The Unschool Space

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...

My guest in this episode is Naomi Clarke. Naomi lives in East London and has two sons who are 11 and 6. Naomi is the co-director of Gamechangers, a self directed learning and democratic community which her eldest son also attends.  Naomi has been home educating since her eldest child was 5, and embraced unschooling after he was seriously ill in hospital. In her words, she decided to "choose h...

Today I’m talking with Nadia Joshua. Nadia lives in Barry Island in Wales and has two daughters, who are six and nine. Until her daughter left school, three years ago, Nadia was working as a social worker. She took her daughter out of school when she was six years old and had just started year one, as she had rapidly become unhappy and self-critical. Nadia knew there had to be a different way, and...

My guest today is Marta Obiols. Marta is originally from Spain, but has lived in the US for 21 years. She now lives with her husband and three children in Atlanta, Georgia. Marta was a teacher when her children were small, but became interested in unschooling after taking her children out of school and coming across the works of John Holt. She quickly let go of being 'the dictator in the livi...

Today I’m joined by Sarada de Villeneuve. Sarada lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and three children, who are 14, 11 and 8 . They began unschooling seven years ago, when their eldest son was seven and having a difficult time at school. Sarada had already felt some conflict around sending her children to nursery at a young age, and found her way to unschooling after seeing home educating fam...

My guest in this episode is Fran Liberatore. Fran has two children, aged 7 and 9, and has just moved to an island in Maine after spending three years in Dubai. Fran first came across unschooling some years ago when she discovered John Holt, and her intention had been to to home educate her children. For different reasons,  it took until the pandemic for her to finally take the leap. We talk today...

Today I’m delighted to be joined by Laura Smith. Laura and I have been in touch online for a few years, but this the first time we've spoken. Laura lives in the south of France with her partner and her son, Rowan, who is nearly six. For her family, unschooling was really a natural progression that felt coherent with the way they were living and parenting. We talk about the need to often just...

My guest in this episode is Anthony Eldridge-Rogers. Anthony has three teenage children with his wife Lehla (my podcast guest in episode #8) and, together, they wrote a book recounting their family's experiences, called Jump Fall Fly. Anthony works with people with behavioural health challenges and is a specialist recovery and wellness coach. Today, we talk about his daughters’ transition fro...