Imogen Talks about Unschooling and University
Today I made my first ‘talkie’ video. We’d been discussing ideas for the last couple of weeks, and just needed a free moment to actually start filming.
“Why don’t you interview me this afternoon?” suggested my daughter Imogen. “I’ve got some free time.”
So I grabbed the video camera and Imogen hunted for the tripod. Unfortunately the tripod didn’t want to be found so I raided the bookshelf for a pile of encyclopedias instead. I placed these in a tower on a chair in front of the hot seat (an armchair in our living room!) I perched the video camera on top. We were all set.
We’d already discussed the kind of things Imogen could talk about once I had the camera running.
“Start off by introducing yourself and we’ll go from there.”
So Imogen began talking. She spoke about unschooling, what she enjoyed about it, the benefits of unschooling, family life, her passions including writing and music, how she got into university, how unschooling prepared her for tertiary study, and finally what she’d like to do in the future.
We only did one take, although we stopped periodically to let my camera hand have a break. I then uploaded the clips into Movie Maker and stitched them all together. I didn’t do much editing. I was tempted to have Imogen speak at twice her normal speed. I thought about spinning her on her head so she was speaking upside down, but in the end, I behaved myself. To satisfy my creative urge, I added a couple of special effects near the end of the video. Oh yes, I had to add some welcoming applause at the beginning as well.
This video wasn’t nearly as much fun to make as my last ones. It’s all rather serious but I hope you find it interesting. Imogen is a good speaker. She spoke off the cuff without notes, just a spontaneous sharing. Without the tripod, the picture is a little wobbly in places but I hope you can put up with that.
Imogen talked a lot about her two passions, music and writing. She did however do a lot of other things while she was unschooling, including an advanced maths course, the complete Cambridge Latin course, science… She was involved with St John Ambulance for many years and was cadet of the year. I wouldn’t like to give you the impression she did nothing but indulge her two top interests.
There is only so much that can be fitted into a 12 minute video but if you have some questions you would like to ask Imogen, she’d be quite happy to answer them in another movie. Please ask!
12 minutes? It’s quite a long time to sit and listen. I’m sorry about that. I could have cut some of the interview out but decided not to. What I might cut, thinking it isn’t all that interesting, might be just what someone else wants to hear.
So without further ado…
I present Imogen talking about unschooling and university…