The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
106. Natural Learning & Unschooling w/Leah McDermott (Part 1)
What if traditional schooling methods are stifling your child's natural curiosity and creativity? Leah McDermott, a former master educator turned radical unschooling advocate, joins us on the Radiant Mission podcast to share her transformative journey. From her early exposure to rigid homeschooling to her years entrenched in the public education system, Leah reveals the eye-opening moments that made her question conventional education. After becoming a mother, she realized she couldn't support a system she fundamentally disagreed with and began exploring homeschooling and unschooling as viable alternatives.
We tackle the challenging transition from structured education to the liberating world of unschooling, starting with the creation of Bridge Academy, a private school that helps parents navigate the complexities of homeschooling. Leah sheds light on the societal pressures to conform to traditional schooling and emphasizes the critical process of de-schooling for both parents and children. The discussion delves into the emotional and psychological hurdles of adopting an unschooling approach, offering valuable insights into recognizing and nurturing each child's unique learning journey.
As we rethink societal expectations around education and future careers, Leah passionately argues for the importance of creative and adaptable skill sets in an era of advancing AI and automation. By allowing children the freedom to explore their interests and passions, we can help them become self-assured and motivated individuals. Leah's personal anecdotes, including her son's journey from exploring various hobbies to discovering a passion for nature, illustrate the profound benefits of unschooling. This episode is a call to support children's curiosity and creativity, ultimately empowering them to make informed decisions about their futures.
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Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast. My name is Rebecca Toomey and we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Christ. We have been in a series on homeschooling and today we welcome Leah McDermott. She is a former master educator, turned radical unschooling advocate and mama of three boys. She's the owner of your Natural Learner and Bridge Academy, where she provides resources and community for natural learning and homeschoolers around the world.
Speaker 1:After years spent in the public school classrooms, Leah recognized the disconnect between what we know to be true about how learning happens and what we're doing to our children in the system. So in 2011, after having her first child, she made the decision to step away from the public learning system and began her work in encouraging and supporting homeschooling families to raise a new generation of confident and passionate lifelong learners. Today focuses on helping parents shift their mindset to trust their children that they are capable of learning what they need to learn when they need to learn it. I am so excited to learn from you today, Leah. Thank you so much for being here. Yay, Thanks for having me. Awesome, so we'll just dive right in. Can you share a bit about your journey from being a master educator in public school to becoming a radical unschooling advocate. What prompted that shift?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I like to. I love to tell my story because it's like I've gone all the way around, like completely full circle through my life. So I actually was like many of us, you know went to the public school system as a child and purely out of circumstance, because my father was in the military and we were stationed overseas in this tiny little community where there were not a lot of public school resources. When I was in fourth grade they actually encouraged my parents to homeschool me, which at the time, in the early nineties, nobody did that right, like it wasn't even legal in every state, like it was just not a thing. And so they they did. But because of the stigmas around it, because of the legalities around it, my homeschooling experience as a child still looked very much like school at home. It was extremely rigid. We still had all of the curriculum and tests and quizzes and a homeschool classroom and red pens everywhere, a homeschool classroom and red pens everywhere. So it was still, you know, in a way it was almost like I was the only student. So it was even harder to make it through than being in the public school, where I probably could have skated with doing a lot, a lot easier work, but that's a lot of pressure, it is for sure. But I was one of those people that school came very easy, testing came very easy, and so that was my identity. Right was a student. I was going to just be a student and so naturally, as many of us can probably relate, I wanted to be a teacher when I was done being a student, because it was all I really knew how to do very well, and so I went to college to be a teacher and I went all the way and got two master's degrees in education. I was going to be the best teacher and started teaching in the public school classrooms. And I started in kindergarten.
Speaker 2:And, aside from you know the emotional pieces which I didn't, have my own children yet, so they didn't connect with me as much. Right, like sad kids not wanting to be away from their moms, the emotions of all of that. But what I saw was they were still, you know, at five years old, six years old. They are curious, they're creative, they're asking questions, they believe in magic, they want to do all of the art and they want to play and they want to learn. They're seeking all of the knowledge that the world has to offer them. And so I spent a few years in kindergarten and then the district did some changing around and I was moved to a fifth grade classroom.
Speaker 2:So I went from K straight to fifth grade, and that first day of fifth grade was the first really big light bulb moment for me, because I noticed immediately when those children walked in the room that the light was gone from their eyes. They didn't want to be there anymore. School was not fun. Learning wasn't something that they saw as a joy. They didn't want to engage, they weren't curious, they weren't creative anymore. They didn't believe that they were good at things. It crushed me because it was like what have we done? What did we do in four years to these children that now they hated here? What, what happened? And so I tried.
Speaker 2:I stayed in fifth grade and my mission was to change it from within, which, of course, is, you know, when you're a tiny little wheel in a very big system, that doesn't really happen. And then I got pregnant with my oldest, and he's almost 14. So this was, you know, 14 years ago, and that was the second light bulb, because I knew that I would never put him in that system and I realized that I was being a hypocrite if I stayed in that system as a teacher but I would never put my own child in it. Then I was just the perpetuator of the trauma that I was trying to avoid for my own children. So I left the classroom and committed to homeschooling my own kids, and when he turned about three, a lot of those fears started popping up for me, like, okay, well, now I have to do something, I have to do the teaching. So I need a curriculum to do the teaching, because it doesn't just happen. And so I started doing some research on curriculums and all I noticed was that they were exactly the same thing that was in the classroom. It was just school at home.
Speaker 2:And I still had those emotions of like being a bully to these kids, like forcing them to learn things they didn't care about, and I was like, okay, well, I'm definitely, that's not it, that's not the vibe, what are we going to do instead? And then I just stopped and watched him. It was like another the third light bulb, I guess and I realized he was learning on his own, like the way that I was creating an environment for him, letting him explore his world, reading to him. Talking to him, he was already curious, as all kids are. All I needed to really do was provide those opportunities for him, and I had never heard of unschooling. I don't think it even really was a big word. You know, 13 some years ago. But that's kind of what.
Speaker 2:Naturally, when I just paid attention to my child is where I led, and so some of the activities that I did with him, I did start writing down, which turned into the curriculum that I offer, which is the your Natural Learner curriculum. It's very child led, but I just followed my kids. Now I have three of them. We do that. They are confident, they are capable, they are creative, they have existed, they're you know.
Speaker 2:They're now 13 and 10. And then my youngest is almost four, but they have never been forced to learn something and they have never been forced to prove that learning to someone. And I know a lot of people think that this, okay, well, it's easy to homeschool when they're little, but when they get older, that's when I could never do it and watching them it's every year it's better, because I get to see the difference between how my children engage in the world and how their peers who go to public school, engage in the world, and it is so different. So that's kind of like my whole full circle story of how I went from one side to the other. But yeah, it's really remarkable to see what happens when they are unencumbered by timelines and force and pressure.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. It really is. I mean, like you said, school is very rigid in about going from this milestone to the next, to the next, to the next, and really learning is not linear for every child. Every child is so, so different. So tell me about how that works with testing. Do you still have to? Are you still required to go through standard testing and things of that nature? Is everyone in every state? Do you have any advice for parents on how to navigate that part of the landscape?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. That's actually why I started Bridge Academy a couple of years ago. So I lived in a state where the homeschooling regulations were very minimal. All you needed to do was basically let them know that you were homeschooling and that was it. They didn't check on you, you didn't have to turn anything in. So I didn't really think about that aspect of it. And then four years ago, we moved to a state that is more heavily regulated and you have to meet with evaluators and keep portfolios and turn in standardized tests in certain years.
Speaker 2:And, as somebody who has a background in education, that didn't intimidate me, because I know how to do all of the paperwork, part of it, the little pieces of proof.
Speaker 2:But I realized what a stumbling block that would be for parents who didn't have that or who really did want to lean into unschooling and then feel like they had to backpedal and prove something to the state or some random person who didn't get the full picture of the life their child was living. And so that's why we started Bridge Academy, which is a private school for homeschoolers and unschoolers, and so in pretty much every state when parents enroll their kids in our school, they are not even considered homeschoolers anymore they are legally considered private school students or in the states where we can't do that, we do the homeschool paperwork for them so that they can just focus on their kids, focus on life and living and learning. That they can just focus on their kids, focus on life and living and learning, and we take care of the rest and it removes those burdens of standardized testing. Or if there's like two states where they still have to do it, but it's very minimal, we, you know, very relaxed, so we can remove a lot of those pressures.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, wow. What I'm sure are really for many listening because I know that that's a very challenging part of pursuing homeschooling for those that maybe weren't homeschooled and this is a new concept for them is how am I going to navigate that, especially with what we're talking about today, which is unschooling and really not being a part of that structured model? So I would love to learn a little bit about what are some of the biggest challenges that you faced when really transitioning away from this traditional education system that we're talking about to unschooling your own children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mindset 100%. And the more I work with parents you know who are on this journey especially, you know, fortunately for me, I had those light bulb moments before I had children of my own, so I didn't have to, I didn't have to walk that balance of de-schooling myself and also my children as I pulled them out of that system. They, you know, didn't ever have to be in it. But it is just a de-schooling of your mind and it's the school-minded system. It's not just a system of, like, going to school, going to work, right, it's also the way that that as a culture kind of permeates your thoughts and for a couple of generations now, we've been made to believe that learning only happens inside a classroom, at a desk with a textbook from a teacher in these rigid structures. That just isn't true. That's not how learning happens. Learning doesn't stop when we turn 18. It actually really began. I've learned way cooler things after leaving high school than I did in public school. So it's really just, it's a mindset shift.
Speaker 2:There's so much that we have to detangle about what we believe about learning, what it looks like and how it happens, and the uniqueness of each person out there. You know, even before we went to. Even before we hit record, we were talking about the uniqueness of each of our little children, and then we expect them all to sit in a room and act exactly the same way and learn the same way, and that's just not realistic. That's not true, that's not the reality. So it's a lot of de-schooling work for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Actually, as soon as I'm done with this podcast, I'm going to be recording a masterclass about fear, because that's what happens. These things just pop up for us about comparison. You know, if you're the first person you know to choose a homeschooling path or an unschooling path, that can be really terrifying. To be that brave person when your neighbors are all going to school or your mother-in-law doesn't support you, or even your partner often doesn't understand why you want to keep them home, why they shouldn't be in school.
Speaker 2:So it's a lot of being able and willing to tune into yourself and maybe dig up some of those uncomfortable memories of why do I feel that way, what made me feel like that, why don't I believe that or why do I believe this, and just being willing to do that work over and over again, because even like almost 20 years on this journey, I still have moments where I have a fear that pops up or I question something, and if I only ever ignored that or reacted to it, I would never be able to continue the work that I'm doing. So we have to keep. We have to keep detangling those beliefs to be able to continue the work that I'm doing. So we have to keep detangling those beliefs to be able to step out of that system fully.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You made so many great points there and I think that one of the biggest things that you pointed to is, as a society, we very much have this herd mentality where we do what everyone else is doing, and to step outside of that is what is challenging and what is hard, and that's why people like you that are doing this work, to say, no, look, we're doing it and it's working. It allows others to say, okay, well, she's doing it and she's created this whole system for making it work. Then perhaps I can do that too, and I know that public school and private schools are very much like this, that it's like well, this is what everybody does, right, everybody, I mean.
Speaker 1:I started to experience this with my first when she was around, I guess, closer to four every single person everywhere. It seems like we would go, we'll go. Are you starting school soon? Are you starting school when are you going to go to school? And started asking her about going to school and I thought that's such a weird thing. It's kind of like when you're pregnant and people ask you all those weird pregnancy questions. I never thought that that was a thing with children. Yeah, people just start asking your kid at four years old, are you excited about going to school? And then, of course, I have to step in and be like, well, she's not going to school, so. And then they're like, oh, weird.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and then you have to step into this role of like advocate too, not just for yourself but for your child and then for this alternate way of existing. It's interesting you bring that up. I just put up a post the other day I was talking about it on my Instagram about how the only you know adults only know how to talk to kids about school, because all we know how to do is talk about work and it's just.
Speaker 2:it's just this cycle, because it's been a great like. As soon as we are like three years old and go to preschool, that's it During the day, monday through Friday. Your time is someone else's the whole time. You're a child and then it just conditions you to be that way for work and that's all we know how to talk about. And it's you know. When you realize that you start paying attention to it and seeing like that's all we ever ask kids Are you excited about school?
Speaker 1:Did school start? How's school going? How are your grades? Like nothing about them as individuals, absolutely. That's funny that you say that my daughter is in a dance class and the teacher the first thing she did in their class, everyone was sitting down and she said what'd you do at school today? And it's funny because none of the kids wanted to talk about school. They all just changed the subject and started talking about other stuff that was interesting to them and me and the other parents were kind of like laughing to ourselves because it was all random stuff. They're between four and six and it just that isn't what was exciting to these kids. That did go to school. Obviously my daughter doesn't, and all she wanted to talk about is roller coasters or something, and it's just interesting. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:I did see your post the other day and I thought, man, that's so funny. But that also kind of triggered something for me, because I feel like when I'm in a group setting or if it's my husband and I, I don't feel like people ever ask me what do you do? I think that people are so nervous about asking a woman these days, like if she works or doesn't, and so they always go straight for the husband and they say, what do you do for work? And you know they open a can of worms when they start talking to me because, you know, then I get started talking about this podcast and all my actual day job too.
Speaker 1:But you know it's interesting the perceptions that society has. And then to tag on to the other part of this about it preparing you for work, I mean, is that not what school is? They wake up in the morning before the kid should even be awake. So just so you know I don't know if you know this I was homeschooled. I was actually homeschooled from the beginning until I went. I actually started college at 16. And my mother never woke me up. She didn't wake me up in the beginning until I went. I actually started college at 16. And my mother never woke me up.
Speaker 1:She didn't wake me up in the morning. I woke up. When I woke up, which was usually around nine, it wasn't like I was sleeping until 2 pm and I see so many moms that are starting to take their kids to kindergarten complaining about I have to wake up at the crack of dawn. I'm waking up at six and I'm like I could not imagine waking my children up at six o'clock in the morning to prepare them to go do what they could do at home. Right, learn the things that they could learn at home. But it's a system to wake up every day, rigid, go sit, you know, you take a lunch break, you get back to it and then what do we become in the end? We're we're employees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Little robots. And you know it's for all of the negative things that happened during the pandemic. I am grateful that it opened so many eyes to the system, because not only did every parent suddenly see how much time was wasted with their kids every day, but the realization that as adults, we didn't need managers. We could do most of our work from home.
Speaker 2:We could do it in three hours and not eight if we were productive enough. Like it really has turned the whole system on its head. And one of the things I'm really passionate about speaking about right now especially since, like, one of those biggest fears is how do I make sure my kid's prepared for the future. Like, okay, this all sounds great, but how will they learn time management and how will they learn to get up for a job and apply for a job and all of these things? But the reality is that most of the jobs that exist right now won't be there when your child is old enough to get a job. It's a good point.
Speaker 2:The progression of jobs in this country and in the world, like AI, is taking over. So 10 years ago there was a study that said in 20 years so we're already 10 years into that in 20 years, 80% of jobs that exist will be done by robots. That was 10 years ago, so now that projection is 10 years and that was without the invention of AI yet. So now we see, like how fast these jobs, regular jobs are disappearing and we can have discussions about that, but the reality is that when your child is especially if you have a young child, when they are ready to enter the workforce, what will be there for them?
Speaker 2:And even today, the top employers in the world are not hiring people based on their SAT scores. They don't care how well you can sit at a desk. They want people who have creative ideas, who are inventors, good communicators, problem solvers, leaders all of the things that are the opposite of what we're teaching in a traditional school system, which is do the same thing as everyone, get the right answer the same way as everyone, sit quietly, follow the schedule. Those aren't the skills that even the best employers want today. So why is that that's not going to change? You know, the school system for all intents and purposes has not changed in 60 to 70 years, and yet all of the world around us has. So we can't expect to keep putting our children into this system and have something different come out on the other side.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I was laughing the other day Some meme came up that was like hey, remember, when we were in college and computer was a class, I took computer and it was. You know how to open Word, how to use Excel, and no one cares about that.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a basic skill, first of all today that if you don't know how to use Word, I have to go to my team now. I go to my team to ask most tech questions now because I know people are born with it, now understanding it more than us.
Speaker 1:And that's why so many I mean we hear this from Google and Meta and some of these other companies they don't even care about you going to college. They want you to get to them as soon as possible. If you're going to work for them, come to us right away, because we're going to train you how to use our tool sets, how to use our programs, how to program you into our programming, whatever the case might be. But you're absolutely right that the jobs change and I think that it's interesting when you think about how kids spend 12 years learning history and it's like what do you? What is what are they going to do with that in their actual application of their job later, especially when we know that some of the history that we're being taught isn't even factual.
Speaker 2:It's very much you know, go ahead. And when we go to, like math is the one you know, being somebody in the homeschool space dealing with people who have, you know, judgment and all that, math is always the thing that I go to. I posted a TikTok the other day of my son fishing. That's what he was doing during the day while all of his friends were sitting in under fluorescent lights. He was out fishing and started a fire by the creek and cooked his own lunch and these people came in the comments saying, oh, really great that he's learning geometry and calculus.
Speaker 2:I was like, um, I've literally never used those math skills ever after high school. Like what a thing to focus on. But it's like it's part of that conditioning, right? Well, I, I had to suffer through that, so I'm going to hold that as part of my identity that I made it through that and now everyone else has to also, when the reality is that most of us will never use more than fourth grade math. So why do we argue it Like there's an amazing TEDx talk about it from a mathematician that said, like, unless you're going to be a mathematician, 90% of the population won't use anything beyond fourth grade math every day.
Speaker 2:So why are we forcing this like frustration and sadness and irritation, of skills that they're never going to use again, when we could be finding out what they're interested in and diving into that? And that's really the heart of unschooling, you know, at the core is what are you really good at and what do you really love? Let's try it. No other time in your life do you have the freedom to try things just because than in childhood. You know, when you're an adult and you have bills and responsibilities, it's a lot harder to say I'm going to just dive into crochet and see how I do with it. That's you know you can't do that as easily. But when you're a kid and you want to try something, there's no consequences to not being good at it or not making it a job. So really shouldn't we be encouraging all of those things when they can and they have the passion?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Now you're actually jumping into that next question that I would love for you to answer, because a lot of parents are new to this concept of unschooling. You know they haven't heard of it before. They maybe don't know what that means. Could you define what homeschooling, homeschooling, unschooling is, and how does it differ from a more structured homeschooling setting or approach?
Speaker 2:structured homeschooling setting or approach. Sure, so there's definitely still some myths out there about unschooling that it just basically means you do nothing with your kids, which couldn't be farther from the truth. My, literally, I have to like turn my phone off when I'm doing recordings because my kids are like sending me all of these things they want to do. So what unschooling is is, it is a rejection of the schooled mindset. So you know, for whatever that sounds like, it sounds really big and scary, but it's basically that you just keep living with your kids, you just embrace that at the core of who we are, we are curious, we are capable, we are creative, and that my job as a parent now is not to see my child as this empty bucket or this blank slate that I have to fill with information. I see my child as a whole human, already having their own personalities and their unique talents and interests and passions and goals in life. And my job is to provide them with opportunity, with experiences, with a safe space to try these things, with encouragement and guidance so that they can discover who they really are meant to be. And when you strip away the mindset of the school structure so the timelines, the checklists, the shoulds, you're really able to then see that just because every child isn't picking up these skills on the exact same timeline or at the exact same moments doesn't mean they never will or that it won't look the same. And I know that can be scary in the moment when you have an eight-year-old who's not reading independently and that can seem terrifying, especially if you don't have like that pedagogy behind you of understanding that in most cases kids aren't even ready to read until seven. That's a whole other thing. But if you take, you know, if you zoom out a little bit, you know you and I are sitting here having this conversation. I don't care how. If you take, you know, if you zoom out a little bit, you know you and I are sitting here having this conversation. I don't care how old you were when you learned how to read. That doesn't matter. Now you know.
Speaker 2:But we put so much pressure on kids to perform their knowledge. For us and for a lot of homeschoolers that can be even worse, because then not only is the pressure on our child, but we feel the pressure to also perform for the world around us. That, no, I made the right choice. Look how smart my kid is. That is like double pressure, right? Because then you have the pressure of I want my kid to succeed, but I also need others to see that I'm not a failure, and that can be a lot to carry if you're not willing to de-school yourself from that mindset. So that's what unschooling is really like, just. It's just a trust in children and in humans, that we are capable and that we. My goal is to make my children love learning, or help them love learning forever, not fill them with as much knowledge as I can until they leave the house and then hope they do something with it. That's the difference, really.
Speaker 1:That's such a great point about the parent, because I think that we always have this in a and maybe this is the ego of us, right, our ego mind that we feel that our children are a reflection of us and in some senses they are, but it's not meant to be a judgment, right?
Speaker 1:Like, oh, my kids are smart, or my kids are successful, or whatever the case might be. Our children are individual people, separate from us, believe it or not, you know, right, it's like they're not us. They have their own brains and they can make their own choices and we can encourage them, we can lead, we can, you know, provide a fostering environment for them, but at the end of the day, they're their own people and I think that we have to get like you said. You said we have to get out of our, we have to unschool our own minds Absolutely To separate ourselves from you know, just feeling that way, absolutely To separate ourselves from you know, just feeling that way. And so it's funny, because it's kind of what I think we're both agreeing on here is not only does it make us a little weird to homeschool and a little weird to unschool, but then we've got to be even more weird and not care what people think about all of it, but I don't know about you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm so used to being weird for so long that it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was you know, that was with the work that I do was the hardest thing, because I guess that's and maybe it's just my personality I've never cared, ever what people thought about me, and so it was humbling for me to have to say well, first of all, I married somebody who very much cares, so that was you know, that was a thing to have to help with, and I had children who very much care, so the universe brought that back around to me to see what that was like. But as I started doing, you know, more work with homeschooling moms, I realized, oh, this is something, this is a big thing Like people, really, that's a thing. We have to address that. And having a child who felt that way, who was very intimidated by other people's opinions, who did deal with being the weird one for a while being the advocate for my children, then, but also teaching them how to advocate for themselves was a really challenging hurdle for me. To not to not feel like I always had to jump in and to be like a mama bear right or protect them, but to teach them these skills for themselves.
Speaker 2:And that's been one of the most amazing things about unschooling really is and you mentioned that kids are their own people and they have their own voice.
Speaker 2:And we start to see this when they turn like two and realize they can say no right.
Speaker 2:But this is part of that like okay, well, I can send them to school and they can learn to like fall in line, or I can keep them home and we can have discussions and we can negotiate and we can talk about reasons and I can help them develop these skills and while that seems so different from how we were raised to just like be quiet, listen to your elders, listen to the you know, the people in charge.
Speaker 2:Having older kids now being on the other side of that like kind of scary early time where we had to have discussions and I had to admit I was wrong and I could change my mind. Seeing my teenager not be scared to stand up for himself, to make decisions different from those around him, to stand up to an adult that's telling him something that's not true or not okay. I am so grateful that I went through some of those harder times when he was younger to now be able to see him advocate for himself. That is my favorite thing to be able to see that. So it's hard in the beginning to be different, but it is so worth it when you see the rewards and the benefits of that on the other side.
Speaker 1:You just have to take it and you don't have the opportunity to stand up for yourself. But what does that do? It crumbles your creativity and your ability to be an individual. So used to staying in line. Yeah, and it is funny, the difference between two once they turn two and they say no. My youngest is 14 months and all she says is yeah, yeah, I'm like keep doing that. Yeah, she says yeah, I go no and she cracks up.
Speaker 1:But I want to ask you for an example. You know you explained unschooling really well and how it's kind of it's allowing children to express you. So you said something about. You know you're probably going to have a bunch of texts about from your kids about things they want to try or want to do. So what does that look like in, let's say, elementary school versus now you have middle school, slash, high school, what? How does that look as they're as they progress and get older? I imagine you know kindergarten younger age because I have one myself is very much. I want to learn how to play the guitar. We actually just got her a little ukulele and she's like I want to learn how to play it and learning how to play instruments and dance and those types of things and just pursuing that. What does it look like as they're growing?
Speaker 2:So it's actually really, really amazing, especially if they've never had the experience of public school or even like a rigid homeschool, because when they're younger, like I mentioned earlier, they're so creative, right, they want to try everything and when you are not bound by those timelines and the structure and the curriculum and the rigidity, you can do that. And what I tell parents is to let them try everything and be okay when they're done with it, because when they're little and in elementary school, they're going to want to try everything. Naturally I want to do this one thing and they want to go all in and then two weeks later they've gotten what they needed out of it and they're done. So you know my oldest he was like all into basketball for a while and he was all into boxing and he played Dungeons and Dragons. He's had so many cool identities and as quickly as they would arise they would fizzle out and he would just be done with them and there's always been like an underlying thing with him of loving nature and animals, like that's. He learned to read when he was four because he not because we forced it, but he there was an animal encyclopedia in our house and he wanted to read the information about the animals, and so he would like sit there with his little four-year-old finger and scroll down the index looking for animal names. He would recognize and then go to that page so he could see the picture. And even though all these other things have come up and we've tried all these other things, now that he's 13, being outdoors is the only thing he wants to do, and he's been able because he's had those experiences of getting to try all these other things, he so confidently now knows what he wants to do.
Speaker 2:And how many teenagers can say they know what they want to do? They don't, because they've never even gotten to experience things for the most part right Because we tell them this is what you need to know, when you need to know it, how you need to know it, but never why. And they don't have the opportunity to explore and express themselves. And having that freedom to try all those things helps you narrow down the things you're really good at and the things you really love. And so my middle child is 10, and he is all in as a soccer player. He's one of the best in our town. He plays on the travel teams because he's had nothing but time and his own time to practice and play and learn and read history about soccer players. So it looks like a whole bunch of crazy everything at first, but by doing that they can truly find who they are.
Speaker 2:And then it starts to narrow down and it narrows down and as they get older it keeps narrowing and then it really gives you the opportunity, when they're older, to start saying okay, I can see this as your trajectory, this is what you love, what is the next step for you? And then you can have conversations about what does that look like for a job? What does that look like? Does that mean a college path for you? All right, what do you need to get there?
Speaker 2:And we get so nervous when they're younger that if we don't make them take tests or we don't show them textbooks, they'll never be able to use them. But that's not really how learning works. When we have the motivation to learn something, it's way easier and the learning is much deeper and more contextual. So now I can say to my almost 14 year old hey, these are the things that you really love. This is what's next for you. Here are the things we're going to need to get you there. Oh, okay, cool, and he can pull out a textbook if he needs it and he can take an online class, and it's way easier than trying to force him five years ago to do these things that he wouldn't have cared about.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. It's like learning earlier, rather than. I feel like a lot of people go through school and I can even include myself in this in some ways, because I didn't really know what I wanted to do, right yeah. And as you get into college and you're trying to figure it out and you think about how many people go to college because that's the next step after high school, they just go to college because what else am I going to do? And they have an undeclared major because they have no idea. They have no idea what they're interested in, or they start to pursue something and realize that they don't like it or don't enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I was a little confused as I went into the college system, because I was very strong in writing and I was strong in the arts, but the people around me are like be a doctor, be a physician's assistant, and I'm like I don't like math, I don't like science, I don't enjoy it, it's not something. There's a whole huge irony around that whole thing too, because now I'm very much far away from the medical system and my personal life and the way that I birth babies and stuff like that. It was, for a reason, right, but it's kind of I didn't pursue that stuff until I was already at the end of my schooling, where. Imagine if I had been spending my time trying to really narrow what I was interested in. I think it would just show that it was the things that I already was expressing interest in as I was a child.
Speaker 1:Now, fortunately, I think that my mom did have some aspects of unschooling without really realizing it. You mentioned you were at kind of the beginnings of homeschooling. My parents were as well. They were in the state of Florida and there were no laws for homeschoolers when she started homeschooling in the 80s with my oldest brother and they had to go to Tallahassee and lobby and create this bill to protect homeschoolers, because truancy was a big thing back then and you know. So she was really figuring it out.
Speaker 1:But she wasn't rigid in the sense she knew that school at home didn't need to be set at a desk for eight hours or six hours or whatever it is, and do your school, however long it took us to do our lessons. Do your lessons and then you can go do something else. And so for me I'm very self-motivated, so I'd go get my work done in an hour, half hour, 45 minutes, whatever it was, and then I would go do what I wanted to do. I would play outside, I would learn how to sew, I would sew quilts. I would used to pretend this is actually kind of funny, but my sister and I used to pretend to have a radio show and now we have a podcast, so maybe there was something there.
Speaker 1:I still, I still want to get my hands on those videos from when we were kids, cause we used to record ourselves. It was funny. We had a little those little uh, that cassette player with the microphone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, so it's just interesting that you know. We ask kids what they want to do, but it's all hypothetical, right, like what do you want to do? Well, we're not going to give you any pathways or tools to actually help you figure out if that's what you really want to do, but go to college. You figure it out there when you're paying for it $40,000 a year. So I think, yeah, right, the the idea of unschooling to be a part two to this episode. We're going to discuss what curriculum looks like in unschooling and so much more. Be sure to tune in next week for part two.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in and for being on this journey with us today. If you would like to follow along outside this podcast, join the mission on Instagram with the handle the Radiant Mission, or on Facebook as well, and, of course, this is also available in video format on YouTube. As a reminder, to find Leah, you can find her on Instagram, at instagramcom. Forward slash your natural learner wwwyournaturallearnercom or wwwbridgeacademyus. Today we are going to close with Isaiah 41, 10. So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous hand. We're wishing you a radiant week and we will see you next time. Bye, everyone.
