October 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Discover how former UK teacher Kate transformed 24 years of mainstream education experience into "The Hive Adventure" - a revolutionary barefoot unschool in the Dominican Republic. In this inspiring episode, Kate shares her journey from French grammar teacher to creating a human-centered learning environment where students grow their own food, tackle global sustainability challenges, and learn emotional regulation from the inside out.
What You'll Learn:
- How to create child-led, project-based learning experiences
- Teaching emotional regulation and self-awareness to children
- Building a food forest and garden-to-plate education program
- Implementing social impact projects focused on UN global goals
- The difference between coddling feelings vs. teaching healthy emotional processing
- Why barefoot learning and outdoor education improve mental health
- Starting alternative education programs (micro-schools, learning pods, unschools)
Perfect for homeschool families, alternative education advocates, and parents seeking nature-based, child-centered learning approaches. Kate's story proves you can create meaningful educational change anywhere in the world.
The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide - Thinking about homeschooling but don't know where to start? Cheryl created this comprehensive guide which compiles insights from her interviews with over 120 homeschooling families across the country. From navigating state laws to finding your style to working while homeschooling- this eBook covers it all. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling confident. Purchase Here!
Let's Talk, Emergencies!
The most important lessons we can teach our kids aren't reading, writing, and math - they're how to keep themselves and others safe. Cheryl created this essential children's book which covers everything from dialing 911 on a locked cell phone to staying safe online, water safety, fire safety, and more. Let's Talk Emergencies! gives children the knowledge and confidence to handle real-world situations. These are conversations we shouldn't put off. Available on Amazon
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl, and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why people are homeschooling?
How do you do it?
How does it differ from regionto region?
And should I homeschool mykids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome.
And with us today, I have Katefrom the Hive Adventure in the
Dominican Republic.
Welcome, Kate.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me.
It's lovely to speak Kate.
I saw one of your commentsmaybe on Instagram and had
(00:47):
reached out to say, hey, come onmy podcast anytime.
So I don't remember what yourexact comment was, but I was
looking at your Instagramaccount just now, and you have a
really unique story.
So I'm not surprised that Iasked you to come on the show.
You were a teacher in theUnited Kingdom, and now you have
changed everything and you'rein the Dominicans.
Why don't you just start out bytelling us how long you had
(01:09):
been a teacher?
Speaker (01:10):
So I started teaching in 2001, so 24 years ago.
Um, and I stayed in mainstreameducation for about 15, 16
years, and then I shifted acrossto education consultancy, and
from there I kind of kept going,kept going, kept going until I
dropped off the mat and ended uphere in Dominican Republic,
(01:31):
where I opened my own educationcenter, which isn't really a
school.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So what where along the line did you say, hey, maybe
kids aren't supposed to learnlike this?
Maybe there's a better way.
Speaker (01:43):
In my first job, the first job I had, I went into
went into the classroomdetermined to be, you know, the
best teacher ever.
And I very quickly saw thatdespite my best efforts, there
would be some students who weredoing really well at learning in
the way that I was teaching,and others who would just stare
at me blankly.
And I began to wonder whetherit wasn't just about me and my
(02:06):
teaching, whether it was aboutthem and what's going on inside
them and how they viewthemselves as individuals and
learners, and what might be inthe way of them being able to
access learning in that way.
And so I started to change upthe way that I did things and
just a much more human approach.
Just wanting to get to know thechildren and what did they need
(02:27):
and what could I provide.
And so I very slowly made myway along the continuum from
very I started off as a Frenchgrammar teacher.
So, like very traditional intonow very alternative.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So, what did alternative look like?
Speaker (02:42):
So now I run what I'm calling a barefoot unschool for
change makers.
So it's kind of like school inthat there are lots of young
people there gathered togetherand we learn in the same space,
and that's probably where thecomparison ends.
There's no real timetable, wedon't have bells, we decide what
(03:02):
we want to learn, we decide howwe want to learn it, when we
want to learn it, when we thinkwe've learned enough.
So everything is different.
Everything is much morehuman-centered, so we kind of go
right from the nervous systemoutwards.
So every day we check into howwe're feeling and whether or not
we think that we are in theright frame of mind and we have
(03:23):
the right energy and the rightvibe for what we plan to do
today.
And if we don't, then we eitherchange how we feel or we change
what we were going to do.
So we have complete freedom andflexibility to make sure that
what we want to achieve and howready we are to get that done
match.
And so, if not, we're kind ofalways playing this game of
figuring out how we can meet inthe middle so that we can get
(03:46):
into flow, so that we can dowhat we want to do and learn
what we want to learn in themost effective and healthy way.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So I have two questions for you.
One, well, I guess first I'llask you, how come you decided to
go to the Dominican Republic todo this?
Could you not do this in theUK?
Speaker (04:01):
So it would be much harder to do this in the UK.
And also, it wasn't my plan toend up here in Dominican
Republic.
I had this plan that I would gooff on a whole year and
research different alternativeeducational provisions and meet
the families who use thembecause I don't I'd grown up in
a tradition I went to atraditional school, my parents
(04:22):
were very traditional, I had avery traditional start to my
education career.
So I hadn't really spent a lotof time with people who chose to
do it differently.
So that was my plan.
My plan was to reallyunderstand all of the different
models that were out there.
And so I sold my house, I soldmy car, I sold everything I
owned to fund this incredibletrip around the world to meet
(04:45):
the most interesting people Icould find.
And we set off about two weeksahead of COVID.
And so we only made it as faras the Dominican Republic, and
we had to decide whether we weregoing to stick or twist.
And so we decided to stick, andthen the hive kind of all of a
sudden we were in the rightplace at the right time with the
right skills, and there was theright need in the community to
(05:08):
do something different for thechildren because all of the
mainstream schools had closed,and so we started just in a
little local yoga sharla withabout 10 or 11 children, and we
kind of started to design ourown model for learning based on
work that I'd previously done,and it kind of grew from there
and it's been growing eversince.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That is so cool.
What did COVID look like inplaces like the UK or the
Dominican Republic?
Speaker (05:33):
So in the UK it was tough.
It was masks and lockdown, andyou couldn't go out of your
house, everything closed down,it was really difficult.
And in the Dominican Republic,it didn't feel like that because
you mostly live outdoorsanyway.
So there was a um you you'dhave to wear a mask if you went
into a public space, if you wentinto a supermarket.
(05:53):
But apart from that, it wasn'tit wasn't really noticeable.
We managed to set up a pod, sowe had a small group and we made
sure that we all met thecriteria so we could still meet
in person and we didn't have towear masks and the children were
all running around barefootoutside, which I think is why it
became popular so quickly,because people were desperately
(06:14):
looking for somewhere that theycould bring their children to
where they would be able to justhave a more natural childhood.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Normalcy, yes.
So I guess that makes me reallysad.
I kind of assumed that placeslike the Dominican or, you know,
that weren't so corporate thatthey didn't I was kind of hoping
like they didn't change at all,you know.
It makes me sad to think thateven they fell for it.
They had to wear masks in thegrocery stores.
Come on.
People like they've beenthrough a lot.
(06:43):
These people that live therehave been through a lot.
They're really worried aboutsome sniffles.
But it's government, Iunderstand.
It's government, yeah.
Speaker (06:51):
And they stayed open, so it was one of the only
countries that you could easilyfly in and out of.
So so they did as little asthey could get away with, it
looks like.
Um and we were watching thestatistics, and it either looked
like nobody was getting sick ornobody was counting.
It was it was hard tounderstand why the data was the
way it was, but it really didn'tit didn't appear to hit as hard
(07:14):
here as it did in other places.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, well, and even that's debatable.
Like Did you really have COVIDor did the hospital just kill
you?
Speaker (07:22):
You know, or just from looking at the data, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Crazy, crazy times, whoever thought we'd be living
through something like this.
Okay, so now I love what you'resaying with like the barefoot,
and you you have like a foodforest that you are growing.
So are the kids actuallygrowing their own food that they
eat for lunches and stuff too?
Speaker (07:41):
Yeah, so we have our little herb garden, we have lots
of fruit, different fruit thatwe just go and pick in the
morning, whatever's ripe.
And then we have plantain andyucca and yeltia.
There are all these rootvegetables that are from here.
So we dig those up and we makethem into arapitas and we have
them for lunch.
So there's lots of kind oforganic garden to plate.
(08:02):
Today we were making coconutoil.
So they did the whole processof coconut oil by hand.
So it's taken about a week todo it day by day by day.
But yeah, yeah, we do lots ofthings like that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Oh, that's so cool.
Okay, now when you're talkingabout like we all talk about our
feelings and kind of figure outwhat we have to do to all get
on the same page.
Okay, I love that.
But you also have, at leasthere in the States, where in the
school system or even incolleges, you see it.
My husband was just working ina college because he does HVAC,
and he goes, There's a room forlike when kids aren't feeling
(08:35):
emotionally safe, they can goand like.
So there is also this spin oncoddling to kids and college
students' feelings, and like,oh, we can't say that because we
have to coddle.
We can't, you know.
So it what is the difference?
Where's that line where you'reteaching kids to actually
understand what they're feelingand maybe think about why am I
(08:56):
feeling this way?
Which it's holds true for metoo.
I'll yell at my kids likeearlier today, you know, I'm
talking about it, just give mefive minutes.
And it's like, it's not reallyabout them, like what's going on
inside of me, you know, whathappened in my childhood?
Why am I feeling this way?
And then, and then totallygoing the other way, where like
these 18-year-olds just feel soentitled to be like, I can't
work or do anything because I'mfeeling triggered.
(09:19):
You know, do you where is thatline?
It's a fine line.
How do you do it in a healthymanner?
Speaker (09:24):
So the whole purpose of doing it is so that your window
of tolerance gets bigger, notsmaller.
So when you get to the pointwhere you think that you can't
cope with a challenge, whetherthat challenge is this big or
this big, it's your capacity tocope with the challenge.
So, what we're learning is thatchallenges will arise and we
(09:45):
will feel feelings in responseto the challenge, and then we
have the choice to manage thosefeelings and to find a way
through that challenge so thatwe can get to the other side.
And so, if you get dysregulatedvery easily, your window of
what you can tolerate shrinks,and so you get overwhelmed
really quickly.
And so, when you learnself-regulation and you practice
(10:08):
kind of dancing to the edge ofwhat feels comfortable and
learning how to stay there, it'sa bit like you know, like cold
water therapy is really all therage now.
Like you have a cold shower andyou learn to breathe through
it, right?
You're what sets sets off whenyou get in the cold shower is
your like existential threatalarm goes off.
You're gonna die, it'sfreezing.
(10:29):
Obviously, it's not, it's justa cold shower, right?
And you can override that justthrough breathing and reminding
yourself that it's just a coldshower.
Well, the same goes for this isa room full of people I don't
know.
It's okay, it's not anexistential threat, it's just a
room full of people you don'tknow.
This is something I think I'mgonna really suck at, and I
don't want to humiliate myself,but that's okay because it's not
(10:50):
gonna kill you, right?
You might suck at it, it mightfeel humiliating, but you have
all of these like levers insideyour body that you can use.
You can use your breath, youcan ground your feet, you can
roll your shoulders back, youcan make yourself wider.
There are all these littletricks and hacks that you can do
for your nervous system, whichmakes it kind of stand down from
(11:12):
putting you into this sensethat you are genuinely at
threat.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Thinking about homeschooling but don't know
where to start?
Well, I've interviewed a fewpeople on the topic.
Actually, 120 interviews atthis point with homeschooling
families from across the countryand the world.
And what I've done is I'vepacked everything I've learned
into an e-book called TheHomeschool How to Complete
Starter Guide.
From navigating your state'slaws to finding your
homeschooling style, fromworking while homeschooling to
(11:38):
supporting kids with specialneeds.
This guide covers it all withreal stories from real families
who've walked this path.
I've taken the best insights,the best resources, and put them
all into this guide.
Stop feeling overwhelmed andstart feeling confident.
Get your copy of the HomeschoolHow-To Complete Starter Guide
today and discover thathomeschooling isn't just about
education.
(11:59):
It's about getting what youwant out of each day, not what
somebody else wants out of you.
You can grab the link to thisebook in the show's description
or head on over to thehomeschoolhowto.com.
Speaker (12:10):
You think you're in threat, but you're not really.
It's not like a lion or a tigerin the real world.
It's just a social situationthat you feel uncomfortable in.
So we're learning how to dothat every day.
So we're checking into how wefeel, understanding why we feel
that way, and then and then it'slike, well, what are you gonna
do about that?
Like, how are we gonna get fromhow we're feeling now to how we
(12:33):
want to be feeling so that wedon't get stuck there?
So it's really the antidote tothis sense that that we can't
because it feels uncomfortable.
It's learning how to becomfortable whilst being
uncomfortable.
That's what self-regulation is.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I feel like I could have paid a lot of money in
therapy to learn that.
But here you are, put right infront of me.
Is it too late for me at 41?
Speaker (12:56):
No, not at all.
We I'm I I do training in thisfor parents and educators,
police officers, social workers,anyone who really is in that
human-to-human interface on adaily basis.
And once you understanddysregulation and how somebody
else's dysregulation can impactyou, and how yours can impact
(13:16):
somebody else, you can then stopit coming in towards you, and
you can change what you'reputting out into the world.
So it's great for parents,especially if you're getting to
that point where you either havetoddlers with really big
feelings or teenagers withreally big feelings, and
everybody's kind of prefrontalcortex is going through
something.
Understanding why and havingstrategies that you can use is
(13:39):
hugely beneficial to just manageto kind of keep calm, even when
everything around you is chaos.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, that is so important.
They don't teach us that inpublic school at all.
They you know what they do?
They medicate you.
Yes.
unknown (13:52):
That's what they do.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes.
And it took me a while torealize I would always get
triggered with my son becausehe's so hyperactive and he's
always loud and he's alwayspounding his feet as he's
running from this room to thatroom.
And one day I realize I wouldhave these big reactions.
Stop doing it! And one day Irealized I'm like, oh my God,
it's because my father wasalways loud and pounding around
when I was a kid.
So I probably do go into thatfight or flight.
(14:15):
I just envision him as that,you know, drunk that's making a
lot of noise and slamming doorsand stuff.
So yeah, I don't, I in my mind,and that now I mean, I guess
I'm getting kind of used to itbecause he's seven, but I've
explained that to him before.
I'm like, listen, I don't knowhow to regulate my emotions, but
this is why I'm yelling at youfor it.
Speaker (14:33):
That's nothing to do with you.
And then and then we talk aboutwe talk about possible
solutions, like what can you do?
That's one of the reasons thehive is barefoot.
Yes, there's all the the healthbenefits of being barefoot, um,
and I think they're wellunderstood, but also it just
slows you down.
It just makes you move moregently through the world, it
keeps you connected andgrounded, and it gets rid of
(14:54):
that thumping noise thatchildren make when they're
running through somewhere withtheir shoes on.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, that is a great point.
So so you're you're are youstaying in the Dominican now for
the duration?
This is where your home andheart is?
Speaker (15:07):
I think so.
So I have a home here, but mydaughter's now 13, so she's
spent the last five or six yearshere with me, and so she's now
wanting to branch out a bit andto go to bigger cities and do
some other things.
So this is always gonna be myhome, and then we sort of
adventure out from here to tryand give her a broad experience
(15:29):
of different places anddifferent cultures too.
So we're enjoying that.
I'm ready to I'm ready toretire and stop, and she's just
kind of getting into this I wantto see the whole world, and she
still wants me to come withher, and that's not gonna last
for much longer, so we're doinglots of exploring too, which is
nice.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, how cool! So, do you have people that can
maintain the hive while you godo that?
Speaker (15:50):
So at the moment, I've just got my friend Beth.
She's come over from the UK.
We've been working together onand off for the last four or
five years.
So, yes, I can now hop away.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So, people will pay you as if you're sort of a
private school there?
Speaker (16:05):
Yeah, but we we run in short bursts, so we do these
programs that run for six weeks,and so families all fly in from
different places on the planet.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
It's not just Dominican children, or is it
any?
Speaker (16:17):
Some, sometimes.
So in the summer we haveDominican children, but most of
the time in winter, they'reinternational students, and so
they come together from all overthe world, and we work on a
themed project together aroundone of the global goals, and we
look at a global challenge andhow that is felt in different
(16:38):
places in the world, and howit's felt here in Cabrera, and
then we look at we getinspiration from people who are
working on that problem, and wecome up with our own ideas and
we implement them somewhere inthe local community, so that
we're doing these little socialimpact projects that we leave a
legacy of something positive inthe local community, and the
skills that we learn throughdoing it, we then take back to
(17:01):
where we came from, and so wecan reintroduce those skills
again when we come acrossanother challenge in our local
community.
So that's kind of why it'scalled the hive.
We all come together, we workon something, and then we sort
of buzz away and can be busylittle bees somewhere else on
the planet.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
My goodness.
So is it mostly homeschooledstudents that come to you?
Speaker (17:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Oh, that is so cool.
And you've been doing it since2001, you said?
Or I'm sorry.
No, that's when you startedteaching.
Um, 2021?
2020.
We started in the summer of2020.
Wow, so five years now.
That's just amazing.
What is an example of one ofthe problems, world problems
that you've worked on?
Speaker (17:40):
So we, for example, clean water and sanitation is
one of them.
And so that means verydifferent things in different
places.
So maybe in in England or inNew York, you're looking at how
many chemicals are pumped intothe water that comes out of the
faucet that you drink, or inflint in in Michigan, right?
(18:00):
Like, what does that mean tohave clean water and sanitation?
And then here in DominicanRepublic, there's no water that
comes, there's no drinking waterthat comes through the faucet.
All the water comes directlyfrom the river.
So then we're looking at theproblem much further back.
Like, how do we keep our riversclean so that the water that
comes into our houses is clean?
How do we get clean drinkingwater?
(18:22):
Where does that come from?
How does that impact on all ofthe choices that we make?
Um, and then what can we doabout it?
So make things like rainwatercatchers to irrigate the garden.
We've made water filters tofilter the water that comes
through.
So we're and then we're lookingat what goes into the water
system.
So what shampoos do we use,what all of those different
(18:43):
things that they're allinterconnected.
And last year we met um theKogi tribe from Colombia, and
they're, I don't know if youknow about them, but they're a
pre-historic tribe thatdisappeared into the mountains
in Colombia when ChristopherColumbus came, and they stayed
there and they hid, and they'vebeen there the whole time, still
dressed in white, still livingin exactly the same way.
(19:06):
What are their names?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
The Kogi tribe, K-O-G.
Oh my gosh.
Right, because ChristopherColumbus actually never touched
like our soil up here, wasn'the?
Down in South America.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker (19:18):
And so they taught us how their understanding of the
world is is very different fromours and how everything is
interconnected.
And so when we're looking atwater cycles, we're looking at
it now, even on a on a in aspiritual way.
Like apparently, every cloudhas a place that it's supposed
to be, and every water drop hasa place that it's supposed to
be, and so and they're supposedto move, and so the rain knows
(19:42):
which cloud it came from, andit's when it turns into vapor,
it wants to get back to itsoriginal cloud.
It just has this beautiful wayof looking at the world.
So when you move rivers andwhen you pollute the water,
you're stopping that from beingable to happen, you're stopping
the earth from being able toheal itself.
So I've learned way more bydoing this than I ever did when
I was a standard teacher.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, I learned more homeschooling my seven-year-old
than I ever did in my owneducation with four years at the
university.
It's crazy.
Even just yesterday, we werereading a kid's book on the Erie
Canal, and I live right nearit.
I mean, you know, we grew upnext to it, grew up next to the
Hudson River.
He never taught us anythingabout that stuff.
And here I am reading thesekids' books to him, and I'm
(20:24):
like, oh my gosh, this startedAmerica.
This is amazing.
And and it's funny that todaywe were taking a walk at my near
my sister, well, uh, at mysister's house, and we walked
past a building that said 1760on the front, you know,
established in 1760.
And I go, Well, that's amazing.
That's before America evenbecame America.
Like, what happened?
What was going on that madethese people come to this
(20:46):
location and build this house?
How'd they get the bricks here?
And I'm like asking all thesequestions that the old me never
would have even thought to ask.
I mean, I I lived on that roadactually at one time, never gave
that house a second look.
And here I am now payingattention to the date and
wondering what happened andlooking at what they have across
the street from them, um, allthe headstones, and I'm like,
(21:07):
oh, can I sneak over there andsee the dates on those?
And it it really, once you'reout of that matrix, yeah, it's a
whole world opens up.
So I wonder, did anybody die ofCOVID in the Kogi tribe?
That's my next question.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker (21:22):
I wouldn't I would suspect not.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
No.
They're not vaccinating either.
None of them have autism.
Oh my goodness.
So this is so cool.
So, all right, you are where isyour next adventure with your
daughter?
Speaker (21:33):
So we're going back to Europe this summer.
She's gonna go into a Britishsecondary school for six weeks,
kind of to try it out so thatshe can compare and contrast
homeschool and this kind ofunschooling that we do at the
hive and traditional realschool, if you like.
So that's gonna be fun.
(21:53):
And then we're looking at maybedoing working up towards a
United World College orsomething like that.
So we'll see.
We'll see.
We'll see how the schoolexperiment goes.
At the moment, she has thisromantic notion of how wonderful
it's gonna be, and I don'tknow, maybe it will be, maybe it
won't, but we have to try itout to see.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
She was in school before 2020, though, right?
She would have been reallyyoung.
Speaker (22:15):
Yeah, she started and she started off really
enthusiastic, really bright, andvery quickly was coming home
and saying, Why do I have to sitwith my legs crossed in the
same way?
And why do I have to stop whenI'm really enjoying what I'm
doing?
And why do I have to why do Ihave to?
Why do I have to?
Why do I have to?
Again and again.
And I just looked at her and Iwent, You don't, you don't have
(22:37):
to.
I know that this isn't the bestway for you to learn.
I know it.
I've been learning about it anddoing it my whole life, and now
I'm watching the light go offinside you.
I'm like, enough, enough,enough.
That's it.
We have to get out.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And so we did.
So amazing.
What has been like the mostimpactful experience that you've
had at the hive, like watchingchildren or maybe something a
child accomplished, or reallychanged, I don't know, what what
changed you, um, I guess.
Speaker (23:07):
So the bit I always enjoy, so I kind of designed
this whole model for learningthat follows the self-regulation
cycle of the child.
And so you kind of come in andthen you get ready for learning,
and then you go on thislearning journey, and then you
come to the end, and you stop,and you come out, and you
integrate what you've learnedand you move on.
And every time, every time weget get everybody going, and
(23:30):
they go round and round andround, and it gets to the point
where we're just coming to theend, and it's chaos, and I think
it's not gonna work.
This time it's not gonna work,and and then every time it does,
every time it comes together,and the children have this
incredible moment where theyrealize that they did something
that they genuinely didn'tbelieve that they could, and
even on the outside, I'm lookingat it and going, I'm not sure
(23:52):
if they can.
And then and then they getthere and it comes together, and
and you see them walking out ofthe experience, saying, I know
more about myself, I know moreabout other people, I know more
about the planet, I know moreabout my place in all of this, I
know that I can do hard things.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Have you taught your kids what to do in an emergency?
It's a conversation weshouldn't put off, and it's a
conversation we should haveoften.
That's why I wrote Let's TalkEmergencies, a book that covers
everything from dialing 911 on alocked cell phone to staying
safe online, water safety, firesafety, and more.
The most important lessons wecan teach our kids are not
reading, writing, and math.
(24:31):
They're how to keep themselvesand others safe.
In today's world ofuncertainty, give them the tools
they need.
Grab a copy today.
Check out the link in thisepisode's description.
Speaker (24:41):
And so we get feedback from the kids, things like, I've
never been listened to before,nobody ever cared what I thought
before.
And it breaks my heart to thinkthat that that's true.
I know that that's true becauseI used to be inside the system.
And so, um, so I think that'snever gets old.
Even after 24 years ofteaching, when you see kids
(25:02):
really light up and start toreally believe in themselves,
that's that's what keeps medoing it for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You know, and there is something to be said for like
growing the food, and then, youknow, they're picking it or
they're making whatever mealthey're going to have with what
they've helped grow.
There's a sort of whole cycleto that, and then an
accomplishment at the end, asatisfaction to it.
Same thing with let's find thisproblem, let's see what other,
(25:29):
what other impacts it has, andlet's figure out how we can fix
this and implement that intosociety and actually, you know,
that is a cyclical kind of thingwith a very fulfilling, you
know, some sort of fulfillmentat the end.
And there's just not any ofthat in school.
They make test scores be whatthey want to fulfill kids, and
(25:51):
it's just not going to happenbecause you're teaching kids
something.
First of all, you're separatingevery subject in school.
So you can't integrate, youknow, French with any sort of
history or philosophy orscience, you know, food.
You all of those are separate.
And so it doesn't mean anythingwhen I'm just learning French
(26:14):
to learn, here's a sentence inFrench, repeat it.
You know, it's like, why?
Like your daughter's saying,why do I have to do this?
But when it can all integrate,and then at the end, you
actually feel accomplishedbecause you had the struggle.
And then you even with pickingfood, it's like, I don't feel
like going over there, just youknow, hand me food.
Well, no, you do it and youwater the plants and you weed
(26:34):
them and plant them.
And um, there is just such asatisfaction to where I I have
thought this for a while thatdepression would not be what it
is today if kids actually feltfulfilled in in any sort of way.
Speaker (26:47):
Yeah, but getting your hands into the earth and growing
something is an incredibly sortof grounding, empowering.
It's really good for yourmental health, it's good for
your body.
And we do things like nearlyevery child that comes plants a
pineapple because you just plantthe top of the pine, you know,
the spiky bit that you pull off?
That's you plant that, but ittakes three years for one
(27:08):
pineapple to come out of eachplant.
So the pineapples that theypick were planted by children
three years ago, and so everytime there's like new a new crop
of pineapples coming, and thenthey grow, then they plant them
again.
So there's this real sense ofleaving something behind for
people that are gonna come afteryou, and so doing something
(27:29):
that isn't just about you,that's bigger than you, and
that's lovely as well.
And so we've had families thathave come back after a couple of
years, they go, I don't knowwhich one is my pineapple, but
they're all they're all in theretogether.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I mean, that's brilliant.
How did you come up with thisconcept for all of it?
I mean, this is reallybrilliant.
Speaker (27:46):
It all came together.
So when I left teaching inEngland, we had it was just a
moment in time in the UK around2015.
A lot of the Middle East was atwar, and we had a huge number
of people coming in through asrefugees, and they would get to
the top of France and they wereaiming for the UK, but they
(28:06):
couldn't get to the UK becausethey couldn't get across.
And so it just built up withthis huge unofficial refugee
camp, and it wasn't recognizedby the United Nations, there was
no Oxfam, there were no therewas nobody there helping.
And so I was I kind of had timeon my hands.
I was supposed to be setting upmy education consultancy, but I
spoke French and I was a mumand I was available and I could
(28:31):
go.
And I thought that at that timemy son was 17, maybe that kind
of age.
And I thought that if if I hadhad to send my son out into the
world, if I thought that was theonly way that I could save his
life, and he'd walked for miles,who would I want to receive
him?
And it wouldn't be like theracist people waving flags and
(28:51):
saying, Go back.
I would I would want somebodylike me to give him a hug and
give him a hot meal and help himfigure out how he was going to
start his life.
So I went there to work in therefugee camp, and it was at that
point that I realized that weneeded a more human-centered
approach to everything.
That that underneatheverybody's experience were
(29:13):
their nervous systems and theirfeelings.
And so that's how I developedthis model and this framework
that we use, and and that becamethe central piece from which
everything else grew over theyears.
And then now I've ended up witha whole unschool that that
teaches teaches that from theinside out.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Ah, that's just amazing.
You should write this businessmodel down and sell the business
model to people so they canreplicate this.
I mean, we need these types ofschools all over.
We do have stuff, you know,like like my son tomorrow is
going to a wilderness class thathe does for six or eight weeks
every fall and every spring, youknow, where they're outside.
But I mean, this just sounds socool.
(29:52):
I really feel like that wouldbe a gold mine.
I and I see these littleschools popping up everywhere in
the States at least.
People are definitelyrealizing.
That, yeah, sitting for sevenhours a day, especially as a
child, is not the way to do it.
Are the schools in the UK verysimilar to the ones in the
States?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker (30:10):
Yeah.
And we we learn from what youdo in America.
So you had charter schools,then we had something similar.
So yeah, they're very similar.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Interesting.
Well, I love this idea.
I'm going to attach the link toyour school in the show's
description and you know, sharesome of this on the social media
so that people can check youout and whether they can come
visit you and be a part of yourschool or, you know, just kind
of start this sort of stuff ontheir own.
I mean, this is just so great.
Like what I mean, I can't waittill the future when you hear
(30:41):
what these kids are actuallydoing.
I mean, have you heard talk tosome of your original students
that you've had and what they'redoing today and how this
impacted them?
Speaker (30:49):
So funnily enough, I I started a model that was similar
to this but inside mainstreamschool.
So it was it was about as um ascreative as I was allowed to
get within the paradigm of amainstream school.
And those students now are like24, something like that.
Um, and a colleague of minebumped into some of them at an
(31:09):
event in the town where I usedto live.
And they were the like thefirst ever cohort of what we
called learning to learn, ourlearning to learn students,
where we focused on how tolearn, not what to learn.
And they're all doing reallyinteresting things, they've been
really successful.
And when they took their examresults, all their exam results
went up.
Not that that was the point ofit, it was a happy byproduct of
(31:33):
this model that we designed.
And so that that was reallylovely to see them as fully
grown adults in the world and toknow that they remembered it
fondly, they remembered thelessons, they remembered the
model, they remembered us, andthey felt that it had supported
them to feel more confident inthemselves and braver to try new
things, and all the things thatwe wanted it to do.
So it's been it's been a laborof love.
(31:55):
It's been a kind of a 20-yearjourney to get to here, and I
suppose to get to the point inlife where I feel brave enough
to talk about what I'm doing andto say, you know, I guess
there's more sand in the bottomof my sand timer than there is
in the top.
And so I don't have time tolike playing small and just
doing it quietly in my corner.
(32:16):
I feel like I need to startshouting about it a bit more.
So thank you for having me onso I can.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I hope you continue shouting about it and people
start realizing.
I think they're waking up, butto hear this sort of business
model is just amazing.
Congratulations to all thatyou've accomplished and all that
thank you for all that you'redoing in the world.
Not even just with thestudents, but giving them an
idea of how can we make theworld better.
Imagine if every studentgraduated with that in mind.
How can we we can all agreethat the water is not clean,
(32:44):
that's not a political thing.
Yeah, there are so manychemicals, so many things being
dumped in there.
Um, yeah, and we all drink it.
So, and our kids, it's allgonna be legacies for our kids.
So, yeah, we it is definitelysomething that you need to fix.
That's brilliant.
Kate, thank you so much forbeing on today.
Um, I will put the link to yourwebsite and your Instagram in
the show's description andanything else that you would
(33:05):
like me to include.
So I hope you all go check thatout.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for havingme.
It was lovely talking to you.
Thank you for tuning in to thisweek's episode of the
Homeschool How-To.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
(33:26):
Or if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl, and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why people are homeschooling?
How do you do it?
How does it differ from regionto region?
And should I homeschool mykids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome.
And with us today, I have Katefrom the Hive Adventure in the
Dominican Republic.
Welcome, Kate.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me.
It's lovely to speak Kate.
I saw one of your commentsmaybe on Instagram and had
(00:47):
reached out to say, hey, come onmy podcast anytime.
So I don't remember what yourexact comment was, but I was
looking at your Instagramaccount just now, and you have a
really unique story.
So I'm not surprised that Iasked you to come on the show.
You were a teacher in theUnited Kingdom, and now you have
changed everything and you'rein the Dominicans.
Why don't you just start out bytelling us how long you had
(01:09):
been a teacher?
Speaker (01:10):
So I started teaching in 2001, so 24 years ago.
Um, and I stayed in mainstreameducation for about 15, 16
years, and then I shifted acrossto education consultancy, and
from there I kind of kept going,kept going, kept going until I
dropped off the mat and ended uphere in Dominican Republic,
(01:31):
where I opened my own educationcenter, which isn't really a
school.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
So what where along the line did you say, hey, maybe
kids aren't supposed to learnlike this?
Maybe there's a better way.
Speaker (01:43):
In my first job, the first job I had, I went into
went into the classroomdetermined to be, you know, the
best teacher ever.
And I very quickly saw thatdespite my best efforts, there
would be some students who weredoing really well at learning in
the way that I was teaching,and others who would just stare
at me blankly.
And I began to wonder whetherit wasn't just about me and my
(02:06):
teaching, whether it was aboutthem and what's going on inside
them and how they viewthemselves as individuals and
learners, and what might be inthe way of them being able to
access learning in that way.
And so I started to change upthe way that I did things and
just a much more human approach.
Just wanting to get to know thechildren and what did they need
(02:27):
and what could I provide.
And so I very slowly made myway along the continuum from
very I started off as a Frenchgrammar teacher.
So, like very traditional intonow very alternative.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So, what did alternative look like?
Speaker (02:42):
So now I run what I'm calling a barefoot unschool for
change makers.
So it's kind of like school inthat there are lots of young
people there gathered togetherand we learn in the same space,
and that's probably where thecomparison ends.
There's no real timetable, wedon't have bells, we decide what
(03:02):
we want to learn, we decide howwe want to learn it, when we
want to learn it, when we thinkwe've learned enough.
So everything is different.
Everything is much morehuman-centered, so we kind of go
right from the nervous systemoutwards.
So every day we check into howwe're feeling and whether or not
we think that we are in theright frame of mind and we have
(03:23):
the right energy and the rightvibe for what we plan to do
today.
And if we don't, then we eitherchange how we feel or we change
what we were going to do.
So we have complete freedom andflexibility to make sure that
what we want to achieve and howready we are to get that done
match.
And so, if not, we're kind ofalways playing this game of
figuring out how we can meet inthe middle so that we can get
(03:46):
into flow, so that we can dowhat we want to do and learn
what we want to learn in themost effective and healthy way.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So I have two questions for you.
One, well, I guess first I'llask you, how come you decided to
go to the Dominican Republic todo this?
Could you not do this in theUK?
Speaker (04:01):
So it would be much harder to do this in the UK.
And also, it wasn't my plan toend up here in Dominican
Republic.
I had this plan that I would gooff on a whole year and
research different alternativeeducational provisions and meet
the families who use thembecause I don't I'd grown up in
a tradition I went to atraditional school, my parents
(04:22):
were very traditional, I had avery traditional start to my
education career.
So I hadn't really spent a lotof time with people who chose to
do it differently.
So that was my plan.
My plan was to reallyunderstand all of the different
models that were out there.
And so I sold my house, I soldmy car, I sold everything I
owned to fund this incredibletrip around the world to meet
(04:45):
the most interesting people Icould find.
And we set off about two weeksahead of COVID.
And so we only made it as faras the Dominican Republic, and
we had to decide whether we weregoing to stick or twist.
And so we decided to stick, andthen the hive kind of all of a
sudden we were in the rightplace at the right time with the
right skills, and there was theright need in the community to
(05:08):
do something different for thechildren because all of the
mainstream schools had closed,and so we started just in a
little local yoga sharla withabout 10 or 11 children, and we
kind of started to design ourown model for learning based on
work that I'd previously done,and it kind of grew from there
and it's been growing eversince.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That is so cool.
What did COVID look like inplaces like the UK or the
Dominican Republic?
Speaker (05:33):
So in the UK it was tough.
It was masks and lockdown, andyou couldn't go out of your
house, everything closed down,it was really difficult.
And in the Dominican Republic,it didn't feel like that because
you mostly live outdoorsanyway.
So there was a um you you'dhave to wear a mask if you went
into a public space, if you wentinto a supermarket.
(05:53):
But apart from that, it wasn'tit wasn't really noticeable.
We managed to set up a pod, sowe had a small group and we made
sure that we all met thecriteria so we could still meet
in person and we didn't have towear masks and the children were
all running around barefootoutside, which I think is why it
became popular so quickly,because people were desperately
(06:14):
looking for somewhere that theycould bring their children to
where they would be able to justhave a more natural childhood.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Normalcy, yes.
So I guess that makes me reallysad.
I kind of assumed that placeslike the Dominican or, you know,
that weren't so corporate thatthey didn't I was kind of hoping
like they didn't change at all,you know.
It makes me sad to think thateven they fell for it.
They had to wear masks in thegrocery stores.
Come on.
People like they've beenthrough a lot.
(06:43):
These people that live therehave been through a lot.
They're really worried aboutsome sniffles.
But it's government, Iunderstand.
It's government, yeah.
Speaker (06:51):
And they stayed open, so it was one of the only
countries that you could easilyfly in and out of.
So so they did as little asthey could get away with, it
looks like.
Um and we were watching thestatistics, and it either looked
like nobody was getting sick ornobody was counting.
It was it was hard tounderstand why the data was the
way it was, but it really didn'tit didn't appear to hit as hard
(07:14):
here as it did in other places.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, well, and even that's debatable.
Like Did you really have COVIDor did the hospital just kill
you?
Speaker (07:22):
You know, or just from looking at the data, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Crazy, crazy times, whoever thought we'd be living
through something like this.
Okay, so now I love what you'resaying with like the barefoot,
and you you have like a foodforest that you are growing.
So are the kids actuallygrowing their own food that they
eat for lunches and stuff too?
Speaker (07:41):
Yeah, so we have our little herb garden, we have lots
of fruit, different fruit thatwe just go and pick in the
morning, whatever's ripe.
And then we have plantain andyucca and yeltia.
There are all these rootvegetables that are from here.
So we dig those up and we makethem into arapitas and we have
them for lunch.
So there's lots of kind oforganic garden to plate.
(08:02):
Today we were making coconutoil.
So they did the whole processof coconut oil by hand.
So it's taken about a week todo it day by day by day.
But yeah, yeah, we do lots ofthings like that.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Oh, that's so cool.
Okay, now when you're talkingabout like we all talk about our
feelings and kind of figure outwhat we have to do to all get
on the same page.
Okay, I love that.
But you also have, at leasthere in the States, where in the
school system or even incolleges, you see it.
My husband was just working ina college because he does HVAC,
and he goes, There's a room forlike when kids aren't feeling
(08:35):
emotionally safe, they can goand like.
So there is also this spin oncoddling to kids and college
students' feelings, and like,oh, we can't say that because we
have to coddle.
We can't, you know.
So it what is the difference?
Where's that line where you'reteaching kids to actually
understand what they're feelingand maybe think about why am I
(08:56):
feeling this way?
Which it's holds true for metoo.
I'll yell at my kids likeearlier today, you know, I'm
talking about it, just give mefive minutes.
And it's like, it's not reallyabout them, like what's going on
inside of me, you know, whathappened in my childhood?
Why am I feeling this way?
And then, and then totallygoing the other way, where like
these 18-year-olds just feel soentitled to be like, I can't
work or do anything because I'mfeeling triggered.
(09:19):
You know, do you where is thatline?
It's a fine line.
How do you do it in a healthymanner?
Speaker (09:24):
So the whole purpose of doing it is so that your window
of tolerance gets bigger, notsmaller.
So when you get to the pointwhere you think that you can't
cope with a challenge, whetherthat challenge is this big or
this big, it's your capacity tocope with the challenge.
So, what we're learning is thatchallenges will arise and we
(09:45):
will feel feelings in responseto the challenge, and then we
have the choice to manage thosefeelings and to find a way
through that challenge so thatwe can get to the other side.
And so, if you get dysregulatedvery easily, your window of
what you can tolerate shrinks,and so you get overwhelmed
really quickly.
And so, when you learnself-regulation and you practice
(10:08):
kind of dancing to the edge ofwhat feels comfortable and
learning how to stay there, it'sa bit like you know, like cold
water therapy is really all therage now.
Like you have a cold shower andyou learn to breathe through
it, right?
You're what sets sets off whenyou get in the cold shower is
your like existential threatalarm goes off.
You're gonna die, it'sfreezing.
(10:29):
Obviously, it's not, it's justa cold shower, right?
And you can override that justthrough breathing and reminding
yourself that it's just a coldshower.
Well, the same goes for this isa room full of people I don't
know.
It's okay, it's not anexistential threat, it's just a
room full of people you don'tknow.
This is something I think I'mgonna really suck at, and I
don't want to humiliate myself,but that's okay because it's not
(10:50):
gonna kill you, right?
You might suck at it, it mightfeel humiliating, but you have
all of these like levers insideyour body that you can use.
You can use your breath, youcan ground your feet, you can
roll your shoulders back, youcan make yourself wider.
There are all these littletricks and hacks that you can do
for your nervous system, whichmakes it kind of stand down from
(11:12):
putting you into this sensethat you are genuinely at
threat.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Thinking about homeschooling but don't know
where to start?
Well, I've interviewed a fewpeople on the topic.
Actually, 120 interviews atthis point with homeschooling
families from across the countryand the world.
And what I've done is I'vepacked everything I've learned
into an e-book called TheHomeschool How to Complete
Starter Guide.
From navigating your state'slaws to finding your
homeschooling style, fromworking while homeschooling to
(11:38):
supporting kids with specialneeds.
This guide covers it all withreal stories from real families
who've walked this path.
I've taken the best insights,the best resources, and put them
all into this guide.
Stop feeling overwhelmed andstart feeling confident.
Get your copy of the HomeschoolHow-To Complete Starter Guide
today and discover thathomeschooling isn't just about
education.
(11:59):
It's about getting what youwant out of each day, not what
somebody else wants out of you.
You can grab the link to thisebook in the show's description
or head on over to thehomeschoolhowto.com.
Speaker (12:10):
You think you're in threat, but you're not really.
It's not like a lion or a tigerin the real world.
It's just a social situationthat you feel uncomfortable in.
So we're learning how to dothat every day.
So we're checking into how wefeel, understanding why we feel
that way, and then and then it'slike, well, what are you gonna
do about that?
Like, how are we gonna get fromhow we're feeling now to how we
(12:33):
want to be feeling so that wedon't get stuck there?
So it's really the antidote tothis sense that that we can't
because it feels uncomfortable.
It's learning how to becomfortable whilst being
uncomfortable.
That's what self-regulation is.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I feel like I could have paid a lot of money in
therapy to learn that.
But here you are, put right infront of me.
Is it too late for me at 41?
Speaker (12:56):
No, not at all.
We I'm I I do training in thisfor parents and educators,
police officers, social workers,anyone who really is in that
human-to-human interface on adaily basis.
And once you understanddysregulation and how somebody
else's dysregulation can impactyou, and how yours can impact
(13:16):
somebody else, you can then stopit coming in towards you, and
you can change what you'reputting out into the world.
So it's great for parents,especially if you're getting to
that point where you either havetoddlers with really big
feelings or teenagers withreally big feelings, and
everybody's kind of prefrontalcortex is going through
something.
Understanding why and havingstrategies that you can use is
(13:39):
hugely beneficial to just manageto kind of keep calm, even when
everything around you is chaos.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, that is so important.
They don't teach us that inpublic school at all.
They you know what they do?
They medicate you.
Yes.
unknown (13:52):
That's what they do.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes.
And it took me a while torealize I would always get
triggered with my son becausehe's so hyperactive and he's
always loud and he's alwayspounding his feet as he's
running from this room to thatroom.
And one day I realize I wouldhave these big reactions.
Stop doing it! And one day Irealized I'm like, oh my God,
it's because my father wasalways loud and pounding around
when I was a kid.
So I probably do go into thatfight or flight.
(14:15):
I just envision him as that,you know, drunk that's making a
lot of noise and slamming doorsand stuff.
So yeah, I don't, I in my mind,and that now I mean, I guess
I'm getting kind of used to itbecause he's seven, but I've
explained that to him before.
I'm like, listen, I don't knowhow to regulate my emotions, but
this is why I'm yelling at youfor it.
Speaker (14:33):
That's nothing to do with you.
And then and then we talk aboutwe talk about possible
solutions, like what can you do?
That's one of the reasons thehive is barefoot.
Yes, there's all the the healthbenefits of being barefoot, um,
and I think they're wellunderstood, but also it just
slows you down.
It just makes you move moregently through the world, it
keeps you connected andgrounded, and it gets rid of
(14:54):
that thumping noise thatchildren make when they're
running through somewhere withtheir shoes on.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, that is a great point.
So so you're you're are youstaying in the Dominican now for
the duration?
This is where your home andheart is?
Speaker (15:07):
I think so.
So I have a home here, but mydaughter's now 13, so she's
spent the last five or six yearshere with me, and so she's now
wanting to branch out a bit andto go to bigger cities and do
some other things.
So this is always gonna be myhome, and then we sort of
adventure out from here to tryand give her a broad experience
(15:29):
of different places anddifferent cultures too.
So we're enjoying that.
I'm ready to I'm ready toretire and stop, and she's just
kind of getting into this I wantto see the whole world, and she
still wants me to come withher, and that's not gonna last
for much longer, so we're doinglots of exploring too, which is
nice.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, how cool! So, do you have people that can
maintain the hive while you godo that?
Speaker (15:50):
So at the moment, I've just got my friend Beth.
She's come over from the UK.
We've been working together onand off for the last four or
five years.
So, yes, I can now hop away.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
So, people will pay you as if you're sort of a
private school there?
Speaker (16:05):
Yeah, but we we run in short bursts, so we do these
programs that run for six weeks,and so families all fly in from
different places on the planet.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
It's not just Dominican children, or is it
any?
Speaker (16:17):
Some, sometimes.
So in the summer we haveDominican children, but most of
the time in winter, they'reinternational students, and so
they come together from all overthe world, and we work on a
themed project together aroundone of the global goals, and we
look at a global challenge andhow that is felt in different
(16:38):
places in the world, and howit's felt here in Cabrera, and
then we look at we getinspiration from people who are
working on that problem, and wecome up with our own ideas and
we implement them somewhere inthe local community, so that
we're doing these little socialimpact projects that we leave a
legacy of something positive inthe local community, and the
skills that we learn throughdoing it, we then take back to
(17:01):
where we came from, and so wecan reintroduce those skills
again when we come acrossanother challenge in our local
community.
So that's kind of why it'scalled the hive.
We all come together, we workon something, and then we sort
of buzz away and can be busylittle bees somewhere else on
the planet.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
My goodness.
So is it mostly homeschooledstudents that come to you?
Speaker (17:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Oh, that is so cool.
And you've been doing it since2001, you said?
Or I'm sorry.
No, that's when you startedteaching.
Um, 2021?
2020.
We started in the summer of2020.
Wow, so five years now.
That's just amazing.
What is an example of one ofthe problems, world problems
that you've worked on?
Speaker (17:40):
So we, for example, clean water and sanitation is
one of them.
And so that means verydifferent things in different
places.
So maybe in in England or inNew York, you're looking at how
many chemicals are pumped intothe water that comes out of the
faucet that you drink, or inflint in in Michigan, right?
(18:00):
Like, what does that mean tohave clean water and sanitation?
And then here in DominicanRepublic, there's no water that
comes, there's no drinking waterthat comes through the faucet.
All the water comes directlyfrom the river.
So then we're looking at theproblem much further back.
Like, how do we keep our riversclean so that the water that
comes into our houses is clean?
How do we get clean drinkingwater?
(18:22):
Where does that come from?
How does that impact on all ofthe choices that we make?
Um, and then what can we doabout it?
So make things like rainwatercatchers to irrigate the garden.
We've made water filters tofilter the water that comes
through.
So we're and then we're lookingat what goes into the water
system.
So what shampoos do we use,what all of those different
(18:43):
things that they're allinterconnected.
And last year we met um theKogi tribe from Colombia, and
they're, I don't know if youknow about them, but they're a
pre-historic tribe thatdisappeared into the mountains
in Colombia when ChristopherColumbus came, and they stayed
there and they hid, and they'vebeen there the whole time, still
dressed in white, still livingin exactly the same way.
(19:06):
What are their names?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
The Kogi tribe, K-O-G.
Oh my gosh.
Right, because ChristopherColumbus actually never touched
like our soil up here, wasn'the?
Down in South America.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker (19:18):
And so they taught us how their understanding of the
world is is very different fromours and how everything is
interconnected.
And so when we're looking atwater cycles, we're looking at
it now, even on a on a in aspiritual way.
Like apparently, every cloudhas a place that it's supposed
to be, and every water drop hasa place that it's supposed to
be, and so and they're supposedto move, and so the rain knows
(19:42):
which cloud it came from, andit's when it turns into vapor,
it wants to get back to itsoriginal cloud.
It just has this beautiful wayof looking at the world.
So when you move rivers andwhen you pollute the water,
you're stopping that from beingable to happen, you're stopping
the earth from being able toheal itself.
So I've learned way more bydoing this than I ever did when
I was a standard teacher.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, I learned more homeschooling my seven-year-old
than I ever did in my owneducation with four years at the
university.
It's crazy.
Even just yesterday, we werereading a kid's book on the Erie
Canal, and I live right nearit.
I mean, you know, we grew upnext to it, grew up next to the
Hudson River.
He never taught us anythingabout that stuff.
And here I am reading thesekids' books to him, and I'm
(20:24):
like, oh my gosh, this startedAmerica.
This is amazing.
And and it's funny that todaywe were taking a walk at my near
my sister, well, uh, at mysister's house, and we walked
past a building that said 1760on the front, you know,
established in 1760.
And I go, Well, that's amazing.
That's before America evenbecame America.
Like, what happened?
What was going on that madethese people come to this
(20:46):
location and build this house?
How'd they get the bricks here?
And I'm like asking all thesequestions that the old me never
would have even thought to ask.
I mean, I I lived on that roadactually at one time, never gave
that house a second look.
And here I am now payingattention to the date and
wondering what happened andlooking at what they have across
the street from them, um, allthe headstones, and I'm like,
(21:07):
oh, can I sneak over there andsee the dates on those?
And it it really, once you'reout of that matrix, yeah, it's a
whole world opens up.
So I wonder, did anybody die ofCOVID in the Kogi tribe?
That's my next question.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker (21:22):
I wouldn't I would suspect not.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
No.
They're not vaccinating either.
None of them have autism.
Oh my goodness.
So this is so cool.
So, all right, you are where isyour next adventure with your
daughter?
Speaker (21:33):
So we're going back to Europe this summer.
She's gonna go into a Britishsecondary school for six weeks,
kind of to try it out so thatshe can compare and contrast
homeschool and this kind ofunschooling that we do at the
hive and traditional realschool, if you like.
So that's gonna be fun.
(21:53):
And then we're looking at maybedoing working up towards a
United World College orsomething like that.
So we'll see.
We'll see.
We'll see how the schoolexperiment goes.
At the moment, she has thisromantic notion of how wonderful
it's gonna be, and I don'tknow, maybe it will be, maybe it
won't, but we have to try itout to see.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
She was in school before 2020, though, right?
She would have been reallyyoung.
Speaker (22:15):
Yeah, she started and she started off really
enthusiastic, really bright, andvery quickly was coming home
and saying, Why do I have to sitwith my legs crossed in the
same way?
And why do I have to stop whenI'm really enjoying what I'm
doing?
And why do I have to why do Ihave to?
Why do I have to?
Why do I have to?
Again and again.
And I just looked at her and Iwent, You don't, you don't have
(22:37):
to.
I know that this isn't the bestway for you to learn.
I know it.
I've been learning about it anddoing it my whole life, and now
I'm watching the light go offinside you.
I'm like, enough, enough,enough.
That's it.
We have to get out.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
And so we did.
So amazing.
What has been like the mostimpactful experience that you've
had at the hive, like watchingchildren or maybe something a
child accomplished, or reallychanged, I don't know, what what
changed you, um, I guess.
Speaker (23:07):
So the bit I always enjoy, so I kind of designed
this whole model for learningthat follows the self-regulation
cycle of the child.
And so you kind of come in andthen you get ready for learning,
and then you go on thislearning journey, and then you
come to the end, and you stop,and you come out, and you
integrate what you've learnedand you move on.
And every time, every time weget get everybody going, and
(23:30):
they go round and round andround, and it gets to the point
where we're just coming to theend, and it's chaos, and I think
it's not gonna work.
This time it's not gonna work,and and then every time it does,
every time it comes together,and the children have this
incredible moment where theyrealize that they did something
that they genuinely didn'tbelieve that they could, and
even on the outside, I'm lookingat it and going, I'm not sure
(23:52):
if they can.
And then and then they getthere and it comes together, and
and you see them walking out ofthe experience, saying, I know
more about myself, I know moreabout other people, I know more
about the planet, I know moreabout my place in all of this, I
know that I can do hard things.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Have you taught your kids what to do in an emergency?
It's a conversation weshouldn't put off, and it's a
conversation we should haveoften.
That's why I wrote Let's TalkEmergencies, a book that covers
everything from dialing 911 on alocked cell phone to staying
safe online, water safety, firesafety, and more.
The most important lessons wecan teach our kids are not
reading, writing, and math.
(24:31):
They're how to keep themselvesand others safe.
In today's world ofuncertainty, give them the tools
they need.
Grab a copy today.
Check out the link in thisepisode's description.
Speaker (24:41):
And so we get feedback from the kids, things like, I've
never been listened to before,nobody ever cared what I thought
before.
And it breaks my heart to thinkthat that that's true.
I know that that's true becauseI used to be inside the system.
And so, um, so I think that'snever gets old.
Even after 24 years ofteaching, when you see kids
(25:02):
really light up and start toreally believe in themselves,
that's that's what keeps medoing it for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You know, and there is something to be said for like
growing the food, and then, youknow, they're picking it or
they're making whatever mealthey're going to have with what
they've helped grow.
There's a sort of whole cycleto that, and then an
accomplishment at the end, asatisfaction to it.
Same thing with let's find thisproblem, let's see what other,
(25:29):
what other impacts it has, andlet's figure out how we can fix
this and implement that intosociety and actually, you know,
that is a cyclical kind of thingwith a very fulfilling, you
know, some sort of fulfillmentat the end.
And there's just not any ofthat in school.
They make test scores be whatthey want to fulfill kids, and
(25:51):
it's just not going to happenbecause you're teaching kids
something.
First of all, you're separatingevery subject in school.
So you can't integrate, youknow, French with any sort of
history or philosophy orscience, you know, food.
You all of those are separate.
And so it doesn't mean anythingwhen I'm just learning French
(26:14):
to learn, here's a sentence inFrench, repeat it.
You know, it's like, why?
Like your daughter's saying,why do I have to do this?
But when it can all integrate,and then at the end, you
actually feel accomplishedbecause you had the struggle.
And then you even with pickingfood, it's like, I don't feel
like going over there, just youknow, hand me food.
Well, no, you do it and youwater the plants and you weed
(26:34):
them and plant them.
And um, there is just such asatisfaction to where I I have
thought this for a while thatdepression would not be what it
is today if kids actually feltfulfilled in in any sort of way.
Speaker (26:47):
Yeah, but getting your hands into the earth and growing
something is an incredibly sortof grounding, empowering.
It's really good for yourmental health, it's good for
your body.
And we do things like nearlyevery child that comes plants a
pineapple because you just plantthe top of the pine, you know,
the spiky bit that you pull off?
That's you plant that, but ittakes three years for one
(27:08):
pineapple to come out of eachplant.
So the pineapples that theypick were planted by children
three years ago, and so everytime there's like new a new crop
of pineapples coming, and thenthey grow, then they plant them
again.
So there's this real sense ofleaving something behind for
people that are gonna come afteryou, and so doing something
(27:29):
that isn't just about you,that's bigger than you, and
that's lovely as well.
And so we've had families thathave come back after a couple of
years, they go, I don't knowwhich one is my pineapple, but
they're all they're all in theretogether.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I mean, that's brilliant.
How did you come up with thisconcept for all of it?
I mean, this is reallybrilliant.
Speaker (27:46):
It all came together.
So when I left teaching inEngland, we had it was just a
moment in time in the UK around2015.
A lot of the Middle East was atwar, and we had a huge number
of people coming in through asrefugees, and they would get to
the top of France and they wereaiming for the UK, but they
(28:06):
couldn't get to the UK becausethey couldn't get across.
And so it just built up withthis huge unofficial refugee
camp, and it wasn't recognizedby the United Nations, there was
no Oxfam, there were no therewas nobody there helping.
And so I was I kind of had timeon my hands.
I was supposed to be setting upmy education consultancy, but I
spoke French and I was a mumand I was available and I could
(28:31):
go.
And I thought that at that timemy son was 17, maybe that kind
of age.
And I thought that if if I hadhad to send my son out into the
world, if I thought that was theonly way that I could save his
life, and he'd walked for miles,who would I want to receive
him?
And it wouldn't be like theracist people waving flags and
(28:51):
saying, Go back.
I would I would want somebodylike me to give him a hug and
give him a hot meal and help himfigure out how he was going to
start his life.
So I went there to work in therefugee camp, and it was at that
point that I realized that weneeded a more human-centered
approach to everything.
That that underneatheverybody's experience were
(29:13):
their nervous systems and theirfeelings.
And so that's how I developedthis model and this framework
that we use, and and that becamethe central piece from which
everything else grew over theyears.
And then now I've ended up witha whole unschool that that
teaches teaches that from theinside out.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Ah, that's just amazing.
You should write this businessmodel down and sell the business
model to people so they canreplicate this.
I mean, we need these types ofschools all over.
We do have stuff, you know,like like my son tomorrow is
going to a wilderness class thathe does for six or eight weeks
every fall and every spring, youknow, where they're outside.
But I mean, this just sounds socool.
(29:52):
I really feel like that wouldbe a gold mine.
I and I see these littleschools popping up everywhere in
the States at least.
People are definitelyrealizing.
That, yeah, sitting for sevenhours a day, especially as a
child, is not the way to do it.
Are the schools in the UK verysimilar to the ones in the
States?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker (30:10):
Yeah.
And we we learn from what youdo in America.
So you had charter schools,then we had something similar.
So yeah, they're very similar.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Interesting.
Well, I love this idea.
I'm going to attach the link toyour school in the show's
description and you know, sharesome of this on the social media
so that people can check youout and whether they can come
visit you and be a part of yourschool or, you know, just kind
of start this sort of stuff ontheir own.
I mean, this is just so great.
Like what I mean, I can't waittill the future when you hear
(30:41):
what these kids are actuallydoing.
I mean, have you heard talk tosome of your original students
that you've had and what they'redoing today and how this
impacted them?
Speaker (30:49):
So funnily enough, I I started a model that was similar
to this but inside mainstreamschool.
So it was it was about as um ascreative as I was allowed to
get within the paradigm of amainstream school.
And those students now are like24, something like that.
Um, and a colleague of minebumped into some of them at an
(31:09):
event in the town where I usedto live.
And they were the like thefirst ever cohort of what we
called learning to learn, ourlearning to learn students,
where we focused on how tolearn, not what to learn.
And they're all doing reallyinteresting things, they've been
really successful.
And when they took their examresults, all their exam results
went up.
Not that that was the point ofit, it was a happy byproduct of
(31:33):
this model that we designed.
And so that that was reallylovely to see them as fully
grown adults in the world and toknow that they remembered it
fondly, they remembered thelessons, they remembered the
model, they remembered us, andthey felt that it had supported
them to feel more confident inthemselves and braver to try new
things, and all the things thatwe wanted it to do.
So it's been it's been a laborof love.
(31:55):
It's been a kind of a 20-yearjourney to get to here, and I
suppose to get to the point inlife where I feel brave enough
to talk about what I'm doing andto say, you know, I guess
there's more sand in the bottomof my sand timer than there is
in the top.
And so I don't have time tolike playing small and just
doing it quietly in my corner.
(32:16):
I feel like I need to startshouting about it a bit more.
So thank you for having me onso I can.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I hope you continue shouting about it and people
start realizing.
I think they're waking up, butto hear this sort of business
model is just amazing.
Congratulations to all thatyou've accomplished and all that
thank you for all that you'redoing in the world.
Not even just with thestudents, but giving them an
idea of how can we make theworld better.
Imagine if every studentgraduated with that in mind.
How can we we can all agreethat the water is not clean,
(32:44):
that's not a political thing.
Yeah, there are so manychemicals, so many things being
dumped in there.
Um, yeah, and we all drink it.
So, and our kids, it's allgonna be legacies for our kids.
So, yeah, we it is definitelysomething that you need to fix.
That's brilliant.
Kate, thank you so much forbeing on today.
Um, I will put the link to yourwebsite and your Instagram in
the show's description andanything else that you would
(33:05):
like me to include.
So I hope you all go check thatout.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much for havingme.
It was lovely talking to you.
Thank you for tuning in to thisweek's episode of the
Homeschool How-To.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
(33:26):
Or if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com