The Unschool Space

Today I'm joined by Sari Gonzàlez and Becka Koritz wholive in Puerto Escondido in Mexico. Becka moved to Mexico from Sweden and Sari from the US, both leaving lives that felt stressed and disconnected. They now run Explora ALC, an agile learning centre.  Both Sari and Becka have neurodivergent sons but began their deschooling journeys long before having children, in their search for more fulf...

Today I’m chatting with Caroline Frances from Ontario. Caroline lives with her husband and two sons who are 7 and 10, and they are just in the second month of their unschooling journey. They had tried different school environments, but found that, in particular for their eldest son, who is diagnosed Autistic with a PDA profile, they needed to find another way to live. Today, among lots of other th...

My guest today is Sarah Rose. Sarah lives in Maine with her husband and her 11-year old daughter. Her family’s journey to unschooling stemmed from their daughter’s illness, which resulted in her leaving school and embarking on a long healing journey at home. We talk today about providing a judgment-free space in which our children feel seen and supported, and the deep inner work we need to underta...

I’m so delighted to be talking today with Peter Gray, author and research professor at Boston College. Many of you will have read his wonderful book, Free to Learn, or his regular writing for Psychology Today about children, play and learning. Among many things, we talk today about his experience of self-directed education through his son, what self-directed children are doing that makes their lea...

My guest today is Lou Westall, who lives in Brighton, in the UK, (though she was travelling in South Africa when we recorded this episode). Lou and her husband have two daughters, who are 6 and 8. They had never considered home education until their eldest daughter began school, and things just didn’t feel quite, particularly regarding the early approach to academic subjects. After deregistering h...

Today, I’m chatting with Ashley Short. who lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and two sons, who are 6 and 9. Ashley is a former teacher, and her family came to unschooling during the pandemic, when her son, who had always found the school environment difficult, refused to engage in any school-like work. Among other things, we talk about prioritising relationships above everything, living a...

My guest this episode is Amanda Diekman. Amanda lives in North Carolina with her husband and three sons, who are 6, 8 and 10. Amanda’s journey to unschooling started with her 8 year-old who is autistic, PDA and the reality that school was a difficult and traumatic experience for him. Her 10 year old son, who is also autistic later chose also to leave school. We talk about how we can meet the needs...

Today’s conversation is with Emma Hosfeld from Illinois. Emma lives with her husband and three children, who are 7, 5 and 4. Emma traces the roots of her journey to unschooling back to when she was pregnant and the sense of disempowerment she felt within the medical system, and the choices she then made for a more empowered birth experience.  She describes how unschooling has affected many areas o...

Today, I am beyond thrilled to be chatting with Pam Laricchia. Pam lives in Ontario, Canada and has three adult children, who are now 30, 28 and 25, and I came across her website about unschooling, which is called Living Joyfully,  early on in my own journey, when I was still a little shaky. I found her so incredibly warm and reassuring. So, it was such a huge delight to be able to invite her to T...

Today, I’m chatting with Lainie Liberti. Lainie is originally from California, but, in 2008, decided to go travelling with her 9-year-old son for a year. She closed the business she had been running for some years and took her son out of school. He is 24 now and they never went back. They’ve travelled extensively, given a Ted talk together on worldschooling, and they now both live in Mexico. Laini...

My guest today is Marni Kammersel from Boulder, Colorado. Marni lives with her husband and three children, who are 13, 10 and 6. She tells us about her family’s recent transition from an eclectic homeschool style to full-on unschooling, a move inspired by her oldest entering his teens, and her youngest having a huge need for autonomy. We talk about how nuanced some of this shift can be, and how so...

Today I’m chatting with Erin Rosemond in Ontario, Canada. Erin has four children, who are now aged between 17 and 23. Erin came to unschooling when her oldest child reached school age, after connecting with home educating parents and realising that school would be a bad fit for her son.  Today we talk about what unschooling looks like as our children get older. How highly individualised it is to e...

Today, I’m chatting with Katy, who lives in Connecticut with her husband, her five year old son and her two year old daughter. Katy and her family have just started out on their unschooling journey. As a teacher for many years, Katy had frequently felt uneasy about many aspects of mainstream education, but felt she had no other option for her children. When her son began preschool she realised how...

My guest today is Emily Ghassempour. Emily has a son and a daughter, who are 8 and nearly 6, and they left mainstream school just six months ago. School had become a source of extreme stress for the whole family. Daily meltdowns and anxiety finally culminated in the children refusing to go to school and in the family’s decision that they had to try something else. The children now go to the self-d...

My guest today is Ann Hansen from Oregon. Ann has two sons, who are now 19 and 20. They went to an alternative school for a couple of years but decided to try out unschooling and were immediately hooked. Besides teaching yoga, Ann now works as a coach with other families who choose not to take the mainstream route. Today Ann reflects on what she learned during those unschooling years and how havin...

This week I’m chatting with Melissa Crockett-Joyoue from New Zealand. Melissa lives with her wife Doria and their two children, who are 7 and 4. Their journey to unschooling began about a year ago because their son, who is diagnosed dyslexic and gifted found school extremely difficult and stressful. Both Melissa and Doria have also had life-threatening health issues which have impacted the childre...

My guest today is Iris Chen, author of the wonderful book, Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent . Iris and her husband have two boys, who are 12 and 14, and in the book Iris charts her journey from strict, perfectionist mother to advocate of peaceful parenting and unschooling. Iris is Chinese American, as is her husband, so her book addresses the cultural conditioning...

A few people have asked me to talk about my journey so, in this episode, my good friend Nicola Corcoran is taking over as host, and is interviewing me : ) Nicola has two children, who are 19 and 16, and she and I often enjoy long conversations pondering our experiences as mothers, and as people in the world, so it's a delight to have this conversation with her today. We talk about how my fami...

Today, I’m chatting with Jane Evans from New Zealand. Jane has three adult children, who are now 23, 21 and 18. We talk about how important it is to trust our children and the choices they make, and how learning can just take so many forms. And, we reflect on how vastly different each person’s path will be if it comes from their own deep knowing. As always we dip into the topic of tending ourselve...

My guest today is Eliza Fricker. Eliza has a 14-year old daughter who is autistic, PDA, and who struggled hugely with school. Eliza spent many years attempting to navigate the education system and advocate for her daughter, but after much frustration and despair, finally decided that leaving mainstream education was the only option. Eliza has published a book called Missing the Mark , in which, th...

My guest today is Arielle Nobile. Arielle is an artist, musician and filmmaker who lives with her husband and 11-year-old daughter. They moved recently from Illinois to Argentina, where her husband, who is also an artist, is from. Arielle and her family came to unschooling mid-pandemic after a number of years struggling with the school system, and in particular with their daughter being bullied. T...

In this episode, I chat with Bria Bloom, from Portland, Oregon. Bria lives with her husband and her 11-year-old stepson, who attends a self-directed education project. I've known Bria for some time through her work as Community Manager for The Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE), but only recently found out that she was unschooled herself. Today, we talk about her experience as an uns...

My guest in this episode is Sarah Plazas,  who lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two children, who are three and five. When her son, Arlo, was three, Sarah and her husband realised that he wasn't coping with the demands and stimulation of preschool. They made the choice to change the way they were living, with both parents moving to part-time work in order to make it possible to...

My guest in this episode is Renee Tougas, who lives in Montreal, Canada with her husband and three adult children (22, 21 and 19). Renee discovered self-directed learning when her children were small and, whilst she had initially imagined that homeschooling would be all about academics, she soon realised that things just naturally unfolded in the right environment. Her children are now young adult...

Today, I’m talking with Simon Crummay. Simon lives in East Sussex in the UK  with his partner Wendy, and their son Luca, who is 13. Luca is diagnosed autistic with demand avoidance and went to school on and off for some years. After almost two years out of school, during  which Simon and  Wendy adopted an unschooling approach to learning, Luca now attends a self-directed learning centre in the aft...