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Changing Perspectives: Prejudice within the Home Education Community · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

• 0:23
  Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Big Home
• 0:27
  Ed Conversations. My name is Kelly Rick.
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  I'm a home Ed mom of two, founder of Off Roading
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  Motherhood and a qualified mindset coach.
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  I'm passionate about supporting parents and neurodivergent
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  families as they transition to home education from mainstream
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  schooling. And I'm here together as always
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  with my Co host, Ashley Venerio. She's a fellow home Ed mom of
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  three and a former primary teacher.
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  So we created the Big Home Ed Conversations podcast with what
• 0:49
  began as honest, heartfelt talks around her coffee table
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  basically grew interest. It's now grown into a space
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  where hundreds of listeners now tune in for real, unfiltered
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  conversations about mindset, behaviour, challenges,
• 1:01
  educational philosophies and the often emotional journey of
• 1:04
  alternative education. So we try to cut through the
• 1:07
  noise and focus on what really matters to home educating
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  families, offering clarity, confidence and community.
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  We hope in every episode now this week is centred around
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  prejudice within the home educating community.
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  Now that in itself I appreciate is going to be quite a
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  triggering concept. And whilst there'll be lots of
• 1:27
  you listening who will maybe feel reasonably defensive about
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  some of the things that we may end up touching on today.
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  And there'll be lots of people who might be listening who are
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  experiencing some of this prejudice and maybe do feel
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  quite othered and are finding it hard to integrate into groups
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  and communities that are already established.
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  What we are asking you to do when we are talking about this
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  stuff is simply to take an opportunity to consider what
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  some of your biases might be. What maybe some of the things.
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  Maybe if you do relate to any of it or you do find yourself
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  feeling that kind of slight defensiveness against some of
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  it, is to think about why that feeling is there.
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  But whether or not that actually means that maybe there is
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  something to it that we need to try and work on that, that maybe
• 2:07
  that's something that we are thinking about other people
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  about. We're thinking that about them
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  rather. And maybe we do need to think
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  about why we have that opinion, where that's coming from, who's
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  influenced that belief in US and how that's showing up for you in
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  your relationships. And realistically, just trying
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  to remember that as a home educating community, we have all
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  got our own individualities. And that's kind of the beauty of
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  it. And we definitely want to
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  preserve that individualness as much as humanly possible.
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  Now, there's lots of different elements to this.
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  And we kind of found ourselves as we've been kind of planning
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  and thinking about what we're going to talk about in this
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  episode. There's there's an awful lot of
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  different areas to it. You've got method, you've got
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  the ideological or philosophical divides, you've got perceptions
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  of doing it right, doing it the right way, socio economic and
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  cultural prejudice. There's sort of veteran versus
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  newcomer attitudes. There's all kinds of different
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  divides within the home educating community.
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  So we're going to try and sort of systematically work through
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  it and have a conversation about some of the things that we've
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  experienced and ultimately where we are working on our biases as
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  well and how we're noticing that we're showing up and the
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  thoughts that we sometimes find ourselves having and actually
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  what we're trying to work on. Because we're not, you're not
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  alone if you find yourself feeling this way sometimes, if
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  you listen to any of what we say today and you feel like actually
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  this is something which you feel sometimes, you're not alone.
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  But ultimately we do all have a responsibility to try and
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  remember that individual is what we're actually going for.
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  And that does mean that we're going to have very different
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  beliefs and approaches and ideas.
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  And actually that is the whole point, in my opinion anyway, of
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  what home education is supposed to be about.
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  This kind of lifestyle is creating this incredible
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  diverse, interesting community of individuals who've got such
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  fascinating approaches and loves and curiosities that ultimately
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  lead to innovation and ideas and lots of wisdom as well.
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  So we thought we'd start in that kind of order really methods
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  first. This is a sticking point.
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  So Ashley not that long ago experienced a moment in a social
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  circle basically. So all that kind of explained,
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  we're going to both kind of explain a little bit kind of
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  about our ethos and how we do things.
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  But she tends to follow kind of sort of really great curriculums
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  and ideas that her kids have got.
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  And she builds on stuff and does a lot of learning at home with
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  them. And I tend to be quite project
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  based, a little bit unschoolly, tend to kind of follow my own,
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  like random eclectic. It just kind of like builds
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  itself randomly over time. They'll still touch on a topic
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  and then we'll go off on a detour and we'll learn about
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  that for a while and then I'll realize that it's waned and
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  everyone's just pretending to be a dog or like wanting to be a
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  pet or something again. I'm like, OK, but that's fine.
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  You can do that to some degree. But like we've clearly lost an
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  interest in a subject. So I might try and like plant an
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  idea or gently guide it in a direction, but it does tend to
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  be quite relaxed. It tends to be quite meandering.
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  I let subjects drop when they stop showing an interest in it.
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  We've kind of covered a fair, fair amount of it.
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  I'll just let it go. I'm not too worried about
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  completion or feeling like we've got to have done everything
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  there is to do in that subject or everything that I've prepared
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  or planned for it. I'm okay if I prepare stuff and
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  they don't have any interest in doing it.
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  It just kind of gets filed away as an idea for a later day.
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  We might plan some days out and if they're not particularly
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  engaged with it, then we'll just take from it what we take from
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  it. And we just try and have some
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  fun along the way. And so I do tend to be quite
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  unschooling. I do try and allow them to kind
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  of get to ideas on their own, but I do also offer some sort of
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  teaching. And I do sit down and I do give
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  them guidance and I get my little tiny whiteboard out and
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  we draw stuff out on it and I explain stuff to them and I try
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  to help them understand things and they're quite receptive to
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  that. But the point is, this is my
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  family and these are my kids and this is how we work and how how
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  I like to learn and how they like to learn and the kinds of
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  things we like to learn about is entirely unique to who we are.
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  So I'll let I'll let Ashley do the same for her.
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  Like what kind of what is it the kind of that you guys do to
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  build your structure at home? Like what is your kind of
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  structure? We rely heavily on books, so
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  storybooks, reference books, tons of literature.
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  It has been the best way for us to engage and learn about a
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  topic while also sort of sneaking in the grammar and even
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  then writing components to a curriculum.
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  But we absolutely follow a more say this, but we do dovetail
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  into other things. But I would say we're definitely
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  a little more structured. So I do purchase the curriculum
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  even if we're not doing it in the book, like if we sort of
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  take the learning off the page, I'm still referencing curriculum
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  and I don't have just one. I have so many and I pull from
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  all of them to some degree. So I would say that the only
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  thing that we follow just on solid curriculum and then maybe
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  I supplement into it with other types of activities or
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  worksheets and don't cringe at the word worksheets.
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  They're fun is math. We do.
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  So we absolutely do. The odd one, yeah.
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  I saw the funniest to me and where it was like my child, my
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  homeschool child completing 1 worksheet and he was like on the
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  ground moaning and it was like just the effort to do 1
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  worksheet. So I know in the homeschool
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  community worksheet is like a four letter word, but yeah, so
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  we, I think math is sort of one of the things where it took us a
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  while to find the right path for it.
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  And this particular curriculum works really well.
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  And so we were going to continue with it.
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  And it's so funny because I feel like homeschoolers, particularly
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  around math and probably every subject, when you talk about it,
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  they're like, oh, but you know, you could do this and then
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  they'll just naturally learn this and then this will happen.
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  And I get it. I get that that works for a lot
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  of other families and children, but I firmly believe in math as
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  another language and how it activates a part of the brain
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  that is really crucial for decision making and just.
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  Logic puzzles and deciphering and decoding a. 100% and as you
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  get if you can get yourself to the level of doing like calculus
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  that is absolutely your brain has learned another language and
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  so and we all know the benefits of that.
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  So I, I do think that math is really important, not because
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  you're ever going to be using, you know, maybe geometry or
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  algebra in the future in your day-to-day as you're shopping at
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  the grocery store, but those components do activate a part of
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  your brain that I think is very important.
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  And I do think it, yeah, it's a, it's a critical thinking.
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  It's a, it's a logic, it's a, it's just a process.
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  I think it's important. So for us, having a really
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  strong math foundation is important because if you can do
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  all that well, it, it makes other things easier down the
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  road. So that is one thing that I'm
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  not saying it's a hill I'm going to die on, but for my kids it
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  probably is. And for other families, they can
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  choose not to do that, and that is absolutely fine.
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  Yeah. So math is when we do, but the
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  rest of it, you know, history, science, I try to make as
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  exciting as possible. I try to ensure that we're using
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  lots of really good literature and exciting books.
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  I know obviously in the Montessori world they talk about
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  living books really strongly. I absolutely look at reading
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  lists and all of that to to kind of do it.
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  So I would say we are more of a curriculum based, but that
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  definitely is facilitated by myself and pulling things off
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  the page and creating different unit studies in, you know,
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  meshing together curriculums in a way that lets us kind of go
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  down a rabbit hole if we want to and really focus on something.
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  So yeah. And a lot of that, I think I'm
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  the more important piece of this too that people sometimes don't
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  consider when they're looking at a more structured curriculum.
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  Family, I would say is why that's the case.
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  So my husband is still very critical of home education.
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  It is not something he is 100% on board with.
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  And so I have to be respectful of that.
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  Like I'm not getting divorced to homeschool, right?
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  So I have to compromise somewhere.
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  It is just the nature of relationships.
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  And that is something that he has 100% thankfully deferred to
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  me on and not fought me on much. So it's it's definitely and
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  opinion of his that school is there for a reason and he will
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  absolutely say that he is not looking into it beyond that.
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  So it's just a, there is there's no questioning of like, why does
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  school exist and how did we get here and what is the true
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  reason? Like he doesn't care about that.
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  His is more of like this is what people do.
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  And so, you know, we wake up in the morning, we go to work, we
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  go to school, we come home at night.
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  Like that is where he is. And that that's fine.
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  Plenty of families are like that.
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  Most of families are like that. For him, this is the world that
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  our children live in and they have to exist in it.
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  And he doesn't want them to feel outside of the norm.
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  He doesn't want them to feel weird.
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  He doesn't want them feel out of place.
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  And so that's sort of, it's still a caring reason that he's
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  coming to, right? It's just he's very conscious of
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  that. And so we have to, we have to
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  work together. And so part of that is creating
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  an environment where if something were to happen, if
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  something were to change, if if I had to go back to work full
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  time, if something dramatically changed in our lifestyle, which
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  we all know, these things happen.
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  The economy is crazy. COVID was a great example of how
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  something outside of our control could impact our daily life.
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  If he lost his job, any of that stuff, it would mean perhaps
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  that our kids would have to go back into a traditional school
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  environment. And in that way, we wouldn't
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  want them to feel behind. I would hate it if my kids were
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  forced to have such a big change and then on top of it, feel like
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  they were less than all of their peers.
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  So that is sort of just the reality of the world that we
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  live in. Do I wish it was different?
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  Absolutely. But this is the world we live
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  in, so there's just no guarantee.
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  I think, I think we also have to think as well that the reason
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  why people get funny about this or worry about it, I suppose is
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  this concepts that certain ways of doing education, offering
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  education could be detrimental to the child.
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  And I think what we have to think about here is truly what
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  is detrimental to a child's education.
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  Typically it's poverty, lack of resource, lack of opportunity.
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  Like we're talking a child who's obviously dealing with
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  malnutrition, who has not got supportive parents, who's not
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  got a good home environment. Like there's an awful lot of
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  pushback in the government at the moment, obviously, around
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  getting these breakfast clubs in place and after school clubs in
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  place and making sure that no child starts the day hungry and
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  all the rest of it. All this like nonsense that
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  they're spouting. And actually what it is, is a
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  plaster that's covering the fact that actually a lot of families
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  are really struggling to provide a, to provide breakfast to have
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  the time to spend with their children because they've all got
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  to rush off to school and actually nobody can afford for
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  the book breakfast clubs and they can't whatever.
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  Right. So like, there's, yeah, there's
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  a whole thing around that right now.
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  And ultimately, what's truly detrimental to a child's
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  education is really a lack of interest from the parties
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  involved in that child's education and that child not
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  being in an optimal position to thrive and grow.
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  Now a child who's being provided A curriculum and an intentional
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  parent who's researching ideas based on topics they love and
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  enjoy. Like I know that you have
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  researched classes and curriculums and have changed
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  their maths around to be around horses.
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  And like all the things that you have done to help benefit their
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  interest, like what they are interested in, you have used
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  that to help them to do the core skills that we know are
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  considered essential in our community, like in social
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  normative communities. And the ultimately those core
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  skills are things that allow them to progress into being able
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  to digest information from different sources and allows
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  them to understand statistics and to be able to take data and
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  process it. Like we know that those core
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  learning skills, like the ability to learn, the ability to
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  take on these information are basically the for me, if I
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  really boil down what my home meds is all about, it's not
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  actually about retaining all the information I give them.
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  It's not about what can we do a history topic that I want them
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  to remember all those dates and make sure they can do a paper on
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  it. What I want them to be able to
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  do is to a find it interesting, be be reasonably engaged and to
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  actually want to learn it in the first place.
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  So that's obviously got to them. Therefore pique their interest
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  in some way, which is it needs to be offering them a chance to
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  learn skills of how to learn. And then also then ultimately
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  allows them to have the opportunity to then learn
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  whatever they want. So they'll retain some bits and
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  some bits will get discarded because our brains only keep
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  what's relevant to us, right? And ultimately I'm not planning
• 15:21
  on testing them on everything that we do.
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  We didn't get the odd little fun quiz.
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  They'd love a quiz. To be honest.
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  They're a bit weird like that. My son brings me the white boy
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  and his mummy. Can you give me a maths test?
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  I don't even know where he gets it from.
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  It's not like I've ever presented him with a maths test
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  in his life, but he just give me a maths test.
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  Blame YouTube, blame YouTube for everything.
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  But anyway, the point is that we have to think like when we're
• 15:41
  finding ourselves sitting there going these poor kids like that
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  parents doing school at home, like they're not going out to
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  the park. They're not.
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  They are going out to the park. I'm not saying yours aren't, but
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  like when we sit there and go, oh, they literally just at home
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  all the time and they just sat at the dining room table having
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  to write pages and pages and pages, or they're doing loads
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  and loads of workbooks when they could just be playing with
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  things. And oh, it's so much better if
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  they're outside doing it and all the rest of it, right?
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  We've really got to stop and look at this and think, right,
• 16:07
  what is truly detrimental to a child's education?
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  Is it having it provided in a way which if the child is
• 16:16
  engaged in and functioning well within and progressing well and
• 16:20
  has plenty of time to socialize, plenty of time to do what they
• 16:23
  love doing, like they're out of the park, they're moving their
• 16:25
  bodies, they're learning in nature as well.
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  They're doing all the other fun stuff as well, but they are also
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  just having a bit of that time at home, doing that concentrated
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  effort at the table, whatever. It's fine.
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  Like this is great even. And it's like ultimately, if a
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  parent doesn't like to do any of that kind of sit down at home
• 16:43
  stuff with them at the table, that's equally fine.
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  That child's like if you're paying attention to that child's
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  developmental growth and you're observing what they're learning
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  and you're noticing where they're going with something and
• 16:55
  you're gently scaffolding and supporting and structuring
• 16:57
  something. Like you're going to be
• 16:58
  providing something, whether that's simply just making sure
• 17:01
  they get plenty of outdoor time or giving them an opportunity to
• 17:04
  chat to a conservationist if they're really interested in the
• 17:06
  forest and how to take care of it.
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  You know what? You know what I mean?
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  Like you're regardless of whether you're providing a book
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  and a worksheet or you're providing a class or you're
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  providing an outdoor activity or a drop off setting or a forest
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  school or whatever it is you end up providing.
• 17:21
  We're all doing the same thing. Just doesn't always look like a
• 17:25
  book or it doesn't always look like a table.
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  Sometimes it can look like something else.
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  But the key is that by understanding that we each
• 17:32
  provide a different slightly different methods, it doesn't
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  mean we're actually working towards different things.
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  Like somewhat, somewhat maybe, yeah, like some of us are maybe
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  kind of like super focused on mental well-being and energies
• 17:47
  and lots of outdoor time and connecting with nature and
• 17:50
  getting back to our human roots. And they will prioritize these
• 17:53
  things and beautiful because those kids will hopefully turn
• 17:57
  into our future conservationists and environmental champions and
• 18:00
  the people who will make incredible things happen around
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  that, right? Even in a little way.
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  And you're going to have kids who are super academic because
• 18:08
  they just they naturally love books and they love digesting
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  information, get super deep into a topic and they want to know
• 18:14
  everything there is to know fact wise about it.
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  And we'll be super, super, super focused on that kind of side of
• 18:18
  things. Or they'll become an incredible
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  mathematician and they love to play with numbers and logic
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  puzzles and a super immersed in that.
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  And I mean, it's obvious what I'm getting at here.
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  Each of those kids is going to have an incredible impact on our
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  human culture, like all of them will.
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  And so it's OK to follow them in whichever direction makes sense.
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  And I think we just have to try and remember that just because
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  we might be super naturian and want to be outdoors a lot, that
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  it doesn't mean that somebody providing a more sort of, well,
• 18:46
  as they refer to it, school at home, but it's not school.
• 18:49
  Like, it's not the same thing. Like, sure, OK, there will be
• 18:54
  some people out there who have taken their kids out of school,
• 18:56
  provide maybe an online school that they attend every day, that
• 18:59
  they do do the same subjects, they will work towards the same
• 19:01
  qualifications. They will do school but just at
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  home in a different environment. But even just that is a hugely
• 19:09
  different experience for a child.
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  That will mean that that child obviously is maybe taken away
• 19:12
  from the environment. There was lots of bullying or
• 19:15
  where they weren't happy or they weren't feeling very supported
• 19:17
  or the teachers weren't great or the parent didn't have enough
• 19:19
  oversight on what was being taught to them and that child
• 19:21
  wasn't, they're able to handle that curriculum and now that
• 19:24
  parent can support that child individually with getting to
• 19:27
  their goals. Like it's so different to being
• 19:31
  in a school environment and we just need to stop.
• 19:34
  I really do feel quite passionately that we need to
• 19:36
  stop kind of this prejudice around unschooling versus school
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  at home or structured learning and like the concept of project
• 19:44
  based or eclectic or like just meandering wherever you like
• 19:48
  versus a curriculum that gives you a steady path to follow.
• 19:51
  There's no right or wrong here. Like there's lots of information
• 19:55
  to pull from, right? There's loads of philosophers
• 19:56
  out there, loads of ideas and concepts to pull from.
• 19:59
  And you've just got to kind of work with what feels good for
• 20:01
  you and your family and it's fun and engaging and allows them to
• 20:05
  grow and thrive. Like that's basically what we're
• 20:07
  trying to do. We're all trying to do the same
• 20:08
  thing. I.
• 20:09
  Think I was just flabbergasted when this comment was made to me
• 20:13
  that I don't home educate because I follow a curriculum
• 20:17
  because I first of all wasn't even aware that this judgement
• 20:19
  existed. Like I never in a million years
• 20:22
  thought there was someone out there saying well she doesn't
• 20:24
  actually home educate she's just doing school at home.
• 20:27
  Like I was blown away. Especially when this
• 20:30
  conversation happens outside of the home like at a park or a
• 20:35
  home and meet up. It's sort of like wait but what?
• 20:38
  And it makes me think that there is.
• 20:44
  And, and don't be wrong, I think we all get this way.
• 20:45
  We all get very focused on what we're doing and, and rightfully
• 20:48
  so, we're raising tiny humans. It is a very big job, whether
• 20:54
  you homeschool or not. And as a parent, especially in
• 20:58
  the early years, so much of our focus is on just getting it
• 21:03
  right for ourselves, that we just don't even care what's
• 21:06
  happening for other families because it's just, there's no
• 21:09
  capacity for it, right? But I just think that when we
• 21:15
  are comparing ourselves and what we're doing in our home school
• 21:19
  to what other families are doing, it's just a recipe for a
• 21:22
  disaster and just an unnecessary stress that we don't need to
• 21:25
  have. So I just, I was kind of blown
• 21:28
  away because I'm thinking, well, I actually taught in a school.
• 21:32
  I I didn't do it for years and years and years, but I was there
• 21:35
  long enough to absolutely understand that school in the
• 21:40
  traditional sense, when you send your kids to those four walls,
• 21:43
  is way more than a curriculum. And, and honestly, at the end of
• 21:47
  the day, if it was just the curriculum, I probably wouldn't
• 21:51
  have such a big issue with it. But there is so much more that
• 21:55
  is happening in in terms of classroom management, The kids,
• 22:00
  you know, being in a room with 30 kids your exact age and the
• 22:05
  comparison that comes along with that, the lack of collaboration
• 22:08
  and motivation. And competitive.
• 22:10
  Bullying, absolutely. The rigidness of it, the lack of
• 22:14
  ability for your kid to to just decide on their own that they
• 22:17
  have to go pee like that to me is absolutely bananas.
• 22:22
  And I see the apprehension that comes to adults later in life.
• 22:28
  Can I go to this? Should I go to this?
• 22:29
  Can I ask this person this question?
• 22:31
  Oh, gosh. But they're, you know, they're
• 22:32
  my manager like. There's.
• 22:35
  This power in balance like this, this lack of valuing and your
• 22:39
  confidence in yourself. And so I think that all of that
• 22:43
  and then the social media and and everything, that's where I'm
• 22:47
  protecting my kids from, right? It's not, it's not necessarily
• 22:50
  about the education for the sake of learning a topic.
• 22:54
  It is the fact that I want my kids to grow up and be really
• 22:58
  confident and secure in who they are and know how to work
• 23:01
  together and collaborate and to make compromises and to not
• 23:05
  judge other people for their decisions because we don't know
• 23:08
  90% of their lives. So I think that is the thing
• 23:12
  when I think about this comment that was made that those that
• 23:17
  follow a stricter curriculum or any curriculum at all for that
• 23:20
  matter, aren't home educating. Just like I, I didn't have a
• 23:26
  comment. The thing that I just, I guess I
• 23:30
  want to stress too, is that we are also coming here from, from
• 23:34
  another country. And what home education looks
• 23:37
  like in Italy and in the US is very different.
• 23:41
  I would, I would say the unschoolers are the minority in
• 23:44
  both of those places. Whereas here I feel like it is a
• 23:48
  very prevalent presence. And I think that's great.
• 23:52
  I, I love to see all the ways that these children are
• 23:55
  learning. And I think as I go through my
• 23:59
  homeschooling journey, I think the first year I obviously felt
• 24:02
  very restricted and having to check these boxes and make sure
• 24:06
  that my kid was going to be prepared for the exam.
• 24:09
  Exam is such a strong word, the review at the end of the year.
• 24:13
  And so I think as the years have gone on, I've found the
• 24:18
  flexibility and certainly the joy in following different
• 24:25
  paths. And I think that I just don't
• 24:28
  want to see that judgement. I think if we all can just and
• 24:31
  this is just one aspect, right? This is just like kind of the
• 24:34
  home school versus home education or yeah, you know,
• 24:37
  that that comparison of like, well, you know, I follow a bunch
• 24:41
  of story. I follow Waldorf.
• 24:42
  I follow exactly. I follow Mason and all the
• 24:45
  things, yeah. 100% yeah. So like when we look at all of
• 24:48
  that that earlier I said my service Charlotte Mason with the
• 24:50
  living books OK side note. But so as we look at that
• 24:56
  perspective and what kind of path a homeschooling family
• 24:59
  tries to follow or change could change or or mesh together, I
• 25:04
  just think they're all valid. Like you were saying before, we
• 25:09
  can't know what's working best for a particular child.
• 25:13
  And I've spent a lot of time to get to this point and know what
• 25:16
  works best for my kids and know that if we do this, we're going
• 25:20
  to have success. And if we don't, we're going to
• 25:22
  have tears. That's why we do this, right?
• 25:24
  Because we're experts in our kids.
• 25:26
  We're the ones that know what's going to work best for them, not
• 25:28
  some random teacher at the school down the street that they
• 25:31
  go to just because they live close to it and and not another
• 25:34
  home Ed family for that matter. So yeah, I just it, we just
• 25:38
  don't need it. We're already the minority,
• 25:40
  right? We already we need to come
• 25:42
  together and not create further divide.
• 25:44
  Yeah. And I think like it's also you
• 25:46
  mentioned about sort of unschooling as times go on, like
• 25:49
  you've been able to relax that bit more and and to see that
• 25:52
  progress happens even in places you don't even realize that
• 25:54
  they're making it. Like, yes, my my daughter, for
• 25:59
  example, in the day sat reading on my lap.
• 26:01
  I was reading them a story off of my phone and she wanted to
• 26:05
  read the first paragraph and she very rarely volunteers to read.
• 26:08
  So I said yes. And my son was getting very
• 26:09
  frustrated with the pace. I was like, please stop getting
• 26:12
  annoyed as her like this, this does not like, yeah, you were
• 26:16
  100% like this ones like, my goodness, Please be patient.
• 26:20
  And she actually really shocked me.
• 26:21
  I had to make a list afterwards of all the words that she
• 26:23
  decoded really quickly and managed to to manage to say.
• 26:27
  And she shocked me because her reading up until that point had
• 26:31
  not been anywhere near that good.
• 26:32
  And I was like, I'm confused. Like how are we suddenly reading
• 26:35
  so well off a screen? That's interesting.
• 26:37
  Like I wonder if like I wonder what there is to that.
• 26:38
  And so I found myself researching it later and finding
• 26:42
  out that it's something to do with combined, like containing
• 26:44
  text within a small window with no other distractions helps them
• 26:48
  to stay focused on the words. But honoured like a picture
• 26:52
  book. They're so busy looking at the
• 26:53
  pictures and then trying to find their place again and looking at
• 26:55
  the words and then trying to work out.
• 26:57
  And like she does a lot of like logic, like context guessing as
• 27:01
  she's reading, which is totally fine.
• 27:02
  This is 6 whatever. Like she's trying to figure it
• 27:06
  out and she's trying to cheat basically.
• 27:07
  So it's trying to cheat, but apparently it's a part of a
• 27:09
  normal developmental process. So it's good, it's fine, let her
• 27:11
  do it. So it gets, it distracts her and
• 27:14
  she's like, oh, I wonder if I just gave her some little
• 27:16
  passages of text with nothing else, like a little tiny card
• 27:19
  that's just got the text on it, whether actually she'd find it a
• 27:22
  lot easier to focus on decoding it.
• 27:24
  So it's little moments like that that are complete unschooling
• 27:27
  moments. I'm just reading a bedtime story
• 27:29
  and she just fancy doing a bit in the reading and I've observed
• 27:32
  something and now I think, oh I might have a method here that
• 27:34
  could help her. Exactly.
• 27:36
  Is like I am able to trust in the process now because I am
• 27:43
  nearly five, 5-6 years. I don't even know now completely
• 27:45
  lost track at least five years in and I have been watching them
• 27:50
  progress and grow and learn and sure they do not do it entirely
• 27:55
  by themselves of course and providing some structure and
• 27:57
  support and scaffolding and guidance and ideas and teaching
• 28:01
  them stuff and reading books to them and all the things like I
• 28:03
  am engaged, I am involved and immersed in their learning with
• 28:06
  them. But ultimately that's like, that
• 28:09
  is difficult. Unschooling is difficult to get
• 28:12
  our heads around. We are not trained to be
• 28:14
  unschoolers in this society. Like we are trained to be
• 28:17
  academics. We are trained to do things how
• 28:19
  schools do it. And so it's so normal,
• 28:22
  especially for people who are new to home education, to spend
• 28:25
  the first few years hung up on the curriculum and worried about
• 28:28
  how they're providing it and wondering why they can't get
• 28:30
  their kids to engage with certain types of learning.
• 28:32
  And so it's OK to support people when they are coming into this
• 28:36
  community and being like, OK, like seriously, how do I get my
• 28:39
  kids to do this? As I had a lady with me talking
• 28:42
  to you recently saying that she's really struggling recently
• 28:44
  deregistered child, not interested in doing any kind of
• 28:46
  formal learning. And I kind of explained to her
• 28:49
  why that might be a little bit. And then I said, what, what does
• 28:52
  she love? Like let's drop that for a
• 28:54
  second. Like what does she love?
• 28:55
  And we went into and I was like, OK, so drawing is symmetry and
• 28:59
  geometry and fine motor skills and composition and planning and
• 29:04
  spatial awareness. And like when you actually start
• 29:07
  to look at it that way, you're like, so she's like literally
• 29:10
  doing maths while she's doing. Yeah, she is like, that is, it's
• 29:13
  maths. It's a form of maths and all of
• 29:14
  the things, right. So like color composition, it's
• 29:16
  science, it's spectrums, it's. Yeah, all the things.
• 29:19
  There's a whole world there of information that is actually
• 29:22
  pulling together to create an end goal.
• 29:25
  And sometimes it's messy and sometimes it's chaotic.
• 29:27
  And sometimes we might look at someone's life and think it
• 29:29
  looks really chaotic and we wonder how on earth they get
• 29:33
  through the day because it just feels really scary for us.
• 29:34
  But then you've also got you throw like neurodivergence into
• 29:37
  the mix and you throw all these like whatever, right age,
• 29:40
  aptitude, interest, focuses. And it's confusing.
• 29:44
  And so we cannot judge. We should not judge because
• 29:47
  there's no reason to judge. Like children are children and
• 29:51
  parents are parents and families are families and they get to do
• 29:53
  what they want to do, right? So we'll move on from this bit,
• 29:56
  but you get the idea. Guys, this is where we're
• 29:57
  getting out. This is just not, that's not
• 29:59
  necessary. There is no doing it right.
• 30:01
  There is no need for competition.
• 30:03
  There's no need for like certain approaches to be considered more
• 30:07
  successful than others. There's no need.
• 30:09
  You know what I mean? Like you can provide ideas, but
• 30:12
  be mindful that somebody who's got a child who's dyslexic and
• 30:16
  is struggling to read probably doesn't want to hear about the
• 30:19
  fact that your child is reading 10 books a day.
• 30:21
  And like, we don't have to have any kind of competition in
• 30:24
  there. So I mean, I don't, I don't see
• 30:26
  a lot of competition in the homeland community in that way.
• 30:28
  But like, do be mindful of this as well.
• 30:31
  And, and just be noticing I guess that as well, because it
• 30:33
  can be a tricky one. It's just being mindful that
• 30:35
  actually they will all meet these developmental goals when
• 30:39
  they meet them. And it isn't whatever the school
• 30:41
  system has decided is the norm. Doesn't mean that that is
• 30:44
  actually factual or based on any child's psychology or any
• 30:49
  developmental understanding. That was just a decision that's
• 30:52
  been made a lot of the time without very much input,
• 30:56
  shocking limited amount of input.
• 30:58
  So please do not always hold it as the bar to try and leap to.
• 31:01
  So moving on, there are obviously lots of other things
• 31:05
  which potentially cause divides within the homeland community
• 31:08
  and can cause prejudice and yeah, sort of separatation.
• 31:14
  So what I'm looking for here like othering othering.
• 31:16
  Yes, exactly. So you've obviously got things
• 31:19
  like secular versus religious. So there is absolutely going to
• 31:25
  be some some level of divide sometimes when it comes to
• 31:29
  people who have chosen to home educate with faith as their
• 31:33
  basis for doing so. Which I can completely
• 31:35
  understand because actually one of the main reasons why the
• 31:39
  school system is put into place was actually to take the power
• 31:42
  away from the church. Before schooling began in the UK
• 31:50
  in the more sense that we know it now, run by the government
• 31:53
  and local authorities, it was actually run by the church.
• 31:56
  Parents would pay a small amount of money to their local church
• 31:59
  who would provide school for the children Monday to Friday so
• 32:03
  that they could go to work on Monday to probably Sunday, to be
• 32:06
  honest, week long. So they could go to the church
• 32:10
  and they would learn in the church and they would learn
• 32:11
  literacy and numbers. And they would obviously then be
• 32:14
  out in the fields and supporting their communities, working at
• 32:16
  the local garage, doing all the things, being involved and
• 32:18
  supporting doing stuff as well. But the ultimately the local
• 32:21
  church was like vintage Hall kind of style schools.
• 32:25
  You kind of imagine that was run by the church.
• 32:27
  The funding came from the church.
• 32:29
  Parents would be giving money to the church.
• 32:30
  They were running it. And because the government
• 32:34
  obviously wanted to get people paying attention to a different
• 32:38
  belief system and they wanted them focused on the economy and
• 32:43
  industry and getting into the cities and going to work.
• 32:46
  He needed to get them get some of the power back over the
• 32:49
  beliefs and the messaging that was coming from the church.
• 32:53
  And so the government wanted to almost separate itself from the
• 32:55
  Church in that way. And so of course you do get
• 32:57
  church based schools, like you get a Church of England schools,
• 33:00
  Catholic schools, etcetera. And that obviously the church
• 33:02
  continued to have some part of this because obviously they
• 33:04
  already had the structure in place, right?
• 33:06
  So most communities couldn't eradicate that completely, that
• 33:09
  ultimately faith was intentionally removed from
• 33:13
  schools. Cultures were removed from
• 33:15
  schools. People who are coming to this
• 33:16
  country, immigrants, etcetera, that wanted to come and join in
• 33:18
  with our education, their culture was stripped away from
• 33:22
  them. They were not expected to come
• 33:24
  into those schools like advocating for their culture.
• 33:26
  They were expected to assimilate and to ideally do it from a
• 33:29
  neutral basis. And obviously what this has
• 33:32
  meant is over time, obviously the curriculum has changed and
• 33:36
  evolved to include things to do with sort of gender and race and
• 33:42
  all the various different things that ultimately some of those
• 33:46
  conversations are not considered OK in very religious kind of
• 33:52
  faith-based families. And that has obviously meant
• 33:55
  that they have to some degree. And obviously those are just a
• 33:58
  tiny, tiny bit of the issues. Obviously there's an awful lot
• 34:00
  to faith that's to just do with morality and kindness and the
• 34:04
  way we treat our fellow human and generosity and, and lots and
• 34:07
  lots of loving, wonderful things about it.
• 34:09
  But ultimately, because that faith was stripped out of the
• 34:13
  education system in that way, it wasn't really there anymore.
• 34:16
  It meant that parents with children who they really wanted
• 34:21
  to uphold their faith in culture, but kind of left in a
• 34:23
  very difficult position where they sent their kids to school.
• 34:26
  But there's a big risk that actually the curriculum was
• 34:29
  talking against their faith and combating it.
• 34:34
  Right. There's a whole thing about, I'm
• 34:35
  not going to quote it perfectly, but like, don't be surprised if
• 34:38
  you send your kids to Caesar when they come back.
• 34:40
  Romans yes. And I think, I think that was
• 34:43
  all about the government, not Caesar specifically.
• 34:44
  But like, if the government is educating them, don't be
• 34:47
  surprised when they come back believing what they've learned.
• 34:51
  Yes, exactly. And a lot of kids will end up
• 34:54
  kind of believing their teacher over their parents or they will
• 34:56
  start to get other ideas. And we can all believe what we
• 34:59
  believe about that and what we feel is important around this.
• 35:02
  But the ultimately a family that have got faith as the core part
• 35:05
  of their ideological beliefs is that actually that's not OK.
• 35:09
  And it makes it so that child is left confused and possibly
• 35:14
  unsure about what who's right and who's wrong and which is
• 35:17
  fact, all the rest of it. And we say we can all believe
• 35:19
  what we need to believe about whether that's something which
• 35:22
  we want to believe. But ultimately people have a
• 35:26
  right to have a religion and they have a right to have
• 35:28
  beliefs and faith and culture. And much like what Chris was
• 35:33
  talking about last week, culture gets lost if kids go to school a
• 35:38
  lot of the time, but they get assimilated into a new culture.
• 35:41
  And actually, if you want to have a strong family culture and
• 35:44
  a strong family beliefs and ideological beliefs, values that
• 35:48
  actually that's an important part of home education is
• 35:51
  allowing people to have that. So I just think that's kind of
• 35:54
  to touch on that. That's basically what I want to
• 35:55
  kind of really say on this really is that we have still got
• 35:58
  to respect it and we've got to actually respect.
• 36:00
  Actually, it's a really beautiful thing that families
• 36:02
  are working so hard to try and raise good humans who, let's
• 36:06
  face it, most faith-based families are doing so because
• 36:08
  they want to raise really good humans, people who really care
• 36:12
  about others and the community and are very supportive of each
• 36:16
  other and loving and kind. And that is you really what
• 36:18
  faith is all about for a lot of people is that.
• 36:20
  I was just in Dublin and last weekend and was touring some of
• 36:24
  the churches there and one of the comments that was made is
• 36:27
  how people nowadays don't go to church.
• 36:29
  And so they're having to sell these churches off to other
• 36:32
  faiths, other cultures that are coming in.
• 36:34
  Like 1 of them I think turned into a Polish church, used to be
• 36:38
  C of E before that it was Catholic, right?
• 36:40
  So these, these churches have such a rich history because
• 36:43
  they've, they've actually changed as the times have
• 36:46
  changed. And I think it's something that
• 36:49
  we need to also remember too, about how home education, at
• 36:53
  least in the States, started off very religious and it still sort
• 36:57
  of has that incorrect association with it because of
• 37:01
  how it started, that it's just this very extreme religious
• 37:05
  spin. And I'm actually loving that it
• 37:08
  is morphed into something that all cultures and and religious
• 37:13
  beliefs and faiths can come to. It's not just one thing anymore.
• 37:18
  And we are seeing such diversification.
• 37:20
  But if we don't honor those individuals who are following
• 37:27
  what they believe is best for them and their children, then we
• 37:30
  are going to lose this diversity.
• 37:34
  It might not be something that I follow, but I'm really glad that
• 37:37
  there are people out there that are doing that, that are home
• 37:41
  educating because they want to have a really rich faith-based
• 37:44
  life. I think that's amazing.
• 37:46
  It lets my children see a different way of being.
• 37:50
  It lets them decide if that's something, whether all or none
• 37:53
  or some of what they're seeing is something they wanted to
• 37:56
  incorporate into their own life. So I think that we just, you
• 38:01
  have to be mindful of the different angles and approaches
• 38:05
  that people take to home education.
• 38:07
  Yeah, especially as it comes to faith because it is such a huge
• 38:10
  part of our past as humans. Yes, and some of the moral
• 38:15
  teaching as well. I think there is a risk.
• 38:17
  There's an awful lot of religion that's all about kind of trying
• 38:21
  to help children to be compassionate and be aware about
• 38:24
  those and the rest of it. And I think we recently read
• 38:26
  Planet Omar with the kids and it's about a Muslim boy who
• 38:32
  moves to a new area and they start in a school and they
• 38:34
  immediately start receiving sort of hate and prejudice, racism,
• 38:38
  etcetera, but also people kind of fearful of the fact that
• 38:41
  they're Muslim, etcetera. And it's, it's a brilliant book.
• 38:44
  It's funny, it's engaging, it's it addresses compassion and like
• 38:49
  he's dealing with a bully and the way that he deals with it in
• 38:51
  the end is so, so compassionate and understanding and ultimately
• 38:55
  helps to kind of win people over and help them to understand that
• 38:58
  like the whole point of like the religion is actually to do with
• 39:02
  this kind of really kind of beautiful kindness towards
• 39:06
  others. And they had a really great bit
• 39:09
  about how a person is only beautiful if they think
• 39:12
  beautiful thoughts. That beauty isn't actually on
• 39:14
  the outside that somebody could be really, really gorgeous, but
• 39:17
  they they won't be beautiful unless they think beautiful
• 39:19
  thoughts. And God, I loved it so much.
• 39:23
  It's such a lovely way of looking at things.
• 39:24
  And we're genuinely kind of adopting it to some degree.
• 39:27
  I love that idea. And so actually, by reading that
• 39:30
  book, not only has obviously helps them to grasp the concept
• 39:34
  of another religion, but also the prejudice that people can
• 39:37
  receive from having them. But the ultimately the point is
• 39:39
  that a lot of the time those people are just working really
• 39:41
  hard to be really good people and they just want to like,
• 39:46
  yeah, their individual festivals and foods and ideas and beliefs
• 39:51
  can have these really lovely learnings and things within it
• 39:55
  that that we can all benefit from.
• 39:57
  We don't have to necessarily believe in their God and we
• 39:59
  certainly don't have to follow their traditions or routines,
• 40:02
  but we can certainly like respect it and, and enjoy it and
• 40:07
  see that it's got beauty to it, right.
• 40:08
  So I think this is the thing. It's just trying to have that
• 40:10
  kind of open mindedness. I'm currently working on a unit
• 40:14
  study for my kids, like a kind of like a book study around the
• 40:18
  book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
• 40:21
  And it's about a family who leaves right before Hitler comes
• 40:25
  into power and they end up in the UK.
• 40:29
  And it just approaches from a child's point of view.
• 40:34
  World War 2. Basically.
• 40:35
  I just love the approach of this from a child's perspective
• 40:39
  because I've been really struggling about incorporating.
• 40:42
  So to back up, I grew up in New Jersey in an area that had a lot
• 40:47
  of Jewish families. And I kind of grew up very aware
• 40:52
  of the Jewish community and the holidays and a lot of our
• 40:55
  friends and family friends were Jewish.
• 40:57
  And so I had just such an instant awareness of a very
• 41:03
  different culture who doesn't believe in Christmas and Santa
• 41:07
  and all of that. And I think that I, I really
• 41:11
  loved that aspect of my youth and I wanted my children to have
• 41:16
  some of that. But we just don't have very many
• 41:19
  Jewish families around us right now.
• 41:21
  And, you know, as we were kind of talking about in earlier
• 41:24
  episodes, like noticing what is lacking from our community and
• 41:28
  what can we do to bring that in. So I thought that finding an
• 41:33
  approach to the Jewish faith that my kids could be interested
• 41:39
  in and kind of understand could obviously come from literature.
• 41:42
  And so that's where we found this book.
• 41:45
  And it's something that I haven't read with them yet.
• 41:47
  I'm just working on how we're going to put it together and,
• 41:50
  and how I'm going to introduce it.
• 41:51
  But I'm hoping that it can kind of coincide with Hanukkah time
• 41:55
  and we can read about it. We haven't done much on World
• 41:59
  War 2. So it'll be sort of a a slight
• 42:02
  introduction to that in a really approachable way for like a nine
• 42:07
  and 11 year old who don't need to maybe have the full
• 42:13
  experience of World War 2. So, yeah, but I'm hoping that
• 42:17
  this again, just kind of brings in a faith approach and is
• 42:21
  really important to understand because it's just another
• 42:27
  religion that's out there and our world is richer for it.
• 42:30
  So yeah, I want us to to have some exposure.
• 42:34
  Yeah. And it's, I say it's fun for
• 42:37
  them to write to kind of see the difference in people and to
• 42:41
  different ideas and beliefs they have.
• 42:43
  I mean, my son, for example, I'm not sure what the religion would
• 42:46
  technically be, but he very much said he believes in all the
• 42:48
  ancient Greek gods and all the rest of it that he's going to
• 42:50
  pray to, to Thor and not Thor. Sorry, that's Viking Poseidon
• 42:55
  and Zeus, etcetera. So he's, yeah, sorry.
• 42:57
  We do a lot of crossover lately and my brains mothering them all
• 43:00
  up now. But yeah, he's like absolutely
• 43:02
  obsessed. And like we were talking about
• 43:04
  Halloween the other day and he was just like, oh, I think
• 43:06
  Heckarty was the goddess of Halloween and we looked into it
• 43:09
  and actually she wasn't originally, but she's been
• 43:10
  attached to it over time. It's actually the Celts.
• 43:12
  He came up with that stuff anyway.
• 43:14
  But they like it provides these moments of conversation and
• 43:18
  curiosity and links and opportunity for storytelling and
• 43:22
  for considering why people honored these gods and why they
• 43:27
  believed in them and why they prayed to them and why they
• 43:29
  whatever and, and what the reasons for that war like in
• 43:32
  their history, etcetera. It's so fascinating.
• 43:34
  It's fascinating. It does create a lot of like
• 43:37
  understanding about how people have developed scientific
• 43:39
  understanding over time and how like they maybe wouldn't have
• 43:42
  had the understanding then. So they they were praying to
• 43:44
  someone because they were genuinely scared that someone
• 43:46
  was never going to come back or whatever.
• 43:47
  Right. Like, right, right.
• 43:49
  There was lots of reasons for this stuff.
• 43:50
  So it makes for great conversation and and helps to
• 43:52
  give that rich understanding of human development as well.
• 43:56
  Because we are very spiritual, one of very few creatures that
• 43:58
  are spiritual. And it's yeah, it's an innate
• 44:01
  part of being human. So it's.
• 44:03
  Important it is. Yeah.
• 44:04
  So kind of like moving, moving on from this one.
• 44:06
  I guess you've also got the concept of political views now.
• 44:10
  This one is always fun, but you have got a bit about this going
• 44:14
  on at the minute especially. It's something which I think we
• 44:17
  just have to be mindful of, which is this concept of when
• 44:22
  you start home educating. I think unless it's it isn't
• 44:24
  always the first door that gets opened for you.
• 44:26
  But for me I think it was maybe the second.
• 44:29
  The first was recognising that diet culture was a myth and that
• 44:33
  the act, the action of actively trying to lose weight was
• 44:36
  essentially a recipe for gaining weight later.
• 44:38
  And that scientifically, all of the people who knew that was
• 44:42
  just selling you stuff to try and make you lose weight.
• 44:44
  But anyway, that was my first door and, and the first way I
• 44:47
  started to ask lots of questions and start to recognize that the,
• 44:50
  the fabric of fact that was waving around us wasn't always a
• 44:54
  fact. And home education has obviously
• 44:56
  been a massive like, it like blew the doors way apart into
• 45:00
  starting to ask questions about our government and the agenda
• 45:03
  behind schooling and medicine and socioeconomic status and the
• 45:08
  economy and all of the things and essentially how the whole
• 45:11
  construct of the world is. And, and my goodness, it is a
• 45:14
  rabbit hole. And I promised myself I was
• 45:15
  never going to go too far into this because at the time, all I
• 45:19
  could think about when I first started out in home education
• 45:21
  especially, all I could really think about was simply how
• 45:23
  scared I was that I was going to get like, got out by the social
• 45:29
  services for trying to choose to do something different for my
• 45:31
  family. Like absolutely terrified that I
• 45:33
  was like stepping outside the bounds of what was allowed as
• 45:37
  being rebellious, as being naughty and that somebody was
• 45:40
  going to crack down on me and I was going to be in so much
• 45:42
  trouble. Basically, it sounds silly and I
• 45:44
  love that because I'm like, I'm still a little nervous.
• 45:46
  I've got to be honest, but I'm, I'm ultimately now at the point
• 45:48
  where I, I don't obviously realize that that's it's silly.
• 45:52
  I don't need to be that stressed that for the most part, most
• 45:55
  people will experience home education without having too
• 45:58
  much prejudice aimed at them from the local authority.
• 46:01
  However, that the point of this kind of political kind of
• 46:05
  concept is that actually home educators do become quite
• 46:08
  political because we are people who have quite literally taken a
• 46:12
  big stand against the government's power over our
• 46:15
  children's lives. Taking school out of our
• 46:17
  children's educational trajectory and journey
• 46:21
  essentially is a big no stop sign to the government and it
• 46:25
  does naturally incline people to become more political.
• 46:28
  Encourage you to want to fight for it a little bit more to
• 46:31
  actually understand how you can try and actually defend it.
• 46:35
  And obviously we are in a position of having to defend it
• 46:37
  with the government right now. Like the government is trying to
• 46:40
  put more pressure on the home education community.
• 46:43
  But what I have found is that the guilt that comes with not
• 46:48
  being able to understand fully what's going on with the home
• 46:51
  educating community because you're new to it maybe or
• 46:53
  because you just you're not particularly politically minded.
• 46:56
  Maybe you don't even believe in what the Bahama community
• 46:58
  believe in. Maybe you do believe that there
• 47:00
  should be some more kind of like important steps in place for
• 47:03
  home educators that maybe you do actually believe that we should
• 47:06
  be monitored more closely, like we're all entitled to our
• 47:09
  beliefs and ultimately our beliefs come from lived
• 47:12
  experience. If you have maybe come from a
• 47:14
  family, so I know someone, for example, who was abused as a
• 47:16
  child and their parents, their parents weren't brilliant with
• 47:20
  them obviously, but her aunt home educated her children, but
• 47:24
  she was not a very nice person. And the ultimately she saw her
• 47:29
  cousins in a not very nice situation, being treated quite
• 47:33
  badly by their parent. And her only safe place for
• 47:36
  school. She had social services checking
• 47:37
  in with them every two weeks. Like they had a very, very
• 47:39
  difficult upbringing. And ultimately she therefore has
• 47:43
  some opinions that actually, yes, like home educators should
• 47:47
  have to jump through some hoops that actually you're sitting
• 47:50
  there going, no, I don't want anybody looking at my house.
• 47:52
  No, I don't want anybody talking to me.
• 47:54
  No, I don't want to have to meet with anybody.
• 47:55
  But actually, maybe you should because like some kids might
• 47:59
  genuinely be hidden away, not being taken very good care of.
• 48:03
  And so of course she's got her experiences.
• 48:05
  And actually I find it very difficult to argue with that
• 48:08
  because she has witnessed first hand what can happen if a child
• 48:11
  is not well cared for. And ultimately that obviously we
• 48:16
  know that home education in and of itself is not a safeguarding
• 48:19
  issue. I 100% believe that we already
• 48:21
  have safeguarding things in place for children that
• 48:24
  ultimately there are already laws in place and I I don't
• 48:27
  agree that we should have further monitoring myself
• 48:29
  personally support anybody lynches me.
• 48:31
  However, I can understand and I can have compassion with why
• 48:36
  people may believe that this is the case.
• 48:39
  And when you think the government even even to have
• 48:41
  some compassion for the government, they are dealing
• 48:43
  with the worst case scenarios, right?
• 48:45
  They are dealing with all the stuff that goes wrong.
• 48:48
  They see it all like they see all of the horrors and the stuff
• 48:51
  that happens. You're going to be jaded.
• 48:53
  Yeah, you're going to want to crack down on it.
• 48:56
  You're going to want to get more control.
• 48:57
  It's a bit like a parent who's dealing with like, I don't know,
• 48:59
  behavioral issues where your kids are like constantly
• 49:02
  stepping over a boundary. At some point, you're going to
• 49:04
  try and crack down on it, right? You're going to start to think I
• 49:06
  need to put some more control in place here because everything's
• 49:09
  just going to part. And so I can see how this kind
• 49:13
  of overreach and the need to control comes into effect.
• 49:17
  I can understand how it happens. I'm not OK with it and we
• 49:20
  absolutely should fight for our rights.
• 49:22
  And it's a slippery slope and so we do need to fight for it.
• 49:24
  But I can see how some people a don't agree with it.
• 49:28
  Some people are confused and don't really know which side to
• 49:32
  go down. Some people are extremely
• 49:35
  passionate about it and will fight to the death over this
• 49:38
  subject and ultimately that level of passion can come with
• 49:43
  exclusion, frustration, anger towards other groups.
• 49:47
  Another example is allowing the local authority to come to your
• 49:50
  home to have a visit. I have got a couple of friends
• 49:53
  who are single parents who have allowed a visit.
• 49:56
  Why? Because they want to have some
• 49:58
  evidence. When they're going through
• 50:00
  custody battles, they're dealing with difficult exes.
• 50:03
  They need to have some evidence and that is one of the best ways
• 50:07
  to get it is to say, yes, our education provision is suitable
• 50:11
  and great and our children are safe and healthy and well and
• 50:14
  there's nothing to worry about here.
• 50:16
  To have that literal sign off from a local authority massively
• 50:19
  helps in the court proceedings. It just does.
• 50:21
  And I think we can easily judge someone choosing to do that and
• 50:24
  be like, come on, we're all supposed to be taking a stand.
• 50:26
  Nobody's supposed to accept a visit from the local
• 50:28
  authorities. You have to all just get
• 50:30
  everything done in writing otherwise they start to take
• 50:32
  more liberties. But ultimately some of us are
• 50:37
  going to feel safe and secure in not doing that, and some of us
• 50:39
  are not, and some of us need to do it differently or will have a
• 50:43
  different opinion. Some people might be dyslexic
• 50:45
  and writing a report is horrendous.
• 50:47
  Some people might find that really stressful to the point of
• 50:49
  it genuinely burning them out and writing a report is just too
• 50:52
  scary and too hard. And so for them it does feel
• 50:56
  more appropriate for them to do it that way.
• 50:58
  And I guess it's just trying to understand that whilst we can
• 51:01
  try and encourage people to approach things in a universal
• 51:06
  way and for us to support them in doing so, ultimately people
• 51:11
  need to be able to make a choice that's right for their family.
• 51:15
  And we certainly should not be judging them or angry with them
• 51:20
  for choosing otherwise like we have.
• 51:22
  Again, we've got to allow people to be people.
• 51:24
  Sometimes they've got to make a choice that's right for them.
• 51:28
  And sure, like if it's coming from a place, if they didn't
• 51:30
  know or they didn't realise and you want to just gently try and
• 51:34
  encourage them to understand your perspective.
• 51:36
  You can have a polite conversation with someone, but
• 51:40
  but within reason. Like you don't have the right to
• 51:42
  just shove your beliefs down their throat.
• 51:44
  If they don't want to do it that way, that's OK.
• 51:47
  Like they're allowed to make those choices.
• 51:49
  I think a lot of the politics comes into play, not from like
• 51:54
  Democrat or Republican or all the parties you guys have here
• 51:56
  that I still don't understand. Not the way, Ashley.
• 52:00
  To me, just as like I'm like, OK.
• 52:02
  So no nonsense. But it from like being political
• 52:06
  and then the lack of interest like I think when it comes to
• 52:10
  like like you're saying a lot of the a lot of the politics here
• 52:15
  around home education is still being decided or is potentially
• 52:20
  going to change, whereas it feels much more solid in Italy.
• 52:25
  Shocking. Never thought I would say that
• 52:27
  and in America, so I, I feel like the anxiety around home
• 52:33
  education here is something I feel where I never felt that
• 52:38
  once I understood the system. I never felt that in Italy and I
• 52:42
  certainly don't feel it in the States.
• 52:44
  So I think that there is a lot of push here to read up on the
• 52:49
  reports, read up on the bills, find this, you know what you
• 52:55
  call it like petition to not put this bill into law, right?
• 52:59
  So all of that can be very overwhelming and also feel like
• 53:03
  you're sort of putting your name out there to potentially have
• 53:07
  some backlash or to yeah, also feels potentially scary.
• 53:14
  And so I think that there that alone creates like a lack of
• 53:19
  political interest or political action.
• 53:22
  And so you know, where as I'm saying this to say, like when we
• 53:25
  talk about politics, I don't think I'm, we're saying like all
• 53:28
  the Republicans are over here and the Democrats are over here
• 53:30
  and the independents are over here.
• 53:31
  And we don't socialize because we fight over, you know,
• 53:35
  whoever's in power or whatever their beliefs.
• 53:37
  Yeah, exactly. I do think that is the case in
• 53:41
  America. I absolutely think you have
• 53:44
  people who are very happy with the current government and
• 53:47
  people who are not. And that can absolutely cause
• 53:50
  some rifts between homeschool groups.
• 53:53
  Strong, right? Whereas here in England, I feel
• 53:56
  like it is a being political versus not being political.
• 54:02
  And like people saying please go sign this because we don't want
• 54:04
  this bill to pass. And and people are like, gosh, I
• 54:07
  don't know if I really even want to get involved.
• 54:08
  I'm just trying to stay in my lane.
• 54:10
  I'm just trying to homeschool my kids, right?
• 54:11
  Yeah, I'm, I'm trying to put food on the table and pay the
• 54:14
  electric bill, like with this current economy.
• 54:16
  And I just, I can't get involved in that.
• 54:18
  And I'll just deal with whatever comes if and when it happens.
• 54:21
  Yeah. And it can be very.
• 54:22
  Triggering and scary too, but like, it's very.
• 54:25
  Overwhelming. Yeah.
• 54:27
  So just being compassionate for those that maybe don't want to
• 54:30
  get involved in a political sense.
• 54:32
  Yeah. Is is something to just keep in
• 54:34
  mind I guess? Yeah, agreed.
• 54:37
  And I think that is the thing that I definitely felt that
• 54:38
  sense if I sent the letter to my local MP and I suddenly had this
• 54:41
  instant panic of Oh my goodness, like are they just going to give
• 54:44
  this to like, are they going to start like attacking me for it
• 54:48
  and all the rest of it? And I was like, no, no, it's OK.
• 54:50
  Like they actually have got a responsibility not to share that
• 54:52
  data. Like that's it's not
• 54:54
  confidential exactly. But like they would be in
• 54:56
  trouble if they state of sharing.
• 54:57
  Basically they wouldn't be allowed to just pass your
• 54:59
  details across. But it's, yeah, it's not fun and
• 55:03
  it's stressful, but it's, yeah, we just, again, I can understand
• 55:07
  when people are fighting so hard for our freedoms that they maybe
• 55:11
  would find apathy or disinterest or they would see that as apathy
• 55:15
  or disinterest rather. Or someone who's just like, I
• 55:17
  just can't deal with this right now or whatever has been like,
• 55:20
  oh, come on, please just send a letter to MP.
• 55:22
  Just just please just join the fight.
• 55:23
  Like we need every single person.
• 55:24
  There's not enough of us to fight this as it is.
• 55:26
  Like, please, can you jump on board?
• 55:28
  And I can understand where that passion comes from.
• 55:30
  But I guess it's, it's saying it's OK to be passionate.
• 55:32
  It's OK to try and encourage others to fight for what we
• 55:34
  believe in. But it is not OK to judge a
• 55:37
  person because they have chosen to abstain from a fight or
• 55:41
  because they don't have the capacity or because they have
• 55:43
  got to approach interesting slightly differently for their
• 55:45
  family for very many different reasons.
• 55:48
  And ultimately, we just need to be mindful of where the feelings
• 55:52
  are coming from. Like where is it coming from a
• 55:54
  place of compassion and understanding?
• 55:57
  Or is it coming from a place of like anger, frustration towards
• 55:59
  our fellow human? Like let's try and pull together
• 56:02
  and by providing support and love to someone who's had to
• 56:05
  make a different decision. But actually you're more likely
• 56:08
  to get that person to eventually want to talk to you about this
• 56:11
  stuff and want to get involved in the fight.
• 56:12
  If they feel supported by the community as a whole and
• 56:15
  respected as an individual for them for making their own
• 56:17
  choices. Because then it allows for more
• 56:20
  conversations to happen. It allows us to actually, if you
• 56:23
  get to know that person and the reason why they made their
• 56:25
  choices, then actually that might amend how you are dealing
• 56:28
  with the local authorities and say, OK, I can understand that
• 56:30
  you as a local authority might be wanting to control because of
• 56:33
  this. But actually we need you to
• 56:35
  understand why this isn't OK and why you need to approach this
• 56:37
  differently. It actually bolsters your
• 56:40
  arguments. It helps you to understand the
• 56:42
  depth that much more because otherwise you are just trying to
• 56:45
  kind of beat the beat the same drum constantly.
• 56:48
  And actually getting some other perspectives and other reasons
• 56:50
  why these things might be happening allows you to
• 56:53
  obviously have a stronger argument and to help you to
• 56:56
  fight back even better. So embrace the individuals who
• 56:59
  are not necessarily falling into the same political views as you
• 57:03
  understand why, get to know what's going on with them, and
• 57:07
  hopefully will help you to actually even fight those
• 57:08
  battles harder. What else haven't we covered
• 57:10
  yet? So I think we're kind of
• 57:12
  reaching a point of kind of having talked through most of it
• 57:15
  now. But I guess I suppose there's
• 57:16
  also like the element of socioeconomic and cultural
• 57:19
  prejudice that does sometimes fall into home education.
• 57:22
  So we'll touch on that briefly as well.
• 57:24
  I know this one's getting to be quite a long one, but kind of
• 57:27
  this kind of concept that socioeconomic wise, so families
• 57:31
  maybe with more resources able to afford more trips or
• 57:34
  extracurriculars, etcetera. But also you've got things like
• 57:39
  cultural background. So somebody coming from a
• 57:42
  different part of the UK or coming from a different
• 57:45
  socioeconomic background. So somebody who isn't as wealthy
• 57:49
  or has obviously struggled to get kind of certain levels of
• 57:52
  grades in school, there are going to be some elements of
• 57:56
  judgment and we have got to be really mindful of this.
• 57:59
  And also the kind of concept around even things like dietary
• 58:01
  choices like veganism and the choices to eat meat, for
• 58:04
  example, is another great one. Like in the home educating
• 58:07
  community, we can have some of these factions and divides.
• 58:10
  And you know what, as as human beings, it is OK again, for us
• 58:13
  all to be different and for us to have our different beliefs or
• 58:17
  likes and dislikes and things that we are able to afford.
• 58:20
  I'm not able to afford or even things we prioritize because
• 58:24
  whilst some people may be able to afford certain things, they
• 58:27
  may actually want to prioritize something else.
• 58:30
  So I know for example, this happens a lot.
• 58:32
  You see this sometimes where you're having a conversation
• 58:35
  with someone about kind of like, I don't know, for example, we
• 58:39
  have recently managed to get our money back on track.
• 58:41
  Last year was hell on a plate and when money finally got back
• 58:44
  on track for me, I booked us a holiday.
• 58:47
  And whilst some might look at that and think really like
• 58:51
  you're not just going to put that in savings or you're not
• 58:53
  going to put it towards something really boring and
• 58:54
  important and all the rest of it.
• 58:56
  I was like, do you know what? I have done that with an awful
• 58:58
  lot of money that's come through to us recently that we've
• 58:59
  managed to make happen and I have been saving and putting it
• 59:02
  towards important stuff, but I am also going to have some fun
• 59:06
  with it. And that for us is a priority.
• 59:08
  Like travel is a priority, culture is a priority, stuff for
• 59:12
  our kids, like that is a priority.
• 59:13
  And so I want to give them an opportunity to go see somewhere
• 59:16
  else and do something different and to have a bit more of a
• 59:18
  magical Christmas. And for me, that felt important
• 59:21
  this year. I felt like we've had a tough
• 59:22
  couple of years and it was something nice to go do that
• 59:25
  entertains us. However, you do find yourself
• 59:29
  then like when you're talking to people and actually they're
• 59:31
  like, oh, we haven't been on a holiday in years.
• 59:33
  And like he starts to feel a bit guilty for it.
• 59:35
  And you've got to be mindful that all of these, these moments
• 59:38
  are possible fodder for people to build prejudice against each
• 59:40
  other and for them to be thinking, God, it's nice for
• 59:43
  you. Like you get to book a holiday,
• 59:44
  you get to go and do these amazing things, or you get to
• 59:46
  have like all of these online classes or whatever it might be.
• 59:52
  I think even like a friend of mine was talking about horse
• 59:53
  riding recently and saying how it's such a privilege to let
• 59:56
  your kids be able to go riding. Most people can't afford that.
• 59:59
  And like I just had to just discourage my kids from even
• 1:00:01
  getting interested in it because we just can't afford that.
• 1:00:03
  I don't want them to get like any ideas in their heads.
• 1:00:07
  We can instantly have this kind of like judgment that we feel
• 1:00:11
  towards us for prioritizing certain things.
• 1:00:15
  And equally, the judgement we might have towards somebody else
• 1:00:17
  for choosing not to encourage that, you know what I mean?
• 1:00:19
  You know what I mean? Like it's, it's so easy to have
• 1:00:21
  these little, even if they're just a flicker of judgement
• 1:00:24
  towards somebody for their choices.
• 1:00:26
  And like especially for example, if you are in a hard place and
• 1:00:30
  you have not got a lot of money right now and you're really
• 1:00:32
  struggling to make ends meet for somebody to be like, Oh yeah, we
• 1:00:35
  just had a bit of a treat the other day.
• 1:00:36
  Like we booked these tickets to go to this place, but actually
• 1:00:38
  we decided we just couldn't bother to go that day.
• 1:00:39
  It wasn't that much. It was only 10 lbs each for a
• 1:00:41
  ticket. So it's no big deal.
• 1:00:43
  Like we'll just book something else now instead.
• 1:00:45
  And it's just like, so you just like wasted £50 on like just
• 1:00:50
  didn't fancy going. Like you can instantly have
• 1:00:53
  that. Like seriously, yes, like that's
• 1:00:56
  crazy. And then at the same time you
• 1:00:59
  remember that they're allowed to make a decision about how they
• 1:01:02
  spend their money. Like that's OK.
• 1:01:03
  Like that's, that's up to them to do how they want to do
• 1:01:06
  things. And that we can't, we've just
• 1:01:09
  got to be really mindful of this stuff.
• 1:01:10
  Like, we don't have to all be the same and we certainly don't
• 1:01:13
  have to all approach home education the same way.
• 1:01:17
  And there's an awful lot of bias in all of this thing.
• 1:01:19
  So, so wealth is a big one for a lot of a lot of kind of typical
• 1:01:23
  working middle families. They are going to have some
• 1:01:26
  prejudices around money. My dad's comments about people
• 1:01:29
  who have money all of my life just bringing my head.
• 1:01:32
  Bless him. It's very interesting how these
• 1:01:34
  things can sometimes stick with you if you don't work on trying
• 1:01:37
  to eradicate them. And so it's just being mindful
• 1:01:39
  of that again, I guess when you're talking to friends or
• 1:01:41
  you're seeing what they're up to you, or you're seeing how much
• 1:01:43
  money they have or the house they have or the resources
• 1:01:46
  they're getting, or you're comparing yourself to them.
• 1:01:48
  And this judgement isn't necessarily even always negative
• 1:01:51
  towards that person. It can sometimes be towards
• 1:01:53
  yourself and this kind of prejudice that you then have
• 1:01:55
  towards your own. Like you start being negative
• 1:01:58
  about who you are and what you've you've achieved and what
• 1:02:00
  you're capable of because you're kind of comparing yourself to
• 1:02:02
  others. And so there's that as well.
• 1:02:04
  It's like being mindful of you, who you are.
• 1:02:07
  I'm being kind to yourself around that as well.
• 1:02:09
  But yeah, I feel like I've gone on a bit of a rambling tangent
• 1:02:11
  on this one now. It's a very far reaching 1,
• 1:02:14
  isn't it? Because I remember when I was
• 1:02:16
  living with a very serious boyfriend at the time in my late
• 1:02:20
  20s, we were going on a vacation and I was going through like all
• 1:02:27
  the packing. And I was like, you know, I
• 1:02:28
  don't know if I you don't need this.
• 1:02:30
  And what if I don't need that? And maybe I should bring this,
• 1:02:33
  But then, you know, my suitcase is going to be heavy.
• 1:02:34
  I'm just trying to make those final decisions of like, what
• 1:02:36
  was making the cut and what wasn't.
• 1:02:38
  And he finally said to me, if you need it and you haven't
• 1:02:42
  brought it, we'll just buy it. Like this is such a silly
• 1:02:46
  conversation to be having right now.
• 1:02:48
  Like just finish packing your bag.
• 1:02:49
  And if something comes up and you need something, you'll just
• 1:02:51
  buy it. And I was thinking to myself,
• 1:02:54
  what, like if I have a perfectly good can of Hairspray at home
• 1:02:59
  and I don't bring it with me, I'm not buying a new Hairspray
• 1:03:02
  on the trip. Like that's just, I've forgotten
• 1:03:04
  it. And that's that I've like, then
• 1:03:06
  that's a waste of money, right? Like it was just such a shock to
• 1:03:09
  me that this was his perspective.
• 1:03:11
  And I was thinking about this at the time, like, oh, well, also I
• 1:03:16
  could just do that. Like just because my parents
• 1:03:19
  would have never done that for us when we were traveling
• 1:03:21
  growing up. If you didn't have something on
• 1:03:23
  the trip, it's not like my mom said, oh, yeah, go here is 20
• 1:03:26
  bucks, go figure it out. Like, no, like that was it.
• 1:03:28
  If you forgot it, you forgot it. If you didn't bring your flip
• 1:03:31
  flops, well, then you walked on that beach and shoes like, you
• 1:03:34
  know, that was that was the way it was.
• 1:03:36
  And so it was just this different mentality of that.
• 1:03:38
  And I was like, gosh, like, to me, that was so shocking.
• 1:03:42
  But he was an only child and his parents probably had a different
• 1:03:47
  perspective than mine. You know, I was one of four.
• 1:03:49
  We can't buy everyone flip flops, you know.
• 1:03:51
  So it's just one of these things where the number of children,
• 1:03:54
  the types of jobs you have, what you've worked for versus been
• 1:03:59
  given potentially in family money or houses.
• 1:04:02
  I know in Italy, for example, the houses are passed down very
• 1:04:07
  often through the generations. And so it is very possible that
• 1:04:11
  either you or the person you marry has a family home that you
• 1:04:15
  live in and so you have 0 home payments.
• 1:04:19
  That is, could you imagine not having a mortgage to pay?
• 1:04:23
  That is amazing. What freedom, what liberty is.
• 1:04:26
  Yes. Then of course you can take that
• 1:04:28
  really lovely vacation to Greece for three weeks every year while
• 1:04:32
  your company is closed in August, as so many of them do in
• 1:04:34
  Italy. Like that's an amazing
• 1:04:36
  lifestyle. It is, but it's not a reality
• 1:04:38
  for most of the rest of us over here.
• 1:04:42
  I think like those things matter and you know, talking about when
• 1:04:46
  you're mentioning horse riding, like that is a huge expense for
• 1:04:49
  us because I have three children and it is like the most
• 1:04:52
  expensive sport hobby out there. I think second to like ice
• 1:04:57
  hockey or I guess ice hockey is second to equestrian.
• 1:05:02
  So all that to be said, I actually made a comment one time
• 1:05:07
  that we felt very stretched because we were doing so many
• 1:05:12
  things, which is such a common thing with with home education.
• 1:05:14
  You can join and do all these activities and then suddenly
• 1:05:17
  you're doing all these activities, you're never home.
• 1:05:20
  And so I was trying to feel out like where we could pull back a
• 1:05:24
  little bit, what my kids really wanted to lean into and if we
• 1:05:27
  could make some changes to our schedule that would allow us a
• 1:05:31
  little more time at home. Because I think we all sort of
• 1:05:33
  get burnt out. And if we're on that constant
• 1:05:37
  go, go, go and not having the appropriate time to like just
• 1:05:40
  relax and do our like homeschool thing.
• 1:05:43
  So we, I talked about how I was going to pull back from a lot of
• 1:05:46
  these activities that were wonderful, nothing wrong with
• 1:05:49
  them, but just weren't necessarily something we could
• 1:05:52
  afford from a financial end time perspective at the moment.
• 1:05:56
  And so there was this family that made a comment to me like,
• 1:05:59
  Oh my gosh, but then what will you be doing?
• 1:06:01
  You'll be doing nothing. Like like, I don't understand
• 1:06:06
  how you feel OK with that. Like it was just such a
• 1:06:08
  different divide. So it was almost like a judgment
• 1:06:10
  based on, one, just a misunderstanding of our
• 1:06:12
  financial capacity to continue to live this lifestyle.
• 1:06:14
  And two, almost like a different perspective and what home
• 1:06:18
  education to them maybe meant doing a lot of the things
• 1:06:21
  outside the home. Whereas like for me, I was in
• 1:06:24
  that moment trying to spend more quality time with my children
• 1:06:27
  and stop sending them out to all these other things that were,
• 1:06:30
  you know, stressing us from a get out of the house
• 1:06:32
  perspective. But yeah, also a financial
• 1:06:35
  perspective. And then also just like some
• 1:06:37
  days we want to stay in our pajamas, like, I don't know.
• 1:06:39
  Yeah. And we need to build that in, we
• 1:06:42
  need to have time and space for that in our in our day.
• 1:06:44
  So there are a lot of different ways that a financial but also
• 1:06:49
  like a, a background from that like your, your upbringing can
• 1:06:53
  can play into how you perceive things should be.
• 1:06:58
  Yeah. And like whether or not you got
• 1:06:59
  to experience a lot of extracurriculars as a child or
• 1:07:01
  whether or not exactly you really valued it, that even.
• 1:07:05
  And I mean, I definitely didn't do an awful lot of them.
• 1:07:07
  And parents definitely tried to sign us up for the odd thing,
• 1:07:09
  but we didn't tend to stick at them particularly long, whether
• 1:07:12
  for financial reasons or otherwise, I'm not really sure.
• 1:07:14
  But ultimately that wasn't really something I hugely
• 1:07:18
  valued. I did value my time at home and
• 1:07:20
  my chance to draw and colour and play and be out on the street to
• 1:07:22
  my friends and just explore and just be me and all the rest of
• 1:07:25
  it. And so I think we can, these
• 1:07:27
  things are just sometimes just our own personal values and our
• 1:07:30
  own the things that we really loved.
• 1:07:32
  And actually, yeah, we sometimes we even think, I mean, I
• 1:07:35
  definitely found myself thinking I won't bother signing my kids
• 1:07:37
  up, that they just won't be engaged with it.
• 1:07:39
  But they actually like, we'll just give it a try because I'll
• 1:07:41
  be like, no, you don't just get to make that decision.
• 1:07:43
  You have no idea. Like give them a chance to see
• 1:07:45
  what happens. And actually they're really
• 1:07:47
  enjoy it and decide, oh, interesting.
• 1:07:49
  Like I wasn't expecting them to do that or whatever.
• 1:07:51
  It's been really important sometimes to really address
• 1:07:54
  these thoughts that the initial feelings we might have to
• 1:07:57
  something and to question it and to just challenge it a little
• 1:08:00
  bit. And whilst it's OK to have
• 1:08:02
  values and beliefs and ideologies, like at the end of
• 1:08:04
  the day where we are saying here that it's good to have them,
• 1:08:06
  that we want you to have them, that people should be
• 1:08:08
  individuals, that from individuality comes innovation
• 1:08:11
  and ideas and wisdom and, and lots and lots of amazing things.
• 1:08:15
  But what we do have to be mindful of that it's not what we
• 1:08:18
  need to start championing, is this concept of individuality
• 1:08:22
  being a good thing. Being different is good, being
• 1:08:26
  weird is good, would being like other outsider and having very
• 1:08:31
  different perspectives and views on things is good.
• 1:08:34
  But we need more of it and we need to see it in each other as
• 1:08:37
  a positive attribute. That people having that ability
• 1:08:40
  to critically think and see the world and do something
• 1:08:44
  differently and choose something intentionally for their family
• 1:08:47
  is all good. All of that is good.
• 1:08:49
  And whilst it's important to people to consider their
• 1:08:53
  sources, consider their prejudices, consider their
• 1:08:55
  biases, consider their beliefs and their ideologies, and trying
• 1:08:59
  to make sure that within those values they have the ability to
• 1:09:02
  respect and have compassion for others.
• 1:09:05
  Ultimately this concept of individuality is super
• 1:09:08
  important. And it allows us to have this
• 1:09:11
  incredible, growing, diverse human culture that it would not
• 1:09:16
  exist. We would not have all of the
• 1:09:19
  technology and the concepts and the ideas and the books and the
• 1:09:23
  stories and the religions and the beautiful stuff that we all
• 1:09:28
  really value as part of being human, cultural and spiritual
• 1:09:32
  and interesting and knowledgeable and intellectual.
• 1:09:35
  And all of the things, those things would not exist if
• 1:09:38
  individual humans didn't have these intense fascinations with
• 1:09:42
  random things that other people did not.
• 1:09:44
  And didn't challenge stuff and didn't ask questions and push
• 1:09:48
  beliefs and push boundaries. Like this stuff is vital for
• 1:09:53
  human growth and it is being squashed in our society.
• 1:09:57
  We are being forced into this like sausage factory of like
• 1:10:01
  everyone must conform to this precise measurement and it
• 1:10:06
  doesn't work. And people are not happy.
• 1:10:08
  And mental health is a massive crisis point right now.
• 1:10:11
  Physical health is a crisis point.
• 1:10:12
  Nothing is being well cared for. Human beings are not humaning
• 1:10:16
  enough. And the more we allow human
• 1:10:18
  beings to human, the happier we are.
• 1:10:19
  And one of the most beautiful things about the home education
• 1:10:22
  community is this opportunity for humans to human.
• 1:10:24
  And the the more we allow it and the more, more dismissive we get
• 1:10:29
  of these ideas of judging and critiquing each other and
• 1:10:33
  comparing yourselves to each other and being cruel to
• 1:10:35
  ourselves and having a negative self talk and that negative talk
• 1:10:38
  towards others. And the more that we embrace,
• 1:10:41
  the more enriched our community becomes and the more open and
• 1:10:46
  accessible it feels to new people coming into it.
• 1:10:49
  And the more welcoming it becomes as well, and ultimately
• 1:10:53
  allows us all to actually grow and to really benefit each other
• 1:10:56
  and to provide these really lovely spaces that it makes us
• 1:10:59
  feel safe and seen for who we actually are instead of some
• 1:11:04
  fake version that we think everybody wants to see.
• 1:11:08
  Yeah. I hope this episode has been as
• 1:11:11
  powerfully for you as I feel like it has been for us.
• 1:11:13
  I've definitely enjoyed talking through it.
• 1:11:15
  But these, if you've got any other thoughts, if there's
• 1:11:16
  anything else that you thought we've missed, any kind of other
• 1:11:19
  things that you see coming up, let us know and we can talk
• 1:11:22
  about it on social media as well around this episode.
• 1:11:25
  But yeah, sorry, this is a bit of a long one.
• 1:11:26
  Hopefully I think it's worth it though.
• 1:11:27
  I think it's been a good chat and I hope that you guys think
• 1:11:29
  the same thing. Yeah, so much to.
• 1:11:31
  Say so much to say. Such an interesting subject.
• 1:11:34
  So anyway, have a lovely week guys and we will see you again
• 1:11:38
  next time. You've been listening to the Big
• 1:11:46
  Home Ed Conversations podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:11:50
  Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with a
• 1:11:53
  friend. Follow us on Instagram and
• 1:11:55
  TikTok at Big Home Ed Podcast for updates.
• 1:12:00
  We'll be back again next week for another episode, but don't
• 1:12:03
  forget to send us your questions, comments, and
• 1:12:05
  personal experiences on the topics we'll be covering this
• 1:12:08
  season. Visit our blog, LinkedIn, the
• 1:12:10
  show Notes for a reminder of the topics or just message us
• 1:12:13
  directly on Instagram or TikTok. Thanks everyone, take care.