Off-Trail Learning

Debbie Reber (debbiereber.com) is the author of Differently Wired: Raising an Exceptional Child in a Conventional World and the founder of TiLT Parenting (tiltparenting.com), a podcast and online community. We discuss how Debbie coaches parents on issues of neurodivergence, the challenges that school systems present for “differently wired” kids, her response to the critics, what it was like raising her son in the Netherlands for 5 years, and how she ended up here in the first place.

(Blake also makes some exciting announcements in the very beginning.)

Originally recorded on March 29, 2021.

Olivia Barnes (blacklifeblueworld.wixsite.com/blbwofficialwebsite) has always had a somewhat unconventional education, but after a frustrating year at a well-regarded performing arts school, she decided to take the reins of her education. We discuss Olivia’s decision to spend her 10th grade year doing a hodgepodge of activities she called “self-design school”—including biology classes at a local university, online math, Spanish tutoring, and lots of swimming—what she’s doing now (despite the pandemic), what she would be doing if there were no pandemic, her concerns about college readiness, and three big questions that frame her ongoing self-education.

Don’t miss Olivia’s YouTube channel (youtube.com/channel/UC-Nckrk9b4j_c74HrYK85GQ) and LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/olivia-barnes-59617a200/).

A few more details: The school that Olivia attended in 8th grade was The Saint Constantine School, her math class was artofproblemsolving.com, and make sure to google “vaquitas”—they are adorable.

This interview was recorded on February 18th, 2021.

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Rivers and bike trips and workshops, oh my! A quick update from my somewhat-successful-sabbatical. Also: new podcast episodes coming soon!

Off-Trail Learning is on hiatus! In this brief personal update, I discuss my decision to go on sabbatical in 2021. Learn more at (newly redesigned) blakeboles.com.

Kevin Currie-Knight (kevinck.net) is a philosopher, historian of education, and Teaching Associate Professor at East Carolina University’s College of Education. Following a stint as a high school special educator, Kevin began training future public school teachers at the college level and experimented with giving them high levels of autonomy. We discuss the results of Kevin’s experiments, his unique definition of “self-directed learning,” the benefits of letting students choose their own grades, the tension between learning and credentialing, why students cheat, and whether the Ph.D. model of learning could be applied at the high school level. 

Kevin’s 2019 paper, “When College Students Direct Their Learning: How a College Professor Redesigned an Undergraduate Course in Education to Incorporate Self-Directed Learning”, can be found here: https://othereducation.org/index.php/OE/article/view/230

Martina Geromin is the CEO and Co-Founder of School Beyond Limitations (school-beyond-limitations.com). Originally from Italy, Martina has lived and worked in Austria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We discuss the state of self-directed education in Europe (including homeschooling and alternative schools), cultural differences and institutional differences between the U.S. and Europe, and what differentiates progressive and holistic education from self-directed education.

Dr. Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist, mother of two self-directed learners, and the author of the forthcoming book, "Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning."

In this deep-dive interview, Naomi and I dissect the modern culture of “intensive parenting” and the research behind Judith Rich Harris’ controversial book, "The Nurture Assumption."

We address some thorny topics including: How much do genes, peers, and parents respectively matter for a child’s long-term development? What kinds of influence do parents actually possess? How much of the nature/nurture research is universally relevant? How does self-directed learning fit into the picture? And what’s the overlap between attachment parenting and intensive parenting?

Don't miss Naomi's article in The Psychologist (https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-33/march-2020/schools-out. Her book, Changing Our Minds (https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/), is now available for pre-order.

To dive deeper into this fascinating and complicated subject, I recommend reading The Nurture Assumption (by Judith Rich Harris), Blueprint (by Robert Plomin), and Chapter 4 of my book, Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?

Dev Carey is the founder and co-director of the High Desert Center in Paonia, Colorado (highdesertcenter.org), where he’s been offering an adventurous, affordable, and highly alternative gap year program for more than six years. We discuss his approach to working with 16- to 23-year-olds, the most common issues they face, and the lessons they learn through his 9-month program that combines communal living with high adventure. We conclude with the question of what parents can do to offer young adults a similar sense of adventure and connection in their lives at home.

Prisma (joinprisma.com) is a brand-new company that’s attempting to combine the best parts of homeschooling with the best parts of online education. In this episode I speak with Victoria Ransom, who co-founded Prisma alongside her husband Alain Chuard, about the Prisma model, who it’s for, how self-directed it is, why they don’t do grades or transcripts, and their vision for expanding Prisma into a global “co-learning network.”

What does it mean to educate in freedom? What are the different flavors of “freedom” that appear in the self-directed education world? In this live interview (recorded in January 2020) I speak with Alexander Khost, Editor-in-Chief of Tipping Points, the online magazine of The Alliance for Self-Directed Education, and a facilitator at Brooklyn Apple Academy. We discuss a controversial pair of articles he published in late 2019, addressing the topics of fear- versus trust-based education, the messy overlap between educational beliefs and political beliefs, and how this all plays out in the world of Sudbury schools, Agile Learning Centers, Liberated Learners centers, progressive schools, and unschooling.

Links:

Original article: https://www.self-directed.org/tp/misuse-of-words/

Follow-up article: https://www.self-directed.org/tp/education-is-a-political-act/ (the chart appears here)

Forum discussion: https://www.self-directed.org/topic/sde-and-the-idea-that-education-is-a-political-act/