Episode 127
Deschooling with Helen Royston
Welcome to our deschooling episode! I'm joined by Helen Royston to talk about:
- why it's important to deschool
- what it looks like
- how long it lasts (spoiler: longer than you think!)
- how to do it
- what to avoid
Did you go through a deschooling process? How did you find it? Let us know in the comments ...
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Welcome to Home Education Matters, the weekly podcast supporting you on your home education journey.
Speaker A:Hello, and welcome to another episode of Home Education Matters.
Speaker A:And today is a really fundamental concept in home ed that I cannot quite believe that I haven't done a podcast on before, because this key concept in home education is designed to help with those early days when you've taken your child out of school, you've thrown the deregistration letter at the receptionist, or, I don't know, maybe done it nicer than that.
Speaker A:And you go home and you are exuberant and enthusiastic, or maybe you're trepidatious and anxious, whatever the general vibe of the house is.
Speaker A:And then you.
Speaker A:You start home educating.
Speaker A:The days turn into the weeks, turn into the months, and it's just not quite working, and you don't know what's going wrong.
Speaker A:And maybe you feel like you're replicating school, maybe you're getting pushback, Maybe there's no inherent love of learning.
Speaker A:And this happens a lot, and I hear this a lot from people who take their child out of school.
Speaker A:And today's podcast is all about trying to give you a kind of route out of those early pains of home education, because the core concept is deschooling.
Speaker A:Yes, it is our deschooling podcast.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And I have tried to do this podcast on a number of occasions in the past, and I've lined up people to come on, and it hasn't worked, or the people drop out, or I haven't been able to do it.
Speaker A:And something has always got in the way of my desk on podcast.
Speaker A:And so I'm really, really chuffed to be doing this podcast today because it feels like it's been.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It feels like it's been like.
Speaker A:It's like I've been a chicken on an egg, like, hatching this podcast for a long time.
Speaker A:So I am joined today by Helen Royston, who you may well remember.
Speaker A:You will recognize her voice, I'm sure, from one of our earliest, in fact, the earliest podcast.
Speaker A:It was the second podcast.
Speaker A:It was actually the very first one that I recorded, and it was all about home education.
Speaker A:It was like, this is your, like, nuts and bolts, early days home education.
Speaker A:And so I thought I'd bring Helen back on today to talk about deschooling.
Speaker A:Helen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast Again.
Speaker A:Do let any listeners know who maybe haven't listened to that first podcast, and I would recommend you do, because it is one of my favorites, but do let our listeners know a little bit about your home education journey because you are a, what I like to call a doyen of home education.
Speaker B:Oh, thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me back as well.
Speaker B:It's really nice to be here.
Speaker B:So, yes, about me.
Speaker B: educating, gosh, way back in: Speaker B:So it started when my son, my eldest came out, took him out of school when he was seven, going on eight and he was home educated until he was 16 and then my younger two were home educated all the way through from, from the beginning until one went to college at 16 and the other was 17 when they went to college.
Speaker B:So all in all, it was 30 years of a span of home educating.
Speaker A:That's a lot of home educating.
Speaker B:It is a lot of home educating.
Speaker B:But I think by the time the younger two came around, it was definitely much more of a way.
Speaker B:It becomes a way of life, I think, really.
Speaker B:So I think it flowed a lot better with the younger ones.
Speaker B:And my old one had already finished home educating and gone on to college.
Speaker B:And so it was fewer worries, if you like.
Speaker B:Different worries, different concerns, different challenges.
Speaker B:Not least because I educated one child and then I had two children to home educate and that juggle was different.
Speaker B:That was definitely one of the main challenges there.
Speaker A:It is really different, I think home educating one versus home educating two plus because I know that my two are very close in age.
Speaker A:And so it's always been the two of them home educating.
Speaker A:And it's a different kind of vibe.
Speaker A:It's quite nice.
Speaker A:It's not always a bad thing, but it is a different thing.
Speaker A:But anyway, so talk to us then about the concept of deschooling because I tell you one thing, when I first started homeschooling, home education, early on I would hear the term unschooling and deschooling and get really confused.
Speaker A:So talk to us about what deschooling is and how it's different to unschooling.
Speaker B:So deschooling is kind of like the process of rethinking education.
Speaker B:And for children who have been in school, some of that will be recovery, especially if they've had a really tough time, if they've got any school trauma, they need that process of.
Speaker B:They might need that process of deschooling to help them rediscover a love of learning and to get over any trauma they've experienced.
Speaker B:It might be a period of time where they need to, you know, concentrate on mental health and well being and it's the time when you reestablish yourselves, you're already established as a family, obviously.
Speaker B:But when you've got somebody who's out of the house six hours a day and then suddenly they're at home all day, the dynamic changes and you've got to re.
Speaker B:Establish that dynamic in a different way, really.
Speaker B:So it's a kind of a period of adjustment.
Speaker B:And it's not just children that need to deschool.
Speaker B:I think parents need to de school just as much, if not more so than children.
Speaker B:And I think it's an ongoing journey.
Speaker B:I wouldn't say that I am fully.
Speaker A:Deschooled even yet after 30 years.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:Okay, so that's.
Speaker A:That's really interesting because one question I have for you then is because obviously you've been home educating for 30 years, your child was in school for how long before you home educated?
Speaker A:The first three.
Speaker B:Three years.
Speaker A:Three years.
Speaker A:So ten times the amount of time you've been home educating, but you still feel you need to deschool.
Speaker A:Do you think that then there's something inherent in us, or does your child have to be in a school experience to deschool?
Speaker A:Because do you have to deschool regardless of whether your child's been in school, is what I'm asking?
Speaker B:Yes, I think so.
Speaker B:Because obviously I spent a lot of years in school.
Speaker B:I was in School for 12 years, so I need to do school too, you know, so.
Speaker B:But then when my son was in school, I'm still in that school mindset because that is what I assumed was the norm and the only choice at the time when he started school.
Speaker B:So, you know, and back in the 90s, it was pretty much the norm.
Speaker B:There were very few women educators about.
Speaker A:So what I hear you saying is there are maybe four key elements to deschooling.
Speaker A:You've got releasing any trauma or processing through any trauma that the child or difficult experiences that the child may have experienced at school.
Speaker A:You've got the fact that you and your child will have been kind of inculcated into an idea of a school experience, learning, education being a certain way.
Speaker A:You've also got linked to that, but slightly separate, is the idea of deschooling learning.
Speaker A:So understanding that there are different approaches, maybe relearning yourself what learning is.
Speaker A:And then alongside that, you mentioned this idea of dynamic change.
Speaker A:So going from sending your child off to school for eight hours to having your child with you, you know, like all the time.
Speaker A:Realistically, are there any other elements of deschooling that you think are Key or have I hit them all there?
Speaker B:I think that's that.
Speaker B:That's it so far.
Speaker B:If anything else comes up, I'll let you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, you do that.
Speaker A:So let's take.
Speaker A:Let's take the.
Speaker A:Probably the.
Speaker A:Let's take the trauma side first.
Speaker A:You know, the.
Speaker A:The shedding of the.
Speaker A:Of difficult experiences, because this is not the same for everybody.
Speaker A:There will be people whose children went into school that didn't have difficult experiences, but they may be it just wasn't working, or maybe situationally they wanted to take their child out, or maybe the child was fine, but the parent didn't really like what was happening.
Speaker A:But there will definitely be people whose children have had negative experiences either with a teacher, with the experience, with the sensory experience, with the learning itself.
Speaker A:They got special educational needs, neurodiversities.
Speaker A:Maybe there was issues with the dynamic with other children, with these children who have experienced what I would perceive as a trauma.
Speaker A:But I know a lot of people struggle with that word because they think it, you know, only applies to people in war zones or whatever.
Speaker A:But people whose children have had to process a lot emotionally.
Speaker A:What do you think is the key part of deschooling there for them?
Speaker B:I think it's focusing on the home, focusing on making home comfortable and safe and probably avoiding language that sounds like school.
Speaker A:So I would.
Speaker B:That's where home education is a more useful term than homeschooling, because obviously the word school could have really negative connotations.
Speaker B:I would really focus on building that connection, spending time together.
Speaker B:I always think hot chocolates, read alouds, films, walks out.
Speaker B:Avoid words like lessons, maybe avoid even, you know, avoid things like workbooks and worksheets, anything that is associated with school.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that actually that is probably advice that we're going to come back to with some of our other topics, because I think that is really key.
Speaker A:I think what you were saying there about safety as well, I know that from my work with people who have experienced different traumas, your sense of safety is eroded.
Speaker A:Now, if you experience trauma as a child in a place that is purportedly in loco parentis, it's meant to be a safe place.
Speaker A:And if you have experienced feelings of unsafe, you're not being held or not being heard or not being.
Speaker A:Not being attended to, not being cared for.
Speaker A:If you've experienced that, everything can feel quite fundamentally unsafe.
Speaker A:So what you're saying is bring your focus back to the place of safety, which is the home and the parental bond and the family bond, right?
Speaker B:Yes, essentially.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:So much.
Speaker B:You put it so much more succinctly.
Speaker A:But also what you're saying there about triggers was really key.
Speaker A:So when I think about deschooling, it is a lot about avoiding triggers, avoiding, like you say, anything that's too schooly.
Speaker A:So deschooling, like moving away, like D is the prefix that is the opposite.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You're wanting to do the opposite of what school is, just for that deschooling period.
Speaker A:Now, I will say for anyone listening, this doesn't mean you have to spend the whole of your home education journey of avoiding workbooks, avoiding lessons.
Speaker A:You can have a very structured home ed journey.
Speaker A:But we're talking about an initial period of re regulation, aren't we?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And it's not a period in which no learning happens.
Speaker B:It's not a period in which you sit there and do nothing with your children.
Speaker B:It's very much.
Speaker B:You read it together, you know, and it's that establishing new routines and new ways of living together.
Speaker B:So, you know, you don't have to throw everything out of the window.
Speaker B:You know, you can still have.
Speaker B:We're going to have breakfast at this time, we're going to have meals together, we're going to.
Speaker B:We're still going to go to shops once a week or visit grandparents on this day.
Speaker B:You know, the things that you normally do as a family, you can still do, you still do that.
Speaker B:And for parents, at the same time as all this is going on and you're reconnecting and re establishing those relationships, I think what can be a really useful thing is it's learning to recognise the learning that is going on and learning that learning doesn't have to be just academics.
Speaker B:One of the main things with school, obviously, is the academic process, progress that children make.
Speaker B:But learning about academics isn't the whole of the learning picture.
Speaker B:You sit and you teach somebody how to knit, then it's.
Speaker B:That's still a skill that's worth learning, you know, or they might spend time gardening.
Speaker B:Gardening's great for your mental health.
Speaker B:Reconnecting with nature, reconnecting with the soil, with the plants and that, that sense of purpose that you get from growing things, especially if it's food, you know, that's all valuable learning.
Speaker B:And I think as parents, it's.
Speaker B:If they have just come out of the school system and you've not ever thought about home education and you just think, they're going to go to school, they're going to come out with GCSEs or not, but they're going to go from there onto college and then into work.
Speaker B:And it's kind of like we have this idea of not exactly a conveyor belt, but, you know, there are tests at certain ages through there to say how far they've got with the academics.
Speaker B:And that's the emphasis there with schools is on academics.
Speaker B:And I think part of that deschooling process is recognising that it's not all about academics and that there are other skills and other things we can learn in life.
Speaker B:Might not get us an exam, might not get us a job at the end of it, but we want to learn them for that, just for the beauty of learning.
Speaker A:I think what you say is really key because there's part of us that even when we have only ever home educated, you know, even if we've never put our child in school, there's part of us at different parts of the home education journey that gets hooked into this idea of needing to quantify the kind of learning experience.
Speaker A:And I know that I mentioned this in another podcast that I was pretty good at recognizing that learning happened everywhere.
Speaker A:I'd not put my children into school.
Speaker A:I didn't feel I needed to deschool.
Speaker A:When the GCSE journey started, I got myself quite hooked into, okay, well, if it's not a GCSE subject, it doesn't count.
Speaker A:Like, it's all very well and good.
Speaker A:This is very lovely.
Speaker A:You want to go and like, look at some hawthorne bushes.
Speaker A:That's beautiful.
Speaker A:That doesn't count.
Speaker A:It doesn't count anymore because there's no GCSE at the end of it.
Speaker A:And I know that I had to kind of almost step out of myself after about six months of this and be like, what's happening here?
Speaker A:Like, this is actually interesting that I'm now I've got very much into a school where way of thinking just because my children hit a certain age.
Speaker A:And I started thinking because a lot of home educators you speak to, they do say, oh, well, for secondary, I'm probably going to put them back in because it's almost like when it gets to exam time, we very much slip back into this school way of thinking.
Speaker A:So we kind of have to deschool sporadically through our journey as well.
Speaker A:Right, exactly.
Speaker B:That's what I mean when I say that I don't think I've ever fully deschooled because I recognize that, you know, I know that when it became to exam times, it was.
Speaker B:I did feel that shift.
Speaker B:I did suddenly start thinking, wanting to compare them or not wanting to, but finding That I was comparing what they were doing with what children in school were doing.
Speaker B:And that was something that I'd kind of learned not to do along the way because a home ed journey is not comparable to a school journey.
Speaker B:But suddenly you're hitting this point where they have to get, you know, they want to get these qualifications and they need them to go on to the next step.
Speaker B:And it all became a little bit.
Speaker B:A little bit daunting and.
Speaker B:Yeah, and the pressure.
Speaker B:There was a new pressure there that I felt as a parent and I was really.
Speaker B:That I did struggle with and I didn't want to put it on them, do you know, which was tricky.
Speaker B:It was a bit of a balancing act.
Speaker B:And that was still part.
Speaker B:I could really recognize that as part of the schooling process that was still ongoing within myself.
Speaker A:Yeah, and you were saying there about.
Speaker A:We were talking about how learning happens in lots of different ways.
Speaker A:You know, it's not just workbooks, it's not just lessons in inverted commas.
Speaker A:It's, as you were saying, it's gardening and, you know, going.
Speaker A:Going for nature walks and things like that.
Speaker A:I think that's a very key part of deschooling.
Speaker A:But what you're also talking about is this idea that as parents, we have things like comparing to the school experience, like thinking, what, what should they.
Speaker A:A lot of shoulds.
Speaker A:Like, what should they be learning now?
Speaker A:Like, what.
Speaker A:Where should they be in their maths?
Speaker A:What should they.
Speaker A:What level should their spelling be at?
Speaker A:Do you think that part of deschooling is letting go of that?
Speaker A:Or do you think there's always a part of that that we have?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:I think part of deschooling is absolutely letting go of that.
Speaker B:I think it's, you know, we always said there is no behind in home education because a child can't be behind themselves.
Speaker B:And that is very true.
Speaker B:A child is where they are, but there is the temptation is to start thinking, oh, next door.
Speaker B:But one, you know, they're the same age and they'd be in the same year at school and they're doing all this stuff that my child's not done.
Speaker B:And that is where we need to do school as well.
Speaker A:How do you go about that process?
Speaker A:I mean, that's quite.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I feel like we're sort of sitting here and people must be listening, thinking, yeah, but how, like, how do I stop myself doing this?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:I found that part of the whole journey of home education, when I talk about that dynamic and that change that goes on when they're suddenly at home, it's not just learning about being with your child, it's also yourself too, you know, because you're with them all the time.
Speaker B:And as you're watching and observing how they're learning and changing, the best way to do that, I think, is you have to observe and watch yourself as you're changing as well.
Speaker B:And it's not easy.
Speaker B:You know, it's not easy.
Speaker B:And I can't say I've always been brilliant, but over 30 years, I have had a lot of opportunity to.
Speaker A:To.
Speaker B:To do that.
Speaker A:Really, what you're describing there is this idea almost that we have our own demons as parents that we end up having to confront as home educators because we don't really have anywhere to hide from them.
Speaker A:So these demons of comparison and guilt, shame, all of these things that as parents are kind of built into their process, which they don't tell you about.
Speaker A:And that's.
Speaker A:They kind of come under a bit of a spotlight, don't they, when you home educate?
Speaker A:Because you're that single point of failure where everything goes through you, parenting and schooling, and so you.
Speaker A:The person responsible for all of it.
Speaker A:So what you're recommending there, I think, was to.
Speaker A:To listen and to catch yourself when these.
Speaker A:When this kind of little inner voice springs in.
Speaker A:I mean, I know that with a lot of my clients, I quite like to personalize that inner voice, you know, try to.
Speaker A:Try to notice who it is.
Speaker A:Quite often it's somebody in our past.
Speaker A:Like, I hate to say this, but quite often it's our mothers, but not always.
Speaker A:It can be other relatives, but sometimes it's somebody else's voice we hear.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's our own voice.
Speaker A:And I think it can to kind of go, oh, here we are.
Speaker A:It's like, you know, like a negative ninny again, or it's woe is me again, or whatever.
Speaker A:And you kind of almost make it a slightly humorous thing, but just by noticing that you're saying those things, like, oh, look, it's the should, the shoulds again.
Speaker A:I think noticing and identifying it is really important, like you say, because it.
Speaker A:It sort of alerts your brain that I actually don't want this, you know, this voice, this thing I'm hearing.
Speaker A:I don't want this.
Speaker B:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker B:You know, and it's.
Speaker B:It is just about paying attention.
Speaker B:You've got to pay attention to yourself as well as to them.
Speaker B:But, yeah, I think that's a good way of describing it, really.
Speaker B:Demons and voices and things.
Speaker A:I think one of the other things that I found really helpful to combat some of the inner doubt was to reach out within home ed communities.
Speaker A:Home ed on Homer communities are invariably online, but you will have local groups that you can meet up with and, and even some of the groups, if you go on and say, oh, I'm really like feeling a lot of doubt about whether my son should be able to do long multiplication by this age there will be a million people that will come on and be like, nah, you don't need to worry about that.
Speaker A:Like you say, every child is unique, every journey is unique.
Speaker A:You know, you meet one home educator, you've met one home educator and that's what it's like.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So I guess as well reaching out, listening to yourself, like doing the internal work, but also allowing yourself to connect externally as well.
Speaker B:That's true, that's true.
Speaker B:There's so much more opportunities for that these days as well, you know, with the Internet and things like that.
Speaker B:And it is very important, I think.
Speaker B:And as, and while Facebook groups and Internet groups are brilliant, I would recommend if there is a local group to try and meet people in person because that face to face interaction is so different from a typed one where you haven't got the nuances of speaking to each other and our body language and the rest of it, you know, and as well, it's great to be able to have some in person relationships and build actual real life friendships with people and their children.
Speaker A:Yeah, it helps.
Speaker A:It's supportive.
Speaker A:It's very supportive as well.
Speaker A:So so far we've got ideas for D for deschooling would be to make sure that your home is a safe place, that you're focusing on the connection and the family bonds.
Speaker A:And then we've also got the kind of concept of working on yourself and what, what of the school experience?
Speaker A:What of your school experience?
Speaker A:You might be bringing in comparisons, senses of guild expectations that you're putting into the situation.
Speaker A:We also talked briefly about this, this very key deschooling idea of learning being all sorts of different things, you know, and that it isn't just workbooks and certainly in those early days they may actually be triggers.
Speaker A:So what would some kind of practical advice be for people who want to do school, but they don't really know how to remove the school experience and they also don't know how to make that mindset shift about this is learning.
Speaker A:Even if we're watching a David Attenborough documentary, which for God's sake, they do.
Speaker B:In school, let's face it, school does A lot of things.
Speaker B:And a lot of those things we do in real life.
Speaker B:One of the misconceptions I always find with little kids is this idea.
Speaker B:And a lot of people who don't know about education is this idea that they.
Speaker B:They give to small children who are about to start school.
Speaker B:You have to go to school to learn.
Speaker B:You're going to school so that you can learn things.
Speaker B:You know, school's gonna be great, you're gonna learn all this stuff.
Speaker B:And as people are saying that to small children, that message also goes into the adult brain as well.
Speaker B:And I think it's.
Speaker B:It's untangling that, it's unraveling that and recognizing, you know, they do gardens.
Speaker B:You know, the schools have school gardens where they grow things.
Speaker B:You know, they're obviously learning about things in school.
Speaker B:So when you do that at home, you might not think of it as a.
Speaker B:An activity where they're learning about anything, because it's just what you do as a family.
Speaker B:First of all, for me, it was a case of saying, they do that in school, therefore I can do it at home.
Speaker B:They do gardens in school.
Speaker B:Gardening counts.
Speaker B:They go on museum trips at school.
Speaker B:Going to museums counts.
Speaker B:They go to the theatre at school.
Speaker B:Going to theatre counts.
Speaker A:So flipping it round.
Speaker A:So almost flipping it round.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So you're using school to validate you almost in that way.
Speaker B:Yeah, kind of.
Speaker B:It was that because I didn't know I'd started out with very few ideas about what home education could look like.
Speaker B: It was early: Speaker B:There wasn't an Internet community.
Speaker B:There were very few home educators about.
Speaker B:We got a newsletter once a month from Education.
Speaker B:Otherwise that I signed up for.
Speaker B:Other than that, I read books, you know, I read books.
Speaker B:I did a book about eschooling.
Speaker B:I read books.
Speaker B:Montessori, I read Steiner.
Speaker B:I read different educational philosophies because I would need to know where I was coming from.
Speaker B:Because I wasn't happy with the current school system.
Speaker B:I didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Speaker B:You know, obviously you still need to learn things.
Speaker B:I wasn't about to let him just sit there and do note all day.
Speaker B:And I had my own ideas of things that I thought were important.
Speaker B:Mainly evolved around literature.
Speaker B:We read a lot.
Speaker B:We all love with film, history, nature, all that kind of thing, all these.
Speaker B:And he had obviously his own interests as well, so it was trying to develop in that.
Speaker B:But we always did maths because I always thought maths was important.
Speaker B:And he hadn't experienced any school Trauma.
Speaker B:So I didn't have to do that.
Speaker B:Oh, no, nothing were mentioned.
Speaker B:No mention of school, you know, no mention of anything.
Speaker B:But there were certain languages, certain language that I did avoid.
Speaker B:So we never had lessons, we did activities.
Speaker B:You know, I think the main thing is conversation.
Speaker B:That would be my main key is to talk, to have conversations with your child.
Speaker B:Proper conversation, you know, natural conversations.
Speaker B:It doesn't all have.
Speaker B:Don't be in the kit.
Speaker B:It's not a quiz.
Speaker B:It's not finding out how much they know.
Speaker B:It's just have that conversation and see what comes out of that.
Speaker B:Take time out to go and do those, you know, the.
Speaker B:The school trip kind of things, Day at the seaside, day at the little children's farm or whatever.
Speaker B:You know, it depends on the ages of your children, obviously.
Speaker B:You know, if you've got little children, then, you know, bake.
Speaker B:Bake.
Speaker B:I know baking is the one thing that everybody always says, do lots of baking.
Speaker B:It covers maths, it covers everything.
Speaker B:But it's not about the subjects that it covers.
Speaker B:It's about doing those things that you can connect through as you're baking.
Speaker B:You can have conversations, things that.
Speaker B:That are relaxing.
Speaker A:It's interesting you say that, because one thing I found that helped me was to note down in a journal.
Speaker A:I had, like a planner that I used, and I would kind of note down the things that we had done that day.
Speaker A:And it helped me to get a sense of all of the different things.
Speaker A:I was like, oh, wow, they've actually done a lot today, even though we haven't, like, sat down at the dining table with books.
Speaker A:But do you feel that maybe that limits it too much if you do it that way, rather than just sort of doing it for the experience?
Speaker B:Not at all.
Speaker B:I think that's a really, really good piece of advice.
Speaker B:I had something similar myself.
Speaker B:So with my younger ones, we did have kind of like a little set routine that worked for them that they loved.
Speaker B:And so some of that would involve me planning in advance what we were going to do the next day, the next week, the next month or whatever.
Speaker B:With my old one, it was much more sort of autonomous.
Speaker B:So there were some plans made, obviously, you know, but mostly it was I was it.
Speaker B:Because it was only him.
Speaker B:I was able to be more responsive to his interests and just be able to do that really, as much as possible.
Speaker B:So it would be that thing of not really knowing what you were going to do, but afterwards being able to sit down and say, this is what we've done.
Speaker B:You can see the learning that's going on there.
Speaker B:And I thought that was a very important part of the deschooling process because it does help you to see what they have learned, what you've talked about, what they're interested in.
Speaker B:You can even see the things that they're not interested in.
Speaker B:Make a note of that.
Speaker B:They really didn't like that.
Speaker B:They don't want to do any more of that.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So that goes out the window.
Speaker B:That's a really good way of seeing what learning is happening, especially when you need to be saying, I've been home educating since day one and all your learning is happening through conversation and engaging.
Speaker A:As you say, with their interests.
Speaker A:I know that there'll be people listening who's.
Speaker A:Maybe they've taken their child out and their child is really in a position of feeling very demoralized with learning from because of the school experience.
Speaker A:And they may be sitting, listening, thinking, like, my child isn't doing anything.
Speaker A:Like, if I was to write this down in a planner, it would be Minecraft.
Speaker A:I would write every day.
Speaker A:Or it'd be Call of Duty, or it would be sitting.
Speaker A:Sitting under the, under the duvet.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And it is difficult when you, when there's a period where you really feel like your child is just not really learning anything.
Speaker A:There are always some things, like there will always be some things going on.
Speaker A:So engaging with that interest, like you say, having conversations.
Speaker A:I mean, almost all of our really kind of diamond learning was took part as part of a conversation.
Speaker A:That's the things that they remember and that's the things that I remember.
Speaker A:But also, I think it's okay for there to be a period of time where learning is minimal.
Speaker A:If your child is really struggling and they're in bed a lot, or they're just on their phone a lot, or they're not really engaging.
Speaker A:That is part of this.
Speaker A:To go back to the trauma idea, that is part of the healing response, is to take some time and there isn't a big rush to throw yourself into must do this, must do that.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker A:It's been two months and we've not done any proper learning.
Speaker A:Because I will say that this is my new favorite anecdote and I'm intending to throw this into a lot of my podcasts so people will already have heard this one.
Speaker A:But my child, my daughter tried school for the first time a few weeks ago, and she came home, she's finished already.
Speaker A:That didn't last long.
Speaker A:She came home from school and I said, of course, because I want to know everything that she's doing because I find it fascinating.
Speaker A:It's like sleeping with the enemy.
Speaker A:I'm like, whoa, this is so interesting.
Speaker A:What were you doing at school?
Speaker A:And she had computer science.
Speaker A:And I said, oh, you know, how is computer science?
Speaker A:And she said, oh yeah, we learned to send an email.
Speaker A:And she's 17.
Speaker A:And I looked at her and I said, well, it's lucky that all those years home educating, we didn't miss too much at school.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because you can get yourself in this idea that school, they're missing out or, oh, they'd have done this and that in school.
Speaker A:But chances are school is a very slow process of learning, like, and then they go through it again and again and again, year on year in.
Speaker A:So realistically, your child is not missing out, you're not holding them back.
Speaker A:They're not going to never get their GCSEs because they've spent a couple of months under their duvet playing Call of Duty.
Speaker A:That's not going to happen.
Speaker A:And when it comes to reports and la, there's always something, like, there's always some learning taking place, like you say.
Speaker A:So I suppose one bit of advice I would give for deregging and deschooling is just to relax a little bit and not get too caught up in what you should and shouldn't be doing and what they should and shouldn't be learning.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I mean, the Minecraft thing, I remember when my youngest started playing Minecraft and I was, I'm not a video gamer, I'm not.
Speaker B:I'm the wrong age group for that, really.
Speaker B:You know, Tetris was about my limit and it's kind of.
Speaker B:And he was playing Minecraft and because he was, he would always mainly be online playing with his friends and there were always people he actually knew in real life.
Speaker B:I was, was very strict about that and I was just like, well, what's he doing?
Speaker B:You know, everybody keeps saying it's maths, it's all these blocks and all these things, they move around and then suddenly one day turns around and he starts telling me about.
Speaker B:It was obsidian and he wanted a piece of obsidian and he was telling me all about the properties of obsidian and all the things that he'd learned from playing Minecraft.
Speaker B:I thought, well, all right, then.
Speaker A:It'S true.
Speaker A:I mean, it's.
Speaker A:I remember when my daughter started doing Classical Civilization.
Speaker A:So she was.
Speaker A:It was GCSE she took and she started one of Jake from Humanity is Learning, started one of his courses and we all sat there together because for the first few Lessons.
Speaker A:I always like to sit there with them.
Speaker A:And every child apart from her had read the Percy Jackson books.
Speaker A:Every single one.
Speaker A:And I remember afterwards I looked at her and I was like, they've all just come to this from, like, some sort of, like, mythical book series.
Speaker A:And then I thought, actually, that is really cool.
Speaker A:Like, that is really nice that all these children are now doing Classical Civilizations because of reading pretty trashy books, you know?
Speaker A:And I really.
Speaker A:If Percy Jackson's listening, no way.
Speaker A:He didn't write it.
Speaker A:Rick Reardon.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I apologize.
Speaker A:They're not trashy, but you know what I mean.
Speaker A:They're light, you know, you're not talking.
Speaker A:She wasn't reading Homer.
Speaker A:It was something quite light.
Speaker A:And they've all come to Classical civilization through that.
Speaker A:And this is the thing is there are all these different routes.
Speaker A:Now, I'm not going to sit here and say, because I'm a little bit like you.
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:We ought to do a podcast, actually, about gaming, because I have quite strong opinions about gaming as well.
Speaker A:And I would struggle if my child was doing a lot of Call of Duty or, like, I don't know, any of those kind of, like, slightly aggressive games, but I'm guessing.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I've never played.
Speaker A:But my guess is that even those kind of games will have some sort of learning in there.
Speaker A:Even if it's collaboration with people on mics or whatever it is, there's something.
Speaker A:There's something going on.
Speaker A:And at the very least, if your child is hiding under a duvet for two months, they are doing some internal work where they're processing through something, and that's an opportunity to engage with them with it, if you can.
Speaker A:So there's always something, isn't there?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker B:You know, they're learning about themselves at the same time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I would struggle personally.
Speaker B:And I'm not saying this, that it's wrong in any way.
Speaker B:It's just a reflection, like I say, on my own thoughts on video games and the fact that I'm not a video gamer.
Speaker B:And I don't see the.
Speaker B:I. I don't see.
Speaker B:For me, if I spent my time playing video games, I would feel like I was wasting my time.
Speaker B:But that's different, you know, it's.
Speaker B:It doesn't mean to say he's a waste of time.
Speaker A:And also, what we're talking about here, and I think this is something we haven't talked about that I'd like to, is that it's for a period of Time, isn't it?
Speaker A:Now, I know you said that deschooling goes on forever and elements of it definitely do, but that doesn't mean that you have to have this approach where you're very focused on learning.
Speaker A:Happens everywhere.
Speaker A:Let your child heal.
Speaker A:Recognize that you have to do work yourself about shoulds and shouldn'ts and expectations.
Speaker A:You're really talking a shortish period right at the very start where you have to do this intense work.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I say intense, but you know what I mean, Focused work.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:I think it.
Speaker B:Because it is that period of adjustment, you know, I don't even see it as doing well.
Speaker B:I don't think there's a time limit to it.
Speaker B:That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker B:There isn't a time limit to it.
Speaker B:For some people, it might be a very short period of time.
Speaker B:They might find that their child is suddenly ahead of the game, especially if they're younger and they've not had such a tough time in school.
Speaker B:Their kid could come down one day and say, okay, I want to do some maths today.
Speaker B:I want to read this book, I want to learn how to do this.
Speaker B:I missed this about school.
Speaker B:You can respond to that and that can be your way in.
Speaker A:Is that how you would know that the deschooling, that sort of, very first bit of the deschooling process is maybe over?
Speaker A:When your child spontaneously and proactively engages with their learning, would you say that that's what you're looking for?
Speaker B:Possibly.
Speaker B:You know, I don't know.
Speaker B:It could just be.
Speaker B:See, it's, it's.
Speaker B:It is a tricky one for me to answer because we just, we just kind of cracked on, you know, and we didn't do.
Speaker B:I didn't do any kind of like, apart from.
Speaker B:I really want you to keep up with some maths and we're going to do some maths now and again and, and reading.
Speaker B:I always read aloud to my kids.
Speaker B:Always, always, always right up until they were about 16.
Speaker B:So we.
Speaker B:There were parts of what I would consider to be a deschooling process were actually part of our everyday life anyway.
Speaker B:And I was always very proactive.
Speaker B:Even before my eldest went to school.
Speaker B:I was quite, as most parents are, you know, quite proactive in, you know, things like learning colours, learning letter shapes, learning number shapes, you know, all these different skills that we do with our children through play.
Speaker B:So we play sit down, you know, with a little.
Speaker B:With a toddler, you sit down with a shape sorter box to show them how to do it and eventually they'll do it by themselves.
Speaker B:It's that kind of attitude that carried me forward through home educating.
Speaker A:I think that what you're describing is that there's an initial period where you're learning the concepts of what home education and what learning is and you're unlearning the concepts that you brought in from school.
Speaker A:That process never ends.
Speaker A:Maybe that initial period is when you're unlearning and relearning and then it kind of almost becomes a way of life.
Speaker A:It becomes sort of diffused into what is your journey then?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think part of the deschooling process for a parent is remembering and rediscovering that your own input is as valid as the input of a school teacher.
Speaker B:That school teachers, they teach in classrooms.
Speaker B:But the education you provide is just as valuable as the education they provide and possibly more so because the education you provide is, is tailored to your child.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that one, one thing from my kind of anecdote about, about my daughter's school is that I think we have this perception of school as this.
Speaker A:Oh, they're doing everything right.
Speaker A:And oh, the teachers are amazing at teaching this or teaching that.
Speaker A:Now my daughter tried at school at a very good school here in Ireland.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Very, very good school.
Speaker A:Everything was right.
Speaker A:You know, it was all really good.
Speaker A:And yet I was staggered by how little actual learning took place.
Speaker A:And I think we can end up thinking, oh, like, can I do this?
Speaker A:Have I got enough skills to do this?
Speaker A:The teacher is so much better at this.
Speaker A:But actually that one to one experience you have with your child and the knowledge you have with your child is worth a huge amount of inadvertent commerce skills that teachers have.
Speaker A:I'm not saying they don't have skills, they have skills, but I'm just saying that we have skills as well as parents, right?
Speaker B:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker B:And I think as a parent that can be one of the most daunting things when you're starting out, especially if you've not thought that you're going to be coming, you're going to end up home educating.
Speaker A:You might have family and friends around you as well who are sort of saying, what makes you think you can do this?
Speaker A:And we get a lot of that, don't we?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:People will ask you, do you have a teaching degree?
Speaker B:And it's like, well, no, you know.
Speaker A:I don't actually, I have.
Speaker A:Which has always been hilarious because I've always been able to say yes and then watch that rather their face Go a little bit quieter.
Speaker A:But yeah, no, but it is, it is.
Speaker A:That is a really common thing, is you end up having to justify to other people and that in having to do that, it raises doubts in yourself.
Speaker A:So what can we suggest to people then to help them with that part of deschooling, you know, that kind of uncertainty about whether you're actually valid in what you're doing?
Speaker B:I would say connect with your local home ed community, really.
Speaker B:And hopefully meet home educators in real life.
Speaker B:Talk to home educators who have been home educating for a long time, not just new home educators.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'd say really trusting yourself as a parent because you have got skills, you've got.
Speaker B:You know, we did help our children to learn to do things before they went to school.
Speaker B:We helped our children to learn to do things while they were at school.
Speaker B:And you can still help your children to learn to do things once they're out of school.
Speaker B:It's just you're helping them to learn to do more things more of the time and be prepared to learn alongside them.
Speaker B:Because teaching I may have changed, I don't know.
Speaker B:But my experience of school was that there was a teacher at the front of the classroom who told you what you needed to know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And yes, you might do homework where you had to go home and research things, but we are presented with this idea that teachers have all the answers.
Speaker B:And I think one of the things about home educating is that as parents, we don't have to have all the answers.
Speaker B:We can find out those answers alongside our children and we can help our children look for answers themselves and build those research skills.
Speaker A:I think that's also really important for your relationship with your child.
Speaker A:Accepting that there are things that you don't know and that your child doesn't know and learning them together is really good because your child sees you learning and they start to see you not as this sort of weird alien creature that knows everything and never gets anything wrong.
Speaker A:And that can really build into perfectionism and issues with, with sort of fear of failure.
Speaker A:Whereas if you're there next to your child saying, wow, I have no idea how to do this fractions question, let's watch a YouTube video and learn together.
Speaker A:I used to regularly do that with my son, who was far better at maths than me, and it was really interesting.
Speaker A:And I think he, he, it made him feel good because he thought, oh, okay, I'm quite good at this.
Speaker A:I'm better than my mum at this, you know, And I think that that kind of thing actually is part of this lovely new dynamic shift where you're not necessarily somebody on high and then somebody that knows less than you.
Speaker A:It's much more of an egalitarian kind of equal relationship.
Speaker A:That's not to say that you can't have that parent dynamic.
Speaker A:I'm not here saying everybody should do autonomous parenting.
Speaker A:You certainly can do if you want.
Speaker A:But you can have the parent child dynamic but not have the teacher pupil dynamic.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I don't think we really had a teacher pupil dynamic going on here, although apparently I had a voice.
Speaker A:So we would.
Speaker B:We spent a lot of time in museums, a lot of time in museums.
Speaker B:And I remember one day, I can't remember which museum it was, but, you know, it would definitely be.
Speaker B:I'd be.
Speaker B:We'd look at something and then I'd be trying to give them more information about this thing either because I've kind of skim read the.
Speaker B:The information board and I'm picking out the bits I think might interest them or have interested me because that's just as valid.
Speaker B:And I was doing that one day and my daughter just turned around and said, mum, just stop.
Speaker B:She was quite old.
Speaker B:She was about 12 or something at the time, you know, so she'd had a lot of years of this.
Speaker B:She said, we don't have to do learning now.
Speaker B:I just want to look.
Speaker B:So apparently there.
Speaker B:There was a voice.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's lessons in everything.
Speaker A:That's one.
Speaker A:That is one thing I think when you home educate is it's really hard to slip out of that.
Speaker A:I find myself sometimes doing it with adults.
Speaker A:I'm like, what is the learning experience here?
Speaker A:It's like, oh, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker A:It's a fully grown adult that I'm now teaching.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do that all the time.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So we have got that.
Speaker A:Deschooling is a process of.
Speaker A:Let me look through my notes.
Speaker A:We have got.
Speaker A:It is recognizing that your child may have traumas to work through and making home a safe place.
Speaker A:And then there's this idea that you as a parent may have imbibed the school experience when you were younger.
Speaker A:And you need to kind of free yourself of that and free yourself of expectations and comparisons and, you know, should do this.
Speaker A:Shouldn't, shouldn't do that.
Speaker A:And you can do that by kind of flagging it up and noticing when it's happening and being compassionate with yourself as well when it happens.
Speaker A:And then this idea of learning happening everywhere and maybe leaning into that, like going on those day trips, going to the beach when it's nice and quiet.
Speaker A:Because everyone's at school, which is just a joy.
Speaker A:And also maybe noting it down, maybe having a journal or a planner where you, at the end of the day, you look at all those things they learned when you thought they weren't learning anything at all.
Speaker A:And then lastly, this idea of your dynamic with your child and how you can create a bond that is not necessarily.
Speaker A:Here is the information.
Speaker A:I am giving it to you, you are learning it, but it's more a collaborative journey and an exploration.
Speaker A:Well, Helen, I feel like we have done deschooling pretty good.
Speaker A:The pretty good wrap there.
Speaker A:How is there anything that you think we've missed?
Speaker B:Yeah, I was just thinking, one of the things I would advise people who want to do school is, and the part about comparing themselves to school is avoid looking at the national curriculum.
Speaker B:Because that if you start looking at the national curriculum and you look in there, what they're saying and what they're doing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You are going to end up comparing yourself to school.
Speaker B:There's so much you can learn that isn't on the national curriculum.
Speaker B:So I would suggest ignoring it.
Speaker A:I completely agree.
Speaker A:I think until you get to GCSEs, you don't need to look at all at what they're doing at school.
Speaker A:I think it's complete irrelevance.
Speaker A:I think what they do in year six, geography is not going to help you when you come to take your geography gcse.
Speaker A:It's not, it's.
Speaker A:It's like geography gcse.
Speaker A:I think I use this analogy with, in another podcast, but it's like if you go to McDonald's and you buy a Happy Meal and you get your fries and your burger and your drink all in one, that's a GCSE curriculum.
Speaker A:You don't need.
Speaker A:You don't need to have had McDonald's that morning.
Speaker A:You buy everything in one go and you get your curriculum and it's the same the national curriculum.
Speaker A:I feel like even teachers don't like it.
Speaker A:So why on earth we as home educators would engage with it, I don't know.
Speaker A:But yes, I think that's very, very good advice.
Speaker A:I think ditching the national curriculum or just the worry about comparing and keeping up with what they're doing in school.
Speaker A:And I will say, if you find if there's people in your family or your friends or even strangers in bloody shops who start quizzing your child on, oh, have you, you know, do you know your times tables, what, seven times five, be okay to step in, advocate for your child, step in and Say, oh, I could probably answer that for you.
Speaker A:Because I don't think he's particularly interested in giving you, like, the, you know, the answers to quiz questions in the middle of a shop or whatever.
Speaker A:Like, feel free to advocate.
Speaker B:Right, absolutely.
Speaker B:Definitely.
Speaker B:Because it's amazing how many people do that who will turn around and start asking them maths questions.
Speaker B:And it's always maths.
Speaker B:It's always.
Speaker A:It's interesting.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:Mass is a really popular one, but the one that stays in my memory was I was in Kazakhstan.
Speaker A:I was living in Kazakhstan.
Speaker A:Don't ask me why.
Speaker A:And I was living in Kazakhstan, and my son was six and met somebody and they said, oh, you know, do you go to school?
Speaker A:And I was like, no, we home.
Speaker A:Home educate.
Speaker A:And he's.
Speaker A:And he said, oh, what have you done today?
Speaker A:And I said, oh, we've done some French.
Speaker A:And he looked at my son and he said, what's French for potato?
Speaker A:And I thought, what is this?
Speaker A:Is this like, you know, who wants to be a Millionaire?
Speaker A:Why would you ask.
Speaker A:Why would you ask him that?
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker A:And I got so flustered, I said, oh, it's patatas or something, because I got confused with the Spanish.
Speaker A:And then he was like, oh, no, it's pommes de terre, which means apples of the ground.
Speaker A:And I think he was trying to be really nice.
Speaker A:I think he was trying to say, like, it's a beautiful word.
Speaker A:But I got flustered.
Speaker A:My son looked at me like, why are you talking Spanish to somebody who asked me about French?
Speaker A:Because he knew the answer and.
Speaker A:But it's funny, isn't it?
Speaker A:We get in our heads and we allow other people to get in our heads.
Speaker A:And I think maybe one thing that we haven't spoken about enough but is key to deschooling.
Speaker A:Get the other people out of your journey.
Speaker A:Like, this is your journey with your child.
Speaker A:Get everybody else out of it.
Speaker A:Shoo them out, sweep them out.
Speaker A:It's not their business.
Speaker A:It's your business.
Speaker A:It's very.
Speaker A:It's very Brene Brown.
Speaker A:Is this a me problem or a you problem?
Speaker A:Is a you problem.
Speaker A:So, yeah, make it a them problem and not a you problem.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, Helen, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker A:Do let our listeners know a little bit about.
Speaker A:Because I know you run a tutoring business.
Speaker A:So before we finish, I will put all of your links in the show notes, but do let our listeners know where they can find you if they would like to hear more of your lovely northern tones winging their Way through Zoom.
Speaker B:Thank you very much.
Speaker B:I'm on Facebook in Pitchbook, Explorers, Facebook Group or as beyond the Book Education.
Speaker B:And I have a website where I sell my resources, but you can contact me through there too.
Speaker B:And that's ww.picturebookexplorers.co.uk and what sort of.
Speaker A:Tutoring do you offer?
Speaker B:I do maths up to GCSE and I do English to the Cambridge igcse and I also will do primary, more like project topic based cross curricular education.
Speaker A:Very nice.
Speaker A:You're a one stop shop from like 3 to 16 then?
Speaker B:Pretty much.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I, I would except I would not do sciences at secondary level and any science I touch on is very practical.
Speaker B:Hands on, kind of.
Speaker A:There's more and more home educators doing A levels now, so you may have to branch up into 18 because I know it's increasingly a thing now.
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:But no, I've no limits.
Speaker A:Fair enough.
Speaker A:Well, Helen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker A:Again.
Speaker A:If anyone listening has questions for Helen, you can join us in our Facebook group, Home Education Matters.
Speaker A:Or you can put a comment below and I'll make sure Helen sees it and I will answer on her behalf.
Speaker A:Or I can answer if there's anything I can answer.
Speaker A:And if you'd like to get in touch with a podcast, you can always do that.
Speaker A:We're on Instagram.
Speaker A:This is very new and exciting.
Speaker A:We have like three followers because I've literally been set it up a week ago.
Speaker A:So like I'm feeling very lonely on Instagram.
Speaker A:So do come and give us a like and a follow on Instagram because it took me a lot to go on Instagram because I hate social media and so it was a big step for me to go on Instagram.
Speaker A:So please make it worth my while by coming and following the podcast because I know that thousands of you listen.
Speaker A:So Even if only 10 of you follow me, I would be so happy.
Speaker A:So come and follow the podcast.
Speaker A:It is Home Education matters, obviously on Instagram.
Speaker A:It's probably got an app somewhere because that's like apps and hashtags and all that malarkey.
Speaker A:So do come and follow us on Instagram.
Speaker A:All of Helen's links are in the show notes and if you're listening and you've got an idea for a podcast that you would like us to do, stick a comment below and I will make sure that I read it.
Speaker A:Helen, thank you so much again for coming on the podcast.
Speaker B:Thank you very much for having me, it's been great.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for joining us for today's Home Education Matters podcast.
Speaker A:See you at the next one.
Speaker A:Have a lovely day.
