Unschooling: No Hippie Way of Life Needed…

… unless you want one of course. When our first child was 6 years old we headed off to our very first homeschooling camp. At that time, we thought we were unschooling. Then we met our fellow campers who also…

So How Do You Feel On a Monday Morning?

When I was a child, I’d awake on a Monday morning with a pain in my stomach. I was always reluctant to get out of bed and face the week. Five days of school stretched out ahead, and the weekend…

Directing Our Lives Instead of Letting Life Direct Us

‘ve always wondered about the connection between freedom and not wasting time. We have a limited number of hours, so we should make the most of them, shouldn’t we? But we don’t want to live on a tight schedule, slotting…

Learning During a Crisis

In this week’s podcast, episode 115, I’m sharing and discussing two stories: Learning From Life and Homeschooling in a Crisis I’m talking about those times when we don’t need to strew because life is rich enough without any help from us. Maybe…

Latest

Maths and Other Wild and Yummy Stories

We’ve just had a very wild week. A week ago, we thought we’d arrived at summer. But by Tuesday we’d been thrown back to winter. The temperature plummeted, the rain fell and the wind howled. On Wednesday morning we woke up to find part of our backyard fence lying splat on the ground. Resurrecting the fence, before Nora our dog escaped, was the first challenge of the day. We’d planned to go out to our usual weekly homeschool meeting, but…

Beginnings and Endings and a Simple Christmas

We’ve had a lot of beginnings recently. Last week, the new school term began, and Andy, my school teacher husband, went back to work.  On that same day, my daughter Charlotte celebrated her birthday. She began the 18th year of her life. And the girls have begun a new project which they’re hoping will earn them a little pocket money. Some beginnings are closely followed by an ending. On 9th November 1999, our son Thomas’ life (after birth) began. A…

Approaching Classic Novels the Other Way Around

“What are you reading?” I ask my ten year old daughter, Gemma-Rose. She looks up from her Kindle and says, “Bleak House.” I remember reading this Charles Dickens book a couple of years ago. It took me a long time to finish it. I had to return to the beginning a couple of times and start over again, because I kept putting the book down. By the time I came back to it, I’d forgotten what I’d previously read. “Are…

Unschooling Children, a School Teacher Father, and Tea

“What does your husband think about you unschooling your children?”  I have been asked this question quite a few times. I guess people are interested in the answer because my husband Andy is a school teacher, as well as an unschooling father. “Would you like to chat with me about unschooling, being a school teacher and your involvement in our children’s lives?” I asked Andy. “Our conversation could be this week’s podcast.” Andy was agreeable. I decided to ask our…

Unschooling Experts, Criticism, and Radical Chore Rosters

Last week, I wrote a blog post called Are You a Proper Unschooler? I scheduled it to publish while we were away on holiday in Canberra. By the time we arrived home, the post had been online for about 12 hours and it hadn’t had many page views at all. I thought, “Oh well, not many people are interested in the topic of unschooling experts.” The next day I changed my mind. A steady stream of people arrived to read…

Bare Foot Unschooling and Comfortable Shoes

Many years ago I fell in love with a pair of soft golden-brown leather moccasins. They were decorated with tassels, threaded with tiny glass beads. Those shoes were absolutely beautiful and as soon as I saw them in the shop, I wanted them. There was only one tiny problem: They were half a size too small. I soon convinced myself the shoes would stretch once I started wearing them. I was sure I could put up with slightly cramped toes…

Unschool Writing, Essays, and a Few Panicky Moments!

My daughter Imogen has a passion for writing. “When did you start writing?” I ask. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing.” My second daughter was writing stories long before she knew how to form letters into words. It was no surprise to me when she announced she wanted to study writing at a tertiary level. 19-year-old Imogen is now in her third and final year of a Professional Writing and Publishing degree at university. So how did she get there?…

Are You a Proper Unschooler?

I used to worry about labelling our family as unschoolers. What if someone came along and said, “You’re not proper unschoolers”? Some people don’t like labels. Labels can certainly divide us. Someone could say,”You’re not unschoolers but we are.” That might make us feel excluded, even angry, if we think we belong. Sometimes it can seem safer to keep our label to ourselves. Let people guess and just ‘do our own thing’. But labels can be useful. They do help…
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My Unschooling Books

Parents and Kids

The Ladies Fixing the World

Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go of Control

“I kind of love my title for this podcast. It’s very ambitious. Let’s fix it all!” And so begins another Ladies Fixing the World conversation in which Cecilie Conrad, Sandra Dodd and I dive deep into unschooling, sharing our thoughts and experiences. In S2E4, we discuss Unschooling: Trusting the Process and Letting Go.   Want to know more…

Unschooling: Coping With the Unexpected

I used to think I could control my life. To achieve a perfect life, all I had to do was organise everything well, including my kids. What is a perfect life? My perfect life vision included a graduated row of good-looking and well-behaved children. I wanted people to admire my family and home, saying, “Sue is such a good mother!…

Christian unschooling

Unschool: Greater Things

She was tempted to aim low, afraid to risk failure, but she knew she shouldn’t settle for ordinary. More was expected. So she gathered her courage, did what she should, and life got exciting. And she changed. How often do we aim low because we’re too afraid to risk disappointment or failure? We want to stay where it’s comfortable and…

Shall We Talk About Christian Unschooling?

I often get to the point where I feel I haven’t got anything more to say about unschooling. I wonder: is it time to move on? At the beginning of last year, I reached such a point. However, instead of thinking about moving away from unschooling, I proposed the idea of exploring unschooling from a different angle. Should we discuss…
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