#95 Marta Obiols Llistar | Teacher Turned Unschooler

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So today we are together with Marta Obiols Llistar Did I say it anyway correctly? 

00:08 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Marta Obiols Llistar, Good job. 

00:11 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
We are. Listar so, marta, I think I've tried to find a time where our schedules connected for I don't know half a year, a year maybe, and now we are finally here. So it has been long awaited, and what I wanted to talk with you about is you are a fellow unschooler and we'd love to bring more voices from the unschooling world to our podcast, and I'm like, oh, where should we start? Sometimes I ask people about their journey into unschooling. 

00:53 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
What happened in your life that made you go down this path. Wow, well, long version or short version? I? 

01:04 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
don't know which one, to give you the version you find relevant to talk about today so I I became a teacher. 

01:13 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
I studied education because, not because I wanted to be a teacher in a school, so I already was different. Right, I wanted to work in a hospital, because some kids are there for a long time and they have teachers to keep going with their education, so if they go back to school they can keep going. So I was very attracted to that job and for that job I needed to be a teacher. So that's why I went to education. But I never got that job, because you have to wait for a teacher to leave for you to go in. So that was incredibly difficult for me to get that chance. That's how I became a teacher in a regular school and that's when I realized I didn't like it at all. I became a mom also at the meantime and I didn't like school for my kids and I didn't like it for me. So it was twice I didn't like it for my kids and I didn't like it for me. So it was twice I didn't like it for my kids and I didn't like it for me as a job as a teacher. So I kept thinking, okay, well, I'll try another school. I kept trying other schools, I kept giving it chances, and I realized that the perfect school didn't exist. So I was desperate and I took my kids out of the school without knowing anything, anything about the homeschool world. I knew nothing. 

02:33
And then, when I jumped into that world, I was so lucky to encounter a mom that asked me what curriculum are you using? Because here in America everybody asks you that if you're a homeschooler, which curriculum are you using? And that's when I said I don't know. I'm brand new, I'm Googling around, trying to choose, trying to learn. And she said stop right there and read John Holt. And I said who? She said go to the library. And I said who? She said go to the library with John Holt and his books will appear. And that's what I did. And I read every single book of John Holt, one after another, and I was a converter. I became a hundred percent unschooler and I never looked back. I found happiness. My kids learn. My marriage also changed for the better. My whole life changed for the better and and because it was so wonderful, now I'm on social media and I wrote books about it. 

03:36 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So people, so I'm that person that was to me, so I am to them, you know but actually there's like a lot of the unschooling parents and moms we have talked with who have kind of a similar background as you, where they are teachers turning unschoolers yeah and some people have come to some of them and said, oh, but you can do it because you have the education, so can you help us kill that myth? 

04:10 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Yes, I actually had to learn. I had a lot of creative ideas for lesson plans and I had to burn them and throw them in the trash and I kept telling myself no, because I really wanted to trust John Holt and trust the children and trust the whole natural process. So every time I had an idea I had to fight it. So it's actually very difficult if you're a teacher and you want to unschool it's actually better if you know nothing about education. 

04:41
I had to completely take it out of my head. Yeah, no, I had to learn to not be a teacher so yeah, it is completely amazing yeah, that's hard. 

04:53 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, the only good thing, I think I'm not a teacher, I'm a psychologist, but okay that's wonderful, that really helps. 

05:02
Well, yeah, exactly. But what does help is I can kind of stop people's questions because I seem qualified. And if you don't want to have the long conversation about unschooling with someone who's asking not really out of curiosity but just out of surprise, then you can say yeah, but I'm a school teacher, I'm an, I have the education, and then they'll shut up and then you can start talking about I don't know the world cup or where you're going on vacation or whatever. 

05:34 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
So it it's true that that happened to me a lot and it's true that I used it as a because I was new. I was tired of fighting with my own family and close friends but when a stranger said, oh, you're a teacher, you can do it, I zipped it. Yes, yes, bye, bye. It was easier that way yeah. 

05:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I think there's a natural process or I had it myself, you know, wearing this start. Maybe it was a way for me to find my stamina and my strength and belief that I kind of had to fight people around me and explain to them why this is so much better. When now we have been on this path for plus 10 years, I'm very chill about it. It's not often a conversation where in the start I often had to explain people how stupid I find the educational system as it is today and it has so much with it that it's fine to make fun of. But I think it also was like a need to break free of the system, maybe and and go and knock on the door and say this is stupid, and before I could come over to a more relaxed place. 

06:54 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Yes. 

06:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
You said you had fights in the start with your family. Where are they now? Have they understood it? 

07:00 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
finally, Well, I'm from Spain and over there homeschooling is unheard of, even though there's a big community. Because I'm inside of the homeschooling community, I know that there's a big community in Spain, but if you're not in that community, if you're an outsider, you have no idea that homeschooling exists in Spain. So my family are those. They have no idea and well, they just couldn't understand that. They had no idea that I was in schooling. To them it was just homeschool. 

07:35
I played that game for a lot of years as well it was really hard for them to understand because it's something so unknown and and well, I'm just happy that I was here in the US and they were over there in Spain. 

07:49 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
They made it so much easier. 

07:53 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
But when my mom came to visit, she would ask I don't see you guys studying what? When do you study? And I used to say, oh, it's because you're here now with us, so we're just taking a break. Because she really wanted to see us sitting down at a table studying. And that's not what we did. So I had to keep it. I didn't lie, but I didn't give all the information either. I had to make it easy for me and I had to concentrate with my kids, and to concentrate with the kids, you have to be happy. So I needed to keep my family away, because they made it difficult, because they couldn't understand. 

08:35 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And I get it, I get it, I get it, yeah you have to choose where you spend your energy, really, really Exactly. 

08:43 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Exactly, and my family here in the US, my husband's family. They were very happy that I was homeschooling, but again they thought it was for a different reason. They thought it had to do with Christianity and public school and because here in America a lot of homeschoolers are Christians, so they thought it was because of that and I'm like, okay, think whatever you are are saying as long as you don't bother me. 

09:06 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah, oh, my goodness, I think also the first years when, when you start, it's very vulnerable. You're, you're wobbly, kind of. Even though you said you were a converter right away, it's still, as you said, your, your family doesn't really understand and your in-laws they think they understand, but for different reasons. So there are all these structures around you holding you in place and and that's, psychologically, that's a good thing we're holding each other with the culture that we're in and with the relations we have. We hold each other's identities and and life paths and we become like just a yeah, safety net in a way for those that are close to us. It's a good thing. 

09:58
Except, if you break free from some of the really big defining norms and start doing something completely different, that whole structure will try to push you back. It's really, really hard to stay with your own truth because at the same time, you're a social being and you're you're. You're a psychological, but you need your people and think these you just said before I never lied, but and I think a lot of homeschoolers have that I I don't exactly lie, I just we don't share a lot of information yeah, we, we had years where we called it. 

10:40
We speak educationies, so we translate what we're actually doing into something that people can understand. Yes, can I tell you something. 

10:51 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Oh my goodness. Every christmas and every thanksgiving every time we had a a time that we had to see the family I would train my children and I would tell them okay, you're taking piano lessons, right Okay. So when the family asks you what classes are you taking, you tell them piano. And then I would tell my other kid you're reading this book, right Okay. So next time they ask you, what are you learning In this book? You're learning this, this, this. Tell them that, because that way they're going to leave us alone. They want an answer, and the answer has to sound like a school, like a class. So I would help my kids translate what we were doing into what the other people want to hear, and I don't know if this is right or wrong, but it just worked. It worked for us, it worked for us. 

11:40 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I also think, marta, that this is what people know. I also think, marta, that this is what people know. People are not very used to being around children, as they don't spend so much time with them as people who homeschool or unschool and have their kids at home full-time does that. When you meet a child to a family reunion or something, you ask them about the things that you, you, you, it's like what are you doing for work? 

12:10
yeah, so it's actually just the what are you doing for work? So what are you working with, but for on a child level, instead of asking more interesting questions. So are you reading a book right now? What are you interested in? Are you playing some games, what, what, what, what do you use your time on? You find fun. 

12:28 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So I, after I've seen it this way, I kind of relaxes them all when people ask this and I'm like oh yeah, that's, that's how they know how to, to ask exactly what's the same time, we have a problem, yeah, and that is the whole idea of the adults engineering the children's childhood and these questions and the engineering that we do, of prepping our children to say the right things, that we don't do it any longer. But we did it to some extent, I don't know 12 years ago. Um, it comes from this idea that in order to be a good parent, in order to take properly care of your children, you have to force them to do things they don't want to do, force them to do things that are boring, to do things that are repetitive, that doesn't make any sense for them, but that you, the adult, have decided, or maybe you put that decision on the government level, or some curriculum you believe in or some teacher you believe in. You have decided. We know what's better for you. 

13:49
We know that you have to give up about 10,000 hours of your childhood, often more, in order to become something that we need you to become, because otherwise you will fail you to become, because otherwise you will fail, and that whole matrix being around the children's childhood and, on the mirror of that, the parenting, so you can fail as a parent if you fail to do it. It creates so much insecurity, it creates so much suffering. It creates so much. This is what I find the worst Waste of time, waste of happiness, waste of lived life and waste of great relationships that could have been that now are becoming this policeman, oppressor, oppressed situation, situation. I think that's more interesting conversation absolutely well, I used to think. 

14:49 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
I used to think like that too, because that's all I knew. Yeah, I thought just like that. So I'm incredibly thankful for the person that introduced me to the john hall books, because, my goodness, I learned a lot. And by trusting those books, trusting him and then trusting my children and I read a lot of psychology books that's how you break free. In fact, I used to tell people if you want to, in school, learn how children learn. Now I'm changing my mind. I think it's more important to learn psychology. I think that if you learn psychology, you're going to do a great job in schooling your kids. I think that's all we need to learn psychology, for us and for our kids for both. 

15:32 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I I think I was fortunate enough that one of my mentors in the beginning said something down the lines of learning is just a byproduct, product of living a real life. Yeah, so I I got that change of mindset very early. It's not about learning, and there's so much in the mainstream matrix about the idea, about childhood that is about learning that us deciding what they need to learn and pushing them to learn it, and maybe even having all these strategies how do we make them learn it? Whereas the real learning things we actually learn we absorb through being passionate. We absorb it because we are intrigued by something, because we have a problem we need to solve and we don't have the skills. So we go find the skills, or because we are curious or because we are, I don't know, on a different path and somewhere there's something oh that just stumbles upon you and and, and the next day you, you, you know, I don't know a few words from a language or some fragments of something. So the whole learning cannot be the focus, is not the focus, it's living. 

16:57 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
It's living and it's loving that's when I learned that it's not necessary. Every time your kids learn something, it's not as necessary to put it on a paper, like you know teachers or homeschool moms like to do or make a project out of it. No, just living life, You're learning. There's no need to put it into a project or a paper. You don't need to cut the picture and paste it. 

17:23 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
it's already learned by living life, and the point of the situation was not is not what was learned, but what was lived yeah, I think a lot of it may become from the, from insecurity, where if I can tick a box, then something has been ticked off and it's good and I've succeeded, and it is part of the whole programming in a lot of us people's life that we need to accomplish instead of just need to live, and I look forward to seeing unschooled grown-ups. We have had a few of them on our podcast. 

18:07
you've got one in the living room yes, but also when they get kids, yeah, see how they get kids, see, see how they grow up, seeing to trust in your children, because it's really wild. 

18:25 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
How old are your? 

18:25 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
children now. Marta, my oldest one is 21. My second one is 19. And my youngest is 17. 

18:34 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Okay. So yeah, it's like our older ones yeah. 

18:40 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Did you have them in school ever? 

18:42 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
can't remember what is some time of the time in school oh my, my older one was nine years old when I took him out of school. Yeah, my younger was seven and the little one was five, that's when I took them out nine, seven and five. 

18:57 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah. What change did you see in them after having done it? 

19:04 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
My goodness, my oldest. He didn't have friends in school. He had acquaintances In school. He did play with friends, but they weren't friends' friends. They never met on the weekends or after school, so it was just acquaintances, classmates. When we started homeschooling he built true relationships that they still last and he had so many friendships and they call him and they've met and then and they met so many times. So for him I saw his social life change. For my daughter, I saw her hunger. She was so hungry and thirsty for learning. They labeled her gifted when she was in school, but they didn't give her what she needed. So once I took her out of school she was able to eat and drink all the knowledge that she was craving, and she was reading so many books. 

20:04
It was insane. So for her it was that freedom of learning non-stop. Leave me alone people don't bother me, I'm learning and for my youngest, well, he's the most in school of all. He didn't go to school, he just did a little bit of preschool here and there, but what I like to think is that he, if, if somebody had to label him, I'm pretty sure they will label him ADHD. So I'm very happy that he was able to be wild and free for so many years. He didn't do classes or anything. He was wild and free until he was 14. And then, at 14, he chose to go to public school, high school, and he's doing fantastic. So I'm just happy that he had the childhood that he needed, wild and free, and now he's a great student it is. 

21:07 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It is so, uh, both amazing, but it for me it was, as I'm about to say, as in all, 99 of all, homeschooling, unschooling. It was my wife who introduced it in our life and I remember the fear, as a dad trying to trust this, and now I can ease out on many, many levels. But I remember looking sometimes and being like will they ever getting this loss to learn? As our, our girl, who is now 16 she enjoyed sitting with the books and our boy, who's 18 he, he didn't in the same way. And then at some time, at some point, they're ready. Then it happens. Yes, yes, to trust that, I mean from, from they are seven, or eight, nine, where you are used to. Now you need to go to school, now you need to learn, but then just evolving at their own pace, learning all the other things that are not things you are curriculum wise need to learn, to, at some point, that the hunger comes for knowledge in the more schoolish fashion. Um, I find that very, very impressive to see yeah, to me it's fascinating. 

22:33 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
I don't know any other word how to describe this. It's just phenomenal. This is. It's amazing to see a kid that was so wild and free and wild, I'm telling you wild and now he writes essays for his school homework. Is how did that happen? Because he was able to play when it was time to play. That's why it happened. It's, it's so beautiful, it really is. 

23:03 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Our kids are pretty academic. Am I sitting on your? Okay, all four of them in their different ways. So in that respect it's pretty easy for us to be underschoolers, because if anyone had any opinions on the things that you would normally learn in the school context, they can more or less do it or do something similar better. But I just want to say now in this part of our conversation that even if you don't go back and go to high school and if you don't start reading Shakespeare and if you don't learn three or four languages or whatever it is, and you become passionate about fixing cars or riding your bike or whatever you can become passionate about, it's totally fine. 

23:56
Unschooling is not a preparation to do amazing academic stuff when you're an older teenager. That's not what it's about and it's not an outcome. You always see, in some kids it is, and in some kids it is not just that, as as it is in the general population. We're not all on harvard, I mean some have different passions and different paths and some unschool's kids come out and they speak one language and they can read and write and they they start playing the piano or they start fixing bikes or they start a business or whatever. 

24:30
Take a job in a supermarket and are completely content, coming home with the money they need and having the freedom they want. It's it's. It's not always what you have seen and what we have seen, but I have. I will then second it that it's. It's. It's not always what you have seen and what we have seen, but I have. I will then second it that it's. It's been pretty interesting to observe how letting leaving them be and trust not just trusting it's also about being totally okay with whatever. Yeah and yeah and also being really. I can really appreciate a child spending all day staring at flowers or drawing or binging uh Netflix series or whatever they're doing that they really want to do. 

25:13 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Yes, exactly my youngest. For two years he video game and Netflix. A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And every now and then it would trigger me back to my childhood when my parents were upset because you were watching TV and then I was upset with him and then I would stop myself and say trust it, trust it, he's learning something, he's learning something. And I remember I had to shush myself and yeah, it works. And I want to say something about being okay, being okay. My daughter, the gifted one. She loved learning about medicine and science and illnesses, but she didn't want to be a biologist or a doctor None of that she wants. She's an athlete and she's a musician. So she's putting her athletes and arts into a circus art performing that's her future. She wants to be an artist performing, for that's her biggest, biggest dream. 

26:15
But she loves to learn medicine. She loves medicine on her own, but she just doesn't want to be a doctor. And that's the beauty of being free with your mind right, because my parents would have said, okay, honey, you need to learn medicine, go to college to be a doctor. And you know, the athlete performing style is your hobby. And I was able to shut that down. No, no, no, no. Your hobby can be your job, it can be your income. 

26:44 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So, yeah, you gotta be okay with that yeah and also realizing that life is long and you can have multiple careers and the whole, uh, the whole. What they're doing when they're 17 is not pointing, and how they'll make money for the rest of their lives. What they're doing when they're 17 is not pointing, and how they'll make money for the rest of their lives. What they're doing when they're 17 is what they enjoy doing when they're 17, and it can change in heartbeat and and and and. That's all good and fine. Nothing, nothing will ever be wasted if it was lived wholeheartedly that's a good point. 

27:17 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
What you're saying nothing is being wasted. That's a good point. Everything is being is learning. We is being wasted. That's a good point. Everything is learning. We think they're wasting their time. 

27:24 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
No, they are learning. 

27:26 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
That's a very good point. 

27:28 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Marta, this is a jump to the side and it is because your accent just reminds me of summer. I come home to Catalonia. I could just hear the Catalonian English accent and I'm like, oh man, and I to Catalonia. I could just hear the Catalonian English accent and I'm like, oh man, and I love Catalonia. We have spent a lot of time in Catalonia. 

27:49
Yeah, it's wonderful. We started our world travels in a bus and parked it next to an animal sanctuary in San Salvador, one hour south of Barcelona. But I need to ask how did you end up in the States when you come from just a wonderful place? What? 

28:07 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
because I was. I was always a different kind of person, right? Everybody was studying college, getting a job, getting married and staying in Spain. Everybody was staying in Spain and my mind was like why do I have to stay in Spain when the world is so big? I want to get out of here. I was 22 years old. I've been 22 years old in Catalonia, that's enough that's a lot of hot summers 

28:35
compared to how big the planet is that is many Julys that are too hot, yeah and I was very attracted to the english language, so so much, and I didn't want to go to england and I I cannot tell you exactly something inside of me told me to go to the us, and I just follow it. I was in love with the us for some reason. I guess I was supposed to meet my husband and become a schooler. 

29:01
Right, it was all freaking written in the stars or whatever, and that's how I came, because I had a powerful something here that pulled me and I just follow it. I just follow it. There's no other explanation, really. 

29:17 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Great, no, no, no, that's a good explanation great. 

29:23 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Oh no. No, that's a good explanation. It's. The best reason to do something is that if you have some inner urge to do it, then yeah, go do it. It it's, it's what we tell the kids all the time. If. If there's something I want to do this, totally do it. 

29:34 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Do it, yeah for a long time I didn't understand my life, like what is going on. And when I finished that's why I wrote my first book when I finished educating my oldest, when he reached 18 I finally understood everything. This is why everything happened. 

29:50 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
This is exactly why sometimes you just gotta wait and see it at the end yeah, yeah, our second child is just 18 now it's a journey for the nature, at least for me but then at the same time we've had a lot of conversations with this exact child because he he had to unschool the age thing and had to like, unpack it and and deconstruct it and be. It was just like when he was 15 and in our country, where we come from, you would be done with basic schooling, the mandatory schooling for about 15 um, and people that summer spring kept asking him so what are you doing next year? And we were full-time nomadic, you know, and he likes reading literature and he was like, yeah, I think I'll go for a run in the morning and I'll hang out at the beach and I'll read my books, have lunch before dinner. He was so baffled and we were so unschooled that I didn't even realize. I had to stop and think why do people keep asking? Because it it stresses him out. Actually, why are they asking? He came to me. Why are they asking? Why is everybody asking me this question? Why is it so much up in the air what I'm doing next year? I'm just going to continue living. 

31:24
And the same thing happened, but in a bigger scale, when he was closing in on 18, it's about a year ago now. So the last six months of being 17,. He had a lot of these questions. So now what? And it kind of freaked him out and we had to unpack it and nothing, nothing happens. It's just another day in your life You're the same person. 17.999 versus 18.0, it's it's not a big deal, so yeah. 

31:59 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
I don't know. That is absolutely true and I agree with you the age is silliness it. However, when my son, my first one, was born, he was unplanned and I had a very hard time accepting what happened to me. So when he was born, I I told myself, I was angry at me and I said well, now you gotta do a good job until he turns 18. You better do a good job. So I put that standard of you better be the best mom ever until he turns 18. You better, you better. 

32:29 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So and then, after 18, you could be a shitty mom exactly so when? 

32:34 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
So when he turned 18, it brought all those emotions back. 

32:38 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's like oh wow, I've done it. 

32:40 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
But now I agree with you. Obviously that's just so silly. The age is just silliness. But back in that time, when I was so angry at myself, I put myself in a loop. 

32:50 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It was a circle in your life, it was a full loop. I understand. I wanted to yeah, I mean it's. I think it's a good idea to to also open that up, that the age is maybe not that important and I say that with a lot of hesitation, because right now we're traveling with five teenagers three of them yeah, three of our, our own, and then we have two friends and we are in a pop-up situation in krakow with a lot of other families with more teeth. 

33:24
So I don't know what are they? Maybe 35 teenagers who are all more or less fully nomadic in the same city at the same time? Um, age matters a lot to them yeah yeah, actually, whether you're 15 or 17, or, and they have a lot of standards, but it's not about education. Yeah, okay, I I better shut up because I actually don't know what to say about it. 

33:56 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I just realized, I just but it also mattered a lot for me. I mean for me when I was 15, that someone was 17. It's a when we look at them we are like, oh, you're not so different. But I remember being like, oh, they're 17 and I'm 15. It's a big age gap in in the state you are at, but not when you look at it from from being older but you know what? 

34:22 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
and it's the society that you live in. Maybe I'm going off course now, but when I grew up in spain. You, I was 15 and I had a boyfriend that was 17 and that was okay. But here in the us I keep hearing my boys saying, oh, that's, you cannot date the two-year-old younger than you. Or if you're 18 and you date the 16 year old, that's illegal. There's so many laws and rules right now that I remember being. 

34:51 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
I remember being 15 and being really annoyed and jealous at the 70-year-old boys who dated the 15-year-old girls I wanted to date. Who did you want to date you? But it took me many years to get it. 

35:08 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
It's interesting so much too. Like my daughter, for example, when she entered college, the college started the day before she turned 18, the day before, so she was 17. She couldn't go that day, she had to be 18. There's laws, you know. Sometimes you gotta put up with them all so so, matza um the book. 

35:35 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Uh, so so, matza the book, you, how many books have you done and and what are they about? Can you share? 

35:46 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
okay, so the I've done four, but two in english and two in spanish okay so the first book is when my son turned 18, all my emotions went wild and crazy and I've never written anything in my life and somehow I spent two months in front of the computer, not cooking, not showering, just writing all day long. 

36:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
My family couldn't believe it. 

36:14 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
And I wrote a book and I'm like I'm like, oh my gosh, what have I done? So then I gave it to my son because he's an amazing writer and my older one is an amazing writer and amazing editor and I'm a terrible writer. But I wrote a book, so he edited to make it more understandable and then I said I think I need to publish it because I think somebody needs to read this book, because there's so many books about unschooling, why you need to unschool, but is there any book about how does it look like? What does it look like? The whole? 

36:53 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
until the end. What does it look? 

36:54 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
like what does it look like? The whole until the end. What does it look like? I don't think there is. Maybe there is, but I don't know. 

37:01
So I said I need to put that book out there because somebody needs to read it. So I put it out, I publish it, and then I felt guilty because why? Why did I write this in English? There's a lot of people in Spanish that need this book. What have I done? 

37:15
So then I wrote it in Spanish, and the editor in Spanish, because, again, I'm a really bad writer, so I needed an editor. The editor said Marta, add this and add that. So my book became so much better in Spanish. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, what have I done Now? The English people don't have that. And now I have to write a second book in English and at the same time I receive a lot of questions and I answer all the questions in the second book. 

37:45
So the second book is about how to unschool. The first one is all my life and unschooling until my kid turns 18. And the second one is how to. If you want to know and you have no idea and you don't want to read John Hall books or Peter Gray, then you can read my book and I tell you how to unschool. And then I'm like, oh no, I've done it again. Now the Spanish people don't have this second book, so I wrote it in Spanish and I made it. I made it so much better in Spanish that now I feel guilty for the English people, but I'm tired, so I'm gonna leave it there. So yeah, the first book is my story and the second one is how to some families don't know how to learn, how to teach how to read, teach how to write, how to do a high school transcript. 

38:39 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
so it's just that I teach them yeah, and then, as we like to keep our episodes around these 40 45 minutes, it's a kind of a good place to round up. So if we could end with one of the advices from one of the books you can take it in Spanish or English, that's up to you and if you also can share with people, where can they find you? Where? What are the names of the books so they can go find them? 

39:10 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
and we'll also put everything in the show notes, of course yes, my first book is called 18 an unschooling experience, and my second book is called a successful education. And I talk about success inside the book. What's success? Because we think it's one thing but it's another. So a successful education and one advice I used to tell everyone learn how children learn, and that will take you there. I also used to say disqual your mindset, because if you disqual your mindset, unschooling unfolds by itself. But now I'm changing my mind. Now my advice is learn psychology and and fix yourself, because we all, we all have some kind of issues and triggers. My gosh. If you work on yourself while your kids play, I think that's the best thing you can do. If you want to unschool, learn psychology or self-help books. I I think that's my advice nowadays. 

40:17 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, and do you have a homepage we should share with the people? Just listening. 

40:22 - Marta Obiols Llistar (Guest)
Yes, I have a webpage that is called a successfuleducationcom and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok. I think I'm called unschooling, story 18. Perfect Thank you very much for this opportunity. I had so much fun talking with you. 

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