Leah McDermott of Your Natural Learner | Why I Chose Unschooling - Self Directed

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesper Conrad (00:00):
Today we're together with Lea McDermott and
first of all, thank you fortaking your time.
It's wonderful to meet you.

Leah McDermott (00:06):
Oh yes, Thank you.
I'm happy to be here.

The reason I reach out to you is because I
have fallen multiple times oversome of the wonderful quotes you
share on social media, and Iwill start by reading one of
them aloud, which is one of thenewer ones, and it just, oh, I
have seen myself falling intothis trap.
It goes you don't have tojustify what your child does

(00:33):
with that time to every strangerand family member who asks why
aren't you in school today orwhat did you learn today?
Here's an idea how about westop quizzing children and ask
them about things they reallycare about?
I like this one for two reasons.
One of them is that I have seenmyself in the role of leading

(00:56):
with a banner or a flag ofhomeschooling and unschooling,
and every time someone just likekind of asked in that direction
, I gave them a three hourphilosophical debate on a simple
, simple question, and so partof me I like that part of it to

(01:17):
stop yourself in doing that.
And the other one I like you askand suggest to people.
One I like you ask and suggestto people why don't we stop this
?
But at the same time or and atthe same time, I have thought
about that maybe people are justasking based on what they

(01:37):
normally know.
They don't know a lot else thanwhen you meet a child.
It's a weird size.
They are not used to talkingwith them, so they ask them
about you know, what class areyou in or stuff like that, or
why are you not in school?
Because they don't understandit.
They're not used to seeingchildren.

Sure, yeah, and I think you know that that's a
quote.
I recently kind of rewrote it,but it came to me a couple of
years ago when my oldest who youknow, during the pandemic time
when everyone was kind of alonehe didn't really have exposure
to a lot of other people, he wasmaybe like eight, nine, 10
years old when we were all kindof, you know, sequestered and

(02:16):
then when we came out of that wemoved across the country and he
had always been unschooled andhe joined like an after school
sports thing and he felt veryothered in that moment, even
though it had nothing to do withschool.
The only question any adult inthat room asked the children was

(02:38):
who's your teacher?
What grade are you in?
Are you excited for school tostart?
And he just didn't have anyanswers.
There was nothing he couldshare, that he felt like he was
a part of this situation and, asI've paid attention to that, it
also made me realize thatsocietally I think we do the

(02:58):
same.
To adults.
All we ask is what do you dofor a living?
And we've just kind of narrowedhumans in general down to their
work or their output or theirproductivity, not who we are as
people.
But what you know as a child,it's school focused, and then as
soon as you turn 18, it'swhat's your job?
How do you you know, how do youexist in this world of work?

(03:22):
And I think it says a lot abouthow we interact with others,
what you know, what we think ofourselves, what kind of
questions we can ask people.
Yeah, so that one's.
That's kind of how that onecame about.

I fall into trap all the time myself talking with
people.
Often I end with so what do youdo for a living?
Kind of question.
But I'm also trying to askpeople the more difficult
questions about familyrelationship and these things.

Cecilie Conrad (03:50):
Wouldn't it be great if what do you do for a
living was the same question aswhat is your main passion, if
that was actually the samequestion.
Often it's not actually thesame question.
Often it's not.
I think it's interesting tojust scramble it a little bit

(04:11):
and ask different questions.
I think also we should beforgiving, as Jesper say, about
people ask these things becausethat's what they can come up
with and for a lot of children,I mean, it's right to assume
that they're in school.
Most children are in school.
You meet a child, you assumethat child is in school.
That's not other people beingweird, that's us being weird.

(04:34):
We have to own that.
And then you ask them thingsabout that, because it will take
up the majority of their timeand that's what you can come up
with.
But obviously it's way moreinteresting to ask them.
So, what makes you happy?
What do you do in your own time?
And, sure, what books do youread?
Or what games do you play?

(04:55):
What do you like to do?
Who's your best friend?
What's your favorite game?
What's your favorite song?
What kind kind?

of music?

do you listen to All these kinds of things that
you might also talk to youradult friends?

about no-transcript.

(05:43):
They are worried about howthey're doing if they're messing
their own partners.
They feel judged all of thetime.
They are worried about howthey're doing if they're messing
their kids up, and so a lot oftimes I think we can take those
questions too harshly.

Yeah, when Jesper started reading the quote
out loud, it said you don'thave to justify everything your
children are doing with theirtime.
Let's start asking them otherquestions.
That's where it ends, andthat's actually in my mind, kind
of two different scenarios.
Do I have to justify what mychildren are doing?

(06:15):
That's one thing, and what kindof questions do we ask children
can be a completely differentthing, and not justifying it is
really.

It took me some years, it's like so many other
things, unschooling.

If you feel you have to justify it to other
people, maybe you just need tojustify it a little more to
yourself.
Make sure you know what you'redoing, make sure you're okay
with what you're doing, makesure your partner is okay with
it, make sure your children areon board, have a little breather
.
But you don't have to justifyit and you don't have to fight

(06:51):
back either.
I think that was my first thing.
So why are they not in school?
Then I would go.
So why are yours in school?

Yeah, yeah.
Or why aren't you at work?
Or why are you at work, yeah.
Why are you at work?
Yeah, you like your job.
Why are you here?
Yeah, yeah.
So that the first part of thatquote is one of my most viral
things that I've ever put out onthe internet is more about it's
not your responsibility to makeother people feel good about

(07:24):
the choices you make for yourchildren, and that one has taken
off for sure over the last manyyears because along those
experiences, even if we're notaware of it, a lot of people say

(07:46):
, oh, I was fine in school, buta lot of us weren't.
We do have things that we carry, even if it's just that need,
that fear to show others thatwe've succeeded, that we're
doing something with our time,because we don't value trust as
productive in our society.
We value passion or art or eventalent, if it's not at the top.

(08:11):
So I think that's something tobe very aware of is how our
reactions to questions like thatreally speak, like you said
very deeply, to what we arefeeling inside.

What you said made me want to promote a
totally different podcast thatfor unschoolers might be weird
to promote, but it's one episodeof a podcast called Teach Me
Teacher with Eric Weinstein,where he talks about what he
labels it eugenic harm.
What he labels it eugenic harmand it's such a beautiful

(08:52):
statement about.
What he's basically saying isdoctors have a high knowledge
about the harm they can do bymistakes and therefore they have
a lot of security inside it,but we do not measure the harm
the educational system producesand therefore we do not know how
to work with the harm itproduces.
And it's a wonderful podcast.
I will link to it in the shownotes.

(09:13):
He makes me laugh so many times, even though he's kind of
pro-education.

And even though it's not actually funny and it's
not, funny.

No, no, it's the terrifying laughter.
It's the terrified oh my Godlaugh cynical evil laughter.
Let me ask you a question, Leah, which is your path to
unschooling and your path topromoting what you call natural
learning.
What happened in your life?

That's a great question.
So I actually I like to saythat I kind of came full circle.
So I started in public schoolvery early.
My parents put me kindergartenfour years old, like started as
soon as you possibly could, andthen my father was in the
military.
So we moved a lot.
And when I was in third gradewe lived in a very small area
with very limited schoolresources.

(10:04):
I was one of the labeled giftedstudents, so that just meant I
was pulled aside to do extrawork that the other kids didn't
have to do, and the teachers atthe time so this was in the 80s
told my parents there's reallynothing we can do to help her
progress.
So have you thought abouthomeschooling?
And so I actually was ahomeschooled child the rest of

(10:28):
the way through my education.
But again, this was in the 80sand 90s.
Lots of people didn'thomeschool unless it was for
very religious reasons, and itwas still not even legal in a
lot of places like it is now.
So my parents were very strict.
It was school at home.
So it was definitely notunschooling in any way.

(10:49):
It was very rigid, very.
You know, we had a schoolclassroom at home.
We had all of the curriculum,the tests, all the red pens
everywhere.
So I was at home but it wasstill very, very rigid.
And then I went to college to bea teacher and went and got my
master's degree twice forteaching.
So I did, all you know, all theway around and my first

(11:11):
teaching job was in kindergarten.
So I had all these littlebright-eyed kids who believed in
magic and they were excited tolearn new things and they had
questions and they wanted toparticipate and it was fun and
it was still early enough thatwe weren't making five-year-olds
leave reading, you know, waybefore developmentally

(11:33):
appropriate levels.
And then, after a few years inkindergarten, my district shift
some things around and I gotmoved from kindergarten to fifth
grade.
And that was my first real ahamoment, because the first day
those kids came into myclassroom, you could see it
immediately None of them wantedto be there.

(11:54):
The light in their eyes wasgone.
They didn't want to read, theydidn't want to write, they
didn't want to participate, theyhated school.
And it was just such anawakening moment for me because
just the year before, just a fewmonths before, I was with all
these excited kids.

And.

I thought what did we do to them In five years?
What have we done?
And it was like this moment.
What have I done then?
Because I'm a part of thissystem?
And then, after a few years, infifth grade, I got pregnant
with my oldest son and I knew Iwould never put him in that
system, and so that was reallythe second big moment for me.

(12:35):
So after I had him, I left thesystem and just stayed at home
with him when he turned three.
Then all those gears startturning for me, right, All that
conditioning.
Well, now I have to.
If I'm going to homeschool, Ihave to find curriculum and I
have to make sure he's doing allthese check marks.
And I started writing my owncurriculum, which was very

(12:55):
play-based.
I had done a lot of philosophyresearch, but more than anything
, I just kind of let him guideme.
Let him guide me, and in thatprocess worked a lot on my own
conditioning.
And just because by nature, I'ma researcher, I spent a lot of
time looking into our brains andchild development and how we

(13:18):
learn things, and it really just.
It was just the more Idiscovered I was like, wow,
everything we're doing in thissystem is not like it's.
Emotionally it's not great forour children, but
developmentally the science evensays everything we're doing is
wrong.
We're isolating them by agegroup.
We're making them regurgitatefacts long before their brains

(13:41):
are ready to process thisinformation.
We're teaching them you knowall of the testing that we're
doing that's the lowest level oflearning.
We're not letting them talkabout it or teach it or get
their hands into it.
So I really went kind of on myown journey of de-schooling and
de-conditioning what I had beentaught but replacing it with

(14:04):
what the science really tells usabout brains and learning and
passion and motivation, and thatjust kind of led me to where I
am now, to all the way backaround.

Now I run a school for unschooled, so it's
been quite a journey, oh yeah, Iactually have started to start
out a little provocative onpurpose to advise people against
homeschooling, because whenthey say they want to homeschool
, I'm like I think that's a badidea.
At least you need to thinkabout that.

(14:36):
You're changing the role ofparent-child to one of
teacher-child and if you cannotbalance that act, then it can be
hurtful to your relation.
I'm not against homeschoolingwe are definitely more
unschoolers than anything elsebut I think it's really
important for people to stop upand think about oh, I'm changing

(14:58):
my role here and what can thataffect in my relationship?

Oh, that's so important and that's a lot of
the work I do with families nowwho are in that position.
If we're not careful, if wedon't, you know when we make a
switch.
So many times parents whoespecially if they start their
kids in school and then theypull them out if they don't come
at this journey from as soon asthey have their child, they
know this is their path right.
If they start their kids inschool and they pull them out,
if we have not none of this, wethink that it's for the child.

(15:30):
Right?
My child's having this badsituation or they're being
bullied or whatever.
They're not getting what theyneed.
And so we tell ourselves thatwe're doing this for the child,
and maybe that's true.
But most of the work that needsto be done is on the adults.
Most of what has to change themindsets, the beliefs about
learning is us, because kids arestill, especially when they're
young, they're still primed tolearn.
You know the developmental,natural way that they would.

(15:53):
It's us that have beenconditioned and have changed.
And if we don't do that work,like you're saying, if we don't
understand the role that we playin our child's growth and
development, if we don't breakdown those beliefs that we had
about learning, or the fears orthe traumas.
If we don't work through all ofthat, the only thing we're
going to know to do is replicatewhat we've been shown, which is

(16:16):
school at home.
But when we do that, we stepinto a role, like you're saying,
that most of us shouldn't be toour children.
You know, there's nothing wrongwith being a teacher or a guide
, but if we step into this roleas an authority figure that they
already have trauma around,then the only thing that happens

(16:40):
is we become the bully in ourchild's story, and that's even
worse because then they can'tescape it.
At least, if they have, you know, bullies at school, they can
come home and feel safe.
If all we do is replicate thatwhere we've brought the trauma
into our home, then there's noescape and that creates
resistance, which just createsthis.

(17:02):
You know this chain of eventswhere you almost can't come out
of it.
Then there's no way to makehomeschooling work at that point
.

I think it's really interesting.
Actually because it happens,let's face it.
Most schoolers like homeeducators doing school at home
or doing unschooling or whateverstyle most were not born with
the idea.
You know, it comes with thechild, or it comes with a bad

(17:31):
schooling experience, or itcomes with a wake up call of
some sort of health scare.
Something happens and for somereason you choose to not put
your child in school.
But you haven't read like 10books about it.
You don't have 15 friends whoare doing it.
You know no grownups who havenot been in school.
So it's kind of just fumblingaround in the dark.
But it comes from the intuitionthere's something wrong with

(17:53):
this system.
I don't want my child in thissystem.
There's something wrong withthis system.
And then what most people do,including us, is to go home and
copy the system at home, do theexact same thing just at home.
Very often I hear stories wherethat didn't make any sense and

(18:16):
it didn't make any sense veryquickly.
Didn't make any sense and itdidn't make any sense very
quickly.

So it's like oh, we pretend our story is I
pretended to do school at homefor a while because he was.

that was his veto, that if they were not in
school.
I had to do the schooling, so Iwas pretending to do the
schooling until I realized I'mkind of cheating on my husband
and also I'm forcing my childrento do things that make no sense
to them or to me that we'redoing.
So this is, this is bad, and wechanged that around.
It's not about my story, butI've heard the same story over

(18:49):
and over.
You get the feeling there'ssomething wrong with that system
, so you don't want to put yourchild into that system.
Then you go home and youreplicate the system at home.

Yes, that's how powerful it is inside of us, yes
, and you bring up a veryimportant point, which is very
common as well, that oftenfathers are the ones who feel
more so that it needs to be done.
If you're going to homeschool,it needs to look like school at
home that it needs to be done.
If you're going to homeschool,it needs to look like school at
home.
But this is actually so evidentof the fact that boys are more

(19:25):
traumatized in school than girls.
Like statistically, there aremuch more traumas around that
and it's almost like a Stockholmsyndrome.
They know that it was bad andthey don't look back fondly on
school and think, oh, it was somuch fun for me, I was so
successful, it felt so good.
But that societal pressure toachieve, to be productive, to

(19:46):
get a good job, to take care ofyour family, they tell
themselves emotionally well, Igot through it and that's what I
had to do to survive, that'swhat I had to do to be
successful, to take care of myfamily, and so that's what will
happen to my children too.
And you know, we also see justthat.
It's so much harder still,unfortunately, for boys and for

(20:11):
men to talk about feelings andemotions and traumas.
So there's a very big reasonthat we see, and so a lot of
mothers and women that I talk towho feel like they don't have a
partner that's on board.
I often have to tell them likethis isn't because they don't
trust you or they don't believeyou.
It's their story and that youknow needs to come to the

(20:32):
surface.
For you to be on the same page,you have to be ready to have
those conversations of why doyou feel that way?
Let's break it down, and it'shard, it is hard.

It is very hard and for me I was the go-to-work
dad, so I had the face outsideto the world and I got all the
questions.
And I will quote my favoritevandalism graffiti in Copenhagen
.
It is no longer there.

Is it not?

I believe they must have painted it over.

We will have to go check, actually, as we happen
to be in them right now.

So my favorite big painting graffiti just with
big white letters.
In translated it says anxietymarinated everyday routines, and
that is what I think that a lotof us is running around with.
We have routines, we havechoices, but they are based and

(21:37):
marinated in anxiety.
For me it was a kind of theclassic what would the neighbor
say?
It was also the fear of takingthe responsibility home.
It is fun that we have beenraised with understanding that
if you outsource theresponsibility then everything

(21:58):
will be so beautiful and good.
But I mean, I've unfortunatelylooked into the numbers and
they're not pretty.
It's around 80% is on the levelthey would like to.
In the public school system inDenmark, If you have five kids,
one of them would fail.

And that's high.
Comparatively to the rest ofthe world, denmark is way higher
than the United States.
It would be way, way worse.

Are we circling beautifully back to the quote
where we started about askingpeople the right questions and
therefore asking yourself theright questions as well as to
why are we doing the thingswe're doing?
Because if you ask yourself,why am I teaching my children
math?
And you're willing to go a fewsteps deep into that, why then

(22:52):
you stop teaching your childrenmath, unless they ask for it?
It happens quite quickly.
But we do these things out ofroutine, because everyone do it,
because I did it as a child,because you have to, or you
think the state demands it.
But if you try to come up withall these answers, you realize,
oh, oh, actually, no, oh,actually.

(23:13):
There's just something I'mafraid of here, or I'mized so,
the asking yourselves why, yeah,but it's dangerous.
I also thought that that waswhere you were going with the
don't start homeschooling, thatyou advise against it, like it's
very much a one-way road.
Things start to unravel don'tstart homeschooling.

(23:36):
I mean just if you don't want todo it, then don't start because
there's no going back.
It's really hard to go back Ifyou start asking why, if you
start asking yourself why, ifyou start questioning everything
, you start unraveling your ownidentity, your own oh, you used
a nice term conditioning and youunravel that and you leave your

(23:58):
children to be in that context.
At this point, when people askus why our kids are unschooled,
it's not like I have a choiceany longer.
It's not like I could tell themwhat to do.
There's no way I could tellthem what to do.
I just couldn't.
They would not obey and I wouldnot want them to obey.

But it's very much a one-way road.
Yes, yeah, because everythingit's like you said.
It's like pulling the littlethread right and then everything
your whole reality starts tounravel.
And I think we're in such aninteresting timeline now because
I feel like that is happeningon a global scale, like

(24:36):
everything is starting tounravel.
And you know you mentioned mathand you can start.
You know we start with thesesimple questions like why am I
doing this?
Because then you start to do,even if you look a little bit
into the research, most of usnever use math skills beyond
what we learned in fourth grade.
That's it.
Everyday adults use fourthgrade math or lower.

(24:59):
So why are we pressuringteenagers, whose brains and
bodies are developing more thanthey ever have since infancy?
Why are we pressuring them tolearn trigonometry and geometry
and algebra when they'llprobably never use it again,

(25:19):
probably never use it again, andthen we just perpetuate that.
Then they'll tell their kidsthat well, I had to get through
it, so you have to.
And it's just this generationalthing where we just keep
pushing it.
And now, with the advancementof technology and AI, we really
don't need to be just littlerobots regurgitating facts
anymore.
The skills that are going to beneeded in this world are ones
that can't be regurgitated orreplicated by a computer.

(25:44):
We need artists, we needinventors, we need writers and
people that are passionate, andthose are the exact skills that
are tamped away in a systemwhere we need everybody to do
the same thing all the time.
So it's yeah, it really.

Just you start asking why and everything just
starts coming apart our oldestson came up with a quite
interesting idea about why we'repushing math everywhere.
Um, I think it's amultifactorial answer.
Actually, there are many, manyreasons for math taking this
center stage, and the worriesand the school system alike.

(26:23):
But his theory was quiteinteresting.
He said the countries who canproduce the most smart engineers
coming up with new inventionsand creating good planning for
construction work, factories,inventions, as I said, planning

(26:46):
businesses these people, theyknow a lot of math, they're
smart at math.
So the country pushes everyoneto know math in the hope that
they produce more of thesepeople who make the big chunk of
money that makes money for thecountry.
There might be some truth tothat that you know.
You're just pushing everyone inthe hope that more seeds will

(27:09):
sprout.
Yeah.

You started it and I started it.

It's not working that way.
It's not working that way.
Rather, you should let theseeds grow when they grow and
give them a lot of light, andremove all the others and give
them space.
The ones who are passionateabout math and engineering,
let's say, and the ones who arepassionate about math and
physics Well, take them off theFrench class, the history class,

(27:34):
and let them just dive deepinto whatever they really really
want to do, because there arepeople who are passionate about
these things Absolutely, whichis great.

That have those natural inclinations as well.
And one thing I like to remindpeople of all ages.
I say this to my children oftenas unschoolers we're not
gatekeeping knowledge.
We're not saying we don't everwant you to learn these things.
Like I don't tell my children,please don't learn math, because
you'll never use it.

(28:04):
It's just the information.
Everything is available to youwhatever you want.
And I have never once sat mychildren down.
My older two are 14 and 11.
I've never once sat them downand made them work through a
math workbook.
And my middle child, my11-year-old, is an absolute
natural whiz at math andstatistics and data.

(28:27):
He does things in his head.
I've asked him sometimesbecause I'm so curious how did
you figure that out without acalculator, without a piece of
paper?
And he'll start to tell me thethings that go on in his mind
and all I can think of is if hewere in a classroom from his
earliest ages and had been toldthis is the way you solve that

(28:48):
problem.
Show me you solved it my way,which that's you know.
That's what math curriculum isnow.
It's teaching it away and thenshowing it.
Show your work.
I don't care that you got theright answer.
You have to prove you did it myway how much that would have
just suppressed that, not justhis natural, innate way of

(29:10):
solving problems, but the joythat he gets from doing it.
That would have been gone, yeah.

Were you taught to hold the pencil a specific
way when you were in school?
Oh, yes, and that is actuallyit's funny you bring that up.

One of my favorite things to do my secret
favorite things to do is whenI'm out in public is to watch
how other people hold theirpencils, and I will secretly
snap photos.
I have this whole album ofpeople holding pencils in the
funniest way, and yet all oftheir they're still writing my
magic.
They can hold their pencil inways that I could never get my

(29:46):
hands to go.

I I can look at our um, our daughter who is 16,
and I sometimes I'm like butyou're holding the pencil wrong
and it still pops into my head.
And then I look at how she'sdrawing, and then look at how
I'm drawing and I'm like no it'sso much fun.

It's even before we would call ourselves.
I mean, we were quite freethinking people.
We just didn't really start outas unschoolers.
We were just fumbling around inthe dark, I'd guess.
But when she's, it must havebeen even before homeschooling,
because she would start drawingbefore I don't know.
She took a pen, she said shehold it wrong teach me how to

(30:29):
write the letters.
so I just did like, wrote theletters out, put them in front
of her, and then she, shestarted and I said you're
holding the pen wrong Because,yeah, I came out of my mouth.
I'm sorry, I made a mistake.
And she said what do you mean?
And I said well, I was taughtin school at least I was honest

(30:54):
about that part that you'resupposed to hold it this way so
that your micro movements getmore nuanced, then you don't get
shoulder pain and all thesethings when you're right for a
long time.
This is what I was taught and II'm trying to teach you that
because I think it's might beright.
And she said well, that's allgood and fine, but I'm gonna
hold my pen the way I hold it,because that's how she is.
She must have been somethinglike three years old and, uh, I

(31:18):
well there, there was no talkingback at that.
And as I'm a little bit thesame myself, don't tell me what
to do, I respect it.
So she started writing in thiswrong way and I had to overcome
my fears of the wrong kind ofwriting.
Even some of the letters.
She would write them in a wrongway, like back, not at the end.

(31:40):
Result looks like the rightletter, but she's not writing it
in the right sequence, kind of.
That also took a little bit ofbreathing from my side.
This is the very beginning.
Now I'm like I don't care.
But the funny thing is, of thethree unschooled kids, we have
four children and the oldest wasin a democratic school, so the

(32:02):
three young ones were not inschool.
Of the three youngest, she'sthe only one who consistently
likes to write handwriting, whois doing a lot of drawing.
She's great at drawing.
She still holds the pen, theexact same way she did that day
when she was three.
Wow.
And she can make all the nuancesand all the shadows and she can

(32:25):
do all the hand lettering, allthe things that I was taught.
You can never learn if youdon't hold it the way that.

It was a specialist even coming into the
class teaching us how to sit andhow to hold the pen, teaching
us how to sit and how to holdthe pen and the level of control
put over you.
If you can only write a D in aperfect sequence like that from
top to bottom, I get anxiety.
Actually, I would like to talkabout a pain point that I think

(32:55):
is not often enough talked aboutwith homeschooling and
unschooling, and maybe the painpoint is bigger in Scandinavia,
as we have been on the journeyof home and unschooling for a
shorter time.
When Cecilia and I startedthese I don't know how many
years ago now, but we were among10 families in Denmark

(33:16):
homeschooling.

I keep saying that I think, to be fair, there
was probably 10 families onZealand, so maybe there were 25
families besides the religiousones, but in the whole country,
but maybe even not, and I have aclient who is in Norway where I
talk with him about it.

That the pain point I want to talk about is
that the society is notconforming is not the right word
.
The society is not there for usin the same way as I would have
loved it to be, because we havetaken all the kids and put them

(33:55):
in school.
We have taken all the adultsand put them at work.
So when you start homeschoolingit is a little lonely.
That is not the natural.
You live next to your aunt oryour cousin and you have your
sister living next door, etcetera.
I'm not saying everything wasbetter when we lived in like
small society, but there weresomething that was better.

(34:16):
There were the extended familyand, as we no longer have this,
it is quite a lonely journeysometimes for home and
unschoolers and I just thinkit's needed to talk about.
What I talked with this manabout was that I said but the
alternative for your children isworse.
Putting them in school wouldhurt your children, so it's

(34:39):
better, but it is lonely.
So what are your thoughts onthat and how are you fighting
that loneliness?
Because sometimes we often justsay, hey, man, it's so cool to
unschool and homeschool.
Everything is great.
But where are the rest of theworld?
They're in school or at work.

Yes, and I think , in my experience and you know,
even though homeschooling ispopular, and more popular, I
should say, in the United States, it is still very like, it is
still very common for you to bethe only homeschooler in your
community, in your town, and Ithink a lot of unschoolers
especially sort of self-isolate.
They isolate themselves onpurpose because they are trying

(35:18):
to, you know, be very againstthe system.
So that's not, it's not anabnormal way of an abnormal
thing, for even you know USfamilies to feel very lonely and
isolated that way.

(35:40):
They feel very lonely, theyfeel very isolated.
For the children, you know, yes, other kids are in school
during those hours.
But I think it kind of makesyou step into the conversation
around socialization.
If we're looking at childrenright, which that putting them
in school is the only way forthem to be socialized, for them
to get interaction.
And you know, first of all forthem to get interaction.
And you know, first of all,it's forced, it's controlled,

(36:06):
it's manipulated, it's notrepresentative of the real world
.
We don't only haveconversations with people
exactly our age that live inthis little, you know, radius.
But homeschooling andunschooling gives children the
opportunity to be social witheveryone.
They can have meaningfulconversations with their
neighbor.
That's elderly children of allages.
And something that I havereally been passionate about

(36:29):
recently too, is honoring that.
Some people are just moreoutgoing than others and that's
okay.
I think about a lot ofparent-teacher conferences I sat
in on where they would talkbadly about the quiet child.
Well, I'm a little worriedbecause they don't speak up very
often, or shy.
That's a negative thing.

(36:50):
And some people just like beingintroverted.
They prefer to be alone, andthat's okay.
My middle child is like that.
He plays on a travel ortournament soccer team.
He is all out and ready to talkto everyone when he's playing
soccer.
The rest of the day he doesn'twant to talk to anyone, usually
not even me.

(37:10):
He wants to be alone doing hisown thing.
My oldest knows every singleperson in our town.
Everybody knows who he is.
He knows who everybody isbecause he naturally wants to go
out and talk to people andgather people for events.
He's a leader, he's outgoing,and I think in both of those

(37:33):
situations, had they been in aclassroom where their
socialization was controlled,they would not have been able to
be themselves in eitherdirection.
But in terms of the lonelinessfor adults.
I think a lot of that is maybenot loneliness in regards to
literally being alone, but justfeeling very isolated because of

(37:55):
our choices that no oneunderstands.
That people are judging that wedon't have assistance, that
we're with our kids all day whenother people might not be, that
we choose not to work, to stayhome with our children and
they're you know, then we missout on that interaction.
Um, I'm grateful for theinternet.
I think that helps a lot forfamilies who feel very isolated.

(38:18):
To have you know, other peopleto talk to.
Things like this, havingpodcasts, having conversations.
Yeah, I think a lot of it isjust fear of judgment, maybe
more than anything else.

Yeah, and that we have a skewed version.
And I still, even though welive this life, sometimes have a
skewed version of how sociallife as a child would look like,
because I grew up like I grewup.

I mean, we are hyper-social people and we are
also nomadic.
We move around betweendifferent communities.
We move for people more thanfor places.
We do go explore the planet,but usually because there are
some people we want to meetsomewhere more than there's some

(39:09):
things we want to see.
There will always be somethings we want to see.
So I find it a little bit hardto identify with the problem at
this stage of our life, becausewe're peopled out, we actually
are overwhelmed socially.
We're with people all the timeand when I think about feeling
isolated and lonely, it's veryhard for me to imagine myself

(39:33):
actually holding that emotion,because I don't have it at all.
I have the reverse that emotion, because I don't have it at all
.

I have the reverse no-transcript, really
and I do not feel that I'mmissing out and you bring up
such a good point, and that isthat a lot of times the
transition to homeschooling isso hard because we don't know
how to be home with our families.

(40:01):
We don't know how to be homewith our children Because,
especially in like in the UnitedStates, maternity leave is six
weeks and then your baby's sixweeks and then you're not with
your baby anymore, that's it.
They're with a nanny, they're ina daycare, they're in, you know
, in a version of school forbabies, basically.

(40:22):
And so we don't know how to behome, even with our partners,
because the traditional thing isyou wake up, you say hi, you
give a kiss, you go to work,you're gone all day with other
people and then you're home andwhen you add work and school,
then you're doing homework andyou're getting kids off to
soccer practice.
If you're just in that rat raceall the time and then

(40:42):
everything is gone.
That's a heck of an adjustmentto suddenly have to just be
together.
A heck of an adjustment tosuddenly have to just be
together.
And a lot of us don't know howto do that, even with our own
humans that we created with ourbodies.
We don't even know how to bewith them and be okay with not
having somewhere to be andsomething to do all the time.

It's a big change to choose this.
I just feel this.
I'm lonely and I'm missing outand I need colleagues and I'm
missing out on social life and Idon't have the option to go to
my yoga class or whatever.
It is my wine evenings with mygirlfriends.
It's actually quite brief thistime we have with our children

(41:30):
and we have a 13 year spanbetween the oldest and the
youngest, so we have a quitelong time with children at home
and yet now that the youngest is13, pushing at 14, I feel the
time is running out, even thoughI mean, hopefully we get a few
more years and there is reallyno one I'd rather spend my day

(41:50):
with.
And if you let go of thehomeschooling, the school at
home, and just learn to spendyour day with these awesome
people, it's just the greatestdays really.
I also want to.
So this thing you say about thegood old days when you had your
cousin and your aunt and youruncle and your best friend and

(42:14):
your village, and there's thiswhole hype, this whole, and it's
actually very much a constructthat we have in our minds about
the village.
It takes a village and then youimagine you have the blacksmith
and the baker and the guy withthe mail.
He has a red coat on, and youknow.
And then there's the priest.
You think it's a little bitromantic, actually, I don't

(42:35):
think society works like thatand I don't think it was awesome
.
I think people they might nothave felt lonely because they
didn't have the idea ofthemselves as individual with
personal needs in the same waythat we do now, but they must
have felt trapped personal needsin the same way that we do now,
but they must have felt trapped, especially someone, yeah, and
in those situations, someone wasalways marginalized children,

(42:57):
people of color, like somebodywas always kept out of the
bridge, and that's important toremember too.

How do we help in these first years where people
actually face a major shift intheir life, where it is super
difficult, where they're notused to being together with
their children, where theloneliness is real for them
because they haven't built upfriendships and people around
them, because they have beenused to go to work, send their

(43:25):
kids to school, and now they'relike this doesn't work any
longer.
Let's go back to it from start.
Let's just homeschool, let'sfigure it out, and then it's
quite hard for many people.

And I think a lot of it is just, I see that
and I tend to be more of adreamer think about the future
instead of the current problem.
So my answer, long-term, tothat is, if we shift as a
society the way we teach ourchildren, that problem
disappears, because then, whenour children are adults, they

(43:58):
don't feel that isolation, theydon't feel that pressure, that
anxiety, that loneliness, right?
So I think there's and that'shard to tell parents well,
you're doing this for the futuretoo, right, this isn't just for
the right now.
The choices you make now helpyour children in the future,
help our society, help the world.
But I mean, I think you'reright and that's.
I think a lot of it is, for lackof a better word education

(44:21):
around why we're feeling thisway, you know.
Help with the anxiety around itBecause, like we've said
already, it's so much more thanjust the education part, like
that's really.
The academics is the tiniestlittle piece of choosing to
homeschool, it's the piece thatmatters the least, and yet it's
what we put on the top, you know, or what so many people say

(44:44):
well, I'm leaving and I have toteach them all these things, I
have to check all these boxes,and yet that's the part of who
we are as people.
The academic part is reallyjust the tiniest little piece.

But we don't know that in the beginning.
Fair enough, we feel thatthat's what we're taking away
from our children and that's whywe sit there with the school
books around the kitchen tablefor a week or two and maybe a
year or two, before we stop.
Most of us stop.
It makes sense.
I wanted to touch upon anotherthing that is a fear-based thing

(45:17):
that often happens.
I can't really remember, but itcame up several times in this
conversation in my mind withoutcoming out of my mouth, and that
is, I feel like, very often weproject the problems we meet in
unschooling life into the choicethat we're, the unschooling

(45:37):
choice.
So let's say, a child is notthriving and that's where maybe
loneliness actually is the thing.
The child is not thriving andyou're living this alternative
life and you think, oh, it'sbecause of the alternative life,
maybe it's just puberty hittingand that's hard for everyone,
but you're there to witness it.
You're the one and you shouldbe the one who's closest with

(46:00):
the child.
So you know and you know it ona deeper level than your
neighbor who sends the child offto school, and the child is
confiding with friends, not withparents or no one or no one,
and it's a lonely experience.
But for the homeschoolers ithappens very often and I have
these conversations very oftenwith other homeschoolers that

(46:23):
are more new to the game wherethey think there's something
wrong, something is not,something is a little bit making
a funny noise in the wholefamily system and they think, oh
, it's because we're homeeducating, it's because we're
unschooling and I think even thechildren, because what can they
do other than comparethemselves to mainstream norms?

(46:45):
They see other children go toschool and have peers and
classmates and extracurricularthings they do, and if they feel
a little bit, then they're likebut why don't I do that?
Or I want friends, or I want aschool bag, all these things.
And that's when you have to seethe long-term, as you just said
.
The long-term thing is yes,your child might right now say

(47:08):
I'm lonely, I want friends.
Is yes, your child might rightnow say I'm lonely, I want
friends, I'm bored.
You get that.
I'm bored a lot withhome-educated children, but
we're in it for the long run.
We're in this because webelieve it's a better life for
them and I want to be the onewho's close with my children.
When they're not thriving, Ithink they bring up.

Yeah, and well, you bring up, you know what do
we do when we have a problem,and I think maybe that's what
the loneliness is is you feel,because it's human nature to
have conflict and problems.
You know, someone choosing theabsolute, most normal mainstream
life is going to have theirfair share of problems, but they

(47:51):
don't feel alone in it becauseeveryone around them has the
same problems.
Everyone hates homework,everyone hates getting up early
for the school bus, everyonehates packing lunches, but
you're not alone in thatsocietal drama.
And when you step outside of it, when your problems feel unique

(48:12):
and there's no one that is alsofeeling those problems, I think
might, might really be wherethe loneliness is.
It's not that, it's not evennecessarily that you're alone
physically or that you feelisolated.
It's your.
You feel isolated in what yourconflict is.
If that that makes sense, Ithink, is something that I'm

(48:32):
getting from.
What you're saying is at leastI want to, because I've had my
kid.
My oldest has said that beforetoo.
He's the only one I've had thathas actually maybe asked about
going to school and all of it is.
He'll even acknowledge I knowthey'll teach me things I don't
need to know, but I want toexperience the negativity that
everyone else has right, likeit's just like he's missing

(48:54):
something.
Yeah.

But I think even if we don't personally project
the reason for our problems intothe choice of unschooling, then
we do know that if we talk toanyone about our problems they
will make sure to help usproject it into that choice oh
yeah that's actually quite alonely path if you're like okay,

(49:17):
but I think I'm right with this, but things are wobbly.
Who do you talk to?
You have to talk to otherunschoolers, that's.

That is a an actual problem, yeah, where you
are a little bit lonely becauseif you're getting that judgment
like that, if you tell thoseproblems to someone else, like
you said, they are going to feelwhat's the best way to put this
?
They didn't question what theychose, they just did it.
And so you come.

(49:48):
It's almost like a they thinkit's a self-fulfilling prophecy,
right?
Well, of course you have theseproblems.
You chose to go against whatthe normal is, so you deserve it
, and then that you know it'salso a relief if we're wrong,
yes.
We're wrong about this.
Sure, sure yes.

Yes, are you familiar with Pippi Longstocking
?
Yes, I was just thinking aboutyour son wanting to go to school
.
I just had this conversationwith someone, one of our
children exact same thing.
I don't know if you rememberPippi Longstocking.
She has one day of going toschool yes, like one half
morning in school, and she doesit because she feels she's

(50:27):
missing out on the summer break.
She can't have a summer breakif she's not in.
She feels she's missing out onthe summer break.
She can't have a summer breakif she's not in school.
Everyone's so excited aboutsummer break so she has to go to
school to do to get a summerbreak, so she goes to school for
half a morning.
Obviously, the whole experiencemakes no sense, so she bounces,
especially because she can'tkeep her horse there.

(50:48):
Yeah, I highly recommend thatwe should put in the show note.

I will make a link A link.

There must be an English translation of that,
but it's amazing I read thathe's right.
How can he have the negativeexperience?
How can he know to hate it ifhe's never been there?
Yep, yeah Is time flying.

Time is flying, and that is both good and
wonderful, but we should alsoturn our direction towards your
natural learner.
What is it you're doing withyour whole project?
How are you helping people?
What are you offering to theworld?

Yeah.
So your natural learner is kindof the business that started
just following my oldest son andthrough that I wrote a
curriculum.
Because one thing I did findfor families who first made that
transition from school to homeand even if they felt like, oh,
I love, it's like seeing thebeautiful you know Instagram, I

(51:46):
want tea time, I want to just bewith my kids all day and make
it magical, that's a big jump ifyou haven't done any of that
conditioning, and sometimes justa little bit of school-like
structure can help with that.
Right, it's like the rite ofpassage to sit around the dining
room table, but if you can makeit gentler, if it can still be

(52:07):
child-led, if you take away theworkbooks, it can feel like a
better transition.
So the curriculum that I wrotefor younger kids is that and
that's kind of what I did formany years and just, you know,
teaching, workshops and sharingthings.
And then it sounds very clicheto say, but I had a dream about
a bridge many years ago andwhere I was living.

(52:28):
At the time I lived somewherewhere there were no state
regulations on homeschooling.
You just told them that youwere homeschooling and they left
you alone.
And then, about a year after Ihad that dream, I moved
somewhere where there were a lotmore regulation paperwork.
You had to keep a portfolio.
You had to prove that you wereteaching your child according to
these check marks, which isit's a lot for an unschooling

(52:51):
family and with my educatorbackground, that was easy for me
.
I know how to use the academiclanguage but it made me realize
how many families that wouldimmediately ruin their
experience.
They would never be able totranslate it and make it feel
fully child-led, fullyunschooling.
And that's when Bridge Academycame around.

(53:14):
So the school that I run is aprivate school for homeschoolers
and unschoolers around theworld and I, you know, we
operate as that bridge betweenthat.
You know, unschooled life thatwe want to have, where there are
no checkboxes and we just getto be ourselves and learn with
life, and then taking care ofthe documentation and
translating it and giving highschool diplomas and transcripts

(53:36):
so that whatever kids want to doin the future, they still have
that.
You know, that official checkmark.
So that's what I do now that'sa gift that we know.

Many of us are searching for solutions.
When we come to the kids beinghomeschooled the whole period,
it's like, oh, you're going towant to go to university, all
right, then you need to crossthat bridge.

Exactly.

Yeah, wonderful.
So to round up the episode, ifyou can share where people can
find you and where they canlearn about the different
projects you're doing, yeah,Instagram is where I prefer to
hang out and spend most of mytime, but your natural learner
everywhere will take you where Iam.
Perfect.

(54:21):
Thanks a lot for your time.
It was a really interesting andwonderful conversation.

Thank you so much.

All Episodes

Leah McDermott of Your Natural Learner | Why I Chose Unschooling

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leah McDermott of Your Natural Learner | Why I Chose Unschooling