Exploring Unschooling

Jen Keefe joins me this week! Jen was on the podcast almost three years ago and I really enjoyed learning a bit about how their unschooling lives have grown and changed since then. We dive into what she found challenging as they moved to unschooling, how it’s been life-changing for her as well as the […]

I originally wrote this essay for Rosemary Magazine, for their winter issue, which had the theme, “wildschool.” I loved playing with that idea! There’s the outer wildness of living outside the structure of compulsory school. In the world, rather than in the classroom. Kids in the grocery store in the middle of the day. Running […]

Teresa Hess is an unschooling mom with three kids and the family—Teresa, her husband, and the kids—live in a cool co-housing community on an island in Washington state. Teresa and I had a wonderful conversation about their unschooling lives, diving into the shift to peaceful parenting, the ever-deepening spiral of mothering and self-awareness, the concept […]

Talia Bartoe is an unschooling mom with four young children who have never been to school. We have a wonderful conversation about her deschooling journey—as someone who excelled in school, she had no idea this would be in her future. Her excitement and gratitude for finding this path and for the beautiful connections that have […]

Shannon Loucks joins me to talk about unschooling, parenting, and her new book, Love More: 50+ ways to build joy into childhood. Shannon’s an unschooling mom with two boys and she believes in the power of play and partnership as a way to bring more joy and love into our children’s lives. We dive into […]

Anna Brown joins me this week for another Unschooling in Context episode! This time we’re diving into unschooling in the context of life. And what I mean by that is, we’re exploring how unschooling eventually weaves so tightly into our lives. Which is beautiful! Unschooling IS living our lives. Yet, as challenges arise, it can […]

It’s time for another compilation episode! This time, let’s dive into video games. Video games are a common topic of conversation in unschooling circles because, when it comes to questioning conventional advice, this topic is a hot bed of widely varying perspectives. For me, when I find myself in that conundrum, I look to my […]

Jack and Sean O’Brien both grew up unschooling. Sean chose to continue unschooling during his teen years and Jack chose to go to high school. Now they’re both in college and we have a wonderful conversation about the ways that unschooling has woven its way through their current college experiences. Watch the video on YouTube […]

Nick Bergson-Shilcock joins me this week! In a nutshell, Nick grew up unschooling and now runs the Recurse Center in New York. It’s a wonderful space for both new and experience programmers to take a sabbatical and vastly improve their programming skills. It was fascinating to hear the story of how the Recurse Center came […]

Joan Concilio joins me to share some of her family’s wonderful unschooling stories. We dive into her journey to unschooling, the learning that happened along the way, the profound changes it brought to their lives and the deep connections that it forged. She also talks about what it’s like to live in a highly regulated […]