Self Directed

Charles Eisenstein is an author and speaker whose books and essays explore themes of community, human connection, economics, and social change. He is known for works such as The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.

Charles joins us to explore how modern family structures have evolved and what's been lost in our transition from community-based living to isolated nuclear families. 

What gets lost when we accept today’s idea of “normal” life? Together with Charles we discuss the shift from community to isolated nuclear families, the fading of shared caregiving, and why so many people feel something essential is missing. 

Charles shares his view that grief and discomfort about modern life are important signals, not problems to fix. 

Together, we question how community skills have eroded and what it might take to rebuild real connection. 

If you find yourself questioning “normal” and longing for deeper connection, this conversation offers perspective and encouragement to trust that feeling—and to look for ways, big or small, to rebuild genuine community in your own life.

🔗 Read articles and see videos  with Charles Eisenstein 

• https://charleseisenstein.org/
• https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/ 
• https://www.youtube.com/@charleseisenstein 

🔗 Charles Eisenstein on Social Media

• https://www.instagram.com/charles_eisenstein/ 
• https://www.facebook.com/charleseisensteinauthor 
• https://x.com/ceisenstein 

🗓️ Recorded July 11, 2025. 📍 Bremerhaven, Germany

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What if our traditional education system is fundamentally misaligned with how humans naturally learn? Jesper and Cecilie Conrad continue their conversation with Jamie Rumble, exploring the philosophy and practice of unschooling within a nomadic lifestyle.

Jamie shares how his background, including influences from Paulo Freire and the concept of eco-pedagogy, shapes his approach to teaching and learning.

The discussion challenges the traditional structure of schooling, contrasting prescribed curricula with the emergent, curiosity-driven learning that happens in real life. Cecilie and Jesper explain why their family chooses not to worry about global crises like climate change and instead focus on adaptability, freedom, and the ability to hold discomfort and uncertainty.

They describe how living on the road exposes their children to different cultures and environments, building emotional intelligence and cultural humility. The episode examines the pitfalls of seeking “teachable moments” and questions the idea that adults should determine what children need to learn.

Reflection, dialogue, and presence are highlighted as essential elements of education. The conversation closes with a discussion of planetary citizenship, beauty, and the importance of navigating both challenges and joys with intention and love.

🗓️ Recorded July 1st, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

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We got an email from Jamie Rumble... "I’m a Master of Education student at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada. For my thesis, I’m researching how digital nomads are adapting their lifestyles in response to climate change, and what insights their experiences might offer for future education and planetary citizenship." 

We thought it could be an interesting talk and said yes, given that we could use the recording for our podcast.

In this episode, we, Cecilie and Jesper Conrad, sit down with researcher Jamie Rumble to discuss our seven years as a nomadic family. We explain why we sold our house and chose to travel full-time with our three kids and two dogs, sharing what freedom really means to us.

We delve into the details of world schooling, explaining why we prioritise values, ethics, and adaptability over traditional school subjects. We talk about building and maintaining community while always on the move, and why we often say that “the adventure is the people.” We challenge the Instagram version of digital nomadism and share the practical realities of this life, from constant planning to the sacrifices involved. We also discuss privilege and the reasons we chose not to follow the conventional school system.

This episode offers a glimpse into what it's like to live as a nomadic family and the deliberate choices we make about engaging with the world.

🗓️ Recorded June 27th, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

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What happens when a single mom chooses to reject conventional norms, embraces van life, and takes her daughter out of traditional education? Vanessa Woozley joins us to share her inspiring story of courage, resilience, and transformation.

Vanessa’s adventure began with short trips, gradually evolving into full-time worldschooling in a van. She dispels myths about needing significant resources or a traditional two-parent household to pursue a life of travel and alternative education. Vanessa reveals how her daughter thrived after leaving conventional schooling, becoming self-motivated and deeply engaged in learning through genuine interests.

We explore the practicalities of single-parent van life, covering everything from managing online education and co-parenting arrangements to handling van troubles and finding community through worldschooling hubs. Vanessa's insights on facing fears, handling uncertainty, and embracing resilience offer powerful encouragement to anyone considering a similar journey.

Vanessa also shares her holistic approach to health and well-being on the road, highlighting the simplicity and importance of maintaining healthy routines and nutrition despite the nomadic lifestyle.

🗓️ Recorded June 19th, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🔗 Connect with Vanessa Woozley

• https://www.facebook.com/thelifesutras
• https://www.instagram.com/thelifesutra 
• https://www.youtube.com/c/VanessaWoozleyTheLifeSutra 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelifesutra

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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
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When Jack Stewart turned off the internet, he discovered that digital connection often acts as a “social appetite suppressant”—satisfying on the surface, but not deeply nourishing. In this conversation, Jack explains how removing online distractions led him to seek out in-person connection, from literally knocking on neighbors’ doors to organizing his own book and writing salons.

We discuss the qualitative difference between digital admirers and real friends, and why meaningful conversations rarely happen through casual online chat. Jack outlines how he created formal spaces—book clubs, writing groups, salons—to foster intellectual depth and genuine community.

The discussion moves to Jack’s research on “common pool resources,” and the practical lessons from Nobel Prize winner Eleanor Ostrom’s work on how communities can successfully govern shared spaces. We explore what makes a community sustainable, including trust, collective rule-making, and how conflict is resolved without defaulting to authority or privatization.

Cecilie and Jesper share their own experiences with offline community-building and the Scandinavian tradition of “hygge” as an egalitarian way of sharing space. The episode finishes with a reflection on what it really takes to build trust, give comfort, and create belonging in a world shaped by digital isolation.

🗓️ Recorded June 17th, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🔗 Links from our talk

• https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ 
• Download the PDF of "Money Can't Buy Me Hygge: Danish Middle-Class Consumption, Egalitarianism, and the Sanctity of Inner Space": https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272570361_Money_Can't_Buy_Me_Hygge_Danish_Middle-Class_Consumption_Egalitarianism_and_the_Sanctity_of_Inner_Space 
• overning the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/governing-the-commons/A8BB63BC4A1433A50A3FB92EDBBB97D5 

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Sociologist Jennie Germann Molz joins the podcast to discuss her book The World Is Our Classroom: Extreme Parenting and the Rise of Worldschooling. Jennie is a professor at the College of the Holy Cross whose research explores mobility, technology, and alternative forms of family life. Drawing on both academic insight and her own experience traveling the world with her ten-year-old son, she examines what happens when families move beyond traditional education models and choose to learn through travel.

We talk about how worldschooling challenges conventional ideas of parenting, risk, and education. The term itself includes a wide range of practices, from part-time educational travel to fully nomadic living. What connects them is a shared belief that learning happens outside institutional classrooms. Jennie also describes how both worldschooling and more conventional approaches like helicopter parenting can respond to the same concerns about preparing children for the future.

The conversation looks at worldschooling through the lens of a sociologist, covering how travel shapes emotional adaptability in children, how standardized testing limits our understanding of learning, and how digital tools and post-COVID shifts have expanded possibilities for mobile education. For listeners interested in alternative education, digital nomad families, or learning outside school systems, this episode offers a grounded academic view of the worldschooling movement.

🗓️ Recorded June 10th, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🔗 Learn more about Jennie Germann Molz

• https://www.holycross.edu/academics/people/jennie-germann-molz
• https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jennie-Germann-Molz/author/B005OSBMGO  

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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
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After her eight-year-old son was expelled from school in the UK, Corianda Shepherd and her partner Joel left behind a life that no longer worked. They moved to rural Spain, bought the first house they saw, and slowly built Shepherd’s Rest—a worldschooling community where families live together, learn in nature, and reject the idea that difference needs to be managed or corrected.

This episode is not just about homeschooling. It’s about what happens when the social structure becomes too rigid, when families are stretched thin, and when children who don’t fit are sidelined. We talk about creating a different rhythm, not as an escape, but as a deliberate response to a system that has forgotten its purpose.

Corianda shares how her sons began to thrive in a quieter environment, how a diagnosis doesn’t have to define a life, and why she believes family—not institutions—should be the foundation for raising children. Together, we reflect on how the box society offers has become too small, and what it takes to build something more human outside it.

🗓️ Recorded June 3rd, 2025. 📍 Åmarksgård, Lille Skendsved, Denmark

🔗 Connect with Coriandra and Shepherd’s Rest

• https://www.shepherdsrest.org/
• https://www.instagram.com/shepsrest
• https://www.facebook.com/ShepsRest 

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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
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What if the real magic happens not when you push harder, but when you let go? We explore surrender as a powerful, often misunderstood key to living a fuller life.

Kute Blackson is a transformational teacher and bestselling author of The Magic of Surrender. Known for his dynamic presence and multicultural background, he’s guided thousands worldwide through teachings on surrender, purpose, and authentic living.

Kute shares how walking away from his father’s Ghanaian mega-church, following his intuition, and embracing the unknown led him to unexpected success and deeper fulfillment. We dig into the nature of ego, why surrender doesn’t mean weakness, and how paying attention to life’s subtle signs can open doors you never imagined. For anyone curious about living more in alignment with their soul, this conversation offers both practical tools and surprising insights.

🗓️ Recorded May 21st, 2025. 📍 Prague, Czechia

🔗 Connect with Kute Blackson

• https://kuteblackson.com
• https://www.instagram.com/kuteblackson 
• https://www.facebook.com/kuteblacksonlovenow 
• https://x.com/kuteblackson 
• https://www.youtube.com/user/kuteblackson09 

Free masterclass: www.manifestationmasterclassonline.com

Eight Levels of Gratitude (free video course): www.8levelsofgratitude.com

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In this episode, we explore how modern culture has stripped childhood of the freedom it needs to thrive—and what can be done to bring it back. Our guest is Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, launched with Jonathan Haidt, Peter Gray, and Daniel Shuchman to champion independence, resilience, and real-world learning.

Together, we unpack how fear, measurement, and control have come to dominate parenting and education. From the rise of isolated family units to the spread of enrichment culture, today’s children are surrounded by adults who often confuse supervision with support. The result is a generation of kids with less room to explore, solve problems, and grow on their own.

We talk about how Let Grow is working to change this—by making it normal again for kids to walk to the store, play unsupervised, and take age-appropriate risks. Lenore shares the story of a high school that gave students one week of unstructured play, and the surprising transformation that followed. The spark of self-direction wasn’t lost—it was just waiting for space to reappear.

Visit letgrow.org to explore free programs, school initiatives, and policy work that supports childhood independence.

🗓️ Recorded May 13th, 2025. 📍 Budapest, Hungary

🔗 Connect with Lenore Skenazy

• https://www.facebook.com/lenore.skenazy
• https://www.instagram.com/lenoreskenazy_freerange
• https://x.com/freerangekids
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenoreskenazy
• https://letgrow.org
• https://www.freerangekids.com

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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
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What happens when your child simply won't fit inside society's educational box? 

When Anna Vestlev Sandfeld realized her son didn’t fit into the structure of kindergarten—and likely never would fit into traditional school—she and her husband chose unschooling. In this conversation with her cousin Cecilie and co-host Jesper, Anna reflects on the first year of stepping away from the system.

Anna shares how the loss of her first child shaped her parenting values, what it meant to leave a job she loved, and how her son’s strong will and focused interests made conventional paths feel impossible.

We explore what unschooling looks like when a child is, as Anna puts it, a “force of nature.” She shares how they’ve let go of routines around food, sleep, and learning, and how screen time—especially a Paw Patrol obsession—became a mirror for her own discomfort.

We also discuss emotional availability as a form of parenting work, and why being present can be more powerful than teaching. 

🗓️ Recorded May 13th, 2025. 📍 Budapest, Hungary

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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
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