In this episode, we're chatting about what wild schooling and unschooling or wild schooling looks like for our families as part of an exciting upcoming project.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education, stepping into the wilderness, however that looks, with your family.
SPEAKER_02Each week we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.
SPEAKER_00We're your hosts Vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School. Pop in your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure. Before we start, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Kabi Kabi and the Gubbi Gubbi people. We honour their songlines and storylines and pay our respects to the elders past, present and those emerging. We would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which you are listening to this episode.
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings podcast. We're your hosts, Nikki Farrell and Vicki Oliver. Before we start, we'd love to invite you to hit the subscribe button on your podcast player right now because more downloads means our podcast gets into more ears and that means just as much. getting more kids outside. So
SPEAKER_00this episode idea has come about because we've been invited to submit a book chapter for a new text on wild schooling, unschooling and road schooling. We can't give away too much more now, but suffice to say that when we were doing research for this book chapter, we found a lot of info we thought that some of you might like to hear too. So here we are chatting about our forest schooling, wild schooling and unschooling or wild's unschooling journey.
UNKNOWNMusic
SPEAKER_02It's been a while. We sat down together before. I'm like, gosh, it's been a while since we've done one together. It has been. It is really nice. How are you? I'm really good. We're really busy. We've seen each other every day this week, which doesn't tend to happen. And
SPEAKER_00it's nice. It is. I feel like I've seen more of your family than my own.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's also nine o'clock at night, so it's been a big day today. It has been,
SPEAKER_00but all good things, all good things.
SPEAKER_02They are. The way this is going to work for this podcast today is essentially we've been given a bunch of questions to try and answer for this book chapter, so we just thought we would go through and answer a bunch of them just so you get a snippet and a bit of an idea of what to look forward into this surprise book that will be published hopefully next year. It's not our book. We've just been invited to submit a chapter in it, but we hope you enjoy listening to our journey.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we're going to start by sort of... posing a question to each other and um giving you our response and our life experience and and the way that our life and work and wild schooling and unschooling works for our families which although we live quite parallel lives they are still quite different so it's not it'll be nice to hear how you know our own versions of answering a lot of these questions
SPEAKER_02So we thought we'd start with defining a few words or terms and philosophies that we use and follow. So to start with, can you try and describe or talk about what wild schooling is?
SPEAKER_00So wild schooling is actually a term that was coined by Nicolette Souda. And the way she describes it is that it's a way to continue to take inspiration from a wide range of sources. So there's a few of them, things like forest schooling, Reggio Emilio approach, earth schooling, Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, permaculture, peaceful parenting, the idea of de-schooling, unschooling, the eight shields model, indigenous knowledge and traditions, and most importantly, time spent communing with Mother Nature herself. It's
SPEAKER_02a beautiful, I think we were doing it without realizing that it had a name for a couple of years. So we, you know, we found the forest school approach and, but even prior to that, we were both living very outdoorsy lifestyles. And one of the reasons, neither of us, one of the many reasons neither of us chose to go down the daycare route was that we wanted more outdoor time and more nature time for our children. So, um, Yeah, without even realising that's what we were looking for, that's what we found and created ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think we identify with so many different philosophies and pedagogies that we have always taken bits and pieces, the best bits and pieces, the parts that we resonate with, that we know that our children resonate with and that they love, and we've put them all together, which is exactly what... wild schooling is, it's sort of taking inspiration from the best bits of everything. But the classroom is nature or like that's a massive focus. That's where a lot of what we do takes place. It's the third teacher. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's so place-based. I think that's almost exactly like you said, nature. nature is the classroom, but the classroom depends on where you live. So that's where you take your inspiration from.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially when our classroom is so varied. We're really blessed to live in a place where we have oceans and lakes and rivers and mountains and rainforests and waterfalls. And we have such a diverse range of natural environments that we're always learning more we're always going out and you know our space is it's so unique and varied and we learn something different and we can see the same space over the seasons but we can also see different spaces over the seasons as well so Obviously, because we are a forest school, wild schooling is a big part of what we do, and one of the biggest parts of that is forest school. So, Nikki, do you want to again maybe describe what that is?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. There's a couple of, I guess, favourite quotes that I love that summarise what it is. So there's one by Worrell that he states, regular outdoor nature-based learning that focuses on the holistic development of the child, and I think I really love that because it's There's not many philosophies that openly state that they're focusing on that holistic development. I just really love that because it is, it's exactly what happens incidentally anyway. Forest School is child-led free play that takes place in a natural environment for regular, that's the big word there, regular uninterrupted periods of time. That's from Elliot and Chancellor. It occurs in all weather with readily available risky play opportunities and that's a huge part of Forest School, particularly for us is those risky play opportunities. and the all-weather. And exactly like you were mentioning before, they experience seasonal changes, they direct their own play experiences, they engage in hands-on learning with natural elements, they connect with nature and learn to safely take risks. And that's from Elliot and Chancellor, the Forest School Association and a few others as well. I
SPEAKER_00think the important thing for me in Australia and in what we do and how we have interpreted forest school is that the risky play it's not just nature play that we do encourage adventurous risk-taking and that is a really huge part of allowing children to build confidence and resilience and all of those really important life skills that children need and without that risky play opportunity and just you know skirting around nature play which we love absolutely adore and It's just taking it to that next level.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I think... To put that into a day-to-day context or a real-life scenario, what that looks like at Wildlings, at our forest school, is that we simply provide the time, the space and the resources for children and our village as well because parents are a huge part of our forest school to play in nature with friends. And it really is that simple. I think that's so simple and so complex and so beautiful and so wholesome and so holistic. The next question we had was, How do you unschool, wild school, forest school your own kids, Vic? And what and how are your kids learning through that?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So we do have a rhythm at the moment that was working really well for our family. In terms of what my children are learning, I guess my answer to that is only my children will be able to answer that
SPEAKER_01question.
SPEAKER_00I truly believe that no one actually knows what anyone is learning at any one time and that information can change so uh in terms of how like what sort of activities that we do And how I know that they're learning is because we participate in lots of different things. They are exposed to different people, different types of activities. And some of those, that firstly includes going to our homeschool for a school group. So they'll do that actually while I get to do some work in the office. They've just started a hip hop class. Then we do a co-op with an amazing group of children from the ages of three through to 12. And then they also on another day, they go to another amazing friend's place, their property, and they do a combination of Montessori and permaculture learning, which they adore. We also have like an adventure day that we go out on. And in between that, We are picking up on things that they find interesting in things that they have overheard from somewhere or some information that they might have picked up in a book. And we just build on that learning, that growing the understanding around those topics. They do a lot of reading. We listen to audio books. I mean, I could go on forever about how we do this. We spend a lot of time outdoors. So, yeah, All throughout the day, whether that's, you know, first thing in the morning taking the dogs for a walk down the beach or going and meeting friends in the forest or meeting them in any one of our– we can't fit them all in. That's how much we're out and about.
SPEAKER_02Never at homeschool.
SPEAKER_00We're never at homeschool. Like I don't know the last time I was at home for a full day. By choice, by choice because we don't always– like we do need downtime but– Yeah, just because life is– there's so much to do and so much to– and for me to learn. Like I don't think– I think that's important to realise too is that I feel like I'm continuously learning. So if I know I'm learning by being and doing all of these things, then sure as hell my kids are learning as well.
SPEAKER_02But aren't you going to be assessed on your pottery class that you've joined? I'm bloody hurt not because I'm not doing it for anyone but myself. For enjoyment and because you want to learn a new skill.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And that's another thing too is my children seeing not just me but you and the other people in their lives continuing their learning journey. So for me it's starting a pottery class. For you it's watching they know you go to art classes and a myriad of other things or projects that, they get into like watching Scotty with his bees or, you know, watching their dad out there building something or taking interest in he's doing courses and things like that as well. So they're watching the people around them constantly on their own learning journey and knowing that we are all on a quest to know and learn and immerse ourselves in our world.
SPEAKER_02That doesn't end when you turn 18.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So how about you tell us a little bit about how you guys do it?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's almost snap. It's almost the same, but not quite. So we, you know, essentially we do hip, we've just literally started hip hop today. My eldest wants to start Aikido, which starts next week, which is, he's done a form of martial arts previously, but he wants to try one closer to home. We're back doing the summer soccer. We do forest school with our business, Wildlings. And just a side note there, they've been coming, both of our sets of kids have been coming since they were two and four, and they still choose to come. And they don't need to. We don't force them. It's not something we'll ever force. So I think that's a testament that... the free, the self-directed nature of what we offer allows them that freedom to choose and to be with their friends and still enjoyable for them even after all that time.
SPEAKER_00And I just want to jump in there because my girls didn't go to forest school for a period of time. And when they eventually went back, which was probably the first time since I was actually running it whilst they were coming with me, and they loved it because we have the most amazing facilitators, the most amazing mentors for our kids. And They love it so much that they get upset if they miss it and 100% never said that they had to go, like you say. They choose to go because it's such a worthwhile thing for them to be involved in.
SPEAKER_02And the families, you know, that's their village now. They know when they go there that they're going to know 99% of the children turning up too. So it's a security net in the most beautiful way. We also go to FridaLone, the co-op that we do as well, which is a full day. But outside of this, we have a group of unschooling mums who are essentially just our friends who meet for an Adventure Monday and we go chasing waterfalls or rock pools or camping or the beach or hikes. And honestly, we do it for ourselves and the kids just
SPEAKER_00come. Yeah. We choose the locations based on where we want to go.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And then we don't see them and then we go home. Yeah. And on Tuesdays they hang out with Dad, which usually involves a beach trip or BMX track or a bike ride or it might just be a home day and a quiet day, drawing or reading or, you know, jumping on the trampoline. There's a lot of drawing and Lego at the moment in our house. And on Fridays, thank all the things we generally, not that we have in weeks actually, have a home day. So we try not to book organise activities on Mondays or Fridays because it leaves us nice and open for a long week weekends away or camping trips, but that doesn't always happen. But for the last couple of terms, it's been really nice to have a long weekend to recover from a busy week, which might sound hilarious from people that do a five-day school week,
SPEAKER_00but three days is
SPEAKER_02a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but when you slow down, being busy or feeling like your life is full is different and intentional and our life is by design.
SPEAKER_02That makes me want to skip forward to the next question, which is, can you give us a typical day in the life description? Because I think you just nailed that. It's that five days a week wasn't working for me personally. When I had two young children and a husband at uni and starting his own business, it was a lot. And I was stressed and I wasn't enjoying my life. And so we made some changes. And now I don't set an alarm. I have such a hatred of my alarm clock. And I'm finally getting that great karma back of not having to set an alarm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love the fact that I can jump on a bandwagon. and write it out until I don't want to do it anymore. And then I can just do whatever I like. To elaborate on that is that I might go through a phase where I wake up every morning and I journal and I have a routine and I'll do a gratitude journal and maybe some breathing or I'll take the dog's first thing for a walk. And then all of a sudden I don't want to do that anymore.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00And I don't have to and I'm not bound to anything and I can try something new. I can hear about something and think, well, I'm going to give that a go for a few weeks. And I'm not, I don't have to be anywhere. We don't have to be, I mean, we do. We do,
SPEAKER_02but not in school traffic time. No. And that is worth everything. For a girl that grew up in the country, not hitting peak hour, yeah. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00And, like, the things that I am going to is to your place, which is where our office is, and it's like I get the best of both worlds because I get to go to your house, which is a beautiful property, so I feel like it's my second home. Oh. And... I get to sit with my best friend and your family, which is like you're all my best friends. So it's just like hanging out with your mates and getting some productive work done and feeling purposeful. So I've never done that going to work before. Like it's hard to call. It's not a call at work, but it doesn't feel like a job I've ever had before. Same, same. And so there is no typical day because every day is different. Do we feel like doing something? walking the dog in the morning or the afternoon or not at all. Like there's no have to do anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I might tip my garden upside down for the next two days because I can and I'll just not turn up to something or I'll just make some tweaks and get some things done.
SPEAKER_00Or when our mate goes, hey, let's go to Lenox for a camping trip for two nights, just... mums and kids and we go yeah righto chuck the swags in and an esky or not even let's just eat out
SPEAKER_02we're not cooking
SPEAKER_00yeah well let's just chuck some sausages on and eat a cheese platter that's what we do so
SPEAKER_02good as far as our kids go I would say it's the same they get up when they feel like it they if they need a sleeping because they've had a late night they can the early risers get up early if they want to and they just they go about their day they get ready if they need to get ready they go to the activities that they've chosen they come home and they choose the activities they do when they get home we do the normal things every family does we go to birthday parties and weekend sport if that's what they've chosen and that's it
SPEAKER_00yeah and they they're not and I want to also reiterate that we're not talking about being lazy. No. Like when we say they get up when they want to, they'll get up if they have to, if they're going to an activity. Oh, yeah. They're not going to just, you know, I don't want to go today, I'm going to sleep in. That's not what happens. We talk and discuss about responsibilities and what needs to happen in order for us to achieve what we want to achieve in the day and we do it that way. And if it's a day where we don't have any obligations on, then it's not like we get up just because we should. Or, you know, it's good to be in a rhythm or routine. If the rhythm and routine works, then, yeah, that's what happens. But it's not something we have to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's a good reminder that kids are humans too and sometimes they wake up on the wrong side of the bed or sometimes they're just having an off day and they might need a quiet day or quiet time and it's just easier to organise that the way that we're doing it, I think.
SPEAKER_00All right. So do you want to describe how do we do school while working? Well,
SPEAKER_02we don't. That's how.
SPEAKER_00We
SPEAKER_02don't have sit down lessons. We unschool and we wild school. So we don't do formal lessons. That's not to say that the children, the children, so formal, our kids don't choose to do a workbook if they see one at the post office and want to buy one or that they don't do reading eggs because they enjoy it. But it's not like at nine o'clock we sit down and we do maths lessons right now. So All that means is that our children are now old enough to entertain themselves and that's to us, for me anyway, is how I think they should be. You know, life is for enjoying and life is, it's their life. It's not my life. It's not up to me to choose what I think they should be doing because they're their own sovereign being and they think differently to me and they have different interests to me and I don't think that I should dictate that if I don't need to. Again, like you said, that's not to say that they're wild and crazy ill-mannered louts. We still parent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And I think it comes down to we've spent a lot of time examining the conditioning and the way that we have been brought up to believe that education and learning should look like, especially because we come from teaching backgrounds. We've had to examine exactly what it is we were teaching and then ask ourselves, is that essential to live a happy, successful life and for your children to thrive?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to be active citizens and, you know, good community members. I don't like the word good and bad, but, you know, active community members as well because, you know, That's a factor in happiness and that's a factor in, I think, creating a better world. So, you know, yes, we are still imparting, I guess, our moral codes on our children so that, you know, they're not completely sovereign beings because we're still role modelling things and talking to them about things that we, our own values that we believe are important. But I think that's all I wanted to get across there is that we don't leave them on their own like Lord of the Flies. No. They're still being guided where we think they may require some guidance or if they ask for guidance.
SPEAKER_00And I'd actually probably say that they get more guidance if, in areas that really are important. So whilst I may not sit down and do lessons on maths, English, science, although I will caveat that and say they learn plenty of that through everything that we do, make no mistake about that, what children don't often get really good lessons, and lessons isn't the right word, modelling and emotional support through is how to be social citizens, like you were
SPEAKER_01saying. Good friends.
SPEAKER_00How to be a good friend, how to navigate tricky social situations, how to respond when things aren't going our way. How
SPEAKER_02to have uncomfortable conversations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And we do that probably a lot more because we are so much more involved as a community together. So when we talk about our children sort of looking after themselves and they run off and we're still there. Yeah. We're still around. You know, if something happens, it's not like they– there is always an adult to turn to. And I know children have that in school too, but it's different because they won't often know the teacher who's on duty in
SPEAKER_02their school. There's also a level of authoritarianism that isn't as– visible in the homeschooling and unschooling community I think there's much more of a parent is a member of your village in the unschooling and homeschooling communities whereas an adult in a school is in a very much in a position of authority bingo
SPEAKER_00yeah that's why we don't do school while we're working yeah because that's not what we value we it's not That's not how we purposely want to spend our time. We don't feel like that's not the only way children learn, I guess, at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_02And I think if what they're asking is, for a, you know, what does it look like exactly? It looks like for my family, it looks like on Monday, I work and my husband parents. On Tuesday, we swap over and he parents. And on Wednesday, we share care and the kids are at home and they have a bit of a quiet morning and then they go to forest school and they get dropped off and we both have our free time. On Thursday, I work, he parents. Friday, it's a shared care situation. But that changes because Life happens. Shit happens. Yeah. And this means we have to communicate really well. So we have synced calendars. Vicky's on my calendar, on my
SPEAKER_00family calendar. Yes, I know exactly what's happening in your family at all times. I know exactly
SPEAKER_02where my husband is, you know, when I'm
SPEAKER_00going for
SPEAKER_02a
SPEAKER_00haircut. Yeah. And that's helpful.
SPEAKER_02It is. That's how we manage it. And it's also like, you know, you're going away. Can I help out with this? Or one of our staff members can't work today. Can you have the kids this morning? Yes. So it's flexible. That's how we school while we work is that we're flexible. But I guess the real answer to that is that we've created a business that suits homeschooling and that means working for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And then second to that, in my situation where I don't have my husband here to share that responsibility through the week, I have surrounded myself with with people who can take that role on. So I have my sister and my mum and I also have the most amazing network of friends who will willingly and lovingly take my children for the day and they will do unbelievable activities with them. And they come home showing me all these new skills because they get to spend so much time, so much free time with these people I just can't speak highly enough of our community and what they bring to and how they enrich my children's lives.
SPEAKER_02I'd like to caveat that if I can is that I've been here watching you through this and you've done so much mentoring of your own children about leaving them with people that are safe, talking to them about tricky people and more to the point, building that community yourself because a lot of people say, I've got no one, or I couldn't do that because I've got no one. And you go, well, I'll find people and I'll make friends. And it's not even like that's an active and purposeful thing, but you are such a If there's a problem, I'll solve it. And you're such a beautiful, gregarious person that people love to hang out with you as well. So it goes both ways. They wouldn't take your children or they wouldn't do that for you if you weren't a beautiful person. So I just wanted to put that in there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Yeah, it is such a, and it's so nice to reciprocate as well, to have other people's children and like everyone always says to me because, you know, you have those moments where like you feel like you're a burden
SPEAKER_01and
SPEAKER_00people say it's so much easier when someone else's children are at my house because I don't have to entertain my kids. Like, you know, everything's just easier when you've got friends over and I would have to say the same when we've got other children at our house. They just have magical ways of being playing and projects and making an almighty mess and all of those things which is showing that they're learning and that they're creating and they're using their imagination. I
SPEAKER_02think another thing I want to caveat here is that our children are now seven and nine and we've been doing this for four years and in those early days when they were two and four when we were just starting we it was difficult. And when we were realising we were in that transition of do we go back to work or what could that look like and we're starting a business, this did seem like a really hard thing to get our head around. It wasn't unsolvable and it was definitely something we were going to work out. And it just changed. It changed as they grew and they got older and the business grew. I think you need to have an open mind and a problem-solving attitude and also really allowing yourself Everything's a lot harder when children are two and four. Yeah, yeah. And they might not be able to play on their own for long periods of time. We did a lot of work in the beginning at night and now we only do the odd podcast at night. Yeah, exactly. When we've got deadlines that we
SPEAKER_00leave to the last minute. Yeah, and it's still a choice. Yeah, exactly. Because we could say no. We could say no to all the good things but we don't want to.
SPEAKER_02This one's a button pusher for me. Probably this would be too. How do you assess learning and how do you standardise, quote, unquote, education, if at all?
SPEAKER_00So much to say about this and
SPEAKER_02I don't
SPEAKER_00know. What to unpack. So I don't feel the need to assess learning. Let's
SPEAKER_02go deeper with that because
SPEAKER_00why? I don't feel like... you can ever fully assess what someone's learnt. I mentioned that a little bit earlier. But you can give a child an assessment and there can be a number of reasons why that assessment has not indicated what your child actually knows. That's just one surface level. It's not even surface level. I truly believe that... Assessment gets in the way of true learning because what children learn is that they need to pass an assessment and that the learning is secondary or it's not even something that is considered at all. And all that is important is the assessment. And the thing is, particularly at the age that our children are at now, that assessment doesn't mean anything. No one can go back and say what I got on my report card when I was eight years old had any bearing on their life whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02And who they are as an adult now.
SPEAKER_00No, and the only thing that we hear consistently with parents is I just want to know they've tried their hardest and I want to know that they're well behaved because they're the things that's on the report cards. Yeah, or if they're really struggling.
SPEAKER_02But then I want to point out that sometimes Who cares if they're really struggling?
SPEAKER_00And why are they struggling? Are they struggling because the content's boring and are they struggling because the information they're being given is developmentally inappropriate? Is it being delivered in a way that doesn't cater for their learning style? Is it a
SPEAKER_02learning difficulty? And if it's a learning difficulty, you should be able to work that out without an assessment. Exactly. So particularly when you're homeschooling and you're working one-on-one, You don't need to assess. You know if your child's struggling to make sense of words or concepts or letters or, you know, we do women in particular such a disservice by quietening our intuition. We generally know when there's something that we would like to go and find out more about our child because there's a little alarm bell there. And that's enough. And all we're doing then, we don't need to give them a grade on that. We need to find tools to help them with that. So giving them a grade makes them feel like shit if they don't get anything, you know, above a C. So we're just really creating this culture of I'm not good enough or I'm bad at maths or I'm bad at English when, like you said, is it the learning style? Is it the teaching style? Is it the content? You know, I've got children that are interested in fishing and fairies and I'm teaching them about, I don't know, goblins. Yeah. Why are we standardising it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that's the exact thing about how do we standardise education. We shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_02We shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00Standardised education is the complete opposite of what every parent is actually wanting for their children. You know, I think that maybe they think that that's what they want. They want a standard education for their child. But if your child doesn't fit that standard map, then... you are going to negatively impact their self-worth and their ability to see beyond the grade on the paper and work out the ways in which they hack the system because that's what half of the kids do is how do I hack the system so I can just do what I need to do so that I can get my parents or my teachers off my back.
SPEAKER_02Part of getting an assessment these days in high school is here's a model of an A, a C and an E. And you'll get the smarty pants as going, well, that was an A. I'll copy that recipe step by step. And then there's the kids that go, can't be bothered. I'm going to get a C. Just do the bare minimum fast. You're not assessing their learning. You're assessing their ability to play the game exactly like you said.
SPEAKER_00And then do they want to learn then? If this is what learning, if this is the definition of learning, I don't want to learn. As an adult who actually really loves learning, I love learning, And that, like I was an A grade student and I thought I loved school and I at one point thought I was going to be an academic and I was going to get my PhD and I was going to just be an academic. That's what I was going to do. And I realised how much I hated learning in that way.
SPEAKER_02Same. Yeah. Hated university? Yeah, hated being assessed all the time. I hated being assessed. I loved going to the lectures. I loved picking excellent mental brains and collaborating with my peers. I hated doing the assessments, particularly as an English teacher who didn't get taught how to teach kids how to spell, but I could rift on about the romantic period. Absolutely useless.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And not my interest at all. Yeah, and I think a lot about when I was doing my science degree, and how I missed so many opportunities to network with people and actually find out what science was in the real world because I was too busy working out how to get a HD,
SPEAKER_01how
SPEAKER_00to get good grades. And it took me a really long time to realise there was such a huge disconnect between me learning needing a grade to know if i was doing a good job and then actually like when i thought about getting a job and not having someone be able to pat me on the back and say yep you've got the a like how was i going to be able to do my job properly without someone directing me and telling me what to do and keep putting an assignment in front of me like how do i work that out on my own
SPEAKER_02yeah and the gap between a degree and a real job is also monumental as well
SPEAKER_00yeah
SPEAKER_02Mine are huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I know that there's like, you know, we're probably glossing over a lot of intricacies when it comes to learning and, you know, learning difficulties and inherent privilege and all of that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00But I just want to reiterate that for our children, like this is what I think about. This is the sort of thing that I have thought and dissected in my own educational journey and These are the reasons
SPEAKER_02we've chosen to homeschool is because we don't believe in assessment and we don't believe in standardized education.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So this is one of the most commonly asked questions we get when we get emails. So we get emails from families that say, hi, I'm thinking about pulling my child out of school, but I'm worried about blah. And it's generally socialization. How am I going to afford it? And how am I going to get me time, which we'll cover in all of these as well. So Vicky. if it's not too personal a question, how do you afford to homeschool, unschool, wild school, road school?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So when it comes to making choices, there are sacrifices that need to be made. And for us at this point, the initial sacrifices that had to be made were that, you know, we had to make modest choices in, you know, where we lived and, you know, And that stems right back, you know, and choices that you make and having some financial literacy as well, I think, in forward planning too. So I would have to say that I'm really lucky that my husband has been super switched on when it comes to and being a bit ahead of the game with things like that. So I have been really, really grateful for his support forward planning and investment in his time and money even before I met him, to be honest. And then when we made this choice, like initially when I stopped working and we decided that we weren't going to put our children in care, we moved. We moved away from our family. We moved away from everything that we knew and everything Again, I'm really grateful for that experience because that's what made me realize that if you want something, you have to build it. And I had to do that when I moved away. I was a new mom of a baby in a new town in a small, like, you know, regional town. And I had to reach out to the people around me. And if I had not have done that, I definitely wouldn't be on this path,
SPEAKER_01sidetrack
SPEAKER_00on that. But we made sacrifices, right? And whilst we worked away from home and we were able to sort of make up some of that income that I lost by not working, the sacrifice in doing that was having to start from scratch with our community and also not having support for a very long time and being the one and only person that did everything. Yeah. while my husband worked a lot. And then when we came back, again, it is meant sacrifice in that my husband works a lot and has had to work in order to support the building of our business. And I chose to build a business because I still wanted to be able to contribute financially. But I also believe in doing purposeful work, which is why we... been able to build this business. So how can we afford the lifestyle? It comes down to what are you willing to sacrifice? And for some people, that means that they do sacrifice their career. It might mean sacrificing where they want to live. It might mean sacrificing having new cars or going on expensive holidays or just in general, cutting expenses. But for us, it was the work sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I think you've nailed it there as well. And a thing I'd like to, I guess, almost touch on is, you know, our parents and their parents, they could afford for one parent to stay at home and it wasn't an issue. So times have changed. So that's the first thing is that it's not... Sometimes we get grandparents say, you know, well, you know, I just chose to stay at home. Well, the choice was a lot easier when there wasn't a financial strain, you know, with daycare and choosing to go back to work and whatnot. But also the cost of living too. So some families that we know have moved from the bigger cities to live more rurally to be able to afford to do it because the cost of city living is super expensive. I would say that that's not a bad thing. because I think it's really important, particularly if you're going to homeschool or unschool or any of those things is live somewhere where you would holiday. I think if you can, I know there's inherent privilege in that as well, is that living where you enjoy being out and about and not feeling like you need to get away makes perhaps the sacrifice of not being able to holiday as often or to extravagant places or internationally all the time. is that you live somewhere that you love and I think that does help. And I know that's a choice or it's not a choice for some families. But, yeah, for us it looked like my husband and I both leaving our full-time double income, no kids, lovely teaching wage, my husband going back to uni for a time and then both of us starting businesses. So we were the brokers we have ever been. when we had our second child. That was pretty tough, but that was before we decided to homeschool. So I could have quite easily have said I'll go back five days a week or, you know, even three days, four days a week teaching and we'll juggle the homeschooling. But I didn't want to. So we started the business and I love it. I love the lifestyle that we have. I look at what our children do every week and just– they don't need international holidays a couple of times. You know, once a year you learn a couple of times a year and they don't. The places that we get to go here on the coast are unbelievable. Literally we have hills to hike, like mountains to hike. Yeah. Rock pools to visit, waterfalls to visit, lagoons and fresh water. Just unbelievable here that. You know, I've lived here, I don't know, nearly 10 years and I've still not seen the half of what there is to see around
SPEAKER_00here. Yeah, we say that often, don't we? We've lived here how long and we're still finding new places to explore. So that's another thing that comes into it is that homeschooling doesn't need to be expensive. So if you can work on one wage, and I know lots of women in particular who are single mothers who don't, earn money and they might actually be on government assistance and they make it work. And the way that they do that is that they cut their costs, their living expenses where they can. And then you can choose to do activities that don't costs the earth
SPEAKER_02or so many free activities so many free homeschooling
SPEAKER_00activities for you can do swap you can do service swaps you can um i know that at our co-op if you are involved in some way so if you're helping out or if you're teaching a class you get a discount on your fees so there's definitely ways around or you start the class yourself you could even be the organizer of it and get someone in and then your children get to attend for free so there's there's It's about being creative and thinking about how you can give your children the opportunities you think you need to give them but not feeling like that's going to cost you the earth because there's certainly ways around spending a lot of money. In homeschooling as an activity, it's like in having to fund that lifestyle, like the homeschooling part of it, the activity side of things because, like, There's a lot. There's a lot you could do.
SPEAKER_02You can absolutely get FOMO for sure about missing out. Lucky there's, you know, 18 years of classes to do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's another thing is about mindset is, you know, we do see it sometimes, parents who want to be part of everything for their children, and I get it. Like there's so many great opportunities. And I think that's part of the journey as well is trying everything and then realising you don't. You don't. need to do that for your children your children don't need it they'll tell you in the end that it's too much or um you know and sometimes we just have to put some boundaries in place and be like you know what at this point in time you can choose two things to do per week and it's not always and i mean that choice might not be a financial one anyway and that might just be because it's hard to fit everything in and if you've got multiple children you're not running around the place taking this child to this class and that child to that one and Because every family is different too.
SPEAKER_02Yep. We've got families that love to have really full weeks and we've got families that we know that love to have really quiet, slow weeks. And that's what I love about homeschooling is that you choose what works for yourself, your family and your children, and that's all that matters.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02All right. How do you plan, if at all, before trips for our road schooling?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02which essentially for us is just camping, camping trips at the moment, but we both have plans to do bigger trips.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think this ties really nicely into like if I break it into like the smaller trip thing and the bigger trip. So we've done one larger trip in the last two years and I absolutely loved learning about where we were going to go. And for me that was... such a beautiful learning experience, geography and, you know, all the science and, yeah, history and all of that sort of stuff. So planning in terms of where do we want to go but also knowing that I think that we're both very good at this is sort of like, well, if it doesn't work out that way, we'll change our minds. So, for example, when we did a road trip down to Tasmania and in my head I had an itinerary. And my husband looked at the weather because he's so practical, something I would never do, and he said, the weather's looking crap for that itinerary. Let's go this way. And it was a lesson for me in surrender and being like, well, you know what, if I want to get the most out of this trip, even though this wasn't what it was going to be, then just, yeah, change it. Like why do I feel like I'm bound in my own head by my itinerary that I made up in my head?
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00And just like reminding myself that we're free to make different choices. If it's going to rain, like if we decide that we want to go to Balloomba Creek for a camping trip and then all of a sudden it's going to rain, we just go, let's do it in two weeks.
SPEAKER_02Because we can.
SPEAKER_00Because we can.
SPEAKER_02And, look, again, I keep saying that other people can't. Of course they can and, of course, I feel like it's just a bit more flexible way because we're not bound to a five-day work week.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're not having to arrange four different– like so in a four-person family, we're not having to arrange four different people. We're just– And because we work for ourselves. And have an amazing team. Yeah. We don't have to sort of go, okay, I've got to talk to the school and I've got to, you know, rearrange this and that and the other. And then I've got to talk to my work and I've got to change. Like, you know, if you're working for someone, arranging leave can be really hard. But when you work for yourself and you have set up your team to be able to so that they're not reliant on you. for things to tick over, then you do have that flexibility. We worked really hard to get it that way though. It wasn't always the case. We have worked really, really hard to get the right people in our business so that we can step away.
SPEAKER_02This is really probably the last year, 18 months. It's the first time we've really been able to leave, have the team in place to be able to leave work with that flexibility, which is incredible. So I guess that's how we plan. We plan the business to give us flexibility.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think we've done enough trips to know that you don't need a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Especially the more you've done it, the more you know what foods work, you know what meals to pack, you know, you've got boxes of things already ready to go. Yeah. I mean, that's still a progress process for both. We've both been updating some of our
SPEAKER_02bits and pieces. The other tip I would say is go with other people so that when you forget your sheets, you ask Vicky for some sheets and she has their sheets.
SPEAKER_00Such a good tip, actually. And it is about community camping and even we did a wildlings camp a few weeks ago and that was the greatest thing. Everyone sort of was like, I knew I'd forget things, but when you've got 20 other families that you're camping with, you're always going to find someone who's going to lend you a mallet so that you can put your tent pegs in or some shelter to sit under in the blaring sun because you couldn't fit it in your car. That's the beauty of community.
SPEAKER_02I don't think there's been a trip where we haven't forgotten something but also there hasn't been a trip that we haven't loved. Even the really torrentially actual flooded ones were great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The clean-up afterwards wasn't, but that's another story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's all part of it too. We could just, you know, stay in Airbnbs, but we choose to be in nature and camping and...
SPEAKER_02Adventure.
SPEAKER_00Adventure and keeping it simple.
SPEAKER_02Certainly won't forget the flood trip. We're making memories.
SPEAKER_00Certainly were, and I don't think the kids thought there was anything out of the ordinary in that trip at all. They had a
SPEAKER_02great time. All right, next question.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so how do you take care of household duties, Nikki? This one,
SPEAKER_02again, I think I'm just a little bit sensitive. I don't know why it irks me because I know this question is being asked of everyone. So there's not an assumption. There's not a gender assumption here. That's my lens I've put on this. So I'm going to say how our family takes care of household duties is it depends. So early on it was family. I would say mostly me because Scotty was working more and I was at home with the kids. And then as our roles have changed and grown and our timetables have changed, sometimes it's more Scotty and sometimes it's more me. For a year or two, we hired a cleaner. We let them go a few months ago because, honestly, we just weren't happy with the service and thought we could do it better ourselves. But I can see a cleaner coming back into our cards probably next year. So I would just– Look, again, full honesty here. I'm not a clean freak. I live on a dirty road, a dusty road, a dirty road. Well, that just sums it up. My house is dusty as all get out. I have two boys that pee on the seat. It's not Buckingham Palace. So probably the way I take care of household duties is my life attitude is that it'll get done when it gets done. It's not to say I live in a pigsty either, so I would like to say that. It's not a pigsty, it's just not sparkling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that... We are peas in a pod. Yes. Tidy but not clean. I don't care about... No, me either. I should reframe that. I sometimes care about clutter and mess and I feel like if I want to be productive at home and I'm working from home, I can't deal well with a lot of clutter. But in terms of like... Leaving washing in a washing basket for five days before it gets folded, that doesn't bother me. For me, that's the thing that's at the bottom of the priority list. So household duties, sometimes they're just the thing that I have to let go of in order to be able to meet my needs and all the other needs that me and my family has. So for me, I don't have my husband home during the week, so it is largely up to me. So I cut corners. I'll make a dinner that will last me three nights and I don't have to– it's what me and two other people need. And even then, like if one of the girls don't want to eat something, they'll make their own dinner. So I've– empowered them to be able to make their own choices if they don't like the way that I'm doing things. I encourage them to help out with household duties where they can and where I feel it's practical and my husband does heaps when he's home. That's really important as part of this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's the whole thing. The family takes care of household duties. Our kids have not chores but they participate in keeping their house clean livable that's what they do so our kids you know scotty does the washing i sort it and then everyone puts their own away or not yeah i don't care it's your cupboards as long as they're not on the floor in the basket at some point
SPEAKER_00yeah yeah and i think also look if you'd asked me this a year ago i'd probably would have had a different answer um i've spent a really long time moving my house around and decluttering and minimalizing things because the more things we had, the messier it got.
SPEAKER_02The clutter was annoying you, hey?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. And so it took us a long time to, I'm going to say, renovate some bedrooms. And for a long time the girls were in a bedroom together and it just wasn't enough room for all of their things. And now that I have finally sorted them out, the house just got bigger. Yeah. and the mess went away essentially. And for them to clean up their mess, like I used to, it was such a struggle for them to clean their room and it was like I couldn't walk in their room because there was so much. That just hasn't happened anymore. So it took some time. Like everything takes time to get it to a point where it works. Like you've found a system to minimise stress Yeah,
SPEAKER_02because I think that's the difference, isn't it? When you've got all your kids are at school for the majority of the day, there's less hurricane-ness. So making sure that there's absolutely 100% a place for everything and everything has its place. And the kids know where that place is. That eliminates most of the problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I know that it's worked for a lot of people, you know, to have dedicated crafting areas where it doesn't matter if everything's left out. You know, it's not in your eyesight to have it out and they can access it and you're not hindering their creativity or their need to make something or to sprawl their things out. And it's just about... being strategic and planning and having conversations and knowing that you might not be there now. But you can get there over time when you start to work things out and you sometimes just need a little bit of time and space to clarify what that needs to look like. And sometimes it's getting your ducks in a row, like painting walls first before you can even think about putting a desk in their room or whatever it is. It's what happened to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then, yeah. The household duties don't seem so much.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think that's it as well. For us, for our sanity, it's the kitchen and living room are a family space so you can't just clutter it up. If you've got projects you want to work on, they go in your bedroom or outside in your play area. The kitchen gets cleaned every night. Whoever's cooked dinner cleans the kitchen. And the boys about maybe once a week, realistically once every two weeks, we go through and have a tidy up. But others, I don't make them tidy their room every day because they've got Lego projects and craft projects and it'd be really– No, it's their space and they should be able to use it how they want it and I don't want to stop their play as well. Well, their creative flow. That's right. Just because I'm done with their untidiness doesn't mean that they're finished with their project.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's a conversation too because sometimes they are finished and sometimes they're not. And so you don't know that until you've had the conversation, until they've actually, you know, and sometimes they think they're not finished and four days later, They realise they're not going back to it. But that's okay. And it's a letting go of our expectations. Again, that's just reframing the way that we look at it. And I don't think that our household duties have changed at all. And I sometimes think that about like two working parents and kids at school. I
SPEAKER_02don't know when they
SPEAKER_00do it. It would be in the same boat as us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our household duties have changed as adults. I've gone back to more work with the kids. But that's really it. But that just means Scotty's take on more, which is awesome. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It just ebbs and flows. Like, you know, life just changes all the time. Yeah. I'd love to hear your answer to this one. Tell us the story of a time you knew you made the right choice to homeschool.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Unschooling in particular, I think, was... Harper, and I know I've told this story before, but Harper learning to read from the Australian bird guide because he was interested in letters, but he didn't really want to read and he wasn't interested in being taught at all. And I was absolutely okay with that. And then all of a sudden we were getting some magpies and some honey eaters and some miners, and he wanted to find the picture of the magpie in the book. And it went from there and he taught himself to read. And as an English teacher, that was my, holy shit, what have I been doing? What have I been taught? I was taught that children had to be taught to read or they would never read. That's the messaging that you get from uni and teaching in English. And when I saw that in front of my eyes and that was one of the most important things for me other than, you know, social skills was literacy because I think that, you know, that unlocks the world to you. and hopefully makes you a more open-minded person, I thought, well, what else do we need school for? If they can read whatever they need to read, wherever they want to find it, what else do I need it for? And
SPEAKER_00I went,
SPEAKER_02yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love coming to your house and seeing Harper smashing through another book.
SPEAKER_02I loved today his little bestie was so excited to come down to the forest but then he realised that his mum had got a book picked up a book in the mail on the post on the way to forest school and he made his mum go back to the car, get the book and he sat and read in the forest. I was like, oh, what a great place to read.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting. I've been thinking a little bit about, so Ellie's also taught herself to read and she's Happy Reads and Macy's been a little bit more reluctant. However, I was sat down the other day and I was like, no, I want you to give it a go. I was just curious. She can read. She just doesn't want to. And so you'd be surprised how those moments happen all the time. But my story about I have moments regularly, regularly where I know I have made the right choice to homeschool and I'm talking if not daily, multiple times a day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and definitely weekly, mainly on our Monday adventure days.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Every week. So I have a very clear memory of being at our co-op, one of the first terms we were there, and I was actually running a class, a wildlings class, for one of the sessions. And in the end they had the mud kitchen out and I watched this play unfold and It was like being in a utopian society. Like these children created this game and this amazing little world and they were making things and they were trading and they were cooperating and there was no barrier to age or gender or anything. There was no barrier. And they all just, these children that had never played together before were like getting along well And it was brilliant. It was just I watched these children. I had never seen children play like that
SPEAKER_01before.
SPEAKER_00And I remember thinking if anyone ever asks me about am I worried about children socialising in their homeschool, they need to just come and see. I think that's the thing, isn't it? They would just know that this is such a legitimate opportunity And it's not only it's legitimate, it is the most natural way for children to be.
SPEAKER_02Nailed it. That's the quote of this podcast. The unschooling and the wild schooling is exactly that. It's the most natural way to be. And
SPEAKER_00I, in that moment, was so grateful to every single one of the parents that were there, the parents who had made conscious choices about to break cycles, to treat their children with respect, to treat my children with respect.
SPEAKER_02To believe in themselves as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. To
SPEAKER_02come out of a system where you don't believe you've learnt enough to teach your own child, that's a red flag to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And
SPEAKER_00ever since that has been one of my key ones in terms of social development. And I have moments just there is so many examples across every spectrum of concern or worry that you could ever have about your child and I have seen multiple examples of families and of individual children who prove that this is, it just works. It's just... such a great lifestyle and it just is a way for children to truly be who they are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they're not missing out on anything.
SPEAKER_02I think for families too. I think at some point we all wondered if we could do it and I think, like you said, if people could just come to a co-op or come to our forest school and meet some of the parents and realise how much freedom they have within their week of You know, the most common question people get, not common question, so the most common, what am I trying to say, regret, that's the word I'm looking for, the most common regret people have on their deathbed is not spending enough time with their children. And I'm not saying that we spend 24-7 and I don't think that's healthy in itself because while we may be at activities, we're not by their side but they're amongst this village. And if they've got a question, they might ask, You know, we've got someone teaching felting tomorrow and someone teaching knot tying and there's all these amazing, amazing mentors that are showing children that they don't just have to go to university to be successful and happy. And they're being taught these skills that they might not or very likely won't have. We've got jewellery making. We've got some of the things that we've been taught. I'm like, gosh, I wish I had learnt that at school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_02And they get access to these people that are really respectful, super respectful
SPEAKER_00as well. And I love being able to show my awe and appreciation for people's skill set that isn't like a career.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00that it's just, you know, we've got people, all the different business owners, you know, the people that stand up at the co-ops and will make up a song and, you know, this parent has contributed, you know, have created our own acknowledgement of country and, you know, You know, like everyone's contributed to our community in some way. Like the
SPEAKER_02performance. Yeah, the photographers and the people that were editing posters.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And there's just such a breadth of contribution.
SPEAKER_01And
SPEAKER_00no one's immune from it. Everyone contributes in some way, even if it's just going to get, you know, if someone's hurt, they're the ones that, you know, hold us all up when when you know we're in crisis or there's just so many different ways or you know putting up the the marquees or it's seeing community in action
SPEAKER_02yeah regularly regularly and different communities it's it's the homeschool community but we see different people from that community different days and but I think that's the other thing I think people feel like they have to find their two or three buddies to make homeschooling work but I think the longer you do it, the more you realise that we're one great big web
SPEAKER_01and
SPEAKER_02your children will dab into the web and they will meet people maybe in year, whatever the equivalent of year one would be, and then five years later they'll meet them at something else. And so there's this huge, beautiful community. And I know you get a community in school too. It just feels like it's more diverse because it's not just location specific. And I know we get through that through sport as well, but it is really diverse and I really love that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What do you think then, Nikia, some of the benefits go on forever? We've talked about a few or drawbacks of schooling in this way.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I feel like we've covered benefits. We've raved and raved about it. So drawbacks, oh, look, I'm trying to be really realistic but I love it.
SPEAKER_00I was just going to say if you can hear the passion in there, like we so just– in this so strongly. I want people to also know that this is because every day when we show up and this is the way we live our life, when we can't think of many drawbacks, there's a reason for that. And I know that there's a lot of privilege and stuff like that, but it really is. such a great choice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And
SPEAKER_00like you say, I was thinking too, I was like, oh, gosh, what drawbacks?
SPEAKER_02I really thought something was going to come to me. I really did think I was going to be like, yeah, this is, I was like, well, no, it's not. Maybe the driving. But I make sure my weeks aren't, like my activities are fairly close this term and I share it with Scotty and I choose not to fill my weeks up. So that's
SPEAKER_00not even true. But do you know what? Because I know a lot of people are like, you know, don't like to drive. I do a lot. I probably do a lot more driving than most people. You probably do them, yeah, yeah. Like I'm talking minimum half an hour, most times 40 minutes most days. We love it. Actually, when you listen to Brene Brown's podcasts and she says to her guests, what's an average day in your life like that you think about that you love? I can't remember how she words the question. My moments are always in the car with my girls, always, and they are always these snippets of us raging out to a song and, you know, I look out the window and it can be something to do with the weather or the fact that I drive past, even on the highway, like beautiful trees and it's like presence for me in the car.
SPEAKER_01It's
SPEAKER_00like that one time where I feel like I'm really, really present with them.
SPEAKER_01Although
SPEAKER_00half the time my brain's probably not present, but I have these moments of presence with them and we're always going somewhere amazing. So it's like we listen to an audio book or we've got Spotify playing or if I'm by myself, I've got a podcast playing and that's valuable time to me. So even those things which can be negative are actually not negative for me.
SPEAKER_02No. No. My actually now thought about it is probably I wish my family were closer, my South Australian family, but I don't want to move back because I just love, love, love where we live. So that's just not an option. And, you know, pre-COVID that wasn't an issue. We saw each other enough. We were able to see each other. So that drawback will go away. And that's not a homeschooling drawback. That was a choice of choice. location anyway. So I would say there aren't any. I would say everything is solvable. Any issues are solvable. Things change. If you really hate it, you can go back to school. That's the other thing. There's no end date for this.
SPEAKER_00You don't have to see it out. I've thought of one. Oh, what is it? It's that I sometimes find it a little bit hard, not always, it's just in these little moments, finding it hard to show up to commitments that I have and then also look after the girls' needs or find them care and finding balanced care. So making sure that they're not always going to one person or I'm relying too heavily on one person. Yeah. And that's sometimes a difficult juggle sometimes. It's a mental
SPEAKER_02load, isn't
SPEAKER_00it? Yeah, it's a mental load of always having to think I've got to organise someone to look after them on those days when I have commitments, whereas I could just be sending them to school. But even then, if I sent them to school, I probably would still need to organise some sort of care before or after
SPEAKER_02school. Yeah, and I think that's the thing, isn't it? I was about to say the worst thing I can think of is having to pack– lunches for all day trips like big adventure days I've got to take a big picnic basket I'm like who am I kidding I have to pack lunches for school anyway or if I was dropping them off at Nana's it's
SPEAKER_00yeah
SPEAKER_02yeah so nothing the
SPEAKER_00answer is the negatives are actually something that you know are not even it's not all the time it's just in tiny little moments and not solved by sending them to school.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I would say give it time, give it time, find your village and don't assume that you're going to find your village in the first term. It'll take time to find your village within the village or your village within the activities that you choose.
SPEAKER_00And I would say about finding your village too, is that you can't rely on the village to see you two or three times and expect to have open arms and invitations to everywhere. You have to work at it. You have to show up because the thing with homeschooling is that there are lots of people. There are so many people that we know and that I love, but if I actually went out of my way to invite all of those people and you just wouldn't, it's not going to happen. So if you're waiting for people to invite you places all the time, then you are going to find community hard. So you have to show up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and don't be scared to say, hey, do you mind if I tag along because I don't know anyone that would say no.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly, exactly. All you can do is ask and also ask but then also be okay because I think it's also valid for some groups to be like, you know what, we've got a good thing going.
SPEAKER_01And
SPEAKER_00the dynamics are really great at the moment and we'd love to have you come along with maybe something else but, you know, like trying not to take it too personally because, you know, it won't always be about you.
SPEAKER_02No, and I would say that it's not. It's not ever about you. It's about we have a really peaceful, great thing going right now and we don't want to disturb it because it's the one unstable thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we've had trouble in the past and at the moment we've got peace. So to not take those sorts of things personally and, you know, to be like that, okay, I totally understand that. Is there a way that we can still, is there other things that you do? that I could tag along with. It might not be your adventure day, but maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, just as an example. I just want people to know that that sort of mindset too and being highly sensitive will make it more difficult for you. This isn't high school, so don't let it be high school. Yeah. The stories you tell yourself, you'll start feeling like, yeah, high school. And that's not what most people are about. And also people are busy, you know. If they're not catching up with you, again, it might not be personal. It's just that they've got a lot going on and sometimes it can be really hard to then fit in another play
SPEAKER_02date. So build it yourself. There's a friend I saw today at forest school that's just started homeschooling and she's like, my kid loves to go to the rock pools. I'm not a marine biologist. I know Vicky's busy. I'm going to start a rock pool group. I was like, that's amazing. That's so good. And they'll meet like-minded families and that will be a regular thing. So build it. Build it and they'll come.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00And then if I feel like I'm missing out, I'll just come anyway. Yeah, exactly. That's what happens. Sometimes it's like, you know what, I don't want to do that right now. Hang on a minute. More than what, you don't
SPEAKER_02want to organise it. Yeah. Because like your plate's full but I'll come.
SPEAKER_00But I'll come, yeah. So, you know, just be really open to the different dynamics that can be in place.
SPEAKER_02Okay, next one really quickly. I know we've pretty much covered this so I'd like to just put this one away about the lack of socialisation. Mm-hmm. So in school, children are segregated by sometimes gender, sometimes– and by age, definitely– And no other place in the world, as soon as they leave school, is that the way that life is done. So straight away, I would say that homeschool children socialise with people of all genders and all ages. And they're actually really well socialised with talking to adults as well, which is not as common in school children because of that whole authoritarianism as well.
SPEAKER_01So I
SPEAKER_02would say that we're very embedded in our communities. We know our butcher's name. We participate in soccer and all the things that School kids do as well. I think this comes from that really old school notion of the 1800s when, you know, homeschooling was very religious and could be quite isolated and isolating and that's not the case anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, not the case. And I would actually say I haven't had a lot of criticism or people asking about that. I'm pretty... The first thing I always say is my kids... spend more time out with people than they do at home. And to remember that homeschooling doesn't mean that you're at homeschooling. We're often most of the time not at homeschooling. So that's important. And also a lot of conversations that you'll have with teens and tweens when they're going through awkward stages, when they're having problems with their friends or lack of friends, the common advice is don't Don't worry, once you leave school, you'll find your people,
SPEAKER_02right?
SPEAKER_00So if school's the be-all and end-all for socialisation, this is not the kind of thing that we would be telling young people. Just wait till you're in the real world because then you actually get to find people who will open your world up to who you, allow you to be you so that you belong because you don't obviously belong at your age. place of education right now or the place you spend five days. Six hours a day. Yeah, six hours a day. And whilst plenty of children and teens do find that, they would find that in the real world too. So it's not like that's the place where it happens. It's often the place where that causes a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_02For people. The last school I taught at, they were even segregated at lunch. So there were, you know, 300 year sevens in one section of the school and 300 year eights in the other. And you can imagine the chaos that ensued
SPEAKER_00with that. And a lot of schools are having a problem with the lack of pro-social behavior in the schoolyard at lunchtimes.
SPEAKER_02It's hard when there's no mentors. There's no, you know, year 12s to tell a kid to pull their head in in a gentle and kind and respectful way. Yeah. They're just kind of left on their own. Yes, there's teachers there on duty but they're often very busy sorting out, putting out spot
SPEAKER_00fires. And again, just to caveat, if your children go to school and it's not like that, we know that. We know not all. We're generalising, right? We're teachers. We've been
SPEAKER_02there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like this is our own experiences, what we have observed. I've obviously observed the opposite to a lot of what we're talking about, but that's not often what a lot of children are experiencing. So I'm glad that some children don't experience what we're talking about, but there are plenty that do. And just, you know, if you're feeling moments of defensiveness about some of the stuff that we're saying, I get that because, yeah, I probably would have felt the same way before I had children too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I'd like to add there, though, also out of interest that there are a lot of teachers that have pulled their children out to homeschool, and that's not because they feel like they can teach them. It's because once they've had kids, they've realised that perhaps it might not be the best way for their child to learn or the best system for their child to learn. So it's the old, are the teachers, are the canary in the coal mines, but... No one's really listening.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I want to acknowledge that there are different experiences within this spectrum and that we're trying to, I'd like to think that we've really sold homeschooling for what it is and not bash schools because that's not my intention, but your impact doesn't always equal your intention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and again, I want to butt in there too and also say that, There is pro-school media everywhere. You know, schools are great. We hear about kids going to school from, you know, as soon as they turn three, what school are you going to? When do you go to school? How are you going to school soon? We're just here to provide another viewpoint because it can be really isolating when, for example, you put your child into prep and then your child regresses and is showing signs of school refusal, is really upset or is, you know, suddenly getting behaviour warnings or coming home and having complete and utter meltdowns and there's no one to talk to about it because everyone's pro-school. Yeah, you're not getting validated
SPEAKER_00in
SPEAKER_02that experience. Yeah, we're here to validate that some people have those experiences as
SPEAKER_00well. And that's why I guess we push, like that's why we get really passionate about it because we've seen so many people benefit from it.
SPEAKER_02You don't need to be scared. Yeah. There's a beautiful community that will help you with any questions that you have. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00We're here as
SPEAKER_02well. Yeah. You can do it. You can do it. Okay. All right. Oh, this is a good one. I'd like to hear your answer to this one. Can you share what growth you see or have seen in your children because of our schooling method? Well, I'm going to change that because I don't like the word schooling because we don't school. We educate. We don't educate in the way our children learn. No, in the way our children live.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean there's so much reframing and it's so much– Language is important.
SPEAKER_02It is,
SPEAKER_00yes. It's important. Schooling is
SPEAKER_02different to education. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think that the growth I have seen is not comparable because my children have never been anywhere else. That's a really good point. So that's hard. But I do sometimes hear people say, wow, your child has very good performance. Body awareness. Your child is very caring and inclusive and my child hasn't experienced many other children like that before.
SPEAKER_01And
SPEAKER_00that's not just my children. That might be someone who's come into our community and witnessed multiple children experience like with those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we've had multiple parents come down that have taken their children out of school and then come down to forest school and and their children have commented, oh, the kids are different here. They're really respectful. They're
SPEAKER_00really kind. Again, this
SPEAKER_02is not school bashing. This is just an observed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, from one child or two children.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So all I can say is that my children are thriving.
SPEAKER_01They
SPEAKER_00are– what I love to watch in them is not– Oh, they can read. I mean, it's a relief, but I'm not ticking those boxes. I'm ticking boxes like, okay, so for example, my daughter had an issue this evening at a class where she perceived some other children teasing her during the dance class. And we did lots of discussion on the way home and And one of the things she said, she goes, Mum, I could say and I would have said I just really wish she wasn't at that dance class, but really what I really wish is that she just didn't tease me. And I thought that is such a wise thing to say because how quick are we to just wish something that the bad thing didn't exist and reframe that as I just wish that someone made a different choice.
SPEAKER_02That's hilarious. We had the exact same conversation. Did you really? I'm really sad this happened today, you know, for you guys. I'm really glad we can learn from it and we can learn about how to be a good friend and like social cues about, you know, what, again, like you said before about intent not equaling impact and, you know, whispering looking like you're whispering and pointing you might not be talking about someone but that's that's the impact of it so yeah we had some really beautiful conversations
SPEAKER_00yes it's that sort of growth it's it's the little wise ways that they see the world and see themselves and that's the sort of growth that I I would cherish and know that we've made a good choice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, mine is definitely that. Mine's the social-emotional. The main reason I'm homeschooling is as a high school teacher witnessing the ridiculously, not ridiculous, the horrific mental health epidemic that's ripping through our high schools and not much being done about it. I just realised that's not where I wanted my teenagers and trying to give them those skills now. I think will make all the difference. Well, I hope. I know there's things outside of our control, of course. But they're physical. They're physical development. There's all sorts of research about how Australian children are obese and more uncoordinated, have poor core muscles and strength and agility and all those things. And like you said, I see our children strong and fit and healthy and making progress Lovely choices in regards to their food. I just love seeing kids be able to be kids and not have to sit down for six hours a day. That makes my heart sing because that's health.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And watching them traverse over uneven ground and scale up the side of waterfalls and just be so confident in their bodies and
SPEAKER_01And
SPEAKER_00because they have that opportunity to do that, you know, I observe keenly the general public and how they talk to their children when we're in these environments. And I observed a family recently who wouldn't let their children go anywhere or try anything when they were on a hike. And, like, I understand that. where that's come from and it comes from a place of love but it's a fear-based
SPEAKER_02way of being. Because they haven't been able to see their children do those things.
SPEAKER_00Because we're worried about them injuring themselves but what you'll often also see is that those children don't know how to handle themselves in tricky physical situations either, which is not ideal, but we don't see the risk in that. Yeah. How that can be really disadvantaged. That can really disadvantage children. So, yeah, I guess because I'm tuned into it, I do notice it quite a fair bit. Or the feedback from other parents saying, since coming to your programs in particular, my child is not falling over as much. I've actually had a homeschooling family with older girls say to me, My child's not falling over as much. She's not bumping into it. She's not injuring herself. Like she's very clumsy and that's not happening as much anymore because we're spending more time outside. So that's the sort of growth. I like that kind of maths. Yeah, yeah. It's a keen observation. Nature
SPEAKER_02equals health and happiness. And no, it's not such a simple equation. I can't make life that simple. No. But when something's free and fairly accessible and, again, there's inherent privilege in that, then why not use it if you can?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All right, last question. What do your kids say about unschooling or wild schooling and road schooling?
SPEAKER_02I think one of the quotes that resonates with me the most is we were– On our way, I think, to Cardi's for a rock pool day in the beach on just a perfect, perfect bluebird spring day. And we drove past the school and my eldest looked through the window and said, will those school kids get to go to the beach? And actually, you know, my heart broke for those kids at that time because I really vividly remember sitting in classroom on those bluebird days, bored to tears in a lesson. And again, I was a student that loved school. So for me to be bored to tears, it had to be really, really dry and boring and go, oh God, I wish we could just take this outside. Or I wish I didn't have to be here right now at this minute. I wish we could just do school in the rain or just do school when it's 40 degrees.
SPEAKER_01And
SPEAKER_02I wish that for our children. I wish that they could go out and enjoy nature and be with their families and enjoy the world a bit more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, me too. I think my kids. Yeah, sorry. So what do your kids say about it? It's the only thing they know. Yeah. And I know that they are very happy that we've made the decision that we've made. And they will often make comments. I think it's more like, is it a school day, Mum? And I'll say, yeah, it is. So they won't be able to go swimming now, will they?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're really aware that the world is sort of theirs and our little communities.
UNKNOWNYeah.
SPEAKER_01I
SPEAKER_00do get the, when do school
SPEAKER_02holidays finish? It's really busy here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think they notice. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of more people here today. Why can't we get a car park?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Look, I think. Sorry,
SPEAKER_02Hugo. No, I was just
SPEAKER_00going to say, I know that it may not be something that we verbalise a lot, but they absolutely love that they can see people all of their friends and when they see their friends it's because we're playing or we're doing something exciting or their family, whenever we want, not just on two days a week. I think if
SPEAKER_02we were more isolated and we were distance eating on a station in the middle of central Australia and we couldn't see our friends regularly, I think that school would have much more of an appeal. Absolutely. But because they are so socialised and they see so many different groups and you know, on a day-to-day basis, they're not sure what, you know, they're not buying the snake oil.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it is important to remember that we have a very big community where we are of homeschoolers. So I understand that our situation would be completely different if we were in a small regional town who had less people who were homeschooling. I'd still do it. But, yeah, absolutely. That's not don't do it. I'm just saying that, yeah, comparing our experience to that might be slightly different. Yeah, and don't get
SPEAKER_02FOMO because of that. No. You'll have your own amazing things in your own spaces. It's so place-based.
SPEAKER_00And then there's plenty of people that don't have, you know, and it will depend on your kids how social your children are as well, but, you know, sometimes their buddy's all they need is their sister or brother.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or like their grandparents as well. My kids love their grandparent days. That's where my kids get all their maths is baking with Nana and working in the workshop with Poppy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, counting their pocket money that Nana's given them to clean their
SPEAKER_02room. So good. Yeah. Awesome. All right, I think that's done it for today. I think I feel like we've answered all those questions. If you've got any more questions about homeschooling, add them to the post on Facebook or Instagram or tag and share them or DM us on our socials. But before we end, we did want to remind you that we have dropped our mini intro to homeschooling course on our website at wildlingsforestschool.com. So this course is, we created it for those of you who are thinking about homeschooling, but are yet to take the leap and, and maybe a bit worried about taking the leap. So you might be worried about how to do all the paperwork legally. Maybe you're feeling really anxious about dealing with your current school or if your child's got additional needs, how you'll handle that at home with the learning. Maybe you've got a partner who isn't too keen on homeschooling. Maybe you've got friends and family you're concerned about who are concerned about your child falling behind or perhaps you're worried about juggling finances. And I know we've covered a lot of those, but it's a much more in-depth discussion course. It's filled with resources and we've actually also then segmented downloadables for each state on exactly how to register and also how to do a homeschool plan for the states that require it. In
SPEAKER_00addition to that, we've also got a very specific course on unschooling and wild schooling as separate philosophies as well.
SPEAKER_02So if you're looking to delve into those a little bit more, they might be for you.
SPEAKER_00And as always, we love doing this journey with you. So until next time.
SPEAKER_02Stay
SPEAKER_00wild. Stay wild. Stay wild.