Self Directed

Ex-detective turned homeschooler Victoria Lenormand describes leaving a policing career as it shifted from service to force and recognizing the same pattern in her son’s early schooling. In this conversation, she explains how grading, labels, and constant assessment eroded confidence, and how home education replaced pressure with agency, learning by doing, and community built through shared interests rather than age-based classroom...

Nicklas Bergman is a deep-tech investor and technology explorer who focuses on how new tools shape everyday life rather than predicting distant futures. The episode examines AI, social media, and regulation through concrete examples from work, education, family life, and investing, with an emphasis on curiosity, skepticism, and personal judgment.

🗓️ Recorded November 19, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain

🔗  Relevant links

• https://www.ni...

Susan Yao is an educator, school founder, and advocate of self-directed learning. She previously served as Middle School Head at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, following more than a decade of teaching. She co-founded the Vermont Village School, a community-based microschool emphasising student-led learning, autonomy, and community engagement.

The episode connects her parents’ years in China’s school closures with her o...

What happens when unschooled teens meet college systems, exams, and external expectations? Jesper and Cecilie Conrad speak with Missy Willis about how adolescents raised with freedom step into formal learning without losing curiosity or confidence. The conversation follows family transitions, changing homes, and the moment when rigor and motivation finally align.

🗓️ Recorded November 4, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain

🔗  Relevant links

Kate McAllister describes how nervous system regulation shifts behavior from reaction to response. The conversation maps how stress patterns shape daily life, from parenting and school to refugee camps and co-regulation through rhythm and presence. Breath, movement, and sensory grounding become practical tools for returning the thinking brain online when fight, flight, or freeze take over.

🗓️ Recorded October 23, 2025. 📍 Tarragona...

Summer Jean describes how growing up unschooled shaped her ideas of work, freedom, and value. She explains how her mother’s focus on connection over control helped her develop confidence in her own sense of rightness. The episode contrasts inner conviction with productivity as a measure of worth.

🗓️ Recorded October 16, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain

🔗 Relevant links

• https://www.facebook.com/mermaidartglass/
• https://www.instagram.com/...

Cecilie and Jesper Conrad describe how illness, travel, and questioning convention led their family from a more or less traditional path in Denmark—through a Freinet-inspired free school—to a fully unschooled, nomadic life. They explain how unschooling developed through practical choices, legal frameworks, and value-based reflection rather than ideology.

🗓️ Recorded September 20, 2025. 📍 Åmarken, Solrød, Denmark

🔗 Relevant links

Co-creation unfolds when control gives way to trust. Life Is Easy grew from a shared intention among ten people who wrote together without plans or deadlines. The process reveals how purpose and openness can replace pressure, turning collaboration into a form of ease.

🗓️ Recorded September 30, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain

🔗 Relevant links

• https://learning4life.dk
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/lise-damkjær/ 

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Jamie Rumble shares his research on digital nomadism in the era of climate change. We explore how mobility, mental health, and community connect—and what nomads can teach about resilience.

🗓️ Recorded September 22, 2025. 📍 Åmarken, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🎙️ Listen to:

• First episode with Jamie Rumble: https://www.theconrad.family/selfdirected127
• Second episode with Jamie Rumble: https://www.theconrad.family/selfdirected128

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Kate McAllister shares her journey from traditional teaching in the UK to creating The Human Hive in the Dominican Republic. We talk about learning through global projects, raising children outside the standard map, and what it means to discover that there are no dragons when you step off the expected path.

 🗓️ Recorded September 10, 2025. 📍 Åmarken, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🔗  Relevant links

• https://www.thehiveadvent...

Amanda Ashworth shares how reading The Four Hour Workweek led her to question conventional success, homeschool her children, and eventually create the World Schooling Hub in Goa. She explains discovering her son’s hidden learning needs, why Goa became her family’s second home, and how the hub supports children, teens, and even parents through education, play, and wellness practices. We also explore community life, balancing family ...

What happens when a kindergarten teacher moves to teaching fifth grade and discovers that in just five years, the educational system has extinguished the light in children’s eyes? For Leah McDermott, this stark realization sparked a journey from conventional educator to unschooling advocate.

In this episode we talk with Leah about her path out of the classroom and into unschooling with her own family. She shares what it was like to ...

Blake Boles joins us to talk about his recent editorial, "I Don't Want a Nuclear Family, I Want a Galactic Commune - on the pursuit of quality conversation", which is about the decline of quality conversation and his resistance to the nuclear family model. 

We discuss the difference between daily logistics and real dialogue, why travel often brings deeper connections, and how temporary communities can support richer c...

Adolescence is often seen as something to endure — awkward years full of turbulence and struggle. But what if these years could be a time of discovery, adventure, and growth?

In this episode, Jesper and Cecilie Conrad talk with Chris Balme on the launch day of his new book, Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome. We were introduced to Chris by our friend and former guest, Blake Boles, and quickly said yes to...

How can we recover the essential human connections that make life meaningful and sustainable? How can we create a world where neighbors know each other's names, children play freely outdoors, and no parent faces the overwhelming challenges of raising children alone? 

Sarah van Gelder, founder of YES Magazine and author of "The Revolution Where You Live," joins us to explore the troubling fragmentation of our social st...

In this episode, we talk with Ben Feliz (14) and Addison Harding (13), home-educated children and contributors to the anthology “Hidden Voices Speak.” Addison came up with the idea for the book, Ben designed the cover, and they worked together with others to publish it. Both care deeply about children’s rights and wanted to respond to recent news stories and new UK legislation affecting home education.

They discuss the motivation be...

We sit down with Andrew and Heidi Schrum, just three weeks away from starting their life as a full-time nomadic worldschooling family. They ask us direct questions about our seven years of unschooling and worldschooling.

We discuss how the biggest changes happened in us as parents—not our children. We describe letting go of academic pressure, seeing teenagers choose their own academic interests, and how travel creates natural learni...

We sit down with Heidi and Andrew Schrum, who are about to leave home and begin travelling full-time with their two young children. 

They ask us what we wish we’d known at the beginning, and we talk through everything from reluctant kids and screen time to preparation that doesn’t help and the emotional crash that often comes six months into travel. 

We also get into how to parent while unschooling—without steppin...

Charles Eisenstein is an author and speaker whose books and essays explore themes of community, human connection, economics, and social change. He is known for works such as The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.

Charles joins us to explore how modern family structures have evolved and what's been lost in our transition from community-based living to isolated nuclear families. 

What gets lost w...