November 27, 2025 • 44 mins
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 own path through American schooling and into the early stages of unschooling. The conversation outlines her family’s approach to dyslexia, late reading, and open learning rhythms.
🗓️ Recorded November 6, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗 Relevant links
- https://susyao.substack.com/
- https://www.vermontvillageschool.org/
- https://www.lionsroar.com/author/susan-yao/
- The Math Myth by Andrew Hacker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1620970686/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jesper Conrad (00:20):
Today we're together with Susan Yao and I
found her on Substack.
On her Substack, I think youcame recommended by Missy
Willis, Let 'Em Go Barefoot,who we actually had on right
before this episode.
So, Susan, good to meet you.
Susan Yao (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Nice to meet you too.
Jesper Conrad (00:41):
Yeah, I would like to start by asking what is
your background?
How did you end up in the wholeradical education,
homeschooling, unschoolingworld?
What happened in your life?
Susan Yao (00:56):
Well, it's funny.
My parents were unintentionallyunschooling, but I didn't know
that until I was on thisjourney.
And so they grew up in Chinaduring the Cultural Revolution,
and schools were closed for afew years.
And so everybody, it was like anational unschooling
experiment, not really onpurpose.
That's just so it's just funnyto think about that.
(01:18):
I went to traditional publicschools in the United States,
Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois,Massachusetts.
And, you know, I was always ona college track of, you know, is
supposed to get good grades ortake honors classes and stay on
a traditional path.
And I would say as a student,my first self-directed project
(01:43):
was in high school.
As a teenager, I started tofeel like there are more
important things than gettinggood grades in school.
And it's dangerous, it's adangerous thought, right?
You know, there's no turningback to the middle pill.
Specifically, I cared a lotabout racism, and that's what I
wanted to spend my time on.
(02:04):
I was good at school, but I wasnot excited by my classes.
And so I dropped science.
And many students don't evenknow that you can do that.
You don't have to take all thesubjects that you are supposed
to take in school.
So I had more free time to makea documentary and I interviewed
teachers and students.
(02:25):
And that was a very meaningfulproject for me as a student.
And there was no credit, nograde.
The school did lend me a cameraand some editing equipment.
So they were supportive in thatway.
But that was my first realtaste of self-directed learning
for myself.
And eventually I became aclassroom teacher.
(02:46):
I started out in a charterschool, and I was in progressive
private schools, and I became aparent.
And my husband and I, we hadalways been interested in
unschooling and homeschooling.
And I couldn't really tell youwhy, just that we had talked to
other people about it.
And so as we became parents, itwas always in the back of our
(03:08):
mind.
And we found this amazingReggio Amelia Forest Preschool
for the kids.
And so we were very happy tohave them there while I was
working in the middle school ofthe same school.
And then it was once our olderchild hit kindergarten, school
(03:29):
started to look more traditionaland we started to have
questions.
And for example, he was veryafraid of making the teacher
angry.
Even when he was at homeoutside of school, he would be
afraid of angering the teacherto the point where sometimes he
wouldn't follow my directionsbecause the teacher's authority
was somehow stronger or thatfear was stronger.
(03:50):
And also seeing how he was as alearner, he started to read on
his own at age four.
And I just thought school mightbecome too limiting for him
because he's always had verystrong interests, and he likes
to have the time and space tofollow his own interests, do his
own projects.
And so we started coming backto this idea of unschooling.
(04:14):
And then COVID is what reallypushed us to go for it.
Right.
I mean, it forced everybody totry homeschooling.
And we had already been open tothe idea, and we just found
that it worked well for us as afamily.
And then I left working in aschool full-time.
Jesper Conrad (04:35):
Yeah.
Susan, I need to go a littleback because, as Westerner as I
am growing up in Denmark, I'mtotally ignorant of a lot of
Chinese history.
The schools were closed in aperiod.
Susan Yao (04:49):
Isn't that interesting?
And I don't, I'm no expert onChinese history.
Isn't that interesting that anentire country underwent this
social experiment?
And I don't know if there arebooks about schooling in
particular.
The thinking was, you know,during the era of Mao and
(05:10):
communism and the little redbook, that schooling promotes
elitism and is one source of theproblem.
So let's close them all.
Jesper Conrad (05:20):
How many years did it go for?
Susan Yao (05:22):
So it was, I think an infrastructure, you know, it
was also chaotic, and that wasalso a reason.
But schools, teachers,administrators, they were seen
as the enemies for a period oftime.
Cecilie Conrad (05:44):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (05:44):
Even it' s a little wise.
Susan Yao (05:46):
I mean, we all have to run now to our computers and
look up if anyone did any goodstudies on that.
Maybe.
Yeah. I only have bits andpieces from my parents.
Um, I haven't looked into it,but I am very curious about
everybody else who does nevermention that they did not go to
elementary school.
Well, that's interesting.
(06:07):
My parents are in their 60s, soyou know, anybody around that
age maybe didn't go toelementary school or didn't go
to college.
My father did go to collegebecause they had just reopened
college.
And now China has a prettytraditional school system.
So that's interesting to me,too.
That after closing all theschools, they went in this very
(06:28):
traditional direction focused ontest taking and scores.
Jesper Conrad (06:33):
It's as I understand it, not that I'm an
expert, it's a very elitistschool system.
The Chinese one.
Susan Yao (06:41):
I think they would say it's democratic in that any
child with a high enough scorecan go to college.
Yeah.
And score itself.
So maybe that's the logicbehind the test system.
But the actual result is thatyou know, children are doing
whatever extra tutoring they canand trying to memorize as much
(07:02):
as they can, and it looks verytraditional.
Jesper Conrad (07:04):
Yeah.
How is how is your experiencestarting with taking your kids
home and retaking theresponsibility of your child in
what it will learn and notlearn?
How did that feel?
Was it terrifying?
Susan Yao (07:22):
Yes.
It was, it has really been ajourney up and down.
And I know you've talked tosome of your other, you know,
the other unschooling parentsabout this.
It really is emotional.
When the I think the kids weremaybe five and seven when we
started unschooling.
And so when they're young,nobody is too worried in the
(07:45):
beginning.
You know, if reading, like Isaid with my older child, he was
picking up reading on his own.
And he he's a poster child forunschooling in some way, if if
you're coming from a schoolishbackground, because he'll just
spontaneously say, I'm gonnawrite an essay about black
holes.
And that's just what henaturally wants to do.
But, you know, obviously,unschooling can go so many
(08:08):
different directions.
The goal is not to go in aschoolish direction necessarily,
but it was let's see, we werehomesteading at the time, so
that felt very right.
The kids were learning to takecare of animals and grow
vegetables, and being outdoorswas safer, anyways.
During COVID, we would go onhikes a lot.
(08:30):
And so I think the early yearswere great.
And where I started to worry isas they get older, my younger
child has dyslexia.
And so my main worry is not somuch.
I've heard so many stories ofpeople who read as teenagers and
(08:50):
they are successful adults.
For me, I was worried that Iwas not enough, that I could not
teach a dyslexic child how toread.
Even being an experiencedclassroom teacher, I was always
middle school.
So I didn't know what earlyliteracy looked like or how I
could support her.
We met with a tutor, and Imainly wanted her to know that
(09:13):
tutoring is an option becauseyou might need a reading teacher
who's an expert in dyslexia.
So we met.
There is, you know, is aninformal meeting and just
getting to know her abilities.
And meeting with that tutorhelped put me at ease because we
had this narrative that if wehad kept our child in school,
(09:36):
she would have been readingalready.
And the tutor said, probablynot.
She has dyslexia, you know,very classic profile.
And we're holding on to thisstory that if you go to school,
you learn the skills you need.
And if you're at home, maybeyou won't get what you need.
Maybe your parents are notenough.
(09:57):
And so letting go of that storyhas been a journey.
And I think it would have beenharder for me as a parent to
learn about dyslexia becauseI've been in those school
meetings where you have, youknow, the serious conference
with the parent.
I'm worried about your child.
They need extra tutoring, theyneed testing.
(10:17):
And I think I would haveresisted that.
But allowing her to read at herown pace, find the activities
that work for her, those haveaffirmed the unschooling path
for me.
For example, she's a dyslexicchild who is not reading
fluently, but can teach athree-year-old letters.
(10:39):
And that is so beautiful.
No school, right, would send astruggling reader into a
preschool classroom to teachletters.
But it's actually so good forher learning because she needs
that extra review and she lovesyounger children.
She has pathways like thatavailable as an unschooler.
Jesper Conrad (10:59):
Yeah.
Sometimes I get sick and tiredof the word unschooling because
it can hold this connotation ofschool is bad and learning is
bad, and education, be educated,be interested is bad.
And unfortunately, that's theword that has ended on this
(11:21):
philosophy where I likeself-directed learning, but even
that doesn't cover fully whatit is that I see unfold in many
children, which is this personallearning journey that happens
when they are ready, that theyhave time to learn in their own
pace and not being judged onbeing an in being a group that
(11:44):
needs to learn everything at thesame time.
And that is one of the joys Isee with having them at home and
having this more unschooled,less curriculum outcome-based
focus that we let them travel inthe direction where and when
they are ready, it comes.
Cecilie Conrad (12:03):
I feel like we talk way too much about
learning.
I don't know.
It can just be that we areexplaining to some imaginary
listener what they're learningwhen they're not in school.
Because most people cannotthink out of that box.
Fairly so, because most peopleare in that box and you don't
(12:23):
see a lot of kids who have neverbeen to school.
You combine the idea ofchildhood of growing from being
five to fifteen with school,that school is somewhat needed.
But actually, unschooling isabout that it's not needed, but
it's also about the fact thatit's not about learning.
Growing up from five to fifteenis not about learning.
(12:44):
We learn all through life, allhumans do, and unschooling is
not about a different way oflearning, it's a different way
of living, and it's based on adifferent philosophy, it has a
different value system, and thelearning actually it's so hard
to get around it, so we keeptalking about it.
(13:06):
And I think we're doing so inthis conversation because we're
used to talking a lot aboutlearning because we're used to
defending ourselves.
And I just wanted to say thatin many ways, unschooling is not
about what they're learning.
That can be such a provocativestatement, but actually the
backbone of it is somethingelse.
Susan Yao (13:26):
As humans, we're hardwired to learn, right?
And it's amazing we've createdinstitutions where we put
children and they say, Oh, Ilearned nothing today.
And they think that learning isonly sitting at a desk with an
adult-directed activity, andeverything else is not learning.
But we I think learning is inthe background all the time as
humans.
Jesper Conrad (13:46):
So I understand what you're saying about at the
moment, and some of them aredoing more formal education at
this point because they'reworking to get into university.
It's unschooled teenagers, andsome of them are not, which is
totally fine.
But then they say this, oh, I'mdoing nothing.
And it's a little bit likeyou're unschooled, you're 16,
(14:07):
you haven't been doing nothingup to now.
You're still not doing nothing,you're not doing formal
schooling, but that doesn't meanthat you're doing nothing.
But lots of the things they doare considered nothing by uh the
mainstream way of thinkingabout childhood.
And I think I just think weneed to push back against that
(14:29):
idea because it's not nothing.
There's a lot of thingshappening, a lot of growing, a
lot of uh tempering of emotion,a lot of thought experiments, a
lot of contemplating, a lot ofobservation, a lot of emotional
peace.
Arriving at emotional peacefrom points of not having peace,
which is a learning journey,you know a journey, a skill,
(14:53):
actually.
That's a skill that I find inmany adults, they don't have it.
But if you have the time towork on that as a child and a
young person, then you enter thestage of adult life with a
completely different ability tocope with whatever.
And there's a lot of whateverhappening in adult life, but we
(15:15):
we hardly have words for theseskills.
I even I am struggling now.
I've been talking aboutunschooling for more than 10
years, and I'm still strugglingtalking about these things.
Call it life skills, and itsounds like being able to turn
on the washing machine.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
That's important too.
Yeah, but that you can tickthat box in half an hour, then
they know how to do that, youknow.
(15:36):
Yeah, yeah.
But of course, there is thereading too.
Yes.
Susan, how old are yourchildren now?
Susan Yao (15:48):
They are nine and eleven years old.
Yeah, it's a different ball.
Jesper Conrad (15:52):
It's a fun, different place to be.
Ours uh soon 14, 17, and oneturning 20 and 26.
There comes at some point thisoh, what do they want later in
life?
Do they want to go into someformal education?
Can they do that?
(16:13):
And it's quite interestingbecause it seems to me there
comes this wanting to use thebrain in a different way when
they get older, where there's alot of play energy in the
younger years, then the playenergy for some years turns into
a lot of chatting, talking withtheir friends, and then at some
(16:35):
point there's this uh that itwants to be used more, the
brain.
It wants to be used in adifferent way.
Indeed.
But what is your focus on yourjourney?
You stopped teaching and nowyou are stay-at-home,
unschooling, homeschooling mom.
Susan Yao (16:53):
We have a learning community.
Jesper Conrad (16:55):
Oh, nice.
Susan Yao (16:56):
So we call it the Vermont Village School.
It is three days a week, and Ithink of it like structure for
unschoolers.
It's a little bit differentfrom a self-directed center.
Some of them are like buffetswhere you can work on whatever
you want all day.
And so ours is maybe becauseour group is so small, or that's
just the personality of thekids, they want to do things
(17:18):
together.
And we found that at age eight,many unschoolers are wanting
that learning community.
And so we are out in thevillage, you know, we're doing
field trips together, or we havepeople come to us and share
what they know.
Next week we're going to asewing studio.
For example, we volunteer atlocal organizations.
(18:18):
So we have that.
And then I still considermyself a full-time educator,
even though it looks verydifferent than it used to.
And it's much healthier for me,this lifestyle of having this
three-day-a-week learningcommunity.
And then I do a little bit ofconsulting as well for income.
Cecilie Conrad (18:37):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (18:38):
How did your um life stress change from being
full-time work to work at home,mom?
Because it is a shift, I feel,to go from working in an office
or in a place, leaving the houseevery day to come home.
Susan Yao (18:53):
It was terrifying.
I had a structured schedulepretty much my whole life
because school is so many hoursper week, and then they assign
homework.
So that dictates your timeoutside of school.
And then I had always worked ina full-time school, which is 50
to 70 hours a week, and it isall consuming and exhausting.
(19:18):
I think many educators areburning out right now, and so
for me, it's it's liberating,but it takes time to get over
that fear and really enjoy it.
Yeah, the fear.
Jesper Conrad (19:31):
Do you want to talk about the fear?
Yeah, I still find itinteresting with the whole fear
of how to fit into life as anadult, that the fear that comes
with freedom, maybe I would callit.
Um, I remember it when Ifinished high school.
I was 18, and where some peopletake one gap year, I took six.
(19:53):
But this that life is a buffetwhere you can choose what you
want and figure out whichdirection you want to go in,
then it was kind of nice to getthat closed down by just going
to work uh every day and haveweekends and that structure
where you don't need to considerwhat you want to do with your
life and then freeing up moremental time.
(20:16):
And of course, you are not as amother at home, there's a lot
of work.
That's not what I'm saying.
It's uh it's just anon-traditional path for many,
even though if we look back, itwas the traditional path for
most of humanity.
Right.
So to be in a place where it'slike, what do I want to do
(20:36):
today?
That is a little scary for mestill, sometimes.
And that's actually what Italked about before.
One of the skills they get frombeing unschooled, that they
learn during childhood, growinginto the personality that will,
of course, keep evolving, butalso be the backbone of their
life.
They learn to make decisions,they learn to figure out how to
(21:00):
create a good day for myself,what actually keeps me happy and
keeps me on track with myvalues, and so they don't need
that external structure to tellthem what to do to be good
enough.
Susan Yao (21:16):
My college classmates, many of them were
lost because they had been sofocused on getting into college,
and then when they arrived,they didn't have right that
external goal anymore.
And so they would fall apart orfind the next something to
climb.
So for many of them, it was acorporate job, and whatever was
(21:39):
supposedly the most popularcompany or the highest paying
company, and they would just gofor that just because everybody
else was choosing that.
And so they they really did notknow how to have their own
direction or organize their owntime.
And so that was definitely newfor me, too, when I um left
(21:59):
full-time work.
Jesper Conrad (22:01):
I would like to hear about your documentary on
racism, you did back then, withthe angle that we had a Chinese
immigrant daughter on thepodcast earlier who had written
a book called On Tigering, whereshe told about that many
Chinese immigrants ended upbeing really strict because they
(22:24):
wanted their children tosucceed and show that they could
succeed in the Americansociety.
It seems to me that either youhave a different upbringing with
less tiger mom style from yourparents, or and if not, then
there must maybe have been howwould they have taken you
deciding to unschool andhomeschool?
(22:45):
And like, how did that go?
I know it's three questions.
Susan Yao (22:51):
Very different questions.
Jesper Conrad (22:52):
Oh, yes.
Susan Yao (22:54):
I will try to answer them all.
I am wary of describing hugegroups of people as all
parenting one way.
I don't think that's true.
I'm sure there are some trends,but it's complicated, right?
The trend is a mix of, youknow, is it Chinese culture?
(23:16):
Is it immigrants?
Is it this generation traumathat our parents went through?
Is it racism in the UnitedStates pushing you in a certain
direction?
You know, I think many factorsmake a trend.
So I would say my parents, no,they're not tiger parents.
So much of it came from me, andthey were certainly happy that
(23:37):
I wanted to go to college and beon a traditional path.
But unschooling definitely madethem nervous.
And like I said, when the kidswere young, when they're
preschool age, nobody is tooworried.
But as they get older, youknow, and noticing the, you
know, the like late reader wasdefinitely one cause for
(24:00):
concern.
But I think for the most part,they are supportive.
Or, you know, they might havefears, but they're not
constantly arguing with us.
I've heard some real horrorstories from people who
homeschool or unschool wherethey have conflicts, you know, a
lot of conflict with theirfamily.
(24:20):
So we've been lucky in that wehaven't had much of that.
But there is definitely someworry that we try to keep at
bay.
And I honestly thinkgrandparents might worry no
matter what, right?
Even if the kids were inschool, then they're worried
about this teacher, or, youknow, they're worried about my
brother getting married, andthey'll find something to worry
(24:43):
about.
It doesn't mean you need tostop what you're doing.
Jesper Conrad (24:46):
And the racism project, what was it about and
based on?
Susan Yao (24:51):
That was in high school.
I had dealt with racism as ayoung child, and I had a lot of
anger about it, but I hadn'tprocessed it.
And so in high school, I wentto a conference of Asian
American teenagers, and that'sthe first time I learned more
about the history of AsianAmericans in the United States
(25:15):
and the, you know, the racismand struggles we had faced.
And I met Asian Americans whowere activists, who were
positive change agents in theircommunities, and I found that
very inspiring.
And so for the first time, Ihad examples of channeling my
anger in healthy ways and justtrying to, you know, make it a
(25:39):
better place for everyone.
And so that's when I decidedthere were there was something
more important than getting goodgrades, and I pursued this
project on my own.
I don't remember why I chosedocumentary, but there was a
filmmaker at that conference,and maybe maybe that's what gave
(26:00):
me the idea.
But that conference wasdefinitely life-changing for me.
I just hadn't thought as ateenager, right, I could make
change in my community and findthe time and resources to do it.
And you'd you'd think schoolswould help you do that.
Jesper Conrad (26:18):
I don't know what I think.
It's a very oppressivemainstream way of thinking about
what young people need.
But I mean, we're more than 10years ahead of you in a way,
because our kids are so muchopen.
So we're in a different space.
And when I look back at when mykids were nine and eleven and
(26:41):
other but younger, now when Isee younger children, I'm really
just thinking, oh, leave thembe, just leave them alone.
It's really interesting.
I remember my own stress andhow I thought I had to do all
kinds of things.
And of course, you have to doall kinds of things, take them
on day trips and cook them mealsand have conversations and all
(27:03):
these things.
But really, when they are thatyoung, the whole idea of
academically schooling them froma top-down point of view, even
worrying about whether they reador not.
We have one out of four who wasa very late reader.
Even that, from my point ofview now, is just oh, that was
(27:23):
such a waste of worrying time.
That was such a waste ofeverybody's energy that we even
worried for one second aboutthat.
Of course, we weren't so wecouldn't sleep at night, and we
had to have long conversationswith other people, and
especially, of course,grandparents and I don't know,
our siblings, friends.
We had one who didn't readuntil he was 13.
(27:44):
And he didn't read, couldn'tread while everyone else was
reading around him.
Our daughter, one of ourdaughters, started at four.
So it was just well, actually,no, he learned to read before
our youngest learned to read,but our youngest is also very
much younger than him.
But anyway, it was there was somuch worry, and today he's
(28:07):
choosing his trousers when he'sbuying new jeans on the basis of
whether his Kindle can fit inthe pocket, because he's not
going anywhere without theKindle.
He's probably the one, and theyread a lot, all of our kids.
Well, mostly the three olderones at this at the moment.
They all read a lot.
I think Stone reads.
Oh, he reads.
But maybe the oldest readsslightly more because she reads
(28:30):
really fast when she's reading,but that's just the skill that
she has.
So maybe I don't know.
If we did a page count, I don'tknow who of the two would win,
but it would be a lot of pages,that's for sure.
Right?
So the one we have who startedreading really late, is a very,
very avid reader today.
(28:51):
It was never really a problem.
Had we been had we had thecrystal ball known, we would
have had so much of my hand.
And that's what we also seewith a lot of the other academic
stuff.
We had a 17-year-old now who'sdoing math, never done any math
before, literally didn't knowhow to divide two numbers,
(29:13):
didn't know what the equationwas two months ago.
And she's just learning speedlearning it all right now.
What do you call it?
K through 12, something likethat.
Educational systems don'treally line up a line, so it's
hard to talk about becauseculture is quite interesting,
actually.
(29:33):
When she's running through allof that, she has a plan of doing
it in four months.
Susan Yao (29:37):
I'm pretty sure she'll explain about how the
math myth was one book that mademe feel better about not doing
intentional math.
And in it, it gives the numberthat unschoolers could learn
elementary math in 20 hours.
That some families had casuallymeasured it and found that, you
know, in just a few hours.
(29:58):
And but schools will convinceyou that you need all 12 years,
right?
Every minute of math cannot bemissed.
They really make you feel badif you go on vacation or
something.
And but maybe 20 hours is allyou need when it feels
necessary, and maybe it willnever feel necessary.
I am just starting to have thehindsight that you have now that
(30:20):
wow, I didn't need to worry somuch because now I can see where
they are a few years later.
And I did a lot of worrying.
Oh, yeah.
Jesper Conrad (30:28):
Well, I still do a lot of worrying, not about the
same things anymore, but Ithink it's just part of the game
of being a parent.
And now my kids are old enoughthat I can talk to them about
the things I worry about, andthen we have mature
conversations and figure thingsout.
So that's different, of course.
Sometimes we meet in theunschooling movement almost a
(30:54):
pride or batch of honor of notdoing any academic.
At all, as is anything that hasto do with schools or academics
is bad, that it's actuallybetter not to know it than
you're kind of cool.
And I find it a littledifficult dance to have because
(31:16):
I want to love and respect andhonor everyone's way of doing
it.
And I find it difficult tofigure out how to take the toll
because I think as parents, eachof us have values.
We have values about what wethink is important, and those
(31:37):
are inherited down to ourchildren by just being around
them.
Do you meet this in yourunschooling circles you have
been in that it's almost likenot learning is really cool or
the right thing to do?
Susan Yao (31:53):
I know what you mean, and I have never been at that
end of the spectrum ofunschooling where it's truly
anything, any possible pathway,no limits on screens.
I've never been there.
(32:50):
And so I'm always keeping aneye to skills that might be
necessary.
You know, if you want highschool to be an option, then I
want you to be aware of whatlimits your choices or gives you
that choice.
Or if you want to have acertain job, I always want to
sort of notice what they mighthave or not have yet.
(33:13):
And so our community, ourcommunity does not have that.
We do have a range.
One family has unschooledmultiple children, a couple are
adults now, and it truly is, youknow, anything skills academic
or not academic.
The way we define academic isalso such a problem, right?
(33:33):
And then one school chooses todo a curriculum at home, even
though our learning communitydoes not have that kind of
curriculum.
So I think we have a range, butI haven't found that in our
community.
Jesper Conrad (33:49):
You you said something interesting there
about even the way we talk aboutacademics is a problem.
Can you unfold that a little?
I find it interesting.
Susan Yao (34:00):
Well, I noticed this when I worked in schools because
math and reading are justthey're seen as the most
important academic topics.
And so I taught social studiesand history, and so that's
academic, but often seen as lessimportant than reading and
(34:21):
math.
And then you have art andphysical education, which in the
US are being cut all the time.
And, you know, if there is afield trip or we need to cancel
a class, it's always let'scancel art first or let's cancel
music class first, and not theimportant subjects.
And I one reason I see usdefining academics this way is
(34:44):
that the skills that benefit youas an individual in the job
market, that is what we consideracademic.
And we think a lot aboutindividualism because we are
trying to promote collectivismin our learning community.
And in school, we are justwe're teaching children that
(35:07):
your individual skills mattermore than the group's skills,
and so you need to do what youneed to get ahead, and we even
punish collaboration.
Plagiarism is just one of themost severely penalized mistakes
in school, and it is usuallyaccidental that, oh, I was
(35:30):
talking to my friend and theiridea is in my project, or I was
taking notes and I didn't putquotation marks, and so now I
have a zero, or you know, aletter in my file, because that
is the worst crime of academia.
And that really discouragesworking together.
Jesper Conrad (35:51):
Which is what we need, and which is also how
people we learn from each other,we learn from being curious and
having conversations.
Susan Yao (35:59):
Yeah.
And a lot of group projects endup just teaching you that one
person needs to do all the work,or some people take credit and
don't do enough work.
We're not really learning howto work together.
Jesper Conrad (36:12):
But if I can go back to the how we talk about
academics question, I also thinkthere's the other way around
the problem, and there is so inin the radical unschooling
community.
We can put academics in highesteem.
I think maybe where we comefrom, we wouldn't not appreciate
social studies and history andlanguages and physics,
(36:35):
chemistry, biology, all thesethings that are subjects taught
in schools and part of the groupwe call academics.
They wouldn't be like in ahierarchy like that.
There are some key things,which is reading, English, and
math, but that's because theyare tools for the other ones.
(36:57):
So it kind of makes sense thatyou need those three because you
can't really do the other oneswithout.
But I think in the unschoolingcommunity, sometimes there's
this idea that all these thingswe need to not do them.
Right.
That's our so now they becometaboo, and it's more important
to do you're almost a betterperson if you're good at your
(37:21):
skateboard and at drawing and atplaying the guitar than if
you're good at knowing about theRoman Empire and speaking three
languages or whatever.
And so I get that academicshave been a top thing and it's
been oppressing other people,and it's been violent and it's
been bad.
(37:41):
But flipping it doesn't fixthat problem, it just reverses
the problem, makes the problemlook different, as if you have a
yellow problem, but now youhave a green problem, but now
you have, but you still have aproblem.
And I find that quitechallenging, being the mother of
quite geeky unschooled kids whohappen to be very interested in
(38:05):
the Roman Empire andmathematics and black holes as
she managed before.
So it's as if I had quite we,mostly me, I was more
identifying with it, more doingit in the beginning.
Quite a few years where Ididn't call myself an
unschooling mom.
I didn't say we wereunschooling because I kept
getting this feedback from thecommunity that I was doing it
wrong because of my kids'interests.
(38:28):
So they have the wrongspontaneous interests, they have
to be more interested in other.
I mean, then it's just like,what?
Right?
What?
Like when the feminists at thesame time, because I stopped
having a career, went home, tookcare of my four children, my
husband, my own house mate.
I was a housewife.
So the and I started writing ablog, so I was like shouting
(38:49):
about it, and the feminists cameat me and said, But you're
ruining everything.
Uh we we get a bad conscience,and we're standing in a bad
light being career women whenyou're staying at home with your
children because that makes uslook bad and that makes us feel
bad, and then we have lessfreedom.
So please stop doing that.
(39:10):
You're ruining the freedom ofwomen.
And I was like, wait a minute,I think I'm a woman, and I think
I made a free choice to do thisthing.
So what are you saying that myfree choice is ruining your free
choice?
There's no logic there, really.
If you yeah, and there are justsome problems in this field
(39:33):
that are that we I think we needto talk about them.
I think we need to just point,hey, my freedom to do a thing
that could be consideredconservative is still part of
the spectrum of free choices.
I feel free when I do it.
Yeah, so I had that problem.
Now I'm having the academicsproblem.
I'm back in the game.
I've called myself an unspoolerfor a long time because I am,
(39:57):
and we are, but we're just alsostudying academics.
Susan Yao (40:03):
That is absolutely one of the choices available to
you.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
I think of Michelle Foucault,who taught us that all of these
alternative cultures they end upre reproducing oppression by
creating rules and policing eachother.
That's the wrong way, right?
It's the wrong way to be anunschooler.
Jesper Conrad (40:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Susan Yao (40:22):
And you undermine the freedom that you believe in.
Jesper Conrad (40:24):
It's recreating exactly the same system just by
flipping it.
So now we had a yellow systembefore.
Now we have a green system,right?
Same system, different color.
Yeah, that's funny.
I think it's almost a societalimmaturity problem because I see
that dialogue has disappearedand people stand so clean on
(40:47):
their this is the only right wayto do it, and everyone else is
stupid, kind of uh rhetorics andeverything from politics to
football to unfortunately alsoacademics uh schooling versus
unschooling.
Right now, because we all havean echo champ.
Well, you know, when we wereteenagers, we would read a
(41:07):
newspaper, everyone was readingthe same five different
newspapers.
It wasn't like there was any,there was an egg, you choose the
newspaper you like, but now youjust the algorithms would just
keep repeating what you say.
Yeah, you don't even knowyou're in a bubble.
No, maybe you do, but you don'treally know what's yeah, even
if you do know you're in abubble, how do you know what all
(41:30):
the other bubbles look like?
Right.
Susan Yao (41:32):
How can you even know?
You can't even see the otherbubbles.
Oh scary business.
Jesper Conrad (41:38):
Oh, I need to get some prints I don't like,
maybe.
Then talk with them and end upliking them all of a sudden.
Oh no, dialogue.
I don't I'm not sure.
Susan, about dialogue.
It has been wonderful talkingwith you today.
We will try to round up thepodcast for people who want to
(41:59):
find what you write on Substack,as I did, and who want to learn
more about the micro school.
Can you share with people whereto find you so they know where
to go?
Susan Yao (42:11):
Sure.
So our learning community has awebsite, Vermont Village
School.
We decided not to be on socialmedia.
The website is the main way tofind us.
And then I have a personalSubstack that's more about me as
a parent.
And I created it for all mycollege friends who grew up in
traditional schools and are nowcurious about alternatives for
(42:31):
their children.
And so that's on Substack.
Suzy.
So we just put the links in theshow notes.
Jesper Conrad (42:41):
We will.
I also need you to re-mentionthe book on the about math
because it didn't get the titlefor that one.
Susan Yao (42:48):
The Math Myth by Andrew Hacker.
It's a great book questioningwhy we teach math the way we do
in the United States and how itdoes not match what you even
need for your career.
Even if you work at NASA, itdoes not match.
And it's keeping so manystudents from graduating or
becoming doctors.
It, you know, it it's it's abarrier that is not even
(43:10):
connected to the real world.
Jesper Conrad (43:13):
I'll put it on my reading list right away.
Absolutely.
Thank you for the talk andthank you for the book
recommendation.
And it was a pleasure.
Susan Yao (43:21):
Thank you so much for having me.
I enjoyed this conversation.
And thanks for all you'redoing.
Today we're together with Susan Yao and I
found her on Substack.
On her Substack, I think youcame recommended by Missy
Willis, Let 'Em Go Barefoot,who we actually had on right
before this episode.
So, Susan, good to meet you.
Susan Yao (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Nice to meet you too.
Jesper Conrad (00:41):
Yeah, I would like to start by asking what is
your background?
How did you end up in the wholeradical education,
homeschooling, unschoolingworld?
What happened in your life?
Susan Yao (00:56):
Well, it's funny.
My parents were unintentionallyunschooling, but I didn't know
that until I was on thisjourney.
And so they grew up in Chinaduring the Cultural Revolution,
and schools were closed for afew years.
And so everybody, it was like anational unschooling
experiment, not really onpurpose.
That's just so it's just funnyto think about that.
(01:18):
I went to traditional publicschools in the United States,
Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois,Massachusetts.
And, you know, I was always ona college track of, you know, is
supposed to get good grades ortake honors classes and stay on
a traditional path.
And I would say as a student,my first self-directed project
(01:43):
was in high school.
As a teenager, I started tofeel like there are more
important things than gettinggood grades in school.
And it's dangerous, it's adangerous thought, right?
You know, there's no turningback to the middle pill.
Specifically, I cared a lotabout racism, and that's what I
wanted to spend my time on.
(02:04):
I was good at school, but I wasnot excited by my classes.
And so I dropped science.
And many students don't evenknow that you can do that.
You don't have to take all thesubjects that you are supposed
to take in school.
So I had more free time to makea documentary and I interviewed
teachers and students.
(02:25):
And that was a very meaningfulproject for me as a student.
And there was no credit, nograde.
The school did lend me a cameraand some editing equipment.
So they were supportive in thatway.
But that was my first realtaste of self-directed learning
for myself.
And eventually I became aclassroom teacher.
(02:46):
I started out in a charterschool, and I was in progressive
private schools, and I became aparent.
And my husband and I, we hadalways been interested in
unschooling and homeschooling.
And I couldn't really tell youwhy, just that we had talked to
other people about it.
And so as we became parents, itwas always in the back of our
(03:08):
mind.
And we found this amazingReggio Amelia Forest Preschool
for the kids.
And so we were very happy tohave them there while I was
working in the middle school ofthe same school.
And then it was once our olderchild hit kindergarten, school
(03:29):
started to look more traditionaland we started to have
questions.
And for example, he was veryafraid of making the teacher
angry.
Even when he was at homeoutside of school, he would be
afraid of angering the teacherto the point where sometimes he
wouldn't follow my directionsbecause the teacher's authority
was somehow stronger or thatfear was stronger.
(03:50):
And also seeing how he was as alearner, he started to read on
his own at age four.
And I just thought school mightbecome too limiting for him
because he's always had verystrong interests, and he likes
to have the time and space tofollow his own interests, do his
own projects.
And so we started coming backto this idea of unschooling.
(04:14):
And then COVID is what reallypushed us to go for it.
Right.
I mean, it forced everybody totry homeschooling.
And we had already been open tothe idea, and we just found
that it worked well for us as afamily.
And then I left working in aschool full-time.
Jesper Conrad (04:35):
Yeah.
Susan, I need to go a littleback because, as Westerner as I
am growing up in Denmark, I'mtotally ignorant of a lot of
Chinese history.
The schools were closed in aperiod.
Susan Yao (04:49):
Isn't that interesting?
And I don't, I'm no expert onChinese history.
Isn't that interesting that anentire country underwent this
social experiment?
And I don't know if there arebooks about schooling in
particular.
The thinking was, you know,during the era of Mao and
(05:10):
communism and the little redbook, that schooling promotes
elitism and is one source of theproblem.
So let's close them all.
Jesper Conrad (05:20):
How many years did it go for?
Susan Yao (05:22):
So it was, I think an infrastructure, you know, it
was also chaotic, and that wasalso a reason.
But schools, teachers,administrators, they were seen
as the enemies for a period oftime.
Cecilie Conrad (05:44):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (05:44):
Even it' s a little wise.
Susan Yao (05:46):
I mean, we all have to run now to our computers and
look up if anyone did any goodstudies on that.
Maybe.
Yeah. I only have bits andpieces from my parents.
Um, I haven't looked into it,but I am very curious about
everybody else who does nevermention that they did not go to
elementary school.
Well, that's interesting.
(06:07):
My parents are in their 60s, soyou know, anybody around that
age maybe didn't go toelementary school or didn't go
to college.
My father did go to collegebecause they had just reopened
college.
And now China has a prettytraditional school system.
So that's interesting to me,too.
That after closing all theschools, they went in this very
(06:28):
traditional direction focused ontest taking and scores.
Jesper Conrad (06:33):
It's as I understand it, not that I'm an
expert, it's a very elitistschool system.
The Chinese one.
Susan Yao (06:41):
I think they would say it's democratic in that any
child with a high enough scorecan go to college.
Yeah.
And score itself.
So maybe that's the logicbehind the test system.
But the actual result is thatyou know, children are doing
whatever extra tutoring they canand trying to memorize as much
(07:02):
as they can, and it looks verytraditional.
Jesper Conrad (07:04):
Yeah.
How is how is your experiencestarting with taking your kids
home and retaking theresponsibility of your child in
what it will learn and notlearn?
How did that feel?
Was it terrifying?
Susan Yao (07:22):
Yes.
It was, it has really been ajourney up and down.
And I know you've talked tosome of your other, you know,
the other unschooling parentsabout this.
It really is emotional.
When the I think the kids weremaybe five and seven when we
started unschooling.
And so when they're young,nobody is too worried in the
(07:45):
beginning.
You know, if reading, like Isaid with my older child, he was
picking up reading on his own.
And he he's a poster child forunschooling in some way, if if
you're coming from a schoolishbackground, because he'll just
spontaneously say, I'm gonnawrite an essay about black
holes.
And that's just what henaturally wants to do.
But, you know, obviously,unschooling can go so many
(08:08):
different directions.
The goal is not to go in aschoolish direction necessarily,
but it was let's see, we werehomesteading at the time, so
that felt very right.
The kids were learning to takecare of animals and grow
vegetables, and being outdoorswas safer, anyways.
During COVID, we would go onhikes a lot.
(08:30):
And so I think the early yearswere great.
And where I started to worry isas they get older, my younger
child has dyslexia.
And so my main worry is not somuch.
I've heard so many stories ofpeople who read as teenagers and
(08:50):
they are successful adults.
For me, I was worried that Iwas not enough, that I could not
teach a dyslexic child how toread.
Even being an experiencedclassroom teacher, I was always
middle school.
So I didn't know what earlyliteracy looked like or how I
could support her.
We met with a tutor, and Imainly wanted her to know that
(09:13):
tutoring is an option becauseyou might need a reading teacher
who's an expert in dyslexia.
So we met.
There is, you know, is aninformal meeting and just
getting to know her abilities.
And meeting with that tutorhelped put me at ease because we
had this narrative that if wehad kept our child in school,
(09:36):
she would have been readingalready.
And the tutor said, probablynot.
She has dyslexia, you know,very classic profile.
And we're holding on to thisstory that if you go to school,
you learn the skills you need.
And if you're at home, maybeyou won't get what you need.
Maybe your parents are notenough.
(09:57):
And so letting go of that storyhas been a journey.
And I think it would have beenharder for me as a parent to
learn about dyslexia becauseI've been in those school
meetings where you have, youknow, the serious conference
with the parent.
I'm worried about your child.
They need extra tutoring, theyneed testing.
(10:17):
And I think I would haveresisted that.
But allowing her to read at herown pace, find the activities
that work for her, those haveaffirmed the unschooling path
for me.
For example, she's a dyslexicchild who is not reading
fluently, but can teach athree-year-old letters.
(10:39):
And that is so beautiful.
No school, right, would send astruggling reader into a
preschool classroom to teachletters.
But it's actually so good forher learning because she needs
that extra review and she lovesyounger children.
She has pathways like thatavailable as an unschooler.
Jesper Conrad (10:59):
Yeah.
Sometimes I get sick and tiredof the word unschooling because
it can hold this connotation ofschool is bad and learning is
bad, and education, be educated,be interested is bad.
And unfortunately, that's theword that has ended on this
(11:21):
philosophy where I likeself-directed learning, but even
that doesn't cover fully whatit is that I see unfold in many
children, which is this personallearning journey that happens
when they are ready, that theyhave time to learn in their own
pace and not being judged onbeing an in being a group that
(11:44):
needs to learn everything at thesame time.
And that is one of the joys Isee with having them at home and
having this more unschooled,less curriculum outcome-based
focus that we let them travel inthe direction where and when
they are ready, it comes.
Cecilie Conrad (12:03):
I feel like we talk way too much about
learning.
I don't know.
It can just be that we areexplaining to some imaginary
listener what they're learningwhen they're not in school.
Because most people cannotthink out of that box.
Fairly so, because most peopleare in that box and you don't
(12:23):
see a lot of kids who have neverbeen to school.
You combine the idea ofchildhood of growing from being
five to fifteen with school,that school is somewhat needed.
But actually, unschooling isabout that it's not needed, but
it's also about the fact thatit's not about learning.
Growing up from five to fifteenis not about learning.
(12:44):
We learn all through life, allhumans do, and unschooling is
not about a different way oflearning, it's a different way
of living, and it's based on adifferent philosophy, it has a
different value system, and thelearning actually it's so hard
to get around it, so we keeptalking about it.
(13:06):
And I think we're doing so inthis conversation because we're
used to talking a lot aboutlearning because we're used to
defending ourselves.
And I just wanted to say thatin many ways, unschooling is not
about what they're learning.
That can be such a provocativestatement, but actually the
backbone of it is somethingelse.
Susan Yao (13:26):
As humans, we're hardwired to learn, right?
And it's amazing we've createdinstitutions where we put
children and they say, Oh, Ilearned nothing today.
And they think that learning isonly sitting at a desk with an
adult-directed activity, andeverything else is not learning.
But we I think learning is inthe background all the time as
humans.
Jesper Conrad (13:46):
So I understand what you're saying about at the
moment, and some of them aredoing more formal education at
this point because they'reworking to get into university.
It's unschooled teenagers, andsome of them are not, which is
totally fine.
But then they say this, oh, I'mdoing nothing.
And it's a little bit likeyou're unschooled, you're 16,
(14:07):
you haven't been doing nothingup to now.
You're still not doing nothing,you're not doing formal
schooling, but that doesn't meanthat you're doing nothing.
But lots of the things they doare considered nothing by uh the
mainstream way of thinkingabout childhood.
And I think I just think weneed to push back against that
(14:29):
idea because it's not nothing.
There's a lot of thingshappening, a lot of growing, a
lot of uh tempering of emotion,a lot of thought experiments, a
lot of contemplating, a lot ofobservation, a lot of emotional
peace.
Arriving at emotional peacefrom points of not having peace,
which is a learning journey,you know a journey, a skill,
(14:53):
actually.
That's a skill that I find inmany adults, they don't have it.
But if you have the time towork on that as a child and a
young person, then you enter thestage of adult life with a
completely different ability tocope with whatever.
And there's a lot of whateverhappening in adult life, but we
(15:15):
we hardly have words for theseskills.
I even I am struggling now.
I've been talking aboutunschooling for more than 10
years, and I'm still strugglingtalking about these things.
Call it life skills, and itsounds like being able to turn
on the washing machine.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
That's important too.
Yeah, but that you can tickthat box in half an hour, then
they know how to do that, youknow.
(15:36):
Yeah, yeah.
But of course, there is thereading too.
Yes.
Susan, how old are yourchildren now?
Susan Yao (15:48):
They are nine and eleven years old.
Yeah, it's a different ball.
Jesper Conrad (15:52):
It's a fun, different place to be.
Ours uh soon 14, 17, and oneturning 20 and 26.
There comes at some point thisoh, what do they want later in
life?
Do they want to go into someformal education?
Can they do that?
(16:13):
And it's quite interestingbecause it seems to me there
comes this wanting to use thebrain in a different way when
they get older, where there's alot of play energy in the
younger years, then the playenergy for some years turns into
a lot of chatting, talking withtheir friends, and then at some
(16:35):
point there's this uh that itwants to be used more, the
brain.
It wants to be used in adifferent way.
Indeed.
But what is your focus on yourjourney?
You stopped teaching and nowyou are stay-at-home,
unschooling, homeschooling mom.
Susan Yao (16:53):
We have a learning community.
Jesper Conrad (16:55):
Oh, nice.
Susan Yao (16:56):
So we call it the Vermont Village School.
It is three days a week, and Ithink of it like structure for
unschoolers.
It's a little bit differentfrom a self-directed center.
Some of them are like buffetswhere you can work on whatever
you want all day.
And so ours is maybe becauseour group is so small, or that's
just the personality of thekids, they want to do things
(17:18):
together.
And we found that at age eight,many unschoolers are wanting
that learning community.
And so we are out in thevillage, you know, we're doing
field trips together, or we havepeople come to us and share
what they know.
Next week we're going to asewing studio.
For example, we volunteer atlocal organizations.
(18:18):
So we have that.
And then I still considermyself a full-time educator,
even though it looks verydifferent than it used to.
And it's much healthier for me,this lifestyle of having this
three-day-a-week learningcommunity.
And then I do a little bit ofconsulting as well for income.
Cecilie Conrad (18:37):
Yeah.
Jesper Conrad (18:38):
How did your um life stress change from being
full-time work to work at home,mom?
Because it is a shift, I feel,to go from working in an office
or in a place, leaving the houseevery day to come home.
Susan Yao (18:53):
It was terrifying.
I had a structured schedulepretty much my whole life
because school is so many hoursper week, and then they assign
homework.
So that dictates your timeoutside of school.
And then I had always worked ina full-time school, which is 50
to 70 hours a week, and it isall consuming and exhausting.
(19:18):
I think many educators areburning out right now, and so
for me, it's it's liberating,but it takes time to get over
that fear and really enjoy it.
Yeah, the fear.
Jesper Conrad (19:31):
Do you want to talk about the fear?
Yeah, I still find itinteresting with the whole fear
of how to fit into life as anadult, that the fear that comes
with freedom, maybe I would callit.
Um, I remember it when Ifinished high school.
I was 18, and where some peopletake one gap year, I took six.
(19:53):
But this that life is a buffetwhere you can choose what you
want and figure out whichdirection you want to go in,
then it was kind of nice to getthat closed down by just going
to work uh every day and haveweekends and that structure
where you don't need to considerwhat you want to do with your
life and then freeing up moremental time.
(20:16):
And of course, you are not as amother at home, there's a lot
of work.
That's not what I'm saying.
It's uh it's just anon-traditional path for many,
even though if we look back, itwas the traditional path for
most of humanity.
Right.
So to be in a place where it'slike, what do I want to do
(20:36):
today?
That is a little scary for mestill, sometimes.
And that's actually what Italked about before.
One of the skills they get frombeing unschooled, that they
learn during childhood, growinginto the personality that will,
of course, keep evolving, butalso be the backbone of their
life.
They learn to make decisions,they learn to figure out how to
(21:00):
create a good day for myself,what actually keeps me happy and
keeps me on track with myvalues, and so they don't need
that external structure to tellthem what to do to be good
enough.
Susan Yao (21:16):
My college classmates, many of them were
lost because they had been sofocused on getting into college,
and then when they arrived,they didn't have right that
external goal anymore.
And so they would fall apart orfind the next something to
climb.
So for many of them, it was acorporate job, and whatever was
(21:39):
supposedly the most popularcompany or the highest paying
company, and they would just gofor that just because everybody
else was choosing that.
And so they they really did notknow how to have their own
direction or organize their owntime.
And so that was definitely newfor me, too, when I um left
(21:59):
full-time work.
Jesper Conrad (22:01):
I would like to hear about your documentary on
racism, you did back then, withthe angle that we had a Chinese
immigrant daughter on thepodcast earlier who had written
a book called On Tigering, whereshe told about that many
Chinese immigrants ended upbeing really strict because they
(22:24):
wanted their children tosucceed and show that they could
succeed in the Americansociety.
It seems to me that either youhave a different upbringing with
less tiger mom style from yourparents, or and if not, then
there must maybe have been howwould they have taken you
deciding to unschool andhomeschool?
(22:45):
And like, how did that go?
I know it's three questions.
Susan Yao (22:51):
Very different questions.
Jesper Conrad (22:52):
Oh, yes.
Susan Yao (22:54):
I will try to answer them all.
I am wary of describing hugegroups of people as all
parenting one way.
I don't think that's true.
I'm sure there are some trends,but it's complicated, right?
The trend is a mix of, youknow, is it Chinese culture?
(23:16):
Is it immigrants?
Is it this generation traumathat our parents went through?
Is it racism in the UnitedStates pushing you in a certain
direction?
You know, I think many factorsmake a trend.
So I would say my parents, no,they're not tiger parents.
So much of it came from me, andthey were certainly happy that
(23:37):
I wanted to go to college and beon a traditional path.
But unschooling definitely madethem nervous.
And like I said, when the kidswere young, when they're
preschool age, nobody is tooworried.
But as they get older, youknow, and noticing the, you
know, the like late reader wasdefinitely one cause for
(24:00):
concern.
But I think for the most part,they are supportive.
Or, you know, they might havefears, but they're not
constantly arguing with us.
I've heard some real horrorstories from people who
homeschool or unschool wherethey have conflicts, you know, a
lot of conflict with theirfamily.
(24:20):
So we've been lucky in that wehaven't had much of that.
But there is definitely someworry that we try to keep at
bay.
And I honestly thinkgrandparents might worry no
matter what, right?
Even if the kids were inschool, then they're worried
about this teacher, or, youknow, they're worried about my
brother getting married, andthey'll find something to worry
(24:43):
about.
It doesn't mean you need tostop what you're doing.
Jesper Conrad (24:46):
And the racism project, what was it about and
based on?
Susan Yao (24:51):
That was in high school.
I had dealt with racism as ayoung child, and I had a lot of
anger about it, but I hadn'tprocessed it.
And so in high school, I wentto a conference of Asian
American teenagers, and that'sthe first time I learned more
about the history of AsianAmericans in the United States
(25:15):
and the, you know, the racismand struggles we had faced.
And I met Asian Americans whowere activists, who were
positive change agents in theircommunities, and I found that
very inspiring.
And so for the first time, Ihad examples of channeling my
anger in healthy ways and justtrying to, you know, make it a
(25:39):
better place for everyone.
And so that's when I decidedthere were there was something
more important than getting goodgrades, and I pursued this
project on my own.
I don't remember why I chosedocumentary, but there was a
filmmaker at that conference,and maybe maybe that's what gave
(26:00):
me the idea.
But that conference wasdefinitely life-changing for me.
I just hadn't thought as ateenager, right, I could make
change in my community and findthe time and resources to do it.
And you'd you'd think schoolswould help you do that.
Jesper Conrad (26:18):
I don't know what I think.
It's a very oppressivemainstream way of thinking about
what young people need.
But I mean, we're more than 10years ahead of you in a way,
because our kids are so muchopen.
So we're in a different space.
And when I look back at when mykids were nine and eleven and
(26:41):
other but younger, now when Isee younger children, I'm really
just thinking, oh, leave thembe, just leave them alone.
It's really interesting.
I remember my own stress andhow I thought I had to do all
kinds of things.
And of course, you have to doall kinds of things, take them
on day trips and cook them mealsand have conversations and all
(27:03):
these things.
But really, when they are thatyoung, the whole idea of
academically schooling them froma top-down point of view, even
worrying about whether they reador not.
We have one out of four who wasa very late reader.
Even that, from my point ofview now, is just oh, that was
(27:23):
such a waste of worrying time.
That was such a waste ofeverybody's energy that we even
worried for one second aboutthat.
Of course, we weren't so wecouldn't sleep at night, and we
had to have long conversationswith other people, and
especially, of course,grandparents and I don't know,
our siblings, friends.
We had one who didn't readuntil he was 13.
(27:44):
And he didn't read, couldn'tread while everyone else was
reading around him.
Our daughter, one of ourdaughters, started at four.
So it was just well, actually,no, he learned to read before
our youngest learned to read,but our youngest is also very
much younger than him.
But anyway, it was there was somuch worry, and today he's
(28:07):
choosing his trousers when he'sbuying new jeans on the basis of
whether his Kindle can fit inthe pocket, because he's not
going anywhere without theKindle.
He's probably the one, and theyread a lot, all of our kids.
Well, mostly the three olderones at this at the moment.
They all read a lot.
I think Stone reads.
Oh, he reads.
But maybe the oldest readsslightly more because she reads
(28:30):
really fast when she's reading,but that's just the skill that
she has.
So maybe I don't know.
If we did a page count, I don'tknow who of the two would win,
but it would be a lot of pages,that's for sure.
Right?
So the one we have who startedreading really late, is a very,
very avid reader today.
(28:51):
It was never really a problem.
Had we been had we had thecrystal ball known, we would
have had so much of my hand.
And that's what we also seewith a lot of the other academic
stuff.
We had a 17-year-old now who'sdoing math, never done any math
before, literally didn't knowhow to divide two numbers,
(29:13):
didn't know what the equationwas two months ago.
And she's just learning speedlearning it all right now.
What do you call it?
K through 12, something likethat.
Educational systems don'treally line up a line, so it's
hard to talk about becauseculture is quite interesting,
actually.
(29:33):
When she's running through allof that, she has a plan of doing
it in four months.
Susan Yao (29:37):
I'm pretty sure she'll explain about how the
math myth was one book that mademe feel better about not doing
intentional math.
And in it, it gives the numberthat unschoolers could learn
elementary math in 20 hours.
That some families had casuallymeasured it and found that, you
know, in just a few hours.
(29:58):
And but schools will convinceyou that you need all 12 years,
right?
Every minute of math cannot bemissed.
They really make you feel badif you go on vacation or
something.
And but maybe 20 hours is allyou need when it feels
necessary, and maybe it willnever feel necessary.
I am just starting to have thehindsight that you have now that
(30:20):
wow, I didn't need to worry somuch because now I can see where
they are a few years later.
And I did a lot of worrying.
Oh, yeah.
Jesper Conrad (30:28):
Well, I still do a lot of worrying, not about the
same things anymore, but Ithink it's just part of the game
of being a parent.
And now my kids are old enoughthat I can talk to them about
the things I worry about, andthen we have mature
conversations and figure thingsout.
So that's different, of course.
Sometimes we meet in theunschooling movement almost a
(30:54):
pride or batch of honor of notdoing any academic.
At all, as is anything that hasto do with schools or academics
is bad, that it's actuallybetter not to know it than
you're kind of cool.
And I find it a littledifficult dance to have because
(31:16):
I want to love and respect andhonor everyone's way of doing
it.
And I find it difficult tofigure out how to take the toll
because I think as parents, eachof us have values.
We have values about what wethink is important, and those
(31:37):
are inherited down to ourchildren by just being around
them.
Do you meet this in yourunschooling circles you have
been in that it's almost likenot learning is really cool or
the right thing to do?
Susan Yao (31:53):
I know what you mean, and I have never been at that
end of the spectrum ofunschooling where it's truly
anything, any possible pathway,no limits on screens.
I've never been there.
(32:50):
And so I'm always keeping aneye to skills that might be
necessary.
You know, if you want highschool to be an option, then I
want you to be aware of whatlimits your choices or gives you
that choice.
Or if you want to have acertain job, I always want to
sort of notice what they mighthave or not have yet.
(33:13):
And so our community, ourcommunity does not have that.
We do have a range.
One family has unschooledmultiple children, a couple are
adults now, and it truly is, youknow, anything skills academic
or not academic.
The way we define academic isalso such a problem, right?
(33:33):
And then one school chooses todo a curriculum at home, even
though our learning communitydoes not have that kind of
curriculum.
So I think we have a range, butI haven't found that in our
community.
Jesper Conrad (33:49):
You you said something interesting there
about even the way we talk aboutacademics is a problem.
Can you unfold that a little?
I find it interesting.
Susan Yao (34:00):
Well, I noticed this when I worked in schools because
math and reading are justthey're seen as the most
important academic topics.
And so I taught social studiesand history, and so that's
academic, but often seen as lessimportant than reading and
(34:21):
math.
And then you have art andphysical education, which in the
US are being cut all the time.
And, you know, if there is afield trip or we need to cancel
a class, it's always let'scancel art first or let's cancel
music class first, and not theimportant subjects.
And I one reason I see usdefining academics this way is
(34:44):
that the skills that benefit youas an individual in the job
market, that is what we consideracademic.
And we think a lot aboutindividualism because we are
trying to promote collectivismin our learning community.
And in school, we are justwe're teaching children that
(35:07):
your individual skills mattermore than the group's skills,
and so you need to do what youneed to get ahead, and we even
punish collaboration.
Plagiarism is just one of themost severely penalized mistakes
in school, and it is usuallyaccidental that, oh, I was
(35:30):
talking to my friend and theiridea is in my project, or I was
taking notes and I didn't putquotation marks, and so now I
have a zero, or you know, aletter in my file, because that
is the worst crime of academia.
And that really discouragesworking together.
Jesper Conrad (35:51):
Which is what we need, and which is also how
people we learn from each other,we learn from being curious and
having conversations.
Susan Yao (35:59):
Yeah.
And a lot of group projects endup just teaching you that one
person needs to do all the work,or some people take credit and
don't do enough work.
We're not really learning howto work together.
Jesper Conrad (36:12):
But if I can go back to the how we talk about
academics question, I also thinkthere's the other way around
the problem, and there is so inin the radical unschooling
community.
We can put academics in highesteem.
I think maybe where we comefrom, we wouldn't not appreciate
social studies and history andlanguages and physics,
(36:35):
chemistry, biology, all thesethings that are subjects taught
in schools and part of the groupwe call academics.
They wouldn't be like in ahierarchy like that.
There are some key things,which is reading, English, and
math, but that's because theyare tools for the other ones.
(36:57):
So it kind of makes sense thatyou need those three because you
can't really do the other oneswithout.
But I think in the unschoolingcommunity, sometimes there's
this idea that all these thingswe need to not do them.
Right.
That's our so now they becometaboo, and it's more important
to do you're almost a betterperson if you're good at your
(37:21):
skateboard and at drawing and atplaying the guitar than if
you're good at knowing about theRoman Empire and speaking three
languages or whatever.
And so I get that academicshave been a top thing and it's
been oppressing other people,and it's been violent and it's
been bad.
(37:41):
But flipping it doesn't fixthat problem, it just reverses
the problem, makes the problemlook different, as if you have a
yellow problem, but now youhave a green problem, but now
you have, but you still have aproblem.
And I find that quitechallenging, being the mother of
quite geeky unschooled kids whohappen to be very interested in
(38:05):
the Roman Empire andmathematics and black holes as
she managed before.
So it's as if I had quite we,mostly me, I was more
identifying with it, more doingit in the beginning.
Quite a few years where Ididn't call myself an
unschooling mom.
I didn't say we wereunschooling because I kept
getting this feedback from thecommunity that I was doing it
wrong because of my kids'interests.
(38:28):
So they have the wrongspontaneous interests, they have
to be more interested in other.
I mean, then it's just like,what?
Right?
What?
Like when the feminists at thesame time, because I stopped
having a career, went home, tookcare of my four children, my
husband, my own house mate.
I was a housewife.
So the and I started writing ablog, so I was like shouting
(38:49):
about it, and the feminists cameat me and said, But you're
ruining everything.
Uh we we get a bad conscience,and we're standing in a bad
light being career women whenyou're staying at home with your
children because that makes uslook bad and that makes us feel
bad, and then we have lessfreedom.
So please stop doing that.
(39:10):
You're ruining the freedom ofwomen.
And I was like, wait a minute,I think I'm a woman, and I think
I made a free choice to do thisthing.
So what are you saying that myfree choice is ruining your free
choice?
There's no logic there, really.
If you yeah, and there are justsome problems in this field
(39:33):
that are that we I think we needto talk about them.
I think we need to just point,hey, my freedom to do a thing
that could be consideredconservative is still part of
the spectrum of free choices.
I feel free when I do it.
Yeah, so I had that problem.
Now I'm having the academicsproblem.
I'm back in the game.
I've called myself an unspoolerfor a long time because I am,
(39:57):
and we are, but we're just alsostudying academics.
Susan Yao (40:03):
That is absolutely one of the choices available to
you.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
I think of Michelle Foucault,who taught us that all of these
alternative cultures they end upre reproducing oppression by
creating rules and policing eachother.
That's the wrong way, right?
It's the wrong way to be anunschooler.
Jesper Conrad (40:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Susan Yao (40:22):
And you undermine the freedom that you believe in.
Jesper Conrad (40:24):
It's recreating exactly the same system just by
flipping it.
So now we had a yellow systembefore.
Now we have a green system,right?
Same system, different color.
Yeah, that's funny.
I think it's almost a societalimmaturity problem because I see
that dialogue has disappearedand people stand so clean on
(40:47):
their this is the only right wayto do it, and everyone else is
stupid, kind of uh rhetorics andeverything from politics to
football to unfortunately alsoacademics uh schooling versus
unschooling.
Right now, because we all havean echo champ.
Well, you know, when we wereteenagers, we would read a
(41:07):
newspaper, everyone was readingthe same five different
newspapers.
It wasn't like there was any,there was an egg, you choose the
newspaper you like, but now youjust the algorithms would just
keep repeating what you say.
Yeah, you don't even knowyou're in a bubble.
No, maybe you do, but you don'treally know what's yeah, even
if you do know you're in abubble, how do you know what all
(41:30):
the other bubbles look like?
Right.
Susan Yao (41:32):
How can you even know?
You can't even see the otherbubbles.
Oh scary business.
Jesper Conrad (41:38):
Oh, I need to get some prints I don't like,
maybe.
Then talk with them and end upliking them all of a sudden.
Oh no, dialogue.
I don't I'm not sure.
Susan, about dialogue.
It has been wonderful talkingwith you today.
We will try to round up thepodcast for people who want to
(41:59):
find what you write on Substack,as I did, and who want to learn
more about the micro school.
Can you share with people whereto find you so they know where
to go?
Susan Yao (42:11):
Sure.
So our learning community has awebsite, Vermont Village
School.
We decided not to be on socialmedia.
The website is the main way tofind us.
And then I have a personalSubstack that's more about me as
a parent.
And I created it for all mycollege friends who grew up in
traditional schools and are nowcurious about alternatives for
(42:31):
their children.
And so that's on Substack.
Suzy.
So we just put the links in theshow notes.
Jesper Conrad (42:41):
We will.
I also need you to re-mentionthe book on the about math
because it didn't get the titlefor that one.
Susan Yao (42:48):
The Math Myth by Andrew Hacker.
It's a great book questioningwhy we teach math the way we do
in the United States and how itdoes not match what you even
need for your career.
Even if you work at NASA, itdoes not match.
And it's keeping so manystudents from graduating or
becoming doctors.
It, you know, it it's it's abarrier that is not even
(43:10):
connected to the real world.
Jesper Conrad (43:13):
I'll put it on my reading list right away.
Absolutely.
Thank you for the talk andthank you for the book
recommendation.
And it was a pleasure.
Susan Yao (43:21):
Thank you so much for having me.
I enjoyed this conversation.
And thanks for all you'redoing.
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