October 26, 2025 • 52 mins
Welcome to our deschooling episode! I'm joined by Helen Royston to talk about:
- why it's important to deschool
- what it looks like
- how long it lasts (spoiler: longer than you think!)
- how to do it
- what to avoid
Did you go through a deschooling process? How did you find it? Let us know in the comments ...
Links referenced in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Home EducationMatters, the weekly podcast supporting
you on your home education journey.
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of Home Education Matters.
(00:21):
And today is a reallyfundamental concept in home ed that
I cannot quite believe that Ihaven't done a podcast on before,
because this key concept inhome education is designed to help
with those early days whenyou've taken your child out of school,
you've thrown thederegistration letter at the receptionist,
or, I don't know, maybe doneit nicer than that.
(00:42):
And you go home and you areexuberant and enthusiastic, or maybe
you're trepidatious andanxious, whatever the general vibe
of the house is.
And then you.
You start home educating.
The days turn into the weeks,turn into the months, and it's just
not quite working, and youdon't know what's going wrong.
And maybe you feel like you'rereplicating school, maybe you're
getting pushback, Maybethere's no inherent love of learning.
(01:05):
And this happens a lot, and Ihear this a lot from people who take
their child out of school.
And today's podcast is allabout trying to give you a kind of
route out of those early painsof home education, because the core
concept is deschooling.
Yes, it is our deschooling podcast.
And.
And I have tried to do thispodcast on a number of occasions
(01:27):
in the past, and I've lined uppeople to come on, and it hasn't
worked, or the people dropout, or I haven't been able to do
it.
And something has always gotin the way of my desk on podcast.
And so I'm really, reallychuffed to be doing this podcast
today because it feels likeit's been.
It's.
It feels like it's been like.
It's like I've been a chickenon an egg, like, hatching this podcast
(01:48):
for a long time.
So I am joined today by HelenRoyston, who you may well remember.
You will recognize her voice,I'm sure, from one of our earliest,
in fact, the earliest podcast.
It was the second podcast.
It was actually the very firstone that I recorded, and it was all
about home education.
It was like, this is your,like, nuts and bolts, early days
home education.
(02:09):
And so I thought I'd bringHelen back on today to talk about
deschooling.
Helen, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast Again.
Do let any listeners know whomaybe haven't listened to that first
podcast, and I would recommendyou do, because it is one of my favorites,
but do let our listeners knowa little bit about your home education
journey because you are a,what I like to call a doyen of home
education.
(02:30):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for having me backas well.
It's really nice to be here.
So, yes, about me.
I started home educating,gosh, way back in 1992, I think I've
got three children and big age ranges.
So it started when my son, myeldest came out, took him out of
(02:53):
school when he was seven,going on eight and he was home educated
until he was 16 and then myyounger two were home educated all
the way through from, from thebeginning until one went to college
at 16 and the other was 17when they went to college.
(03:13):
So all in all, it was 30 yearsof a span of home educating.
That's a lot of home educating.
It is a lot of home educating.
But I think by the time theyounger two came around, it was definitely
much more of a way.
It becomes a way of life, Ithink, really.
(03:33):
So I think it flowed a lotbetter with the younger ones.
And my old one had alreadyfinished home educating and gone
on to college.
And so it was fewer worries,if you like.
Different worries, differentconcerns, different challenges.
(03:55):
Not least because I educatedone child and then I had two children
to home educate and thatjuggle was different.
That was definitely one of themain challenges there.
It is really different, Ithink home educating one versus home
educating two plus because Iknow that my two are very close in
age.
And so it's always been thetwo of them home educating.
(04:17):
And it's a different kind of vibe.
It's quite nice.
It's not always a bad thing,but it is a different thing.
But anyway, so talk to us thenabout the concept of deschooling
because I tell you one thing,when I first started homeschooling,
home education, early on Iwould hear the term unschooling and
deschooling and get really confused.
So talk to us about whatdeschooling is and how it's different
(04:40):
to unschooling.
So deschooling is kind of likethe process of rethinking education.
And for children who have beenin school, some of that will be recovery,
especially if they've had areally tough time, if they've got
(05:00):
any school trauma, they needthat process of.
They might need that processof deschooling to help them rediscover
a love of learning and to getover any trauma they've experienced.
It might be a period of timewhere they need to, you know, concentrate
on mental health and wellbeing and it's the time when you
(05:23):
reestablish yourselves, you'realready established as a family,
obviously.
But when you've got somebodywho's out of the house six hours
a day and then suddenlythey're at home all day, the dynamic
changes and you've got to re.
Establish that dynamic in adifferent way, really.
(05:44):
So it's a kind of a period of adjustment.
And it's not just childrenthat need to deschool.
I think parents need to deschool just as much, if not more
so than children.
And I think it's an ongoing journey.
I wouldn't say that I am fully.
Deschooled even yet after 30 years.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
(06:04):
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, so that's.
That's really interestingbecause one question I have for you
then is because obviouslyyou've been home educating for 30
years, your child was inschool for how long before you home
educated?
The first three.
Three years.
Three years.
So ten times the amount oftime you've been home educating,
(06:24):
but you still feel you need to deschool.
Do you think that then there'ssomething inherent in us, or does
your child have to be in aschool experience to deschool?
Because do you have todeschool regardless of whether your
child's been in school, iswhat I'm asking?
Yes, I think so.
Because obviously I spent alot of years in school.
I was in School for 12 years,so I need to do school too, you know,
(06:48):
so.
But then when my son was inschool, I'm still in that school
mindset because that is what Iassumed was the norm and the only
choice at the time when hestarted school.
So, you know, and back in the90s, it was pretty much the norm.
There were very few womeneducators about.
So what I hear you saying isthere are maybe four key elements
(07:11):
to deschooling.
You've got releasing anytrauma or processing through any
trauma that the child ordifficult experiences that the child
may have experienced at school.
You've got the fact that youand your child will have been kind
of inculcated into an idea ofa school experience, learning, education
(07:31):
being a certain way.
You've also got linked tothat, but slightly separate, is the
idea of deschooling learning.
So understanding that thereare different approaches, maybe relearning
yourself what learning is.
And then alongside that, youmentioned this idea of dynamic change.
So going from sending yourchild off to school for eight hours
(07:52):
to having your child with you,you know, like all the time.
Realistically, are there anyother elements of deschooling that
you think are Key or have Ihit them all there?
I think that's that.
That's it so far.
If anything else comes up,I'll let you know.
Yeah, you do that.
So let's take.
Let's take the.
Probably the.
Let's take the trauma side first.
(08:13):
You know, the.
The shedding of the.
Of difficult experiences,because this is not the same for
everybody.
There will be people whosechildren went into school that didn't
have difficult experiences,but they may be it just wasn't working,
or maybe situationally theywanted to take their child out, or
maybe the child was fine, butthe parent didn't really like what
was happening.
(08:33):
But there will definitely bepeople whose children have had negative
experiences either with ateacher, with the experience, with
the sensory experience, withthe learning itself.
They got special educationalneeds, neurodiversities.
Maybe there was issues withthe dynamic with other children,
with these children who haveexperienced what I would perceive
(08:56):
as a trauma.
But I know a lot of peoplestruggle with that word because they
think it, you know, onlyapplies to people in war zones or
whatever.
But people whose children havehad to process a lot emotionally.
What do you think is the keypart of deschooling there for them?
I think it's focusing on thehome, focusing on making home comfortable
(09:21):
and safe and probably avoidinglanguage that sounds like school.
So I would.
That's where home education isa more useful term than homeschooling,
because obviously the wordschool could have really negative
connotations.
(09:44):
I would really focus onbuilding that connection, spending
time together.
I always think hot chocolates,read alouds, films, walks out.
Avoid words like lessons,maybe avoid even, you know, avoid
things like workbooks andworksheets, anything that is associated
(10:07):
with school.
Yeah, I think that actuallythat is probably advice that we're
going to come back to withsome of our other topics, because
I think that is really key.
I think what you were sayingthere about safety as well, I know
that from my work with peoplewho have experienced different traumas,
your sense of safety is eroded.
(10:28):
Now, if you experience traumaas a child in a place that is purportedly
in loco parentis, it's meantto be a safe place.
And if you have experiencedfeelings of unsafe, you're not being
held or not being heard or not being.
Not being attended to, notbeing cared for.
If you've experienced that,everything can feel quite fundamentally
unsafe.
So what you're saying is bringyour focus back to the place of safety,
(10:52):
which is the home and theparental bond and the family bond,
right?
Yes, essentially.
That's it.
Yes.
So much.
You put it so much more succinctly.
But also what you're sayingthere about triggers was really key.
So when I think aboutdeschooling, it is a lot about avoiding
triggers, avoiding, like yousay, anything that's too schooly.
(11:13):
So deschooling, like movingaway, like D is the prefix that is
the opposite.
Right.
You're wanting to do theopposite of what school is, just
for that deschooling period.
Now, I will say for anyonelistening, this doesn't mean you
have to spend the whole ofyour home education journey of avoiding
workbooks, avoiding lessons.
You can have a very structuredhome ed journey.
(11:34):
But we're talking about aninitial period of re regulation,
aren't we?
Absolutely.
And it's not a period in whichno learning happens.
It's not a period in which yousit there and do nothing with your
children.
It's very much.
You read it together, youknow, and it's that establishing
(11:55):
new routines and new ways ofliving together.
So, you know, you don't haveto throw everything out of the window.
You know, you can still have.
We're going to have breakfastat this time, we're going to have
meals together, we're going to.
We're still going to go toshops once a week or visit grandparents
on this day.
You know, the things that younormally do as a family, you can
(12:17):
still do, you still do that.
And for parents, at the sametime as all this is going on and
you're reconnecting and reestablishing those relationships,
I think what can be a reallyuseful thing is it's learning to
recognise the learning that isgoing on and learning that learning
(12:40):
doesn't have to be just academics.
One of the main things withschool, obviously, is the academic
process, progress thatchildren make.
But learning about academicsisn't the whole of the learning picture.
You sit and you teach somebodyhow to knit, then it's.
That's still a skill that'sworth learning, you know, or they
(13:02):
might spend time gardening.
Gardening's great for yourmental health.
Reconnecting with nature,reconnecting with the soil, with
the plants and that, thatsense of purpose that you get from
growing things, especially ifit's food, you know, that's all valuable
learning.
And I think as parents, it's.
(13:23):
If they have just come out ofthe school system and you've not
ever thought about homeeducation and you just think, they're
going to go to school, they'regoing to come out with GCSEs or not,
but they're going to go fromthere onto college and then into
work.
And it's kind of like we havethis idea of not exactly a conveyor
belt, but, you know, there aretests at certain ages through there
(13:46):
to say how far they've gotwith the academics.
And that's the emphasis therewith schools is on academics.
And I think part of thatdeschooling process is recognising
that it's not all aboutacademics and that there are other
skills and other things we canlearn in life.
Might not get us an exam,might not get us a job at the end
(14:08):
of it, but we want to learnthem for that, just for the beauty
of learning.
I think what you say is reallykey because there's part of us that
even when we have only everhome educated, you know, even if
we've never put our child inschool, there's part of us at different
parts of the home educationjourney that gets hooked into this
(14:29):
idea of needing to quantifythe kind of learning experience.
And I know that I mentionedthis in another podcast that I was
pretty good at recognizingthat learning happened everywhere.
I'd not put my children into school.
I didn't feel I needed to deschool.
When the GCSE journey started,I got myself quite hooked into, okay,
(14:51):
well, if it's not a GCSEsubject, it doesn't count.
Like, it's all very well and good.
This is very lovely.
You want to go and like, lookat some hawthorne bushes.
That's beautiful.
That doesn't count.
It doesn't count anymorebecause there's no GCSE at the end
of it.
And I know that I had to kindof almost step out of myself after
about six months of this andbe like, what's happening here?
Like, this is actuallyinteresting that I'm now I've got
(15:13):
very much into a school whereway of thinking just because my children
hit a certain age.
And I started thinking becausea lot of home educators you speak
to, they do say, oh, well, forsecondary, I'm probably going to
put them back in because it'salmost like when it gets to exam
time, we very much slip backinto this school way of thinking.
So we kind of have to deschoolsporadically through our journey
(15:33):
as well.
Right, exactly.
That's what I mean when I saythat I don't think I've ever fully
deschooled because I recognizethat, you know, I know that when
it became to exam times, it was.
I did feel that shift.
I did suddenly start thinking,wanting to compare them or not wanting
to, but finding That I wascomparing what they were doing with
(15:57):
what children in school were doing.
And that was something thatI'd kind of learned not to do along
the way because a home edjourney is not comparable to a school
journey.
But suddenly you're hittingthis point where they have to get,
you know, they want to getthese qualifications and they need
them to go on to the next step.
(16:19):
And it all became a little bit.
A little bit daunting and.
Yeah, and the pressure.
There was a new pressure therethat I felt as a parent and I was
really.
That I did struggle with and Ididn't want to put it on them, do
(16:40):
you know, which was tricky.
It was a bit of a balancing act.
And that was still part.
I could really recognize thatas part of the schooling process
that was still ongoing within myself.
Yeah, and you were sayingthere about.
We were talking about howlearning happens in lots of different
ways.
You know, it's not justworkbooks, it's not just lessons
(17:00):
in inverted commas.
It's, as you were saying, it'sgardening and, you know, going.
Going for nature walks andthings like that.
I think that's a very key partof deschooling.
But what you're also talkingabout is this idea that as parents,
we have things like comparingto the school experience, like thinking,
what, what should they.
(17:21):
A lot of shoulds.
Like, what should they belearning now?
Like, what.
Where should they be in their maths?
What should they.
What level should theirspelling be at?
Do you think that part ofdeschooling is letting go of that?
Or do you think there's alwaysa part of that that we have?
I don't know.
I think part of deschooling isabsolutely letting go of that.
I think it's, you know, wealways said there is no behind in
(17:46):
home education because a childcan't be behind themselves.
And that is very true.
A child is where they are, butthere is the temptation is to start
thinking, oh, next door.
But one, you know, they're thesame age and they'd be in the same
year at school and they'redoing all this stuff that my child's
(18:06):
not done.
And that is where we need todo school as well.
How do you go about that process?
I mean, that's quite.
It's.
I feel like we're sort ofsitting here and people must be listening,
thinking, yeah, but how, like,how do I stop myself doing this?
Yes.
I found that part of the wholejourney of home education, when I
talk about that dynamic andthat change that goes on when they're
(18:27):
suddenly at home, it's notjust learning about being with your
child, it's also yourself too,you know, because you're with them
all the time.
And as you're watching andobserving how they're learning and
changing, the best way to dothat, I think, is you have to observe
(18:47):
and watch yourself as you'rechanging as well.
And it's not easy.
You know, it's not easy.
And I can't say I've alwaysbeen brilliant, but over 30 years,
I have had a lot ofopportunity to.
To.
To do that.
Really, what you're describingthere is this idea almost that we
(19:08):
have our own demons as parentsthat we end up having to confront
as home educators because wedon't really have anywhere to hide
from them.
So these demons of comparisonand guilt, shame, all of these things
that as parents are kind ofbuilt into their process, which they
don't tell you about.
And that's.
They kind of come under a bitof a spotlight, don't they, when
you home educate?
Because you're that singlepoint of failure where everything
(19:30):
goes through you, parentingand schooling, and so you.
The person responsible for allof it.
So what you're recommendingthere, I think, was to.
To listen and to catchyourself when these.
When this kind of little innervoice springs in.
I mean, I know that with a lotof my clients, I quite like to personalize
(19:50):
that inner voice, you know,try to.
Try to notice who it is.
Quite often it's somebody inour past.
Like, I hate to say this, butquite often it's our mothers, but
not always.
It can be other relatives, butsometimes it's somebody else's voice
we hear.
Sometimes it's our own voice.
And I think it can to kind ofgo, oh, here we are.
It's like, you know, like anegative ninny again, or it's woe
(20:11):
is me again, or whatever.
And you kind of almost make ita slightly humorous thing, but just
by noticing that you're sayingthose things, like, oh, look, it's
the should, the shoulds again.
I think noticing andidentifying it is really important,
like you say, because it.
It sort of alerts your brainthat I actually don't want this,
you know, this voice, thisthing I'm hearing.
(20:31):
I don't want this.
Absolutely, absolutely.
You know, and it's.
It is just about paying attention.
You've got to pay attention toyourself as well as to them.
But, yeah, I think that's agood way of describing it, really.
Demons and voices and things.
I think one of the otherthings that I found really helpful
to combat some of the innerdoubt was to reach out within home
(20:53):
ed communities.
Home ed on Homer communitiesare invariably online, but you will
have local groups that you canmeet up with and, and even some of
the groups, if you go on andsay, oh, I'm really like feeling
a lot of doubt about whethermy son should be able to do long
multiplication by this agethere will be a million people that
will come on and be like, nah,you don't need to worry about that.
(21:14):
Like you say, every child isunique, every journey is unique.
You know, you meet one homeeducator, you've met one home educator
and that's what it's like.
Right?
So I guess as well reachingout, listening to yourself, like
doing the internal work, butalso allowing yourself to connect
externally as well.
That's true, that's true.
There's so much moreopportunities for that these days
(21:35):
as well, you know, with theInternet and things like that.
And it is very important, I think.
And as, and while Facebookgroups and Internet groups are brilliant,
I would recommend if there isa local group to try and meet people
in person because that face toface interaction is so different
from a typed one where youhaven't got the nuances of speaking
(21:59):
to each other and our bodylanguage and the rest of it, you
know, and as well, it's greatto be able to have some in person
relationships and build actualreal life friendships with people
and their children.
Yeah, it helps.
It's supportive.
It's very supportive as well.
So so far we've got ideas forD for deschooling would be to make
(22:22):
sure that your home is a safeplace, that you're focusing on the
connection and the family bonds.
And then we've also got thekind of concept of working on yourself
and what, what of the school experience?
What of your school experience?
You might be bringing incomparisons, senses of guild expectations
that you're putting into the situation.
(22:43):
We also talked briefly aboutthis, this very key deschooling idea
of learning being all sorts ofdifferent things, you know, and that
it isn't just workbooks andcertainly in those early days they
may actually be triggers.
So what would some kind ofpractical advice be for people who
want to do school, but theydon't really know how to remove the
(23:04):
school experience and theyalso don't know how to make that
mindset shift about this is learning.
Even if we're watching a DavidAttenborough documentary, which for
God's sake, they do.
In school, let's face it,school does A lot of things.
And a lot of those things wedo in real life.
One of the misconceptions Ialways find with little kids is this
idea.
(23:25):
And a lot of people who don'tknow about education is this idea
that they.
They give to small childrenwho are about to start school.
You have to go to school to learn.
You're going to school so thatyou can learn things.
You know, school's gonna begreat, you're gonna learn all this
stuff.
And as people are saying thatto small children, that message also
(23:45):
goes into the adult brain as well.
And I think it's.
It's untangling that, it'sunraveling that and recognizing,
you know, they do gardens.
You know, the schools haveschool gardens where they grow things.
You know, they're obviouslylearning about things in school.
So when you do that at home,you might not think of it as a.
(24:06):
An activity where they'relearning about anything, because
it's just what you do as a family.
First of all, for me, it was acase of saying, they do that in school,
therefore I can do it at home.
They do gardens in school.
Gardening counts.
They go on museum trips at school.
Going to museums counts.
They go to the theatre at school.
Going to theatre counts.
(24:28):
So flipping it round.
So almost flipping it round.
Yeah.
Yes.
So you're using school tovalidate you almost in that way.
Yeah, kind of.
It was that because I didn'tknow I'd started out with very few
ideas about what homeeducation could look like.
(24:49):
It was early 1990s.
There wasn't an Internet community.
There were very few homeeducators about.
We got a newsletter once amonth from Education.
Otherwise that I signed up for.
Other than that, I read books,you know, I read books.
I did a book about eschooling.
I read books.
(25:09):
Montessori, I read Steiner.
I read different educationalphilosophies because I would need
to know where I was coming from.
Because I wasn't happy withthe current school system.
I didn't want to throw thebaby out with the bathwater.
You know, obviously you stillneed to learn things.
I wasn't about to let him justsit there and do note all day.
(25:32):
And I had my own ideas ofthings that I thought were important.
Mainly evolved around literature.
We read a lot.
We all love with film,history, nature, all that kind of
thing, all these.
And he had obviously his owninterests as well, so it was trying
to develop in that.
(25:52):
But we always did mathsbecause I always thought maths was
important.
And he hadn't experienced anyschool Trauma.
So I didn't have to do that.
Oh, no, nothing were mentioned.
No mention of school, youknow, no mention of anything.
But there were certainlanguages, certain language that
I did avoid.
So we never had lessons, wedid activities.
(26:14):
You know, I think the mainthing is conversation.
That would be my main key isto talk, to have conversations with
your child.
Proper conversation, you know,natural conversations.
It doesn't all have.
Don't be in the kit.
It's not a quiz.
It's not finding out how muchthey know.
It's just have thatconversation and see what comes out
(26:36):
of that.
Take time out to go and dothose, you know, the.
The school trip kind ofthings, Day at the seaside, day at
the little children's farm or whatever.
You know, it depends on theages of your children, obviously.
You know, if you've got littlechildren, then, you know, bake.
Bake.
I know baking is the one thingthat everybody always says, do lots
(26:58):
of baking.
It covers maths, it covers everything.
But it's not about thesubjects that it covers.
It's about doing those thingsthat you can connect through as you're
baking.
You can have conversations,things that.
That are relaxing.
It's interesting you say that,because one thing I found that helped
(27:18):
me was to note down in a journal.
I had, like a planner that Iused, and I would kind of note down
the things that we had donethat day.
And it helped me to get asense of all of the different things.
I was like, oh, wow, they'veactually done a lot today, even though
we haven't, like, sat down atthe dining table with books.
(27:40):
But do you feel that maybethat limits it too much if you do
it that way, rather than justsort of doing it for the experience?
Not at all.
I think that's a really,really good piece of advice.
I had something similar myself.
So with my younger ones, wedid have kind of like a little set
routine that worked for themthat they loved.
(28:00):
And so some of that wouldinvolve me planning in advance what
we were going to do the nextday, the next week, the next month
or whatever.
With my old one, it was muchmore sort of autonomous.
So there were some plans made,obviously, you know, but mostly it
was I was it.
Because it was only him.
I was able to be moreresponsive to his interests and just
(28:26):
be able to do that really, asmuch as possible.
So it would be that thing ofnot really knowing what you were
going to do, but afterwardsbeing able to sit down and say, this
is what we've done.
You can see the learningthat's going on there.
And I thought that was a veryimportant part of the deschooling
(28:47):
process because it does helpyou to see what they have learned,
what you've talked about, whatthey're interested in.
You can even see the thingsthat they're not interested in.
Make a note of that.
They really didn't like that.
They don't want to do any moreof that.
Okay.
So that goes out the window.
That's a really good way ofseeing what learning is happening,
(29:08):
especially when you need to besaying, I've been home educating
since day one and all yourlearning is happening through conversation
and engaging.
As you say, with their interests.
I know that there'll be peoplelistening who's.
Maybe they've taken theirchild out and their child is really
in a position of feeling verydemoralized with learning from because
of the school experience.
And they may be sitting,listening, thinking, like, my child
(29:31):
isn't doing anything.
Like, if I was to write thisdown in a planner, it would be Minecraft.
I would write every day.
Or it'd be Call of Duty, or itwould be sitting.
Sitting under the, under the duvet.
Right.
And it is difficult when you,when there's a period where you really
feel like your child is justnot really learning anything.
There are always some things,like there will always be some things
(29:52):
going on.
So engaging with thatinterest, like you say, having conversations.
I mean, almost all of ourreally kind of diamond learning was
took part as part of a conversation.
That's the things that theyremember and that's the things that
I remember.
But also, I think it's okayfor there to be a period of time
where learning is minimal.
(30:13):
If your child is reallystruggling and they're in bed a lot,
or they're just on their phonea lot, or they're not really engaging.
That is part of this.
To go back to the trauma idea,that is part of the healing response,
is to take some time and thereisn't a big rush to throw yourself
into must do this, must do that.
Oh, no.
(30:33):
It's been two months and we'venot done any proper learning.
Because I will say that thisis my new favorite anecdote and I'm
intending to throw this into alot of my podcasts so people will
already have heard this one.
But my child, my daughtertried school for the first time a
few weeks ago, and she camehome, she's finished already.
That didn't last long.
(30:54):
She came home from school andI said, of course, because I want
to know everything that she'sdoing because I find it fascinating.
It's like sleeping with the enemy.
I'm like, whoa, this is so interesting.
What were you doing at school?
And she had computer science.
And I said, oh, you know, howis computer science?
And she said, oh yeah, welearned to send an email.
And she's 17.
And I looked at her and Isaid, well, it's lucky that all those
(31:16):
years home educating, wedidn't miss too much at school.
Right.
Because you can get yourselfin this idea that school, they're
missing out or, oh, they'dhave done this and that in school.
But chances are school is avery slow process of learning, like,
and then they go through itagain and again and again, year on
year in.
So realistically, your childis not missing out, you're not holding
(31:37):
them back.
They're not going to never gettheir GCSEs because they've spent
a couple of months under theirduvet playing Call of Duty.
That's not going to happen.
And when it comes to reportsand la, there's always something,
like, there's always somelearning taking place, like you say.
So I suppose one bit of adviceI would give for deregging and deschooling
is just to relax a little bitand not get too caught up in what
(32:00):
you should and shouldn't bedoing and what they should and shouldn't
be learning.
Absolutely.
I mean, the Minecraft thing, Iremember when my youngest started
playing Minecraft and I was,I'm not a video gamer, I'm not.
I'm the wrong age group forthat, really.
You know, Tetris was about mylimit and it's kind of.
And he was playing Minecraftand because he was, he would always
(32:23):
mainly be online playing withhis friends and there were always
people he actually knew inreal life.
I was, was very strict aboutthat and I was just like, well, what's
he doing?
You know, everybody keepssaying it's maths, it's all these
blocks and all these things,they move around and then suddenly
one day turns around and hestarts telling me about.
It was obsidian and he wanteda piece of obsidian and he was telling
(32:44):
me all about the properties ofobsidian and all the things that
he'd learned from playing Minecraft.
I thought, well, all right, then.
It'S true.
I mean, it's.
I remember when my daughterstarted doing Classical Civilization.
So she was.
It was GCSE she took and shestarted one of Jake from Humanity
is Learning, started one ofhis courses and we all sat there
(33:07):
together because for the firstfew Lessons.
I always like to sit therewith them.
And every child apart from herhad read the Percy Jackson books.
Every single one.
And I remember afterwards Ilooked at her and I was like, they've
all just come to this from,like, some sort of, like, mythical
book series.
And then I thought, actually,that is really cool.
Like, that is really nice thatall these children are now doing
(33:28):
Classical Civilizationsbecause of reading pretty trashy
books, you know?
And I really.
If Percy Jackson's listening,no way.
He didn't write it.
Rick Reardon.
I don't know.
I apologize.
They're not trashy, but youknow what I mean.
They're light, you know,you're not talking.
She wasn't reading Homer.
It was something quite light.
And they've all come toClassical civilization through that.
(33:48):
And this is the thing is thereare all these different routes.
Now, I'm not going to sit hereand say, because I'm a little bit
like you.
I'm not.
We ought to do a podcast,actually, about gaming, because I
have quite strong opinionsabout gaming as well.
And I would struggle if mychild was doing a lot of Call of
Duty or, like, I don't know,any of those kind of, like, slightly
aggressive games, but I'm guessing.
(34:10):
I don't know.
I've never played.
But my guess is that eventhose kind of games will have some
sort of learning in there.
Even if it's collaborationwith people on mics or whatever it
is, there's something.
There's something going on.
And at the very least, if yourchild is hiding under a duvet for
two months, they are doingsome internal work where they're
(34:31):
processing through something,and that's an opportunity to engage
with them with it, if you can.
So there's always something,isn't there?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Definitely.
You know, they're learningabout themselves at the same time.
Yeah, I would struggle personally.
And I'm not saying this, thatit's wrong in any way.
It's just a reflection, like Isay, on my own thoughts on video
(34:52):
games and the fact that I'mnot a video gamer.
And I don't see the.
I. I don't see.
For me, if I spent my timeplaying video games, I would feel
like I was wasting my time.
But that's different, youknow, it's.
It doesn't mean to say he's awaste of time.
(35:12):
And also, what we're talkingabout here, and I think this is something
we haven't talked about thatI'd like to, is that it's for a period
of Time, isn't it?
Now, I know you said thatdeschooling goes on forever and elements
of it definitely do, but thatdoesn't mean that you have to have
this approach where you'revery focused on learning.
Happens everywhere.
Let your child heal.
(35:34):
Recognize that you have to dowork yourself about shoulds and shouldn'ts
and expectations.
You're really talking ashortish period right at the very
start where you have to dothis intense work.
It's.
I say intense, but you knowwhat I mean, Focused work.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it.
Because it is that period ofadjustment, you know, I don't even
see it as doing well.
(35:55):
I don't think there's a timelimit to it.
That's what I'm trying to say.
There isn't a time limit to it.
For some people, it might be avery short period of time.
They might find that theirchild is suddenly ahead of the game,
especially if they're youngerand they've not had such a tough
time in school.
Their kid could come down oneday and say, okay, I want to do some
(36:17):
maths today.
I want to read this book, Iwant to learn how to do this.
I missed this about school.
You can respond to that andthat can be your way in.
Is that how you would knowthat the deschooling, that sort of,
very first bit of thedeschooling process is maybe over?
When your child spontaneouslyand proactively engages with their
(36:39):
learning, would you say thatthat's what you're looking for?
Possibly.
You know, I don't know.
It could just be.
See, it's, it's.
It is a tricky one for me toanswer because we just, we just kind
of cracked on, you know, andwe didn't do.
I didn't do any kind of like,apart from.
(37:00):
I really want you to keep upwith some maths and we're going to
do some maths now and againand, and reading.
I always read aloud to my kids.
Always, always, always rightup until they were about 16.
So we.
There were parts of what Iwould consider to be a deschooling
process were actually part ofour everyday life anyway.
And I was always very proactive.
(37:22):
Even before my eldest went to school.
I was quite, as most parentsare, you know, quite proactive in,
you know, things like learningcolours, learning letter shapes,
learning number shapes, youknow, all these different skills
that we do with our childrenthrough play.
So we play sit down, you know,with a little.
With a toddler, you sit downwith a shape sorter box to show them
(37:46):
how to do it and eventuallythey'll do it by themselves.
It's that kind of attitudethat carried me forward through home
educating.
I think that what you'redescribing is that there's an initial
period where you're learningthe concepts of what home education
and what learning is andyou're unlearning the concepts that
(38:08):
you brought in from school.
That process never ends.
Maybe that initial period iswhen you're unlearning and relearning
and then it kind of almostbecomes a way of life.
It becomes sort of diffusedinto what is your journey then?
Absolutely.
I think part of thedeschooling process for a parent
(38:29):
is remembering andrediscovering that your own input
is as valid as the input of aschool teacher.
That school teachers, theyteach in classrooms.
But the education you provideis just as valuable as the education
(38:50):
they provide and possibly moreso because the education you provide
is, is tailored to your child.
Yeah.
And I think that one, onething from my kind of anecdote about,
about my daughter's school isthat I think we have this perception
of school as this.
Oh, they're doing everything right.
(39:11):
And oh, the teachers areamazing at teaching this or teaching
that.
Now my daughter tried atschool at a very good school here
in Ireland.
Right.
Very, very good school.
Everything was right.
You know, it was all really good.
And yet I was staggered by howlittle actual learning took place.
And I think we can end upthinking, oh, like, can I do this?
(39:35):
Have I got enough skills to do this?
The teacher is so much betterat this.
But actually that one to oneexperience you have with your child
and the knowledge you havewith your child is worth a huge amount
of inadvertent commerce skillsthat teachers have.
I'm not saying they don't haveskills, they have skills, but I'm
just saying that we haveskills as well as parents, right?
(39:55):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think as a parent thatcan be one of the most daunting things
when you're starting out,especially if you've not thought
that you're going to becoming, you're going to end up home
educating.
You might have family andfriends around you as well who are
sort of saying, what makes youthink you can do this?
And we get a lot of that,don't we?
Absolutely.
People will ask you, do youhave a teaching degree?
And it's like, well, no, you know.
(40:16):
I don't actually, I have.
Which has always beenhilarious because I've always been
able to say yes and then watchthat rather their face Go a little
bit quieter.
But yeah, no, but it is, it is.
That is a really common thing,is you end up having to justify to
other people and that inhaving to do that, it raises doubts
in yourself.
So what can we suggest topeople then to help them with that
(40:37):
part of deschooling, you know,that kind of uncertainty about whether
you're actually valid in whatyou're doing?
I would say connect with yourlocal home ed community, really.
And hopefully meet homeeducators in real life.
Talk to home educators whohave been home educating for a long
(40:58):
time, not just new home educators.
Yeah, I'd say really trustingyourself as a parent because you
have got skills, you've got.
You know, we did help ourchildren to learn to do things before
they went to school.
We helped our children tolearn to do things while they were
(41:19):
at school.
And you can still help yourchildren to learn to do things once
they're out of school.
It's just you're helping themto learn to do more things more of
the time and be prepared tolearn alongside them.
Because teaching I may havechanged, I don't know.
But my experience of schoolwas that there was a teacher at the
(41:40):
front of the classroom whotold you what you needed to know.
Yeah.
And yes, you might do homeworkwhere you had to go home and research
things, but we are presentedwith this idea that teachers have
all the answers.
And I think one of the thingsabout home educating is that as parents,
(42:02):
we don't have to have all the answers.
We can find out those answersalongside our children and we can
help our children look foranswers themselves and build those
research skills.
I think that's also reallyimportant for your relationship with
your child.
Accepting that there arethings that you don't know and that
(42:23):
your child doesn't know andlearning them together is really
good because your child seesyou learning and they start to see
you not as this sort of weirdalien creature that knows everything
and never gets anything wrong.
And that can really build intoperfectionism and issues with, with
sort of fear of failure.
Whereas if you're there nextto your child saying, wow, I have
(42:45):
no idea how to do thisfractions question, let's watch a
YouTube video and learn together.
I used to regularly do thatwith my son, who was far better at
maths than me, and it wasreally interesting.
And I think he, he, it madehim feel good because he thought,
oh, okay, I'm quite good at this.
I'm better than my mum atthis, you know, And I think that
that kind of thing actually ispart of this lovely new dynamic shift
where you're not necessarilysomebody on high and then somebody
(43:09):
that knows less than you.
It's much more of anegalitarian kind of equal relationship.
That's not to say that youcan't have that parent dynamic.
I'm not here saying everybodyshould do autonomous parenting.
You certainly can do if you want.
But you can have the parentchild dynamic but not have the teacher
pupil dynamic.
Absolutely.
I don't think we really had ateacher pupil dynamic going on here,
(43:34):
although apparently I had a voice.
So we would.
We spent a lot of time inmuseums, a lot of time in museums.
And I remember one day, Ican't remember which museum it was,
but, you know, it woulddefinitely be.
I'd be.
We'd look at something andthen I'd be trying to give them more
information about this thingeither because I've kind of skim
(43:56):
read the.
The information board and I'mpicking out the bits I think might
interest them or haveinterested me because that's just
as valid.
And I was doing that one dayand my daughter just turned around
and said, mum, just stop.
She was quite old.
She was about 12 or somethingat the time, you know, so she'd had
a lot of years of this.
She said, we don't have to dolearning now.
(44:18):
I just want to look.
So apparently there.
There was a voice.
Yeah, there's lessons in everything.
That's one.
That is one thing I think whenyou home educate is it's really hard
to slip out of that.
I find myself sometimes doingit with adults.
I'm like, what is the learningexperience here?
It's like, oh, wait, wait, wait.
It's a fully grown adult thatI'm now teaching.
(44:38):
Yeah, I do that all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
So we have got that.
Deschooling is a process of.
Let me look through my notes.
We have got.
It is recognizing that yourchild may have traumas to work through
and making home a safe place.
And then there's this ideathat you as a parent may have imbibed
(44:59):
the school experience when youwere younger.
And you need to kind of freeyourself of that and free yourself
of expectations andcomparisons and, you know, should
do this.
Shouldn't, shouldn't do that.
And you can do that by kind offlagging it up and noticing when
it's happening and beingcompassionate with yourself as well
when it happens.
And then this idea of learninghappening everywhere and maybe leaning
(45:21):
into that, like going on thoseday trips, going to the beach when
it's nice and quiet.
Because everyone's at school,which is just a joy.
And also maybe noting it down,maybe having a journal or a planner
where you, at the end of theday, you look at all those things
they learned when you thoughtthey weren't learning anything at
all.
And then lastly, this idea ofyour dynamic with your child and
(45:42):
how you can create a bond thatis not necessarily.
Here is the information.
I am giving it to you, you arelearning it, but it's more a collaborative
journey and an exploration.
Well, Helen, I feel like wehave done deschooling pretty good.
The pretty good wrap there.
How is there anything that youthink we've missed?
(46:02):
Yeah, I was just thinking, oneof the things I would advise people
who want to do school is, andthe part about comparing themselves
to school is avoid looking atthe national curriculum.
Because that if you startlooking at the national curriculum
and you look in there, whatthey're saying and what they're doing.
Yeah.
You are going to end upcomparing yourself to school.
(46:24):
There's so much you can learnthat isn't on the national curriculum.
So I would suggest ignoring it.
I completely agree.
I think until you get toGCSEs, you don't need to look at
all at what they're doing at school.
I think it's complete irrelevance.
I think what they do in yearsix, geography is not going to help
you when you come to take yourgeography gcse.
It's not, it's.
(46:45):
It's like geography gcse.
I think I use this analogywith, in another podcast, but it's
like if you go to McDonald'sand you buy a Happy Meal and you
get your fries and your burgerand your drink all in one, that's
a GCSE curriculum.
You don't need.
You don't need to have hadMcDonald's that morning.
You buy everything in one goand you get your curriculum and it's
the same the national curriculum.
(47:06):
I feel like even teachersdon't like it.
So why on earth we as homeeducators would engage with it, I
don't know.
But yes, I think that's very,very good advice.
I think ditching the nationalcurriculum or just the worry about
comparing and keeping up withwhat they're doing in school.
And I will say, if you find ifthere's people in your family or
your friends or even strangersin bloody shops who start quizzing
(47:29):
your child on, oh, have you,you know, do you know your times
tables, what, seven timesfive, be okay to step in, advocate
for your child, step in andSay, oh, I could probably answer
that for you.
Because I don't think he'sparticularly interested in giving
you, like, the, you know, theanswers to quiz questions in the
middle of a shop or whatever.
Like, feel free to advocate.
Right, absolutely.
Definitely.
Because it's amazing how manypeople do that who will turn around
(47:53):
and start asking them maths questions.
And it's always maths.
It's always.
It's interesting.
It is.
Mass is a really popular one,but the one that stays in my memory
was I was in Kazakhstan.
I was living in Kazakhstan.
Don't ask me why.
And I was living inKazakhstan, and my son was six and
met somebody and they said,oh, you know, do you go to school?
(48:14):
And I was like, no, we home.
Home educate.
And he's.
And he said, oh, what have youdone today?
And I said, oh, we've donesome French.
And he looked at my son and hesaid, what's French for potato?
And I thought, what is this?
Is this like, you know, whowants to be a Millionaire?
Why would you ask.
Why would you ask him that?
And then.
And I got so flustered, Isaid, oh, it's patatas or something,
(48:38):
because I got confused withthe Spanish.
And then he was like, oh, no,it's pommes de terre, which means
apples of the ground.
And I think he was trying tobe really nice.
I think he was trying to say,like, it's a beautiful word.
But I got flustered.
My son looked at me like, whyare you talking Spanish to somebody
who asked me about French?
Because he knew the answer and.
But it's funny, isn't it?
We get in our heads and weallow other people to get in our
(48:58):
heads.
And I think maybe one thingthat we haven't spoken about enough
but is key to deschooling.
Get the other people out ofyour journey.
Like, this is your journeywith your child.
Get everybody else out of it.
Shoo them out, sweep them out.
It's not their business.
It's your business.
It's very.
It's very Brene Brown.
Is this a me problem or a you problem?
Is a you problem.
(49:19):
So, yeah, make it a themproblem and not a you problem.
Yeah.
Well, Helen, thank you so muchfor joining me on the podcast today.
Do let our listeners know alittle bit about.
Because I know you run atutoring business.
So before we finish, I willput all of your links in the show
notes, but do let ourlisteners know where they can find
you if they would like to hearmore of your lovely northern tones
(49:40):
winging their Way through Zoom.
Thank you very much.
I'm on Facebook in Pitchbook,Explorers, Facebook Group or as beyond
the Book Education.
And I have a website where Isell my resources, but you can contact
me through there too.
And that'sww.picturebookexplorers.co.uk and
(50:06):
what sort of.
Tutoring do you offer?
I do maths up to GCSE and I doEnglish to the Cambridge igcse and
I also will do primary, morelike project topic based cross curricular
education.
Very nice.
(50:26):
You're a one stop shop fromlike 3 to 16 then?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
I, I would except I would notdo sciences at secondary level and
any science I touch on is very practical.
Hands on, kind of.
There's more and more homeeducators doing A levels now, so
you may have to branch up into18 because I know it's increasingly
(50:47):
a thing now.
Yeah, definitely.
But no, I've no limits.
Fair enough.
Well, Helen, thank you so muchfor coming on the podcast.
Again.
If anyone listening hasquestions for Helen, you can join
us in our Facebook group, HomeEducation Matters.
Or you can put a comment belowand I'll make sure Helen sees it
and I will answer on her behalf.
Or I can answer if there'sanything I can answer.
(51:08):
And if you'd like to get intouch with a podcast, you can always
do that.
We're on Instagram.
This is very new and exciting.
We have like three followersbecause I've literally been set it
up a week ago.
So like I'm feeling verylonely on Instagram.
So do come and give us a likeand a follow on Instagram because
it took me a lot to go onInstagram because I hate social media
(51:28):
and so it was a big step forme to go on Instagram.
So please make it worth mywhile by coming and following the
podcast because I know thatthousands of you listen.
So Even if only 10 of youfollow me, I would be so happy.
So come and follow the podcast.
It is Home Education matters,obviously on Instagram.
It's probably got an appsomewhere because that's like apps
and hashtags and all that malarkey.
So do come and follow us on Instagram.
(51:50):
All of Helen's links are inthe show notes and if you're listening
and you've got an idea for apodcast that you would like us to
do, stick a comment below andI will make sure that I read it.
Helen, thank you so much againfor coming on the podcast.
Thank you very much for havingme, it's been great.
Thank you so much for joiningus for today's Home Education Matters
podcast.
See you at the next one.
(52:10):
Have a lovely day.
Welcome to Home EducationMatters, the weekly podcast supporting
you on your home education journey.
Hello, and welcome to anotherepisode of Home Education Matters.
(00:21):
And today is a reallyfundamental concept in home ed that
I cannot quite believe that Ihaven't done a podcast on before,
because this key concept inhome education is designed to help
with those early days whenyou've taken your child out of school,
you've thrown thederegistration letter at the receptionist,
or, I don't know, maybe doneit nicer than that.
(00:42):
And you go home and you areexuberant and enthusiastic, or maybe
you're trepidatious andanxious, whatever the general vibe
of the house is.
And then you.
You start home educating.
The days turn into the weeks,turn into the months, and it's just
not quite working, and youdon't know what's going wrong.
And maybe you feel like you'rereplicating school, maybe you're
getting pushback, Maybethere's no inherent love of learning.
(01:05):
And this happens a lot, and Ihear this a lot from people who take
their child out of school.
And today's podcast is allabout trying to give you a kind of
route out of those early painsof home education, because the core
concept is deschooling.
Yes, it is our deschooling podcast.
And.
And I have tried to do thispodcast on a number of occasions
(01:27):
in the past, and I've lined uppeople to come on, and it hasn't
worked, or the people dropout, or I haven't been able to do
it.
And something has always gotin the way of my desk on podcast.
And so I'm really, reallychuffed to be doing this podcast
today because it feels likeit's been.
It's.
It feels like it's been like.
It's like I've been a chickenon an egg, like, hatching this podcast
(01:48):
for a long time.
So I am joined today by HelenRoyston, who you may well remember.
You will recognize her voice,I'm sure, from one of our earliest,
in fact, the earliest podcast.
It was the second podcast.
It was actually the very firstone that I recorded, and it was all
about home education.
It was like, this is your,like, nuts and bolts, early days
home education.
(02:09):
And so I thought I'd bringHelen back on today to talk about
deschooling.
Helen, thank you so much forcoming on the podcast Again.
Do let any listeners know whomaybe haven't listened to that first
podcast, and I would recommendyou do, because it is one of my favorites,
but do let our listeners knowa little bit about your home education
journey because you are a,what I like to call a doyen of home
education.
(02:30):
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for having me backas well.
It's really nice to be here.
So, yes, about me.
I started home educating,gosh, way back in 1992, I think I've
got three children and big age ranges.
So it started when my son, myeldest came out, took him out of
(02:53):
school when he was seven,going on eight and he was home educated
until he was 16 and then myyounger two were home educated all
the way through from, from thebeginning until one went to college
at 16 and the other was 17when they went to college.
(03:13):
So all in all, it was 30 yearsof a span of home educating.
That's a lot of home educating.
It is a lot of home educating.
But I think by the time theyounger two came around, it was definitely
much more of a way.
It becomes a way of life, Ithink, really.
(03:33):
So I think it flowed a lotbetter with the younger ones.
And my old one had alreadyfinished home educating and gone
on to college.
And so it was fewer worries,if you like.
Different worries, differentconcerns, different challenges.
(03:55):
Not least because I educatedone child and then I had two children
to home educate and thatjuggle was different.
That was definitely one of themain challenges there.
It is really different, Ithink home educating one versus home
educating two plus because Iknow that my two are very close in
age.
And so it's always been thetwo of them home educating.
(04:17):
And it's a different kind of vibe.
It's quite nice.
It's not always a bad thing,but it is a different thing.
But anyway, so talk to us thenabout the concept of deschooling
because I tell you one thing,when I first started homeschooling,
home education, early on Iwould hear the term unschooling and
deschooling and get really confused.
So talk to us about whatdeschooling is and how it's different
(04:40):
to unschooling.
So deschooling is kind of likethe process of rethinking education.
And for children who have beenin school, some of that will be recovery,
especially if they've had areally tough time, if they've got
(05:00):
any school trauma, they needthat process of.
They might need that processof deschooling to help them rediscover
a love of learning and to getover any trauma they've experienced.
It might be a period of timewhere they need to, you know, concentrate
on mental health and wellbeing and it's the time when you
(05:23):
reestablish yourselves, you'realready established as a family,
obviously.
But when you've got somebodywho's out of the house six hours
a day and then suddenlythey're at home all day, the dynamic
changes and you've got to re.
Establish that dynamic in adifferent way, really.
(05:44):
So it's a kind of a period of adjustment.
And it's not just childrenthat need to deschool.
I think parents need to deschool just as much, if not more
so than children.
And I think it's an ongoing journey.
I wouldn't say that I am fully.
Deschooled even yet after 30 years.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
(06:04):
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, so that's.
That's really interestingbecause one question I have for you
then is because obviouslyyou've been home educating for 30
years, your child was inschool for how long before you home
educated?
The first three.
Three years.
Three years.
So ten times the amount oftime you've been home educating,
(06:24):
but you still feel you need to deschool.
Do you think that then there'ssomething inherent in us, or does
your child have to be in aschool experience to deschool?
Because do you have todeschool regardless of whether your
child's been in school, iswhat I'm asking?
Yes, I think so.
Because obviously I spent alot of years in school.
I was in School for 12 years,so I need to do school too, you know,
(06:48):
so.
But then when my son was inschool, I'm still in that school
mindset because that is what Iassumed was the norm and the only
choice at the time when hestarted school.
So, you know, and back in the90s, it was pretty much the norm.
There were very few womeneducators about.
So what I hear you saying isthere are maybe four key elements
(07:11):
to deschooling.
You've got releasing anytrauma or processing through any
trauma that the child ordifficult experiences that the child
may have experienced at school.
You've got the fact that youand your child will have been kind
of inculcated into an idea ofa school experience, learning, education
(07:31):
being a certain way.
You've also got linked tothat, but slightly separate, is the
idea of deschooling learning.
So understanding that thereare different approaches, maybe relearning
yourself what learning is.
And then alongside that, youmentioned this idea of dynamic change.
So going from sending yourchild off to school for eight hours
(07:52):
to having your child with you,you know, like all the time.
Realistically, are there anyother elements of deschooling that
you think are Key or have Ihit them all there?
I think that's that.
That's it so far.
If anything else comes up,I'll let you know.
Yeah, you do that.
So let's take.
Let's take the.
Probably the.
Let's take the trauma side first.
(08:13):
You know, the.
The shedding of the.
Of difficult experiences,because this is not the same for
everybody.
There will be people whosechildren went into school that didn't
have difficult experiences,but they may be it just wasn't working,
or maybe situationally theywanted to take their child out, or
maybe the child was fine, butthe parent didn't really like what
was happening.
(08:33):
But there will definitely bepeople whose children have had negative
experiences either with ateacher, with the experience, with
the sensory experience, withthe learning itself.
They got special educationalneeds, neurodiversities.
Maybe there was issues withthe dynamic with other children,
with these children who haveexperienced what I would perceive
(08:56):
as a trauma.
But I know a lot of peoplestruggle with that word because they
think it, you know, onlyapplies to people in war zones or
whatever.
But people whose children havehad to process a lot emotionally.
What do you think is the keypart of deschooling there for them?
I think it's focusing on thehome, focusing on making home comfortable
(09:21):
and safe and probably avoidinglanguage that sounds like school.
So I would.
That's where home education isa more useful term than homeschooling,
because obviously the wordschool could have really negative
connotations.
(09:44):
I would really focus onbuilding that connection, spending
time together.
I always think hot chocolates,read alouds, films, walks out.
Avoid words like lessons,maybe avoid even, you know, avoid
things like workbooks andworksheets, anything that is associated
(10:07):
with school.
Yeah, I think that actuallythat is probably advice that we're
going to come back to withsome of our other topics, because
I think that is really key.
I think what you were sayingthere about safety as well, I know
that from my work with peoplewho have experienced different traumas,
your sense of safety is eroded.
(10:28):
Now, if you experience traumaas a child in a place that is purportedly
in loco parentis, it's meantto be a safe place.
And if you have experiencedfeelings of unsafe, you're not being
held or not being heard or not being.
Not being attended to, notbeing cared for.
If you've experienced that,everything can feel quite fundamentally
unsafe.
So what you're saying is bringyour focus back to the place of safety,
(10:52):
which is the home and theparental bond and the family bond,
right?
Yes, essentially.
That's it.
Yes.
So much.
You put it so much more succinctly.
But also what you're sayingthere about triggers was really key.
So when I think aboutdeschooling, it is a lot about avoiding
triggers, avoiding, like yousay, anything that's too schooly.
(11:13):
So deschooling, like movingaway, like D is the prefix that is
the opposite.
Right.
You're wanting to do theopposite of what school is, just
for that deschooling period.
Now, I will say for anyonelistening, this doesn't mean you
have to spend the whole ofyour home education journey of avoiding
workbooks, avoiding lessons.
You can have a very structuredhome ed journey.
(11:34):
But we're talking about aninitial period of re regulation,
aren't we?
Absolutely.
And it's not a period in whichno learning happens.
It's not a period in which yousit there and do nothing with your
children.
It's very much.
You read it together, youknow, and it's that establishing
(11:55):
new routines and new ways ofliving together.
So, you know, you don't haveto throw everything out of the window.
You know, you can still have.
We're going to have breakfastat this time, we're going to have
meals together, we're going to.
We're still going to go toshops once a week or visit grandparents
on this day.
You know, the things that younormally do as a family, you can
(12:17):
still do, you still do that.
And for parents, at the sametime as all this is going on and
you're reconnecting and reestablishing those relationships,
I think what can be a reallyuseful thing is it's learning to
recognise the learning that isgoing on and learning that learning
(12:40):
doesn't have to be just academics.
One of the main things withschool, obviously, is the academic
process, progress thatchildren make.
But learning about academicsisn't the whole of the learning picture.
You sit and you teach somebodyhow to knit, then it's.
That's still a skill that'sworth learning, you know, or they
(13:02):
might spend time gardening.
Gardening's great for yourmental health.
Reconnecting with nature,reconnecting with the soil, with
the plants and that, thatsense of purpose that you get from
growing things, especially ifit's food, you know, that's all valuable
learning.
And I think as parents, it's.
(13:23):
If they have just come out ofthe school system and you've not
ever thought about homeeducation and you just think, they're
going to go to school, they'regoing to come out with GCSEs or not,
but they're going to go fromthere onto college and then into
work.
And it's kind of like we havethis idea of not exactly a conveyor
belt, but, you know, there aretests at certain ages through there
(13:46):
to say how far they've gotwith the academics.
And that's the emphasis therewith schools is on academics.
And I think part of thatdeschooling process is recognising
that it's not all aboutacademics and that there are other
skills and other things we canlearn in life.
Might not get us an exam,might not get us a job at the end
(14:08):
of it, but we want to learnthem for that, just for the beauty
of learning.
I think what you say is reallykey because there's part of us that
even when we have only everhome educated, you know, even if
we've never put our child inschool, there's part of us at different
parts of the home educationjourney that gets hooked into this
(14:29):
idea of needing to quantifythe kind of learning experience.
And I know that I mentionedthis in another podcast that I was
pretty good at recognizingthat learning happened everywhere.
I'd not put my children into school.
I didn't feel I needed to deschool.
When the GCSE journey started,I got myself quite hooked into, okay,
(14:51):
well, if it's not a GCSEsubject, it doesn't count.
Like, it's all very well and good.
This is very lovely.
You want to go and like, lookat some hawthorne bushes.
That's beautiful.
That doesn't count.
It doesn't count anymorebecause there's no GCSE at the end
of it.
And I know that I had to kindof almost step out of myself after
about six months of this andbe like, what's happening here?
Like, this is actuallyinteresting that I'm now I've got
(15:13):
very much into a school whereway of thinking just because my children
hit a certain age.
And I started thinking becausea lot of home educators you speak
to, they do say, oh, well, forsecondary, I'm probably going to
put them back in because it'salmost like when it gets to exam
time, we very much slip backinto this school way of thinking.
So we kind of have to deschoolsporadically through our journey
(15:33):
as well.
Right, exactly.
That's what I mean when I saythat I don't think I've ever fully
deschooled because I recognizethat, you know, I know that when
it became to exam times, it was.
I did feel that shift.
I did suddenly start thinking,wanting to compare them or not wanting
to, but finding That I wascomparing what they were doing with
(15:57):
what children in school were doing.
And that was something thatI'd kind of learned not to do along
the way because a home edjourney is not comparable to a school
journey.
But suddenly you're hittingthis point where they have to get,
you know, they want to getthese qualifications and they need
them to go on to the next step.
(16:19):
And it all became a little bit.
A little bit daunting and.
Yeah, and the pressure.
There was a new pressure therethat I felt as a parent and I was
really.
That I did struggle with and Ididn't want to put it on them, do
(16:40):
you know, which was tricky.
It was a bit of a balancing act.
And that was still part.
I could really recognize thatas part of the schooling process
that was still ongoing within myself.
Yeah, and you were sayingthere about.
We were talking about howlearning happens in lots of different
ways.
You know, it's not justworkbooks, it's not just lessons
(17:00):
in inverted commas.
It's, as you were saying, it'sgardening and, you know, going.
Going for nature walks andthings like that.
I think that's a very key partof deschooling.
But what you're also talkingabout is this idea that as parents,
we have things like comparingto the school experience, like thinking,
what, what should they.
(17:21):
A lot of shoulds.
Like, what should they belearning now?
Like, what.
Where should they be in their maths?
What should they.
What level should theirspelling be at?
Do you think that part ofdeschooling is letting go of that?
Or do you think there's alwaysa part of that that we have?
I don't know.
I think part of deschooling isabsolutely letting go of that.
I think it's, you know, wealways said there is no behind in
(17:46):
home education because a childcan't be behind themselves.
And that is very true.
A child is where they are, butthere is the temptation is to start
thinking, oh, next door.
But one, you know, they're thesame age and they'd be in the same
year at school and they'redoing all this stuff that my child's
(18:06):
not done.
And that is where we need todo school as well.
How do you go about that process?
I mean, that's quite.
It's.
I feel like we're sort ofsitting here and people must be listening,
thinking, yeah, but how, like,how do I stop myself doing this?
Yes.
I found that part of the wholejourney of home education, when I
talk about that dynamic andthat change that goes on when they're
(18:27):
suddenly at home, it's notjust learning about being with your
child, it's also yourself too,you know, because you're with them
all the time.
And as you're watching andobserving how they're learning and
changing, the best way to dothat, I think, is you have to observe
(18:47):
and watch yourself as you'rechanging as well.
And it's not easy.
You know, it's not easy.
And I can't say I've alwaysbeen brilliant, but over 30 years,
I have had a lot ofopportunity to.
To.
To do that.
Really, what you're describingthere is this idea almost that we
(19:08):
have our own demons as parentsthat we end up having to confront
as home educators because wedon't really have anywhere to hide
from them.
So these demons of comparisonand guilt, shame, all of these things
that as parents are kind ofbuilt into their process, which they
don't tell you about.
And that's.
They kind of come under a bitof a spotlight, don't they, when
you home educate?
Because you're that singlepoint of failure where everything
(19:30):
goes through you, parentingand schooling, and so you.
The person responsible for allof it.
So what you're recommendingthere, I think, was to.
To listen and to catchyourself when these.
When this kind of little innervoice springs in.
I mean, I know that with a lotof my clients, I quite like to personalize
(19:50):
that inner voice, you know,try to.
Try to notice who it is.
Quite often it's somebody inour past.
Like, I hate to say this, butquite often it's our mothers, but
not always.
It can be other relatives, butsometimes it's somebody else's voice
we hear.
Sometimes it's our own voice.
And I think it can to kind ofgo, oh, here we are.
It's like, you know, like anegative ninny again, or it's woe
(20:11):
is me again, or whatever.
And you kind of almost make ita slightly humorous thing, but just
by noticing that you're sayingthose things, like, oh, look, it's
the should, the shoulds again.
I think noticing andidentifying it is really important,
like you say, because it.
It sort of alerts your brainthat I actually don't want this,
you know, this voice, thisthing I'm hearing.
(20:31):
I don't want this.
Absolutely, absolutely.
You know, and it's.
It is just about paying attention.
You've got to pay attention toyourself as well as to them.
But, yeah, I think that's agood way of describing it, really.
Demons and voices and things.
I think one of the otherthings that I found really helpful
to combat some of the innerdoubt was to reach out within home
(20:53):
ed communities.
Home ed on Homer communitiesare invariably online, but you will
have local groups that you canmeet up with and, and even some of
the groups, if you go on andsay, oh, I'm really like feeling
a lot of doubt about whethermy son should be able to do long
multiplication by this agethere will be a million people that
will come on and be like, nah,you don't need to worry about that.
(21:14):
Like you say, every child isunique, every journey is unique.
You know, you meet one homeeducator, you've met one home educator
and that's what it's like.
Right?
So I guess as well reachingout, listening to yourself, like
doing the internal work, butalso allowing yourself to connect
externally as well.
That's true, that's true.
There's so much moreopportunities for that these days
(21:35):
as well, you know, with theInternet and things like that.
And it is very important, I think.
And as, and while Facebookgroups and Internet groups are brilliant,
I would recommend if there isa local group to try and meet people
in person because that face toface interaction is so different
from a typed one where youhaven't got the nuances of speaking
(21:59):
to each other and our bodylanguage and the rest of it, you
know, and as well, it's greatto be able to have some in person
relationships and build actualreal life friendships with people
and their children.
Yeah, it helps.
It's supportive.
It's very supportive as well.
So so far we've got ideas forD for deschooling would be to make
(22:22):
sure that your home is a safeplace, that you're focusing on the
connection and the family bonds.
And then we've also got thekind of concept of working on yourself
and what, what of the school experience?
What of your school experience?
You might be bringing incomparisons, senses of guild expectations
that you're putting into the situation.
(22:43):
We also talked briefly aboutthis, this very key deschooling idea
of learning being all sorts ofdifferent things, you know, and that
it isn't just workbooks andcertainly in those early days they
may actually be triggers.
So what would some kind ofpractical advice be for people who
want to do school, but theydon't really know how to remove the
(23:04):
school experience and theyalso don't know how to make that
mindset shift about this is learning.
Even if we're watching a DavidAttenborough documentary, which for
God's sake, they do.
In school, let's face it,school does A lot of things.
And a lot of those things wedo in real life.
One of the misconceptions Ialways find with little kids is this
idea.
(23:25):
And a lot of people who don'tknow about education is this idea
that they.
They give to small childrenwho are about to start school.
You have to go to school to learn.
You're going to school so thatyou can learn things.
You know, school's gonna begreat, you're gonna learn all this
stuff.
And as people are saying thatto small children, that message also
(23:45):
goes into the adult brain as well.
And I think it's.
It's untangling that, it'sunraveling that and recognizing,
you know, they do gardens.
You know, the schools haveschool gardens where they grow things.
You know, they're obviouslylearning about things in school.
So when you do that at home,you might not think of it as a.
(24:06):
An activity where they'relearning about anything, because
it's just what you do as a family.
First of all, for me, it was acase of saying, they do that in school,
therefore I can do it at home.
They do gardens in school.
Gardening counts.
They go on museum trips at school.
Going to museums counts.
They go to the theatre at school.
Going to theatre counts.
(24:28):
So flipping it round.
So almost flipping it round.
Yeah.
Yes.
So you're using school tovalidate you almost in that way.
Yeah, kind of.
It was that because I didn'tknow I'd started out with very few
ideas about what homeeducation could look like.
(24:49):
It was early 1990s.
There wasn't an Internet community.
There were very few homeeducators about.
We got a newsletter once amonth from Education.
Otherwise that I signed up for.
Other than that, I read books,you know, I read books.
I did a book about eschooling.
I read books.
(25:09):
Montessori, I read Steiner.
I read different educationalphilosophies because I would need
to know where I was coming from.
Because I wasn't happy withthe current school system.
I didn't want to throw thebaby out with the bathwater.
You know, obviously you stillneed to learn things.
I wasn't about to let him justsit there and do note all day.
(25:32):
And I had my own ideas ofthings that I thought were important.
Mainly evolved around literature.
We read a lot.
We all love with film,history, nature, all that kind of
thing, all these.
And he had obviously his owninterests as well, so it was trying
to develop in that.
(25:52):
But we always did mathsbecause I always thought maths was
important.
And he hadn't experienced anyschool Trauma.
So I didn't have to do that.
Oh, no, nothing were mentioned.
No mention of school, youknow, no mention of anything.
But there were certainlanguages, certain language that
I did avoid.
So we never had lessons, wedid activities.
(26:14):
You know, I think the mainthing is conversation.
That would be my main key isto talk, to have conversations with
your child.
Proper conversation, you know,natural conversations.
It doesn't all have.
Don't be in the kit.
It's not a quiz.
It's not finding out how muchthey know.
It's just have thatconversation and see what comes out
(26:36):
of that.
Take time out to go and dothose, you know, the.
The school trip kind ofthings, Day at the seaside, day at
the little children's farm or whatever.
You know, it depends on theages of your children, obviously.
You know, if you've got littlechildren, then, you know, bake.
Bake.
I know baking is the one thingthat everybody always says, do lots
(26:58):
of baking.
It covers maths, it covers everything.
But it's not about thesubjects that it covers.
It's about doing those thingsthat you can connect through as you're
baking.
You can have conversations,things that.
That are relaxing.
It's interesting you say that,because one thing I found that helped
(27:18):
me was to note down in a journal.
I had, like a planner that Iused, and I would kind of note down
the things that we had donethat day.
And it helped me to get asense of all of the different things.
I was like, oh, wow, they'veactually done a lot today, even though
we haven't, like, sat down atthe dining table with books.
(27:40):
But do you feel that maybethat limits it too much if you do
it that way, rather than justsort of doing it for the experience?
Not at all.
I think that's a really,really good piece of advice.
I had something similar myself.
So with my younger ones, wedid have kind of like a little set
routine that worked for themthat they loved.
(28:00):
And so some of that wouldinvolve me planning in advance what
we were going to do the nextday, the next week, the next month
or whatever.
With my old one, it was muchmore sort of autonomous.
So there were some plans made,obviously, you know, but mostly it
was I was it.
Because it was only him.
I was able to be moreresponsive to his interests and just
(28:26):
be able to do that really, asmuch as possible.
So it would be that thing ofnot really knowing what you were
going to do, but afterwardsbeing able to sit down and say, this
is what we've done.
You can see the learningthat's going on there.
And I thought that was a veryimportant part of the deschooling
(28:47):
process because it does helpyou to see what they have learned,
what you've talked about, whatthey're interested in.
You can even see the thingsthat they're not interested in.
Make a note of that.
They really didn't like that.
They don't want to do any moreof that.
Okay.
So that goes out the window.
That's a really good way ofseeing what learning is happening,
(29:08):
especially when you need to besaying, I've been home educating
since day one and all yourlearning is happening through conversation
and engaging.
As you say, with their interests.
I know that there'll be peoplelistening who's.
Maybe they've taken theirchild out and their child is really
in a position of feeling verydemoralized with learning from because
of the school experience.
And they may be sitting,listening, thinking, like, my child
(29:31):
isn't doing anything.
Like, if I was to write thisdown in a planner, it would be Minecraft.
I would write every day.
Or it'd be Call of Duty, or itwould be sitting.
Sitting under the, under the duvet.
Right.
And it is difficult when you,when there's a period where you really
feel like your child is justnot really learning anything.
There are always some things,like there will always be some things
(29:52):
going on.
So engaging with thatinterest, like you say, having conversations.
I mean, almost all of ourreally kind of diamond learning was
took part as part of a conversation.
That's the things that theyremember and that's the things that
I remember.
But also, I think it's okayfor there to be a period of time
where learning is minimal.
(30:13):
If your child is reallystruggling and they're in bed a lot,
or they're just on their phonea lot, or they're not really engaging.
That is part of this.
To go back to the trauma idea,that is part of the healing response,
is to take some time and thereisn't a big rush to throw yourself
into must do this, must do that.
Oh, no.
(30:33):
It's been two months and we'venot done any proper learning.
Because I will say that thisis my new favorite anecdote and I'm
intending to throw this into alot of my podcasts so people will
already have heard this one.
But my child, my daughtertried school for the first time a
few weeks ago, and she camehome, she's finished already.
That didn't last long.
(30:54):
She came home from school andI said, of course, because I want
to know everything that she'sdoing because I find it fascinating.
It's like sleeping with the enemy.
I'm like, whoa, this is so interesting.
What were you doing at school?
And she had computer science.
And I said, oh, you know, howis computer science?
And she said, oh yeah, welearned to send an email.
And she's 17.
And I looked at her and Isaid, well, it's lucky that all those
(31:16):
years home educating, wedidn't miss too much at school.
Right.
Because you can get yourselfin this idea that school, they're
missing out or, oh, they'dhave done this and that in school.
But chances are school is avery slow process of learning, like,
and then they go through itagain and again and again, year on
year in.
So realistically, your childis not missing out, you're not holding
(31:37):
them back.
They're not going to never gettheir GCSEs because they've spent
a couple of months under theirduvet playing Call of Duty.
That's not going to happen.
And when it comes to reportsand la, there's always something,
like, there's always somelearning taking place, like you say.
So I suppose one bit of adviceI would give for deregging and deschooling
is just to relax a little bitand not get too caught up in what
(32:00):
you should and shouldn't bedoing and what they should and shouldn't
be learning.
Absolutely.
I mean, the Minecraft thing, Iremember when my youngest started
playing Minecraft and I was,I'm not a video gamer, I'm not.
I'm the wrong age group forthat, really.
You know, Tetris was about mylimit and it's kind of.
And he was playing Minecraftand because he was, he would always
(32:23):
mainly be online playing withhis friends and there were always
people he actually knew inreal life.
I was, was very strict aboutthat and I was just like, well, what's
he doing?
You know, everybody keepssaying it's maths, it's all these
blocks and all these things,they move around and then suddenly
one day turns around and hestarts telling me about.
It was obsidian and he wanteda piece of obsidian and he was telling
(32:44):
me all about the properties ofobsidian and all the things that
he'd learned from playing Minecraft.
I thought, well, all right, then.
It'S true.
I mean, it's.
I remember when my daughterstarted doing Classical Civilization.
So she was.
It was GCSE she took and shestarted one of Jake from Humanity
is Learning, started one ofhis courses and we all sat there
(33:07):
together because for the firstfew Lessons.
I always like to sit therewith them.
And every child apart from herhad read the Percy Jackson books.
Every single one.
And I remember afterwards Ilooked at her and I was like, they've
all just come to this from,like, some sort of, like, mythical
book series.
And then I thought, actually,that is really cool.
Like, that is really nice thatall these children are now doing
(33:28):
Classical Civilizationsbecause of reading pretty trashy
books, you know?
And I really.
If Percy Jackson's listening,no way.
He didn't write it.
Rick Reardon.
I don't know.
I apologize.
They're not trashy, but youknow what I mean.
They're light, you know,you're not talking.
She wasn't reading Homer.
It was something quite light.
And they've all come toClassical civilization through that.
(33:48):
And this is the thing is thereare all these different routes.
Now, I'm not going to sit hereand say, because I'm a little bit
like you.
I'm not.
We ought to do a podcast,actually, about gaming, because I
have quite strong opinionsabout gaming as well.
And I would struggle if mychild was doing a lot of Call of
Duty or, like, I don't know,any of those kind of, like, slightly
aggressive games, but I'm guessing.
(34:10):
I don't know.
I've never played.
But my guess is that eventhose kind of games will have some
sort of learning in there.
Even if it's collaborationwith people on mics or whatever it
is, there's something.
There's something going on.
And at the very least, if yourchild is hiding under a duvet for
two months, they are doingsome internal work where they're
(34:31):
processing through something,and that's an opportunity to engage
with them with it, if you can.
So there's always something,isn't there?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Definitely.
You know, they're learningabout themselves at the same time.
Yeah, I would struggle personally.
And I'm not saying this, thatit's wrong in any way.
It's just a reflection, like Isay, on my own thoughts on video
(34:52):
games and the fact that I'mnot a video gamer.
And I don't see the.
I. I don't see.
For me, if I spent my timeplaying video games, I would feel
like I was wasting my time.
But that's different, youknow, it's.
It doesn't mean to say he's awaste of time.
(35:12):
And also, what we're talkingabout here, and I think this is something
we haven't talked about thatI'd like to, is that it's for a period
of Time, isn't it?
Now, I know you said thatdeschooling goes on forever and elements
of it definitely do, but thatdoesn't mean that you have to have
this approach where you'revery focused on learning.
Happens everywhere.
Let your child heal.
(35:34):
Recognize that you have to dowork yourself about shoulds and shouldn'ts
and expectations.
You're really talking ashortish period right at the very
start where you have to dothis intense work.
It's.
I say intense, but you knowwhat I mean, Focused work.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it.
Because it is that period ofadjustment, you know, I don't even
see it as doing well.
(35:55):
I don't think there's a timelimit to it.
That's what I'm trying to say.
There isn't a time limit to it.
For some people, it might be avery short period of time.
They might find that theirchild is suddenly ahead of the game,
especially if they're youngerand they've not had such a tough
time in school.
Their kid could come down oneday and say, okay, I want to do some
(36:17):
maths today.
I want to read this book, Iwant to learn how to do this.
I missed this about school.
You can respond to that andthat can be your way in.
Is that how you would knowthat the deschooling, that sort of,
very first bit of thedeschooling process is maybe over?
When your child spontaneouslyand proactively engages with their
(36:39):
learning, would you say thatthat's what you're looking for?
Possibly.
You know, I don't know.
It could just be.
See, it's, it's.
It is a tricky one for me toanswer because we just, we just kind
of cracked on, you know, andwe didn't do.
I didn't do any kind of like,apart from.
(37:00):
I really want you to keep upwith some maths and we're going to
do some maths now and againand, and reading.
I always read aloud to my kids.
Always, always, always rightup until they were about 16.
So we.
There were parts of what Iwould consider to be a deschooling
process were actually part ofour everyday life anyway.
And I was always very proactive.
(37:22):
Even before my eldest went to school.
I was quite, as most parentsare, you know, quite proactive in,
you know, things like learningcolours, learning letter shapes,
learning number shapes, youknow, all these different skills
that we do with our childrenthrough play.
So we play sit down, you know,with a little.
With a toddler, you sit downwith a shape sorter box to show them
(37:46):
how to do it and eventuallythey'll do it by themselves.
It's that kind of attitudethat carried me forward through home
educating.
I think that what you'redescribing is that there's an initial
period where you're learningthe concepts of what home education
and what learning is andyou're unlearning the concepts that
(38:08):
you brought in from school.
That process never ends.
Maybe that initial period iswhen you're unlearning and relearning
and then it kind of almostbecomes a way of life.
It becomes sort of diffusedinto what is your journey then?
Absolutely.
I think part of thedeschooling process for a parent
(38:29):
is remembering andrediscovering that your own input
is as valid as the input of aschool teacher.
That school teachers, theyteach in classrooms.
But the education you provideis just as valuable as the education
(38:50):
they provide and possibly moreso because the education you provide
is, is tailored to your child.
Yeah.
And I think that one, onething from my kind of anecdote about,
about my daughter's school isthat I think we have this perception
of school as this.
Oh, they're doing everything right.
(39:11):
And oh, the teachers areamazing at teaching this or teaching
that.
Now my daughter tried atschool at a very good school here
in Ireland.
Right.
Very, very good school.
Everything was right.
You know, it was all really good.
And yet I was staggered by howlittle actual learning took place.
And I think we can end upthinking, oh, like, can I do this?
(39:35):
Have I got enough skills to do this?
The teacher is so much betterat this.
But actually that one to oneexperience you have with your child
and the knowledge you havewith your child is worth a huge amount
of inadvertent commerce skillsthat teachers have.
I'm not saying they don't haveskills, they have skills, but I'm
just saying that we haveskills as well as parents, right?
(39:55):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think as a parent thatcan be one of the most daunting things
when you're starting out,especially if you've not thought
that you're going to becoming, you're going to end up home
educating.
You might have family andfriends around you as well who are
sort of saying, what makes youthink you can do this?
And we get a lot of that,don't we?
Absolutely.
People will ask you, do youhave a teaching degree?
And it's like, well, no, you know.
(40:16):
I don't actually, I have.
Which has always beenhilarious because I've always been
able to say yes and then watchthat rather their face Go a little
bit quieter.
But yeah, no, but it is, it is.
That is a really common thing,is you end up having to justify to
other people and that inhaving to do that, it raises doubts
in yourself.
So what can we suggest topeople then to help them with that
(40:37):
part of deschooling, you know,that kind of uncertainty about whether
you're actually valid in whatyou're doing?
I would say connect with yourlocal home ed community, really.
And hopefully meet homeeducators in real life.
Talk to home educators whohave been home educating for a long
(40:58):
time, not just new home educators.
Yeah, I'd say really trustingyourself as a parent because you
have got skills, you've got.
You know, we did help ourchildren to learn to do things before
they went to school.
We helped our children tolearn to do things while they were
(41:19):
at school.
And you can still help yourchildren to learn to do things once
they're out of school.
It's just you're helping themto learn to do more things more of
the time and be prepared tolearn alongside them.
Because teaching I may havechanged, I don't know.
But my experience of schoolwas that there was a teacher at the
(41:40):
front of the classroom whotold you what you needed to know.
Yeah.
And yes, you might do homeworkwhere you had to go home and research
things, but we are presentedwith this idea that teachers have
all the answers.
And I think one of the thingsabout home educating is that as parents,
(42:02):
we don't have to have all the answers.
We can find out those answersalongside our children and we can
help our children look foranswers themselves and build those
research skills.
I think that's also reallyimportant for your relationship with
your child.
Accepting that there arethings that you don't know and that
(42:23):
your child doesn't know andlearning them together is really
good because your child seesyou learning and they start to see
you not as this sort of weirdalien creature that knows everything
and never gets anything wrong.
And that can really build intoperfectionism and issues with, with
sort of fear of failure.
Whereas if you're there nextto your child saying, wow, I have
(42:45):
no idea how to do thisfractions question, let's watch a
YouTube video and learn together.
I used to regularly do thatwith my son, who was far better at
maths than me, and it wasreally interesting.
And I think he, he, it madehim feel good because he thought,
oh, okay, I'm quite good at this.
I'm better than my mum atthis, you know, And I think that
that kind of thing actually ispart of this lovely new dynamic shift
where you're not necessarilysomebody on high and then somebody
(43:09):
that knows less than you.
It's much more of anegalitarian kind of equal relationship.
That's not to say that youcan't have that parent dynamic.
I'm not here saying everybodyshould do autonomous parenting.
You certainly can do if you want.
But you can have the parentchild dynamic but not have the teacher
pupil dynamic.
Absolutely.
I don't think we really had ateacher pupil dynamic going on here,
(43:34):
although apparently I had a voice.
So we would.
We spent a lot of time inmuseums, a lot of time in museums.
And I remember one day, Ican't remember which museum it was,
but, you know, it woulddefinitely be.
I'd be.
We'd look at something andthen I'd be trying to give them more
information about this thingeither because I've kind of skim
(43:56):
read the.
The information board and I'mpicking out the bits I think might
interest them or haveinterested me because that's just
as valid.
And I was doing that one dayand my daughter just turned around
and said, mum, just stop.
She was quite old.
She was about 12 or somethingat the time, you know, so she'd had
a lot of years of this.
She said, we don't have to dolearning now.
(44:18):
I just want to look.
So apparently there.
There was a voice.
Yeah, there's lessons in everything.
That's one.
That is one thing I think whenyou home educate is it's really hard
to slip out of that.
I find myself sometimes doingit with adults.
I'm like, what is the learningexperience here?
It's like, oh, wait, wait, wait.
It's a fully grown adult thatI'm now teaching.
(44:38):
Yeah, I do that all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
So we have got that.
Deschooling is a process of.
Let me look through my notes.
We have got.
It is recognizing that yourchild may have traumas to work through
and making home a safe place.
And then there's this ideathat you as a parent may have imbibed
(44:59):
the school experience when youwere younger.
And you need to kind of freeyourself of that and free yourself
of expectations andcomparisons and, you know, should
do this.
Shouldn't, shouldn't do that.
And you can do that by kind offlagging it up and noticing when
it's happening and beingcompassionate with yourself as well
when it happens.
And then this idea of learninghappening everywhere and maybe leaning
(45:21):
into that, like going on thoseday trips, going to the beach when
it's nice and quiet.
Because everyone's at school,which is just a joy.
And also maybe noting it down,maybe having a journal or a planner
where you, at the end of theday, you look at all those things
they learned when you thoughtthey weren't learning anything at
all.
And then lastly, this idea ofyour dynamic with your child and
(45:42):
how you can create a bond thatis not necessarily.
Here is the information.
I am giving it to you, you arelearning it, but it's more a collaborative
journey and an exploration.
Well, Helen, I feel like wehave done deschooling pretty good.
The pretty good wrap there.
How is there anything that youthink we've missed?
(46:02):
Yeah, I was just thinking, oneof the things I would advise people
who want to do school is, andthe part about comparing themselves
to school is avoid looking atthe national curriculum.
Because that if you startlooking at the national curriculum
and you look in there, whatthey're saying and what they're doing.
Yeah.
You are going to end upcomparing yourself to school.
(46:24):
There's so much you can learnthat isn't on the national curriculum.
So I would suggest ignoring it.
I completely agree.
I think until you get toGCSEs, you don't need to look at
all at what they're doing at school.
I think it's complete irrelevance.
I think what they do in yearsix, geography is not going to help
you when you come to take yourgeography gcse.
It's not, it's.
(46:45):
It's like geography gcse.
I think I use this analogywith, in another podcast, but it's
like if you go to McDonald'sand you buy a Happy Meal and you
get your fries and your burgerand your drink all in one, that's
a GCSE curriculum.
You don't need.
You don't need to have hadMcDonald's that morning.
You buy everything in one goand you get your curriculum and it's
the same the national curriculum.
(47:06):
I feel like even teachersdon't like it.
So why on earth we as homeeducators would engage with it, I
don't know.
But yes, I think that's very,very good advice.
I think ditching the nationalcurriculum or just the worry about
comparing and keeping up withwhat they're doing in school.
And I will say, if you find ifthere's people in your family or
your friends or even strangersin bloody shops who start quizzing
(47:29):
your child on, oh, have you,you know, do you know your times
tables, what, seven timesfive, be okay to step in, advocate
for your child, step in andSay, oh, I could probably answer
that for you.
Because I don't think he'sparticularly interested in giving
you, like, the, you know, theanswers to quiz questions in the
middle of a shop or whatever.
Like, feel free to advocate.
Right, absolutely.
Definitely.
Because it's amazing how manypeople do that who will turn around
(47:53):
and start asking them maths questions.
And it's always maths.
It's always.
It's interesting.
It is.
Mass is a really popular one,but the one that stays in my memory
was I was in Kazakhstan.
I was living in Kazakhstan.
Don't ask me why.
And I was living inKazakhstan, and my son was six and
met somebody and they said,oh, you know, do you go to school?
(48:14):
And I was like, no, we home.
Home educate.
And he's.
And he said, oh, what have youdone today?
And I said, oh, we've donesome French.
And he looked at my son and hesaid, what's French for potato?
And I thought, what is this?
Is this like, you know, whowants to be a Millionaire?
Why would you ask.
Why would you ask him that?
And then.
And I got so flustered, Isaid, oh, it's patatas or something,
(48:38):
because I got confused withthe Spanish.
And then he was like, oh, no,it's pommes de terre, which means
apples of the ground.
And I think he was trying tobe really nice.
I think he was trying to say,like, it's a beautiful word.
But I got flustered.
My son looked at me like, whyare you talking Spanish to somebody
who asked me about French?
Because he knew the answer and.
But it's funny, isn't it?
We get in our heads and weallow other people to get in our
(48:58):
heads.
And I think maybe one thingthat we haven't spoken about enough
but is key to deschooling.
Get the other people out ofyour journey.
Like, this is your journeywith your child.
Get everybody else out of it.
Shoo them out, sweep them out.
It's not their business.
It's your business.
It's very.
It's very Brene Brown.
Is this a me problem or a you problem?
Is a you problem.
(49:19):
So, yeah, make it a themproblem and not a you problem.
Yeah.
Well, Helen, thank you so muchfor joining me on the podcast today.
Do let our listeners know alittle bit about.
Because I know you run atutoring business.
So before we finish, I willput all of your links in the show
notes, but do let ourlisteners know where they can find
you if they would like to hearmore of your lovely northern tones
(49:40):
winging their Way through Zoom.
Thank you very much.
I'm on Facebook in Pitchbook,Explorers, Facebook Group or as beyond
the Book Education.
And I have a website where Isell my resources, but you can contact
me through there too.
And that'sww.picturebookexplorers.co.uk and
(50:06):
what sort of.
Tutoring do you offer?
I do maths up to GCSE and I doEnglish to the Cambridge igcse and
I also will do primary, morelike project topic based cross curricular
education.
Very nice.
(50:26):
You're a one stop shop fromlike 3 to 16 then?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
I, I would except I would notdo sciences at secondary level and
any science I touch on is very practical.
Hands on, kind of.
There's more and more homeeducators doing A levels now, so
you may have to branch up into18 because I know it's increasingly
(50:47):
a thing now.
Yeah, definitely.
But no, I've no limits.
Fair enough.
Well, Helen, thank you so muchfor coming on the podcast.
Again.
If anyone listening hasquestions for Helen, you can join
us in our Facebook group, HomeEducation Matters.
Or you can put a comment belowand I'll make sure Helen sees it
and I will answer on her behalf.
Or I can answer if there'sanything I can answer.
(51:08):
And if you'd like to get intouch with a podcast, you can always
do that.
We're on Instagram.
This is very new and exciting.
We have like three followersbecause I've literally been set it
up a week ago.
So like I'm feeling verylonely on Instagram.
So do come and give us a likeand a follow on Instagram because
it took me a lot to go onInstagram because I hate social media
(51:28):
and so it was a big step forme to go on Instagram.
So please make it worth mywhile by coming and following the
podcast because I know thatthousands of you listen.
So Even if only 10 of youfollow me, I would be so happy.
So come and follow the podcast.
It is Home Education matters,obviously on Instagram.
It's probably got an appsomewhere because that's like apps
and hashtags and all that malarkey.
So do come and follow us on Instagram.
(51:50):
All of Helen's links are inthe show notes and if you're listening
and you've got an idea for apodcast that you would like us to
do, stick a comment below andI will make sure that I read it.
Helen, thank you so much againfor coming on the podcast.
Thank you very much for havingme, it's been great.
Thank you so much for joiningus for today's Home Education Matters
podcast.
See you at the next one.
(52:10):
Have a lovely day.
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