things we learn in school that are not explicitly taught obviously, but things like, oh, you are not good enough or, oh, you, you don't look good enough.   Or, I mean, they're just subtle, but constant and daily reminders. You, you either fit the bill or you don't. And those lessons actually are so much more powerful than the actual academics that go on over time. Constructs the human that comes out the other end, essentially. Right?   Summer: I, that is actually a point that I bring up a lot when I'm talking to unschooling parents, is that I feel like, yeah.   Academic learning. So math and science, reading those things, can be learned actually at any time in life. I mean, anytime you can learn that stuff when you're 80, if you want, like there's nothing stopping you at any point in your life to learn any kind of academic education at all, but there are certain things that absolutely get learned.   At certain stages in life and they cannot be avoided and they are extremely difficult to unlearn later on. And these are these, like these deep, psychological, emotional decisions that we make about ourselves. These beliefs that we develop through really young, super young, you know, we're talking 2, 3, 4 years old, like right in that age range is when most of us make these decisions about ourselves in there based on our environment and how we're treated.   And sometimes it's something really subtle. Sometimes it's something really big and we get lots of these through our childhood. And that's what, like, kind of develops our personalities in a way, certain coping mechanisms, you could say defenses and coping mechanisms is when you're three or four and you hand grandma a picture.   And instead of saying, that's beautiful, she says, that's a funny looking tree. And then all of a sudden in your head, you go, I'm not artistic. And then you carry that around with you, the rest of your life. Yeah. You know, you carry that around with you and it's like you, and then you find more proof for it along the way.   So you get these little seeds when you're young, a lot of people who have these really deep beliefs, they can't even find where they came from. I'm stupid. I'm ugly. I'm not good enough. I'm unlovable. I'm not trustworthy. You know, I'm not respectable, like all these kinds of things. And they happen really young and they say, stick, they just, they stick.   And I think it's really, it's really heartbreaking to me when I see people sacrificing these emotional decisions, like, okay, well, my kid might think they're stupid, but at least they'll have learned. And it's like, no, right. You can learn, you can learn math a lot easier later on, then you can learn that you're not stupid because it's like, yeah, it's hard to explain, but I feel like we all have these real, these beliefs about ourselves.   And oftentimes we don't know where they came from even.    Jenna: I have an example of a moment where I felt really just sorry for our society and where we're at, because there was a child, a teenager at one of the groups and he was talking about all the things that he's good at, you know? And so it can go the other way, but, but he was like, I'm good at English.   I'm good at math and whatever. And I thought, okay, but that also can be like, it's the mindset needs to be. I can learn anything and I can be good at anything. And to me, even just saying, these are the things that I'm good at is limited, it's subtracting. Right? It's limiting all the things that you may possibly be good at.   Summer: Yeah. Like saying that like I'm good at this thing can kind of be like, you're saying you're not good at something else.    Jenna We'll go into high school and then maybe they get really, they base it off of their grades. Right. So they get really good grades in math and science, let's say, and then they choose a career in math and science, because they've always been told you're just really good at math and science.   But, what I would like to see change is not following things based on a specific credential you've passed, but actually things that you're really truly curious about. And you really want to know more about, or do better with, or provide some sort of value to the world in.   Summer: It's absolutely possible.   I mean, on that same topic, you're just reminding me of like one of the very common questions I get when people find out as I'm sorry. And from, you know, from people who are unschooling or interested in unschooling. And one of the most, some of I should say the most common questions I get are, how did you learn how to read and how did you learn how to write and you know, those basic things.   And then the other question is, well, what are you doing now? What are your brothers doing now? What did you grow up to be? And, um, what are you doing in the world? And are you successful? And are you supporting yourself? And like, that's what people want to know. And that to me is tragic. That is tragic. That that's your concern.   That's your question,is my kid gonna be okay in the world? Are they going to be successful? Are they going to be smart? Are they going to learn if I leave them alone? I really think it's sad that that's your first concern. Not that that's not a concern, but it's really sad that's the first thing that comes up that people want to talk to me about.   No one has ever gone, Oh, wow. You're unschooled. Do you have healthy relationships in your life? Like, are you happy? Have you found joy? Are you living the life that you love? No one asks that. They all want to know about monetary success.    Jenna: Well, that's what our society values.    Summer: So no one is asking about my mental or emotional state.   Like that doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. And to me that's like, if you are, if that's why you're unschooling is so that your kids will be maybe more successful, I can't help you. My mom told me when I was little, I remember this conversation and I think it had to do with some pressure from some grandparents or something.   And me being kind of like, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, because people would ask me that. And I think it's the worst thing you can possibly ask a child. She said, honey, she's like, I don't care what you do with your life. Like, I don't care if you want to be the garbage man. If you want to work in a gas station forever, I don't care.   I care that you follow your heart and you do what feels right for you and you stay true to yourself. That's what I care about. And it was like the pressure was completely off. I can be myself and whatever that ends up looking like in the world. And so if, if you want anything other than your child to be themselves and live their truth, then you're going to be looking for a method to change and fix them to alter their behavior and to change how they act in the world.   I don't think unschooling can help you with that. At least not in my version of unschooling and at least don't my version of unschooling and my mom's parenting philosophy at all, because it was all about allowing us to be who we already are. It wasn't about making us someone's okay. Are you only going to respect your child's autonomy and independence, if it makes them a better person someday, or are you going to do it because it's what's right, right now for you.   And because it's the only non-violent choice in being with children like it, to me, it's the only non-violent choice. Because any time that you begin to force another human being against their will to do any, anything, and you manipulate coerce, bribe anything, it's violence, it's violence against another human being.   And I don't care how old they are. And so if you're going to make that choice, just because of the outcome, and you're going to be like, well, I'll respect you now because someday it might have a good effect on you. I feel like you're in it for the wrong reasons, but if you respect your child now, because that's, what's right for you is to be a respectful human being.   I feel like that's, what's going to have even more powerful effect on your child because we can feel. You know, you can feel when someone's coming from a place of truth, like children, especially they can feel when you have an ulterior motive or agenda. So if you're treating them a certain way so that they will be a certain way it's going to backfire because they know they can sense it.   I've seen it. I've, you know, spent so many years in childcare myself. Like I can see it when I do that with a child. If I have any kind of manipulative behavior, if I say something so that they will a certain, you know, any of that, it always backfires. It really is about you. It's not about the child. It's about you doing what's right for yourself right now.   Like, do you want to be this manipulative, controlling human being to other human beings, regardless if it's your own child or your partner or your friend. So it's about how you want to be in the world, not how you want your kids to be in the world. And I think that's what's going to affect them is how you are.   And that's what it was with my mom. It's like I learned from who she was not necessarily what she did, if that makes sense. It's about like the place that she was coming from. And that's why often people want some kind of formula or method. Like someone asked me recently, well, what age should I wait before I introduce screens to my children?   And I was like, I'm not an authority. You know, this is not, I'm not going to tell you what to do. Like it's about where you're coming from and where that choice is coming from and how you see your child. And every child is unique and every parent is unique and every situation is unique. So it's not like there's an answer, this formula. And that's the thing is like people have that comfort in school and the school system, because it's like, we know at this age we're supposed to do this and this age, we're supposed to do that. And it's like, you have rules to follow. And parents are comfortable with that because they were, they were raised that way to rely on someone else telling them what to do.   And now you have someone else telling you what to do with your own children and telling your children what to do. And you never have to think for yourself, you can be lazy. You don't have to look within yourself and seek out these answers and follow your own intuition and your gut, and maybe be different and weird.   You don't have to do that. That's hard being sovereign, like being independent. It's hard. It's not easy. It's not comfortable. It's not, you know, you don't just get to like, oh, I just sit around and do whatever I want all day. I'm a self-employed artist. I have my own business and people say things to me like, well, if you do what you love, it's not work.   And I'm like, that is ludicrous. It's like, this is hard work to be self-motivated to be responsible for yourself, to be free. This is hard, but being told what to do and following orders, that's easy. You just keep your head down. You do what you're told to do. You don't question - everything's mapped out for you.   You don't have to dig deep within yourself to find your own truth and your own answers and maybe have some that are different from other people's and challenge other people. Basically with school, it's set, it's all laid out for you. You don't have to question or wonder. And my mom said, I didn't not send you to school, just put you into another system.   And I feel like a lot of people are doing that. They're taking the child out of school. They want to unschool. They want to homeschool, but they want this very specific thing. They still want a guide book. They want a rule book. They want a method that they can use on their kids that will work. Instead of like finding their own truth within themselves and having this unique relationship with their very unique and original child -  it's going to be different for everyone.   If you're actually present with life itself with your child, then it's going to be completely unique from anyone else, even in the unschooling community. So a lot of people are like, they've thrown out this one rule book, but they're floundering because they're looking for another manual, oh, at this age, we'll do this.   And I'll introduce screens at this age because this is developmentally appropriate. And this is, and it's like, it's still just this wanting to follow someone else's directions and not be responsible for your own choices. At least that's how I see it. I think it's very unconscious. I don't mean anyone's doing this on purpose at all.   I think it's absolutely terrifying for most people to take that leap. Like my mom, it wasn't easy. It was hard. She struggled, it was grueling. It's a lifelong thing. She's still doing her own interpersonal work. You can't just stop and be like, I have the answers. Now this is how you raise kids. This is the way you educate.   This is how all children learn. Like we're never going to have those answers because we're all unique individuals. So it's going to be different for everyone. And every relationship is unique. And I think that's where, that's what it's about for me is it's about the relationship and allowing that relationship to change and evolve and teach you and to be constantly learning from that relationship like you do with other relationships.   Jenna: Yeah. I think the problem with it is that most people don't have healthy relationships with themselves. So you can't have a good relationship with anybody unless you have a good relationship with yourself. That's why, you know, it goes back to the D schooling. I just find that such an important piece and almost, you know, looking back if I could change one thing, you know, like in retrospect, I think I would have spent a lot more time D schooling myself before the schooling, my children, like I would have spent maybe a year and I did to some degree, but I would say that like the intentionality was not for home educating.   It was more about like, I wanted it for myself. You know, I was in that stage of life where I was just kind of questioning and reflecting, but not with the intention of getting to a specific point where I could pull my kids out of school. I didn't have that foresight, but I really wish I would have, you know, at the moment I was like, okay, I am ready to home educate.    I would have started deschooling myself and then waiting a long time until I was properly ready to have the trust. You know, and wait till I was confident in my decision because as I was, you know, like pulling it all out and figuring it all out for myself, I was at the same time trying to help my kids along the deschooling process.   And it was actually really turbulent, you know, I mean, and it still is to some degree. So I think that process is just so critical and so instrumental in having a successful beginning.    Summer: And, you know, you talked about how people may do things on a certain schedule based on the system, right? Like, okay.   They go to school at age three or preschool, and then at five they start kindergarten. And these are the things that people say are developmentally appropriate and they should read at age six or whatever. Okay.    We get, we follow these guidelines and then it goes on to, I mean, a lot of adults are still following that law.   That our society made up. It's just made up anyway, you know, and people are still following that model. And a lot of people are breaking out of it now, but then they're still sending their kids to training for that model. So what I mean by that is like, you know, you get out of high school, you go to college and then you get married at a certain age.   You buy a house at a certain age, you have a kid at a certain age, you know, you've got this career. It's like that whole model, you know, that, like the American dream picket fence thing, it's like a lot of people are opting out of that now and having really different lives and choosing really different points in their life to have these experiences.   A lot of people aren't getting married until way later. Some people choose not to have children, people, you know, it's like, we're not following all this same model anymore. And yet we're still sending our kids into the system. That's training them for that model. Um, and so it's kind of funny. Like we're still sending them for the first leg of that rat race, but then we also want them to like, not be part of that rat race.   So, but we're still going to train them. So it's kind of funny. It's like why, you know, I want my children to be successful and independent and, and all these things. And a lot of people like their whole dream is to get out of this rat race. Their whole dream is to not have to work a nine to five. They want to be entrepreneurs.   They want to be more successful. They want freedom to travel. They want more time off. They want more time with their family.    Jenna: Well, maybe they don't want to be shackled by debt.    Yeah. And all of that. Exactly. Student loan debt and like all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's a whole, it's a whole thing.   And so a lot of people are like, well, I don't want that for my children. And then they're still sending them to the first leg of the training program for that life. And I find that really strange. Right?    Jenna: Right. And well, I think that, you know, the people who are waking up to this idea are people who are our age and are now experiencing that for ourselves.   So we're like, wait a minute. This isn't actually what I want. And so maybe my kids don't, it's not actually fulfilling and it's not actually necessary. And that you can set up your life in any which way. And there isn't a right or wrong way. And you don't have to follow these, this timeline as Arbus is totally just made up anyways.   You know, it's like someone just, it's just made up. It's not real. It's not true. It's just an idea. So it's funny that we all kind of have bought into this idea that we have to have this certain kind of life, that life happens in these certain stages. And if you didn't know, and you could just live in the mystery, you would enjoy a lot more what's happening.   And instead of trying to follow this, this whole saying, and there's so many different ways of living too. It's like I started my own business. I was only what I think I started making glass beads when I was about 14. And I started selling my work at local crafters and farmer's markets. At 16, I started my own business. It was making my own money at 16 because no one told me that wasn't a thing. No one told me I couldn't do that. Or that I had to wait till a certain age or I had to finish high school first. And then I had to go get a degree so that I could have a good career so that I could blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.   No one told me that I didn't have that idea shoved down my throat. So I made up my own path. I started doing what I love as I loved it. It was like, I was able to pursue those things as they came along, instead of like, no, no, no, that's just a hobby for later. That's not really a career. And I remember like my dad actually having those kinds of ideas cause he wasn't super on board with the whole unschooling thing.   My parents split up when I was a baby. I remember conversations with him, like through my teens and my early twenties, where he was like, that's a nice hobby, but you know, you should still get an education and go to college and get a degree so you can support yourself and not become dependent on a man.   And part of me was like, have you met me dad? Like, you know, that's never going to happen, but I understood because my mom had explained to me when I was young about my dad's family, I understood that it came from love and fear. So I didn't blame him, but it was a little bit sad for me, you know, to have him not trust and believe in me the way that my mom did, but he, he came around.   He came around. And at some point in my early twenties, I was looking, working for a glass blowing artist on the big island. And my dad came to visit. I took him to the shop and he saw my friend's place. And he was like, wait, that guy, he pays for that house and all that. And the wife and the car, everything through just making art.   And I was like, yeah, dad. And he was like, he was like, whoa. And it was that moment on, he never, ever mentioned anything about me, should be doing anything different with my life. And now he fully works my glass blowing as a career. Like he didn't see it as a career before he saw it as a hobby. I also, um, one of the things that I probably did differently was I learned as I did things, instead of pre-learning like a lot of people think, I mean, that's what school's for.   Right. It's pre preparation preparation. It's like, you're you pre learn. Right.    Jenna: They even call them preparatory schools.   Summer: Preparatory schools. Yeah. So they have the preparation for life because what you're doing right now, isn't life somehow. And. So, yeah, preparation. So like, I like to talk about that because I, it's kind of funny to me, there are some things that you need to learn ahead of time that you need to prepare for, obviously, right?   Like, if I'm going to have a surgery, I want that doc to have prepared, you know, like I want him educated, but there's a lot of things that you can learn as you go along. I guess everything in a sense can be learned as you go along, like you work your way up in a way. And so I always find it funny how people are, like, they take these individual elements, like out of an activity out of life, right?   So youextract this one element from life and then you teach it separately, like on its own, completely out of context in order to pre learn it for when it's going to be in context, which makes zero sense to me. Is 0 cents. You're like, okay, we're going to take this thing out of here and learn about it separately so that we can then use it when we put it all back together.   And you're like, well, why don't we just learn it altogether? Like, why are we doing this? Like, why are we separating out these things? We call them subjects, right? We take like one small element out and we try to learn it separately on its own with no application or purpose. Really. It has nothing to do with anything, it's just math all by itself.   And we want kids to like, learn this thing and memorize the saying when it has zero relevance to them or their life zero application, like they can't see the point. And yet you expect them to somehow retain this information. So that someday, maybe, maybe, and this is a maybe like, except for the very basic math, maybe your kid might need that somewhere down the road when it actually applies to real life, but then see, they won't have used it in real life.   So it's going to be another struggle and learning process and they'll have a hard time remembering what they learned because it didn't actually have any purpose or point to them at the time. Uh, so I think that's really funny because I learned things as I went. Some people enjoy pre-learning like my older brother, he likes studying things for what they are for the sake of learning.   I'm not really that way. I like to just jump in and  go for it and learn as I go along. So we all have these really unique ways of learning as well. It's fascinating to me how we put kids in this school system when it's like to me, there's just look at me and my brothers. Like, we all have these very unique ways of learning and acquiring and absorbing information and it would have been just a tragedy.   Had we been forced to absorb it in a certain way? Like some of us probably would have been labeled stupid for sure.    Jenna: Yeah. Just having, so I just have two kids. And so, you would think that there wouldn't be such a huge discrepancy in the way that they learn, I mean, they have the same parents they've grown up in the same house, like all the things, but they could not be any more different.   I mean, everything about them is so unique to them as individuals. And it's remarkable to me that they survived the school system and they really did well, actually they were super successful in school, but at the cost of. Still thinking, uh, like what we talked about before the cost was that they have definite perceived opinions about themselves.   And like, for example, my son who is incredibly gifted in anything mathematical logical, that sort of thing, he thinks he's not good at math. And that just blows my mind. I'm like, what are you talking about? And he also always talks about how he's not very good at German, but he learned the language in like 18 months and was able to do the work of a first grader with all the other first graders within a year.   But he has this perception that he's not any good, so that can't possibly have come from us or him, you know, that was external.    Summer: Yeah. And he made it mean something about himself because it's different than being like, ah, I'm not very good at this thing, but you know, it doesn't actually mean anything about who you are.   But like children, oftentimes when something like that happens and they're like, I'm not good at this thing. That means I'm stupid. So it's like, they actually make it mean something about themselves and about who they are as a human being. And that's what we do in our society. That's what the school system does.   We make what you do mean something about who you are. And so kids have this idea that they're not good enough because they can't do the things other kids do, or the things that adults are trying to make them do at a certain time or, or they're rebelling or whatever it is. And so it's like, I can easily say like, oh, I'm not good at that thing, but that's just saying, I'm not good at that thing.   It doesn't mean anything about me. It doesn't mean that I'm any less of, um, less valuable or less lovable or less intelligent. It just means I'm not good at that thing. That's all it means. But in our society and in the school system, that's not all it means. We make it mean like all this stuff about. If you're not good at math, it means that, you know, you're not going to be, it means something about your future.   You know, if you're not good at math, it means you're not very intelligent. And if you think you're not very intelligent, then you're going to struggle in other areas as well, because you're going to be operating from that belief, which will make you probably unintelligent. I know that when I'm afraid of acting a certain way, I act more that way.   Or if I'm afraid of what this person thinks of me, I'll be even weirder around them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think when you're acting from that place of I'm stupid, you'll make mistakes. So when you're, when you're a kid and you have this idea, like I'm stupid and then you're trying so hard to prove that you're not stupid.   It's like you end up making a lot of mistakes. Cause you're so nervous. And you're trying so hard that you're not just being yourself and being natural and present with what is fear based. It's fear-based and you're overcompensating.    Jenna: Yeah. So I know that people are going to wonder though, like, what was your experience with reading, writing and math?   I mean, because you sound like somebody who was like, okay, I, you know, I'm motivated to do this. I want to do it. And then you, you essentially do it. You jumped right in feet first. So what was your experience with, with those specific subjects, you know, cause these are like the things that people are always just so worried about and my experience is so different, you know, I can't relate to that because my kids already do those things quite proficiently, you know?   Summer: Sure. Yeah. No, that is, that's a huge one. It's always about like, what about reading is really the big one that's reading is the big one. If I don't make my kid learn how to read, how are they going to learn how to read? And for firstly, I want to say about that is I feel like a lot of adults have this idea that their kid has to be motivated and make a decision in order to.   And I think that's not how it occurs to me at all. Learning happens on accident, like right. And laugh every second of the day. It's like not something you actually really have to do on purpose in that sense. Like, I don't feel like it's necessary for a child to have this motivation, like, oh, I'm interested in this thing.   I think I'm going to discover more about this. I've made a decision to explore this and learn about this more. That's not how it works. Like if you watch them, when they're tiny, like I babysit this one and a half year old little girl once a week right now, I just love observing. Like this age is so magical.   She doesn't make a decision to learn about something. She just picks a thing up and puts it in the other thing. And she's just doing, you know, she's just doing and experiencing and being in the moment, like she doesn't have to have this whole psychological process. To get to a point where she's learning something, learning is already happening before you even think about it.   Jenna: At that age, II think it's more about curiosity and experimentation.    Summer: It is at every age, every age.   Jenna: Older kids maybe, you know, from, from my experience with a 13 year old and an 11 year old. I know that they have specific things that they're interested in. Right. And then they choose or decide like, I want to get better at it.   Summer: Right, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. That definitely happens. And I have some memories of doing that myself, of being like, I think I want to learn about this and like going for it. So that does happen. I'm just saying that I don't think it's necessary for a child to know they're motivated and make a decision to learn in order for learning to happen.   Jenna: Right. It doesn't have to be a conscious,    Summer: Right, like an active process. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Be like this conscious choice and a lot of parents who are unschooling and they're new, maybe new to the unschooling and their children are young, they're waiting and they're looking and they're watching for their child to choose to learn something.   Instead of recognizing that they're already learning, they're already learning and they're learning without the conscious choice to learn. Like learning is just happening all the time. It's a by-product of living. And so when it comes to things like reading, writing and math and that kind of stuff, a lot of my learning actually happened by accident just through life because it's around and you can't help it.   It just happens through exposure. You know, if you see that symbol enough times, you're going to recognize it. And then you're going to be like, what's that symbol stand for? And someone's going to tell you, and then you're going to know that happens naturally and gradually. And then there's certain points where something grabs your interest particularly.   And then you'll maybe pursue that for a while. Maybe you'll lose interest. So that's how it would go for me. It's like, I feel like I, um, I grew in lots of different directions at lots of different times and would go in this direction for a minute and then backtrack, or then go in another direction. I'd pick up this thing and then realize that it wasn't the thing I was really interested in.   So that was happening all the time without the conscious thought process necessarily behind it. But to answer the actual question, yes. Reading and writing, I was a little bit older. So we had, there was a lot of negative influence from my dad's side of the family. There was a lot of pressure and a lot of negative influence and, um, it had some negative impacts on us as kids.   And I remember I actually have specific memories. I've written about interactions I've had with my grandma and stuff that made me self-conscious and she made me. Worry about myself and if I was going to be okay, like not going to school, because she would ask these questions, you know, and she would interrogate me when my brothers were out of the room and flashcards and be like, trying to teach me and like, like testing me on stuff.   And it would come from her own fear because she loved us, which I understand, but it still had a really negative impact on us. And so my oldest brother had it the worst because he was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. And, um, my mom just did everything opposite of everyone else. Wondered, do you know?   It was like, no, we're doing attachment parenting and breastfeed. It was all this more natural peaceful parenting kind of stuff that my dad's family just had no idea. They just were horrified. They thought we would be dependent and socially awkward and stupid. And like all this stuff, they were terrified, terrified.   So there was this negative influence. So I like to point that out just because my oldest brother, he didn't start reading, I think until he was about 12, because he was so freaked out from the family pressure that he was exposed to and the fear-mongering from them that he would get really nervous around anything academic, because they made it seem really scary.   And so my mom like was just like tried to give him as much space and freedom and remind him that he's absolutely brilliant and fine, and he's going to be fine and wonderful, but it's really hard when people that, you know, you know, and love and trust like your own grandparents, look at you, like something's wrong and they don't trust that.   You're going to be okay. You start to question if you're going to be okay. And So he had a little bit of a harder time with that. But then my second brother, he was the opposite. He started reading when he was four or five years old. And it was just because he wanted to read this one story in this one book.   And he sat my mom down one afternoon and they spent like a couple of hours and that was it. It was like, I want to read this story and it wasn't. I want to learn how to read it was, I want to read this story. And my mom had this really beautiful way of allowing us to show her how we wanted to learn as well.   Not just what and when, but how do we approach learning, really more like letting the questions come from us? So it was very child led in the sense that she wouldn't just be like, oh, you want to learn how to read. This is how you learn how to read. She's like, really? How do you want to learn? Like, do you want to learn the sounds first?   You want to learn how to read whole, you know, like it was like, she would kind of investigate that with us. What was our interest really? Because sometimes a child has an interest in something for a reason that you haven't anticipated and it's coming from. From some other interests or it's just one aspect of it that they're interested in.   And so if you can follow that drive, it'll go a lot further than if you impose your own ideas about what that interest holds for them or why they're learning that thing. So my, um, my second oldest brother, he learned how to read very, very quickly in like one afternoon, one story. And then my oldest brother, it kind of makes sense now seeing them as adults, because he's more physical in the works with his hands.   Like he's a sailor, he's a captain and, uh, runs a charter company and sails boats and likes to build things with his hands. And he just remodeled his whole house. And like, you know, that kind of thing. My second oldest brother is a computer nerd and works for some startup tech company and has a degree in political science and, you know, he's like the brain.   So it's interesting to see that later on in life. You know, when we were kids, Garrett was busy building things and clay was reading and I was making pretty things then, and Kai was making snacks. Like he became a chef. We all had the seeds of our true passions in us all along, but we explored various avenues and aspects of that.   So then when I learned how to read, I tried really young, but I was the kind of kid that was like, if I couldn't get it right, right away, I'd get frustrated and walk away from it. And luckily I was allowed to do that. So I remember pretty young. I want to learn how to read. Okay, let's do it. You know, like, this is what, how do you want to do this thing?   And then I'd just be like, this is, this is too hard. I don't, I don't want to do it. Like I would just walk away. My mom's like, okay, well, whatever. And I was really busy with my other interests. I was very much into creating tiny things, whatever it was like, you know, I was into sewing and fashion design and making clothes for my dolls and building fairy houses in the woods.   I was really into nature, really into plants, edible plants. My mom got me an herbalism class.  I had all these other interests going on. And then when I was about 10 or 11, I decided I wanted to read a whole book by myself and I read Jonathan Livingston, seagull. I struggled through it and I was like, okay, but I did it, but I'm not, I don't really want to do that again right now.   So then maybe a year or so later, my friend recommended that I read Harry Potter and I didn't want to tell my friend, well, I can't read, you know, I don't want to read or whatever. And so my mom started reading it out loud to us and I got so involved in the story. And then my little brother was like, well, I want to know what happens.   And he started reading and that's how he learned how to read as well. He was like nine. He started reading Harry Potter. And then I started reading Harry Potter because I was like, there's no way he's going to get ahead in the story. And I don't want to wait for my mom to read out loud to me. So I basically grabbed that book and sat down on the couch and made myself sit that I was like, I'm going to do this.   So there was that decision and that determination. Um, but I had already had so many years of exposure to reading my mom, read to us all the time and was always involved in the present and answering questions and all that. So I had all these years of being exposed to reading and letters and words and looking at pages while they're being read and then trying to read myself on occasion.   So it happened in several batches of learning over the years. And then the final push was just Harry Potter. I sat down and it took me about an hour or two at that point till I was reading super fluently and something just clicked in my brain. And then I was just like, I couldn't believe it. Like, it was the most thrilling experience.   I was just like, overcome. Like I couldn't, I felt like I was, it was like, I would describe it now. Like I felt like I discovered some new, amazing drug. I was just like, this is amazing. And I devoured it. I read Harry Potter in two days, and then I read the second book and two or three days, and it just went like that.   I read probably at least six hours a day, if not more for a couple of years there. And my mom would have to be like, you know, honey, you might want to move your body. You might want to get up and go outside for a minute. And like, you know, she had to kind of like help me because I became really sedentary and just obsessed with fantasy novels.   And then I read so many things. I evenI fell in love with Shakespeare. I read like every Shakespeare play ever written just because I loved them on my own. And then I found out later, as a teenager, that people were forced to read that stuff in school and they hated it. And so I read a lot of classic literature and I loved language and words and writing, and it was just this beautiful, magical thing.   And so when I hear people concerned about their kids learning how to read, I'm always like, that is the last thing I would worry about because. I feel like it's this absolute, amazing, magical thing. Like, everyone's gonna want to crack that code at some point because it grants you this independence and children naturally crave independence.   I mean, you see them, they kind of go back and forth and as they get older, they want more and more independence. No, I want to do it myself. No, I want to get my own thing. No, I want to do this. I want it. You know, like they want independence from you and all of these skills that we're talking about. All these academic skills, those all grant independence.   So at some point they're going to want it because they're not going to want what kid is going to want to be 12, 13 years old sitting in a restaurant and have to have you read the menu. They don't want that. They don't want to be dependent. They want independence. They want to be able to do it themselves.   Jenna: I want to pause there. two things that you said there that, um, really stuck out to me. So, first of all, I know that when kids are, they wait until there's that motivation, there's that thing that they want to achieve and they need this and this and this, you know, criteria. These things have to be met before they can do the thing, right?   Like they have to know how to add or, you know, whatever the, whatever the skill is. And so I've heard this over and over again with unschoolers and home educators in general, that when that happens, the thing that they need to learn, that skill is so rapidly achieved because it's, what's holding them back from getting to their goal, there's a driving force behind it.   That it's just unstoppable.    Yeah. And what's interesting to me is that we spend years teaching kids how to read some times and then practicing it over and over again. And that could have all been avoided that, you know, that time spent that time wasted sitting and doing these drills and practice and worksheets and, you know, reading out loud in groups and all of that stuff could have been completely avoided if you just waited until that spark came intrinsically, right?   Summer: Yeah, because it will. And I think that's the problem is that a lot of people, they don't trust that, they don't believe. And I think it comes down to like your basic beliefs about human nature and what a human being is born with. And I believe that they're born with this evolving spirit. They don't want to be stagnant and sedentary, like no human being is born lazy.   It's just not a thing. It's like, they learn how to walk and talk. Like you couldn't stop them if you wanted to. And without the psychological blocks that get built throughout life, like it would just continue that way. And I feel like, yeah, every child who grows up in a healthy, supportive environment is going to find a personal reason to learn these things that they need because they're going to be needed.   So that's the other thing I think is funny is that people are like, well, they need to learn these things. And I'm like, well, if they need to learn them, then they will, you're saying, need, need means it's actually necessary. Which means they won't be able to avoid it. You're kind of contradicting yourself.   If you think you need to force someone to learn something that's needed, because if it's needed for them, they will. You will acquire these tools that you need to live your own life because who doesn't want that. And then people are like, well, if you're really afraid of your 30 year old son living in your basement and never doing anything, I think that's what people are afraid of.   They're afraid their kids are going to amount to nothing, and they're going to be dependent forever. And they're just going to sit around and be lazy. I just don't really get that becaus

In this episode Saifedean talks to Daniel Prince – author of the book Choose Life and host of the Once BITten! podcast – about homeschooling. Daniel describes his experiences travelling around the world and homeschooling his four children, what he learnt along the way and how to avoid some common mistakes. He and Saifedean discuss the arguments in favour of non-traditional forms of education – drawing on the ideas of thinkers such as Ken Robinson, Naomi Fisher and Peter Gray – and why this can help children become more creative and sociable. Daniel also shares a range practical tips and online resources for parents thinking about homeschooling.

Dr Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist with a doctorate in clinical psychology and a PhD in Developmental Cognitive Psychology, focusing on autism. She is also the mother of two self-directed learners, having decided not to send her children to school. Naomi is the author of 'Changing our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning'. It's about self-directed learning and it's an absolutely brilliant read - I really can't recommend it enough. We talk about the book in depth in this conversation. Naomi also recently appeared in one of the Rethinking Education campfire conversations - a brilliant episode called Self-Directed Learning - Dare to give young people autonomy - which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh2qgFo2C6c LINKS: TED talk with Molly Wright: https://www.ted.com/talks/molly_wright_how_every_child_can_thrive_by_five Some of Naomi's recent articles: The how and why of the classroom: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/how-and-why-classroom School's out(setting out some arguments for self-directed learning): https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/march-2020/schools-out School's really out: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/schools-really-out Naomi's brilliant book, Changing our minds: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/ The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at https://rethinking-ed.org/contact, or via @RethinkingJames on Twitter. You can join the Rethinking Education Mighty Network here: https://rethinking-education.mn.co Buy James a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/repod

Guest Co-Host Jessica McGough Hi All! I am a nature enthusiast and aspiring adventurer and was born and raised in Sonoma County, California. I attended college in northern California and then spent five months in Massachusetts where I participated in an AmeriCorps/Student Conservation Association program to work on environmental education and complete trail work projects in 2010. I taught at the preschool level as a college student, which is where my passion for working with children was ignited. I possess my California Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and taught kindergarten for three years, third grade for one year, and have also substitute taught in all of the elementary grades. My identical twin daughters were born in 2016 prematurely at 30 weeks gestation, and I have greatly enjoyed focusing my energy on them over the last handful of years. Taking a step back from teaching in the traditional school setting and having children of my own has been an enlightening process. In this phase of life, my thoughts and perspectives on education have shifted immensely. This transformation has led me to the exciting, innovative, and inspiring world of self-directed learning and unschooling. Thankfully, I have found my new place in education as a facilitator for Galileo, the amazing online self-directed global school. I am also an aspiring children's book author and hope to release my first book in the coming months. My family hopes to adopt a more fluid and adventurous lifestyle in the near future consisting of new and exciting places and experiences. Instagram @jessicadmcgough Clubhouse @jessicadmcgough Show Notes Jessica was an educator for several years, working with children in preschool thru elementary school. After having her twin girls, her perspective on education changed dramatically and she began researching and reading more about alternative education. She read ‘Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom' by Kerry McDonald, Teach Your Own by John Holt and Pat Ferenga, and The Call of the Wild and Free by Ainsley Arment. She's spent years immersing herself in alternative and self-directed education. She and her husband have chosen an alternative education path for their daughters when they become school-aged. She is so happy to have found an independent-study charter school in California where they live and they will be trying that out for the first year of school for their daughters. She has been so excited to find a job for herself as a facilitator at Galileo, a self-directed online global school. ($100 off your first month's tuition if you mention Rogue Learner) Jenna asks Jessica if there was a specific moment in her teaching career where she felt like something wasn't working or she didn't agree with the way things were done in the conventional school system? Jessica said she started out her teaching career teaching kindergarten. She was on a team of seven kindergarten teachers and found it difficult to implement some of her own ideas in the classroom because the more experienced teachers weren't willing to try new things. They were stuck in their ways and not open to change. She found that difficult. She also said there were times when kids were labeled “difficult” or “low performing” based on the fact that they couldn't sit at their desk for hours or didn't know their ABC's. Parents questioned her about that, and Jessica didn't have a good answer for the parents. She was just doing what she was directed to do. She had a student in kindergarten who could already read, but couldn't sit still. A third grade student she once had was an avid reader and would read his book during instruction. Jessica wanted to let him read his book, but felt as a public school teacher her job was to make sure he paid attention during her lessons, otherwise he'd miss something important. After she had her twins, she realized she couldn't return to work in a traditional school setting. She didn't want her own girls to be a part of the system, so she couldn't imagine teaching in it herself. She thought about sending her girls to alternative schools like Montessori or Waldorf, but again, that wouldn't give her kids the opportunity to really decide for themselves which learning style best suits them.  Jenna adds that she and her kids toured several schools as well; Montessori, Waldorf, and a Free School in Frankfurt. She says there seems to be an evolution that occurs in parents and educators where they realize kids don't need them in order to learn. Some take a more gradual approach toward self directed education, while others dive right in from the very beginning. Jenna adds that having your own kids really helps you to see that kids are learning all the time and are naturally curious.  For Jessica, one of her “aha” moments was while listening to episode 11 and 12 of the podcast where Naomi Fisher talked about how even Waldorf or Forest Schools can offer a great alternative for kids who enjoy that style of learning, but again, it has its limitations because it doesn't suit all learners. The best thing we can do is find the environment which is best suited for the individual needs of each child.   Jenna adds that as parents we need to be open to offering all the educational possibilities to our kids and let them decide for themselves which educational experiences are best for them. Whether that be through a Waldorf education or homeschooling, it's our kids' journey not ours. We need to trust them to make the right decision for themselves and learn to adapt to them as their needs change. Holding back options from our kids is contradictory to an unschooling mindset because it's a form of control. Jenna's daughter decided to go back to school because she missed structure, working with classmates and having a set curriculum. She felt out of control when all the decisions fell on her shoulders. It was just too much.  Jenna can relate to her daughter's needs for structure. Jenna says that when she went into entrepreneurship, she realized it wasn't the best working environment for her. It requires a lot of self-determination, motivation, and keeping to a self-inflicted schedule. This is hard for her.  If she was able to do her job as an employee, she thinks she'd probably prefer it because she thrives in environments where the schedule is set, her goals are clearly stated, and she's surrounded by inspiring colleagues. Just as adults are given the chance to try varying work environments, children need the same freedom to explore educational environments and see which ones work for them. Jessica says she thinks it's so great that Jenna is giving her daughter the chance to discover what's best for her. Jenna adds that she had the example laid out before her by her mother, who always let her make her own choices about school and trusted her as a teen. It was just the norm in her house growing up.  Jenna asks Jessica to share her first takeaway from the episode with Heidi Dusek, episode 020. Jessica's first takeaway was how she related to Heidi's comment about becoming a mom and  feeling the pressure to decide between motherhood and adventure. We're told in our society that we should get adventuring out of our system before we have kids, but Jessica thinks you can keep adventure in your life throughout parenthood. It goes in phases. Sometimes adventure just looks like going out to eat with your baby in their carseat. She shares how once her twin girls were one year old, they took a trip to Hawaii and it was tough, but the memories of that trip are still fun and she's still glad they went.  Jenna talks about Heidi's definition of adventure being any new experience or anything that feels a bit like a risk or that you could fail at it. Based on that definition, Jenna's very first adventure as a mom was an outing to Walgreens with her son. It felt really risky at the time and she was swelling with pride when she got home.  Jenna's first takeaway was about creating an environment where the kids can thrive. Jenna tries to offer up opportunities (without expectations) that lets the kids do what they will with it.  Jessica mentions her next takeaway was when Heidi mentioned how the community is a resource for our kids and provides our kids with meaningful social interactions. She also likes how Heidi mentioned the studies showing why some families don't adventure together; in that study, parents revealed that they are afraid of not having the answers to their kids's questions and refrain from adventuring with their kids because of it. Jessica notes how that's similar to parents thinking they can't homeschool because they lack the knowledge to teach their kids everything they may want to know. Jenna talks about how we need to rely on experts in our community to fill in the gaps where we aren't able to instruct our kids, or learn it together. New experiences are not only useful to kids, but they can serve as valuable learning opportunities for the entire family.  Jenna talks about how being a parent of an 11 and 13 year old, she has to find ways to create shared experiences with her kids where everyone is a willing participant and that gets harder as kids get older. At least, that's been her experience. They all have different interests and ways they like to spend their time. A shared adventure for her, may look like trying to play Fortnite with her son or doing a makeover with her daughter. Sometimes a fun shared experience comes from the parent taking risks or being uncomfortable, not the children.  Jessica says how she liked in the last episode how Heidi and Jenna talked about spending smaller chunks of time together that are meaningful as opposed to setting a specific amount of time to hang out together. She thought Heidi's comment about quitting an activity while everyone is still having fun was a really valuable tip and a great reminder to parents to be flexible and adjust your expectations. Jenna says there's a real balance we need to strike because we know our kids, and that's what makes each or our experiences unique. Sometimes our kids are not in a good mood, or aren't dressed well for the weather, and it's okay to end the trip early. But alternatively, we also know when our kids could benefit from a gentle nudge to keep going. Jenna shares a couple examples of when her kids have needed an early finish and times when everyone was having a good time despite the adventure taking way longer than anticipated.  Jenna mentions how Heidi talked about her experience with lockdown sort of gave her a peek into the world of homeschooling and provided her with the time to get to know her kids better. Jenna wonders how many families had a similar experience, because lockdown definitely played a role in kick starting the self-directed learning journey for her own family. Jessica says she has talked with so many families who found the system inflexible and learned that there are alternative methods to educate their children than through conventional schools, so she knows Jenna and Heidi are not alone. A lot of families saw their kids deep dive into hobbies and interests that they otherwise didn't have time for. Families got a chance to get to know one another better.  Jenna says that she was frustrated when people argued that school is necessary for kids to have social lives, because school does NOT have to be the sole provider of social interaction. Jessica said her experience teaching actually illustrated how socialization in schools is oftentimes a negative experience. For example, she had a 3rd grade girl bullied for her weight on the playground. There are so many ways for kids to socialize, and homeschooling provides socialization across age groups and backgrounds, which research shows is actually better for kids. Jenna says she likes that homeschooling provides kids with the option to choose who they spend their time with, as opposed to being subjected to forced socialization where it can actually be detrimental to their wellbeing. (ie; bullying, criticism, austrosizing) Jessica thinks many adults can't recall what type of socialization went on in schools and are slightly out of touch since they aren't working in schools. Most of the time, teachers are actually discouraging socialization in the classroom because they have a curriculum to get through. Or, socialization is forced and controlled. Many times, there are negative consequences for students when they do want to socialize in class.  Jenna liked Heidi's question for her kids; “what do you want this experience to look like?” Jessica also mentions how she liked the idea of creating “to go” bags or bins so you can just get up and go. She also thinks it's important though, even with all that forethought and planning, to keep some level of spontaneity in your life. She mentions the book “Memory Making Mom” by Jessica Smartt as a great inspirational book for adventure, tradition, and spontaneity. As a planner, Jessica needs reminders to be spontaneous and flexible at times, so she found the book very helpful.  Jenna feels like her family doesn't have any traditions to speak of. They change things up every single year, and she says as a multicultural family that's moved to three different countries, she finds it difficult to repeat traditions year after year. It's something she wants to work on because she does think they're important. Jessica feels like simple adventures can become amazing traditions, and a bit unconventional. You have to see what comes up naturally for your family and not put pressure on yourself to do it every single year. Jenna laughs about how she doesn't think her family has any traditions, but she'll let the audience know if she thinks of one.  Jessica liked the simplicity of the RV trip Heidi and her family went on. Jessica's family has recently downsized and they live very simply, so that part of the interview really resonated with her. Jenna agrees, she says the more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to take care of. Since her family has moved so many times, they have to keep their possessions to a minimum too.  The episode with Heidi was recorded a while ago, and Jenna wants to mention how Heidi recently went on a trip to Hawaii with her family of five for just $500.  You can connect with Jessica on Instagram @jessicamcgough. Jessica also wants to let the audience know about InspirEd, a global online event hosted by Galileo Online School. The event will be for parents and educators looking toward alternative and forward-thinking educational models, like self-directed learning. Some of the guest speakers for the event will be Kerry McDonald, Naomi Fisher, Peter Gray, Pat Farenga, and Michael Saylor. Go here for more info about that event and to register for the inspirEd global summit. (Register before July 12th and it's free!) You can listen to the interviews from the global homeschooling summit 2020 hosted by Galileo here.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show ‘Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom' by Kerry McDonald Teach Your Own by John Holt and Pat Ferenga The Call of the Wild and Free by Ainsley Arment Galileo, a self-directed online global school ($100 off your first month's tuition if you mention Rogue Learner) “Memory Making Mom” by Jessica Smart Ordinary Sherpa - travel hacking with a family InspirEd, a global online event  Episode 11 and 12 with Naomi Fisher Global Homeschooling Summit 2020   Ways to Connect Join me on the Show! Leave a Voicemail! Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

Episode 5 of Rethinking Education Campfire Conversations, a series of live-streamed, group conversations with people who want to rethink and reform education so as to bring about a more harmonious, less hair-raising state of world affairs. Today's conversation features: Naomi Fisher - author of Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning - https://twitter.com/naomicfisher Amelia Peterson - co-author of Thrive: The purpose of schools in a changing world - https://twitter.com/AKMPeterson Naomi Clarke - home educator - https://www.instagram.com/intersectio... Yumna Hussen - Youth MP for Birmingham. Member of Pupil Power. And former campfire guest! - https://twitter.com/Yumna_Hussen Asma Maloumi - Member of Pupil Power. Lox Pratt - Home schooler Aliyah York - Founder of Pupil Power - https://twitter.com/aliyahiyork Artemis D. Bear - Freedom to Learn Lead, Phoenix Education and Founder of The Garden (http://www.thegardenbristol.org/) - https://twitter.com/ArtemisDBear Kate McAllister - Principal, The Hive, Dominican Republic - https://twitter.com/Rethinking_Kate Rose Arnold - Home educator and editor, Suitable Education - https://suitable-education.uk/ Kath Pratt - Founder, Soweni - https://twitter.com/kathsoweni James Myklebust-Hampshire - PYPCo and homeroom teacher, Norway - https://twitter.com/MrJames_MH Dr James Mannion - Director, Rethinking Education - https://twitter.com/RethinkingJames LINKS: https://www.big-change.org/about/mission/ To view the comment feed, join the (private) Rethinking Education Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rethi... To join the Rethinking Education Mighty Network, visit: https://rethinking-education.mn.co/feed

In this episode I am joined by Fran Morgan and Ellie Costello from Square Peg, a social enterprise that was set up in 2019 to shine a light on the plight of the many young people who struggle to attend school for various reasons. Fran and Ellie were inspired to set up Square Peg following their own experiences as parents of young people who have struggled to attend mainstream. As Fran points out in the conversation, one day her daughter refused to go to school, and it was like being plunged into freezing water - total shock, and an increasing awareness that there is scant help for the parents and carers of young people who struggle to go to school for any length of time. Fran and Ellie have since come to realise that the current situation – with school budget cuts, problems in the SEND and mental health systems and increasing anxiety amongst children and young people – means that things are far worse for families today than theft were even ten years ago. Working closely with another organisation, Not Fine In School, Square Peg has achieved an incredible amount in its first year, including appearances on various national television news programmes, articles in the mainstream and education press and questions being asked in parliament. This is a eye-opening conversation in which we discussed Fran and Ellie's experiences as parents of young people who were ‘not fine in school'; the jaw-dropping statistics around absenteeism, school refusal and exclusion; and School Differently, a new organisation that Fran and Ellie have set up with Ian Gilbert and others to look at how we might urgently rethink a school system that serves so many young people so poorly. LINKS: Square Peg: https://www.teamsquarepeg.org Poem - https://www.emilyperlkingsley.com/welcome-to-holland School Utopia - https://www.teamsquarepeg.org/school-differently Petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/create-a-new-absence-code-for-school-refusal Book: Changing our minds, by Naomi Fisher: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/ Not fine in school Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NotFineInSchoolPublicPage/ Book - Hey Warrior: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hey-Warrior-Karen-Young/dp/1912678004 Fran Morgan on Channel 4 news: https://www.channel4.com/news/parents-fined-because-their-sen-children-wont-go-to-school Fran Morgan on BBC Breakfast TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9An8doDKO8&t=3s School differently: https://www.schooldifferently.net/ The Rethinking Education podcast is hosted and produced by Dr James Mannion. You can contact him at https://rethinking-ed.org/contact, or via @RethinkingJames on Twitter. You can join the Rethinking Education Mighty Network here: https://rethinking-education.mn.co

Guest Co-host   Erin Rosemond   IG @ever.learning Show Notes   Jenna has Erin Rosemond joining the show today as a guest co-host. She has been home educating for 18 years and has four children. She became interested in home education early on when a friend of Erin's mentioned she'd be home educating her son. That conversation happened when her oldest son was just a baby. Erin explains how they were self-directed from the beginning as her family is very self-directed anyway. She would describe herself as unschooling, yet she never felt the need to label what they were doing, outside of digging into content for her own homeschooling practice. Jenna adds that she also is cautious in labeling her family's home ed lifestyle as she likes the freedom to know that they can be whatever they need to be, without needing to label. The label is helpful when searching for resources online, Erin adds.    Jenna asks Erin about her 1st takeaway from episode 016 with Zak Slayback. Erin had many takeaways from the episode, but her first was about Zak's comment about narrative violations. The expectations people have about going to school don't actually match up with the results. Erin found that in her job recruiting young people, she has often found that her hiring is not always based on credentials (although a range of people with and without qualifications are applying), but rather they are just a better fit for that role.    Erin reflected on the amount of active learning that actually takes place in a college year and was shocked to come to the realization that it's really only a total of 23 weeks. (six months) It made her look even further into our k-12 education and realize it's no different there. We spend hours of our lives wrapped up in the huge production that is our education system, but the number of engaged hours spent learning is so few.    Jenna adds that the lack of efficiency in schools helped reveal to her husband how unschooling could actually work and that by practicing academic skills for years (that their son had already mastered) was a big waste of his time.    Jenna talks about the research illustrating how 4 hours of work is sufficient and how assigning specific hours to our learning time is virtually impossible since we all have different times of day in which we're productive, particularly if you're talking about doing hard work. More info about “The Making of an Expert” can be found here. (not mentioned in the show, but I found it relevant to SDE nonetheless.) Jenna feels like she didn't have enough practice as a child and young adult in setting her own goals and then planning out how she could achieve them. She wonders how this may have helped her now in her entrepreneurial endeavors. Erin has always sought out entrepreneurial positions where she feels like she has some autonomy. She acknowledges some of that might be attributed to her personality, but she also remembers having some of her best ideas and creative thoughts outside of school, while on the bus home.    Regarding socialization, Erin agrees that school doesn't provide a better environment for interactions with diverse populations than home education. In her experience as a homeschooling mom, there was ample opportunity for her kids to socialize with people of all races, religions, and especially socioeconomic statuses. She's often seen people buy houses or move houses to live in a better school district, so people are purposefully avoiding diverse schools if they can afford to.   Erin adds that many people think of home education happening within the home and only amongst family, but she calls it a myth. Jenna's experience this year, albeit unique because she's living abroad, has lead to many conversations about different customs in the Uk vs. USA. She feels like homeschooling allows you the opportunity to seek out experiences with a variety of people, even more so than school can. Erin adds that although some aren't exposed to a variety of cultural and diverse experiences when they're young, it doesn't mean that they won't or can't later on in life. She refers back to a quote from the last episode where Jenna points out that there really is no expiration to learning. You always have the opportunity to travel and learn about people and places at any time in your life. Jenna says that's a good argument for schools to not offer diverse learning environments, because kids can always learn it on their own time when they've graduated.    Jenna's second takeaway had to do with a quote from Peter Theil's book “Zero to One” that Zak mentioned. It referred to competition leading to complete and utter apathy toward their goals. Jenna experienced this with her photography career. It is highly competitive and she remembers the creativity and idea generation plummeting when she'd be surrounded by other talented photographer's work.    Erin talks about an author she heard discussing how when she's writing, she purposefully cocoons herself from other's work so she can keep her ideas original. Jenna talks about how her daughter also feels a degree of intimidation upon seeing expert level work from others and sort of shuts down because she fears that the only reason the person has successful work is because she has an innate ability. It seems to Jenna, that her daughter sees talent in a very black or white manner, you either have it or you don't. Jenna talks about how someone once told her that baby's learn to walk, not by crawling, pulling themselves up and taking steps, but rather by falling down. She feels like school doesn't give children room to make mistakes or fail because there is so much riding on their ability to perform.    Erin's third takeaway is about the schooled mindset, which she interpreted as people going along life, completing all the various steps society expects from you and never considering another way due to the fear of it not being tried and true.    Erin shares how she walked into three separate libraries in her area just before school was meant to start for the year, and the book exhibits were full of resources and picture books about bullying and adjusting to school. Erin thought it was kind of odd that we've accepted this as part of what's necessary for society. Jenna added that bullying is a result of how schools are organized, so it seems like a mute point to continue teaching about how to combat it. Erin also added that we'll continue to need assemblies about bullying so long as we have such a high student-teacher ratio and we compare kids to their peers. Jenna compared it to healthcare and how we treat the symptom rather than the cause of the disease.    Jenna's last takeaway was in regards to Zak's advice about emailing hiring managers directly and finding mentors or apprenticeships as a way of gaining first-hand experience in the field you're interested in. She plans on encouraging her own kids to network with professionals working in the careers they are eager to have one day. First, she hopes to give her kids numerous opportunities to work alongside adults so that her kids feel comfortable and confident interacting with people older than them. Erin describes two examples of mentorships that were particularly nice for her kids, one with an artist and another in woodworking. Jenna would like to find a mentor for her son involving coding and game development. Her daughter began a mentorship with a pet sitter before the pandemic started and Jenna found that it offered more than just information about pets for her daughter, she learned so much from her conversations with the mentor. Sadly, she didn't get to continue because of the lockdowns.    Jenna is noticing a transition with her kids, where meeting up with a large group of other home education families is not fulfilling the needs of her kids. They are yearning for connection with people who have similar interests as them. Erin points out that sometimes those mentorship experiences can provide a much richer form of social activity than a home ed group. Erin points out that a lot of people find connection and social engagement online these days. Jenna has noticed that her son feels comfortable and happy with his friends from Galileo and the gaming community, which is all online. She quit bringing him along to the home ed groups because they were not serving him in any way. Erin thinks there is often a bit of a bias towards extroverted and organized types of socialization.    Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Research about 4 hour work day   Episode 016 with Zak Slayback   The Making of an Expert (not mentioned in the show, but interesting article I found when researching productivity and flow)   Join me on the Show!   Leave a Voicemail!    Free to Learn by Peter Gray   Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher   Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

JOIN ME ON THE SHOW!!! Guest:    Zak Slayback   Author published at McGraw-Hill; former research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania; principal at 1517 Fund, a VC firm spun out of the Thiel Fellowship. Zak is a career & communications expert whose content has been highlighted or featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, The Muse, Newsweek, and the New York Observer. He was an early team member at the startup apprenticeship company Praxis, where he was charged with recruiting new business partners and placing apprentices. He left the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 after pursuing a major in Philosophy.   twitter: @zslayback personal site: zakslayback.com clubhouse: @slayback   Show Notes:   Zak Slaybach started the Deschool Yourself project with his co-host Jeff Till. They talked with a handful of people who had experience with education in k-12 and higher education. Zak's interest in doing the podcast came from his unique experience of working with young adults from different backgrounds and placing them in jobs that required degrees, although these young people didn't have degrees. He noticed a trend where the people who had the most training and academic backgrounds were least prepared for the jobs they were placed in. It was a narrative violation because he'd expected that the best performers in school who'd been accepted to elite colleges would have the best self-governing and organization skills, but in fact that wasn't the case for the majority of the people he worked with.     The pattern which unfolded was that unschooled or homeschooled people were far more capable at self-directing in their jobs, and he found himself seeking them out.  It also made him curious about the link between homeschooling and successful job placement. Zak started researching the history of education and how children learn. He named Peter Gray and John Taylor Gatto's writings as being most helpful.    He remembers one particular experience where he spoke with the CEO of a company where he was trying to place young adults without degrees in jobs at the company. The job description in the job advertisement said “degree or equivalent work experience required” and he asked the CEO what he meant by that. The CEO said equivalent work experience meant just a semester of work experience, so 4-6 months. He explicitly told Zak that someone would learn more about the business by spending time in the company than they would at university. The degree is nothing more than a filter. It is not a leading indicator of a good hire.    Jenna asks Zak why his company only hires degreeless adults. Zak explains that he worked for the Peter Thiel Fellowship which gives away $100,000 to young adults with new business ideas to start a company rather than going to college. There's a line in Peter Thiel's book, “Zero to One” that reads elite students climb confidently until they reach competition sufficiently intense enough to beat their dreams out of them.    Jenna actually recalls when her daughter was  preschool-aged, she was an amazing artist who did art because it was fun and she enjoyed the process so much. As soon as she entered the school system and began comparing her work to her peers, she stopped producing art and lost her individuality because she thought other people's work was better than hers.    Zak adds that hyper-competition leads to people not pursuing their ideas and/or copying each other. Some of young people who were selected for this fellowship have gone on to develop things like Figma, OYO Rooms, Ethereum, Longevity Fund, and Luminar.    Jenna asks Zak about gatekeepers in the US being less prolific than in Europe. From her experience living in Europe, it still seems imperative for companies that young people get college degrees. Zak agrees that it's used as a filtering mechanism for companies to weed through applicants. He doesn't think it's been all that successful for Europe though in producing innovative tech companies, with the exception of Spotify which was developed in Sweden. He points out that goals for US companies vary from European countries in that US companies are always striving for growth, whereas European companies are all about keeping pace and business sustainability.     Switching gears, Jenna asks Zak about his book “The End of School.” Zak explains that the book actually started as a personal challenge to write every day, once a day, for thirty days. That turned into a longer three month challenge. He says you naturally begin writing about the things that are on your mind at the time. He encourages people with knowledge and new perspectives to not be afraid to write about what they learn and not to self-censor too much. Jenna adds that this project is a perfect example really of how self-directed learning works, following your interests. That's actually how the Rogue Learner podcast was born.    Zak talks about some of the problems he sees in traditional schools. He starts with talking about what he calls “the schooled mindset” which means students are looking at life in levels. They are essentially leveling up in life, yet each level does not promise anything “better.” He refers to Nathaniel Brandon who asserts that it's not the achievement of a goal that makes people fulfilled, it's the progress toward the achievement of meaningful goals. School has us reaching toward goals, but not meaningful ones. For example, we set goals in school like; land this job, get this promotion, pass this class, get that ‘A' on the test. Jenna points out that a lot of the goals students are trying to achieve are set out by their parents as well. And to some degree, Zak points out that this comes from the pressure in our society where children's success in life reflects back on their parents.   We've reached a point for the first time in society where two generations have been thoroughly schooled. Parents are expecting their kids to live better lives than themselves, but the metrics for which we measure “better lives” isn't based on overall well being, life expectancy, etc., rather it's primarily based on how credentialed they are. More credentials does not equate to better or more fulfilling lives, unfortunately.    Jenna adds that there is a lot of wasted time in school and it comes from the idea that we all learn in a linear fashion, which isn't the case. There's no expiration date for when a person can learn something. Zak feels as though he was able to become educated in spite of schooling not because of it.    Jenna mentions how the most engaged and curious students in her classroom most often were those kids who had access to diverse experiences and people in their home lives. The kids who went places on the weekends and enjoyed board games with grandparents on the weekend were the students who most enjoyed learning. With homeschooling, she feels that “the weekend” can be possible everyday. You can mix with various age groups, go to interesting places and spend time with your loved ones every single day if you want.    Zak says if he were given the choice between hiring a student who attended a magnet school and participated in a variety school-based extracurriculars vs. a homeschooled student who'd worked at Chick- Fila, he'd likely choose the latter. He adds that the reason is they would likely have the required soft skills necessary for their work. Jenna mentions how the soft skills are easier to acquire when you're interacting daily with adults of all ages from varying backgrounds and experience levels, whereas in school you'll likely only get the chance to talk with teachers in a top-down, authoritative situation. The teacher has a lot of control over the conversation in the classroom.    On the topic of socialization and diversity, Jenna says she finds it tragic that in most cases students are lumped together by zip code because it prohibits us from mixing with different races and socioeconomic classes than our own. In home education groups however, we are meeting with families from all different cultures and backgrounds from all over the county. The argument that combining disparate zip codes within a school district allows for diversity misses the reality that segregation still naturally occurs within the school itself. Zak says removing the geographical association with schools would be the best way to go forward, however it would generate an immense amount of pushback from teacher's unions and property owners. Jenna states that school systems can't truly be equal when they are geographically appropriated because the wealthier families will always have a leg up by being able to move to the more desired school districts. Zak adds that the argument that home education is expensive may not be as valid as families think when you consider the price for living in a “good school district.” Plus there are so many free resources available and even options for parents who both work full time.    Jenna asks, what are some ways parents can deschool, particularly those who want to trust in self-directed learning but find it challenging because of their schooled mindset? When a child begins to develop a curiosity and pursue it, deschooling has reached its end. Peter Gray's work was transformation in bringing a language to this concept for Zak. Zak has seen most success in families where the parents have guardrails in place which allow students to access their interests by imploring them to use their own skills or money to access it, while also providing numerous opportunities for them to absorb information about their interests. An example of this would be  Lenore Skenazy's story from the Let Grow organization, who let her kid ride the subway home in New York and was dubbed America's worst mom. Deschooling is hard sometimes, but be patient with yourself and your child.    Jenna asks what is the best way to prepare young adults for the ever-changing workplace? Zak says as many apprenticeships or mentoring opportunities as possible. Turn to hiring managers in the field you want to pursue for feedback on skills and requirements your students should be acquiring. Young adults should get really good at cold emailing people. You can sign up for Zak's masterclass to learn how to write professional emails. Finding out how you can add value to the company and explicitly telling the hiring manager that, will help the company place you and give them an incentive to let you intern with them. You can find out what skills would add value to the company by doing a bit of homework in advance and acquiring those specific skills beforehand.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Deschool Yourself Podcast    Pints with Aquinas    Zak Slayback Website   The End of School by Zak Slayback   How to Get Ahead by Zak Slayback   Free Resources for Homeschoolers Masterclass: learn to write professional emails Lenore  Skenazy's: Let Grow Nathaniel Brandon Zero to One by Peter Thiel Episode 11 and 12 with Naomi Fisher   Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

In this week's episode I'm talking to Naomi Fisher all about Unschooling which was a fascinating discussion about how school may not be the right environment for every single child, which doesn't mean they can't learn and do incredibly well in a different environment...Find Naomi's book HERE

Show Notes   Announcement: Jenna is looking for guest co-hosts to help her with the key takeaways from her guest episodes as she currently does with her husband. You can connect with her here if you're interested in finding out more information.   Jenna will be giving away 1 book for every 5 reviews given on Apple Podcasts. If you leave a written review and want to win a copy of Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher or Free to Learn by Peter Gray. If you've left a review, just send an email to contact.roguelearner@gmail.com letting me know the screen name you left it under and the address where you'd like to have the book shipped. A copy of the book of your choice will be mailed directly to you if you win!    Jenna and Chris want to share some changes happening with their family in the hopes that by sharing how they're dealing with difficult or challenging circumstances, it will help others who may be going through the same thing.    Our daughter recently requested she go back to school. During the pandemic, she found it challenging to meet her academic goals alone. Although we don't love the idea, we are open minded and support our children's wishes to learn in a way that best suits them.    Jenna points out that the pandemic played a huge role in the social side of things this year. Moving to a new country and the precise timing that the pandemic started made it impossible to develop life-long relationships and build friendships.    Their daughter likes having her schedule dictated for her, which Jenna feels is a result of having been in school for so many years. She finds it challenging to self direct her learning, because she's never practiced it before. Jenna would love to hear feedback from the listeners to find out if any children who've always been unschooled develop this need for structured learning.    Over the next six months, they plan on having a lot of dialogue back and forth with their daughter to make sure being in school is still the right choice for her. They have picked a school, together with their daughter, which they think will be a good fit for her specific learning goals and emotional needs.    Although they support their daughter's decision, they do worry about her creativity being stifled by the one-size-fits-all approach that is conventional schooling, but hope by picking a charter school which encourages students' individuality she will have the opportunity still to really shine.    One of Chris' takeaways from the episode with Peter Gray last week was that children and humans were born with the innate ability to learn and it doesn't need to be forced upon us. The idea that education was built for obedience is still evident today in it's rigid and inflexible system, which discourages questioning and discourse.    The second key takeaway; the school system was not designed for critical thinking and robs children from exploring their interests in a way that doesn't take away from their sleep requirements. Oftentimes, youth are working on their hobbies and extra-curriculars late into the evenings because during the day, they have a curriculum forced upon them in school, most of which is not necessary for life. We're essentially building a society of unhappy people learning topics that don't interest them and working in jobs they hate.    Jenna asks listeners to consider what they would have pursued further in school had they been allowed to learn about anything. Take a moment to reflect on that. Where would it have taken you? How would your life be different right now?    The third take away from the Peter Gray episodes was that the act of being evaluated, no matter the reason, creates fear and stress on the one being evaluated. It takes the fun out of learning and demonstrating competency of a concept. By evaluating students, we also take away the desire to take chances because they are more inclined to meet the EXACT criteria for the assignment so they don't compromise their grades. Testing kids all the time stifles critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.    Jenna heard a professor interviewed on The School Sucks Project podcast who offers his students complete autonomy over how they learn the material in his class. You can check that out here.    Chris asks: why are we so concerned about performance? Why are we so concerned about grading and evaluating people?    Jenna emphasizes the point Peter Gray made about how quickly one can learn a new skill or concept if it's needed for their particular goals, careers, etc. She uses the SATS as an example. Unschooled children can study with a tutor for 3- 6 months and pass the SATS, so why is it that students who have attended 12 years of traditional schooling also feel compelled to or need to hire tutors to pass them? It's mainly because they don't remember everything they learned over the course of their education because it was memorized for a test, regurgitated, and then forgotten.    Final thoughts shared were about how reassured Jenna and Chris feel about their choice to unschool after listening to the interview with Dr. Peter Gray.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show Become a guest co-host Episode 013 and 014 with Peter Gray Free to Learn by Peter Gray Changing our Minds by Naomi Fisher The School Sucks Project Podcast Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

This week I'm chatting with Naomi Fisher, the author of Changing Our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning. We talk about how home educated children related to their peers, the long process of deschooling, internal and external motivation, and supporting ADHD and autism in the home educating community. The post HOMEEDVOICESPODCAST – EP 32 Naomi Fisher: Clinical Psycologist, Home Ed Parent and Author of Changing Our Minds appeared first on Home Ed Voices.

In this episode, I interview the amazing Naomi Fisher, Clinical Psychologist. We talk about her book Changing our Minds and how it brings together research, theory and practice on learning. Naomi looks at education through a psychological lens and tells us how there are other ways to learn. School is not the only way to become educated.

Naomi Fisher, co-founder of ROAM, joined Sean on the show. Listen and subscribe to Moncrieff on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.    Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.  

Show Notes Jenna starts the show by describing her family's learning philosophy and home education style. My family has been home educating now for approximately 9 months and we've chosen self directed education as our approach to learning. What does that mean exactly? Well, it basically means that our children control what, when and how they learn. We actually refrain from labeling “learning” as we believe as humans we are always learning and there aren't particular subjects or skills that trump others. Our two children are unique and require very different learning environments, resources, and lengths of time to learn new skills. We respect that and do our best to provide a conducive environment where their educational pursuits can be achieved. We do our best, as their facilitators, to enhance their environment and open the world to them, in the hopes that they can explore and learn without limitations. This week's episode is a continuation of a conversation with Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist and author of ‘Changing Our Minds'.  Two quick announcements Jenna wanted to share are: The Rogue Learner App will be open for the public to test. It's an app designed for home educating families to record their learning and daily activities, books they've read, and any other pertinent information related to their learning journey. The app is developed to be a quick and fun way of documenting your life. It's formatted as a photo/diary entry design. You can become a tester for the app and secure a lifetime discount by downloading the app here!  Jenna will be taking a four week break and ending season I of the podcast with this episode. Season II will drop in a few weeks and features interviews with Peter Gray, Sophie Christophy and Summer Jean. Jenna will be working on other projects related to the website, blog and podcast. You can connect with her in the FB group on my Facebook page or Instagram.  Families who'd like to featured on the podcast should reach out to Jenna at contact.roguelearner@gmail.com. She will be working on a series for the podcast where she interviews a few families on a semi-regular basis to find out how they are implementing self-directed learning and what benefits or challenges they've faced along their journey.  Jenna asks Naomi about neurodiverse children and autonomy, particularly focusing on children who may not have the ability to self-regulate yet. Naomi says that every child is unique and you can not make assumptions about anyone else's experience based on your own. She goes on to explain how sometimes having a hard rule may benefit children or families because it can actually enhance learning opportunities. In some cases, the ambivalence of having too many choices or a particular choice that they can't say no to, makes it difficult for them to focus on anything else. (just as we are these days with our phones) She uses the example of eliminating a in-app purchasing mobile game that her son played years ago, as it created a deficit in learning due to his fixation on buying gems for the game.  It's important to always have the opportunity for change however, because eventually our children will need to make these determinations on their own (in this example, how to self-regulate with video gaming) once they are living on their own. Gradually moving toward self-regulation is helpful in this situation.  One fixed ideology won't create a world in which we don't have to be flexible and make changes to our lives. We can't put our parenting or learning on auto-pilot because family needs are evolving and changing every day. Staying flexible and not prescribing a blanket ideology to your life is important.  Naomi gives two wonderful guiding principles to consider: “ Is what I'm doing helping my child to learn?” and “Is it opening up the world for them?”  Autonomy within what the child can manage at the time is the key, but simultaneously parents must always be willing to challenge their assumptions. Is this really true? For example: “Kids should know how to read by the age of 5.” Is this a schooled assumption? Have you challenged this idea? Have a look at the research.  When we're talking about neurodiversity, we're talking about how people relate to the world and how their brains interpret the environment. It generally includes people who have diagnoses of; ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia. Neurodiversity is more than just the characteristics of the person, it's also about how the world around them responds to them. In this way, the severity of their disability is in relation to how negatively they are impacted by their environment.  School can make the environment more disabling for these neurodiverse children.  With self-directed education, we can look at how a child interacts with the world and create an environment which suits their learning needs.  Special schools for neurodiverse children oftentimes still run on the same principles as mainstream schools; requiring testing, uniforms, keeping a particular schedule, and assemblies to name a few.  So many parts of school aren't actually about learning - uniforms, dining halls, lining up, school assemblies, sitting in desks, etc. are not about learning, they are about managing a large number of children. Naomi says diagnosing a child for life makes her uncomfortable because we don't know how they will grow and develop.  Jenna shares a story of a student she had who became ostracized and bullied due to the fact that the teachers openly exhibited their frustration and irritation with his behavior. He was learning inadvertently that he didn't fit in, that he isn't normal, that nobody likes him. This is what school life was teaching him about himself. Naomi shares a story of how she was bullied and ostracized after returning to England from DR of Congo.  Jenna shares a story of how she was also bullied when she moved from a large city to a rural town.  Jenna points out that we all have a set of norms for where we live, which can positively and negatively impact our experience living in that environment.  Naomi adds that having those experiences may be the catalyst for looking for different ways to educate our kids. She reflected on how each school she attended did things differently, yet each of them thought they were doing it the ‘best' way, which is then imposed on the students.   Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher Rogue Learner Facebook Group Procreate   Filmora Editing Software   Unfinished: Short Creek   Private Facebook Group   The Rogue Learner App (limit: 25 testers) Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

My guest this episode is Naomi Fisher. Naomi is a clinical psychologist and mother of two. Her children were unschooled for six years and now attend a self-directed learning centre. Naomi has just published a wonderful book about self-directed learning, entitled Changing our  Minds, which explores the theory and research behind autonomous learning, alongside lots of real-life examples. In this episode, we talk about why autonomy is so important to learning, why school can be particularly tough for  our neurodivergent children and how these children can truly thrive in an unschooling environment.

Show Notes | Part I   Jenna first discovered Naomi Fisher's work through the Offtrail Learning Podcast hosted by Blake Boles. She then discovered the comprehensive YouTube video produced by The Phoenix Education Trust called The Psychology of Self Directed Learning by Naomi Fisher. Her most recent work, a book she wrote called  ‘Changing Our Minds'  was published in February 2021 and is highly recommended by Jenna as a comprehensive guide to self-directed learning.  Naomi and Jenna had an interview previously that didn't get recorded due to technical difficulties, but there were a few takeaways from having had that experience which relate to education. One of them was that as it is in schools sometimes, having a time constraint created pressure and stress on my brain and made it more likely for me to be careless and inattentive. Jenna compares this to timed tests in school.  We are all fallible and it's important for our kids to see us struggling and then our resiliency through times of stress and discomfort.  Being vulnerable and experiencing failure are something we traditionally try and avoid, but embracing it as part of the experience and congratulating yourself on overcoming those moments of rejection are really critical to demonstrating mastery in something.  Naomi started writing her book without thinking about it ever being published. It was such a niche topic that she wondered if it'd even be read. She decided to write it anyway because she knew the process of writing it would be useful to her anyway - she would learn how to write a book through writing a book. Naomi describes her experience writing the book. She wondered if she needed some sort of course or credentials. Sometimes we think we need specific credentials or permission to start projects, but we really just need to get started. Courses are valuable, yet not essential to getting started.  As her son approached school age, she felt strange about sending her son into the school environment and giving up complete control over how he was talked to, what he did, who he spent his time with, after having been so intentional about that during his first years. Knowing her son's personality and needs, she was worried he wouldn't comply with the group norms, which would have made school quite difficult for her son.  They chose to unschool because their son was opposed to any structured learning.  As her kids got older (ages 7 and 10), she noticed how increasingly difficult it was to meet both of their needs simultaneously since they had completely different interests. Jenna's kids are much the same and they've been using Galileo's online school as a resource to help offer diverse clubs and activities that each of her kids can participate in at their discretion.  Our environment greatly impacts what is essential to learn and priority to learn specific skills. For example, if you move to France, French is most important to learn.  Two ways of self directed learning: interest-led (watercolour painting)  and things you need to learn in your environment (like language). As unschooling parents, it's important to ask ourselves: How can we expand the environment for your child?  Making sure we are giving our children the opportunity to interact in the world and speak with people of varying perspectives, backgrounds and cultures is how unschooling can elevate the educational experience for your family.  Some schools, like Montessori and Waldorf, can actually impose more restrictions than we're aware of and are based on our perceived beliefs about freedom. When you choose a school for its pedagogical beliefs, you're often choosing a lifestyle for the whole family.  When you choose a specific school based on your child's natural interests, learning style and preferred environment, then it can be a great solution. When control becomes visible, then we need to evaluate how we are impeding on our children's freedom and autonomy. How can we move forward in a way that the parents and children are both getting their needs met? School provides us with certain rules and parameters, so for unschooling families,they must determine on their own, which boundaries and rules are going to work best for their lives. It takes time and flexibility.  Autonomy can actually be encouraged by teaching children necessary skills for living in their culture. Cooking is an example Jenna used with her son. He gained autonomy by learning how to cook a variety of foods for himself when he isn't happy with selection at dinner.    Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show   Phoenix Education Trust   Offtrail Learning Podcast   Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher   The Psychology of Self Directed Learning by Naomi Fisher Leave a Voicemail Rogue Learner Facebook Group Galileo Online School (use code Rogue Learner for $100 off tuition)   Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook  Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner

This months episode introduces us to Naomi Fisher's recently published book Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of Their Own Learning. SUPPORT THE PODCAST ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/liveplaylearn?fan_landing=true ORDER NAOMI'S BOOK: https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/ and other retailers. Naomi Fisher and I get together in this months podcast to talk about her book 'Changing Our Minds.' * We discuss how psychology supports the process of Self Directed Education. * The role of intrinsic motivation, meaningful learning, and autonomy. * Natural development from discovery to mastery learning. * The development of transferable skills. * Personal awareness, diversity in learning styles and preferences. * The hidden curriculum of schools You can read a full book review here: http://liveplaylearn.org/2021/02/06/changing-our-minds-by-naomi-fisher/

View the full video on youtube here. Why and how does self-directed education work? In this talk, Naomi Fisher explains how psychological research supports self-directed learning, and show how schooling pits us against our own psychology.

As alternative educational settings we often hear from parents of children struggling with the mainstream approach to learning. Children who need to move more than the school day allows for, find it hard to focus on work they aren't interested in or simply learn in different ways than their peers.  It's not surprising that parents look elsewhere for something that suits their child.  But yet we can't help but think that something must be deeply wrong for so many children to find it so hard to thrive in our school system.  And that's the topic of our podcast this week as we talk to clinical psychologist and mum of two, Dr. Naomi Fisher, about her experiences of children with special educational needs and the implications their behaviour has for our schools.   Find out more: Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1620972360   Articles by Naomi: https://eastkentsudburyschool.org.uk/news/canaries/ https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/march-2020/schools-out https://eastkentsudburyschool.org.uk/learning/what-about-autism/   Guests:  Dr. Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist and mother of two who have always been self-directed.  Naomi writes about child development, psychology and self-directed education.  Look out for Naomi's forthcoming book Changing Our Minds.   Get in touch with the show: lockdownlearning@gmail.com

I don't know how much more of this I can take!   Stuck in the house - or maybe a tiny flat - together, day after day, week after week.  Lockdown is starting to feel rather like groundhog day isn't it.  Add to that the anxiety created by a global pandemic and the pressures of working from home and home learning everyone's mental health is struggling right now.  We talked to Dr. Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist about what we can do to protect our children's mental health and well being as well as our own.   Naomi has written further advice for parents educating at home in Lockdown for The Psychologist, you can also read more about her thoughts on learning on our blog.   Catch up on the Lockdown Learning podcast here. Or you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts!    Get in touch with the show! You can reach us at lockdownlearningpodcast@gmail.com