106: Essie Richards | Breaking Free: Unschooling and Reimagining Education in the UK

Today we're together with Essie Richards and we got a message from you saying, hey, it could be cool with a talk and appear on the podcast. So here you are. First of all, welcome.

Essie Richards: 0:24

Thank you. It's amazing that you said yes. Thanks for having me.

Jesper Conrad: 0:29

So you are in the homeschooling, unschooling world yourself. How did that came to be in your life? What happened? How many kids, stuff like that the 200 questions, yeah that's good, I like that.

Cecilie Conrad: 0:45

I think you're in England, right.

Essie Richards: 0:48

Yeah, I'm in Cornwall, so rural UK right at the bottom, it almost doesn't feel like England. It's a lot of Cornish people say no, it's not. England. So it's really beautiful and it's far enough from cities to feel like, yeah, you're in a nice bit of wilderness, it's gorgeous southwest right yeah, southwest, yeah, you spend a lot of time in southeast and east Sussex.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:13

Yeah nice, I don't know how different the nature is. I think it's pretty parallel, yeah.

Essie Richards: 1:19

Yeah, it's amazing. I wanted to move to New Zealand and my husband was like no, it's too far. So Cornwall felt like a really good compromise. It's like that's the furthest point away from the middle of England.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:32

Yeah, Stay on the island.

Essie Richards: 1:35

Yeah yeah, yeah, right, just about um. We started unschooling about um. It's about eight and a half years ago now. I think I'm terrible with time. I've got two kids who are nearly 15 and 11 and a half and I think, like so many people, uh, our children said let's unschool.

Essie Richards: 1:59

By how school just didn't work out for our eldest, um. So the same story I've heard so many times this really bright, animated, creative, wild little creature who just loved everything went to school and we just slowly started to see that little light go out in his eyes and, um, he would come home, you know, really distraught and in bits for hours and we finally managed to understand that he was getting bullied at school by um, another little boy who was probably really distressed himself, and we tried to partner with the school but the system just didn't allow for that at all and we were like we have no idea what we're doing. We had never met anyone who homeschooled. I thought that meant I was going to be chained to a desk for like the next 18 years of my life, but it felt like the only option at that time.

Essie Richards: 2:57

So we just said look, he's not going back, that's just the thing, and we'll just see what happens, and we had just life without school for six months where we were just like let's just give him time to recover. And then I was like this is brilliant, why are we doing anything else? And sort of went down a bit of a rabbit hole, as you do, got on the internet, looked at homeschooling how old was he? He was, um, yeah, he was six, just about six, yeah, um, and somehow found Pamela Rickier's podcast, read about unschooling, was like, oh my God, this is us, this is us. And yeah, that was it really.

Cecilie Conrad: 3:41

I was just curious for how long he was in school, because many countries have different definitions on when school starts. So when he was six, when did he?

Essie Richards: 3:51

go in. Yeah, it starts so early here. He was six. When did he go in? Yeah, it starts so early here. Hey, I see the kids start school and they just look like tiny little creatures in these giant uniforms and you're like, well, they're just babies. Um, he started when he was five and he came out, yeah, like a year and a half later. I think it's about when he was well. Maybe he started when he was four and a half. I'm terrible with time, but he was there for reception, which is like pre-year one. So he did reception in year one. He came out at the end of year one, um, and we yeah, so reception is usually you're four or five years old four or five.

Essie Richards: 4:27

Yeah, I think he was about four and a half yeah he was like call that school, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 4:36

Well, it's different. Here in france they call it school from three years old and here we call it school from six. It's just definition, but it matters in the child's life. How early do we start the cooking? And, yeah, it matters in our life. When do we think it's schooling, compared to nursery or kindergarten, which is a more?

Jesper Conrad: 4:58

I don't know how it is today, but when we were young, which is some years ago, then then it was called the first class, which would be called zero. Today maybe would be called the kindergarten class. People talked a a little about the alphabet, but most of it was just to getting into the habit of sitting down and shutting up, I think.

Cecilie Conrad: 5:22

Yeah, having a backpack, having a pencil case, having a packed lunch, listening to the bell you have to go back into the classroom when the bell rings, stuff like that. So it was behavior only the first year and then the second year they started the actual laying with alphabet and that and stuff.

Jesper Conrad: 5:43

yeah, I wanted to talk a little about bullying, because you mentioned that as among the causes for why you took your son out. I've looked into the numbers from time to time and I get saddened, disheartened and surprised every time. I see the amount of people who say they have been bullied. And then you have severe bullying, not severe bullying, and then I'm also when I look at the numbers I can't remember them right now, but whatever amount it is that has been bullied then there's also the bully yeah, and that's not nice either, and and I have been, unfortunately, on both sides, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 6:27

And then, if I look back at what I took part in against other people, which I'm definitely not proud of, the excuses made from adults and myself, or the story you spin is that it was child's play. We didn't mean anything by it, but that doesn't mean that someone didn't went home and cry or had a shitty day. So just the sheer amount of acceptance going on in the school, where bullying is seen upon as kind of a necessary evil or there is a limit of accept, acceptance like it's okay with this amount of bullying. But if, if it's this amount, then we're trying to tone it down and I mean I wouldn't accept that I think it's really wild.

Cecilie Conrad: 7:21

I think we've had a number of ones where some schools so we're from Scandinavia Not that we live in Scandinavia, but we're from Scandinavia and Scandinavia holds this place in the world's discourse on schooling to have the best schools. I think Finland is running with the star at the moment. They are doing very good, not that I agree with schooling as such, but do we have to have schooling? They are doing better than many places and we had some numbers running here where they did something to minimize the bullying and it was success and there was a lot of writing about it in the newspapers and you know, the government did really well and we reduced the bullying. And now it's down to and I might be wrong, we might have to look this up, but I think it's down to 15 percent of schoolchildren who are being bullied, to 15 percent of school children were being bullied. Hey, would you accept 15?

Essie Richards: 8:21

percent of your friends bullying you on a daily basis?

Cecilie Conrad: 8:23

yeah, exactly it's crazy, it's wait a minute. Is that success? Yeah, like that's a good is this where we stop and and we pat ourselves on the shoulder and we think we're the best countries in the world to make schooling.

Essie Richards: 8:35

Yet 15 of the kids will go home with that feeling yeah, yeah, it was really interesting to talk to Theo as he got a bit older and a bit of distance from the, from the situation, because I mean, the thing that happened, that was the last straw for us. There were lots of straws, but the last straw was when he looked at me and he said mum, you're just not doing your job, you're not keeping me safe, why are you putting me there? And I was like that's it. Basically, how can I answer that? And he, about a year later I think, he said to me it wasn't just that this little boy was hurting me so he would strangle him and he'd do it in blind spots of the playground quite cleverly, obviously quite a distressed little, little lad.

Essie Richards: 9:24

Um, but my son, theo, he said, um, it wasn't just that, he said it was everything. It was the way the teacher shouted at the kids, the way they had favorites, the way that there were things that were very confusing to me, why people got punished for things and some people didn't and some people did. He said I couldn't make any sense of it and it just wasn't safe. Basically, the adults weren't safe. When I told people I was getting hurt by this little boy, they didn't look after me. Um, actually what they did is when we said you have to do something, you have a duty of care for a child, they, they sat Theo on a bench, a very small part of the playground, and he said you've got to stay there so you don't get hurt by this other little boy. He can run around the whole playground with all of your friends, but you sit here so we can keep an eye on you.

Essie Richards: 10:18

So Theo was like and so then I was punished for, like, this thing that was happening to me, and he said you know, basically what he was describing is a very messed up system that, to a little boy who'd had quite a straightforward life with, you know, a fair degree of respect, um had gone into this place. That just was crazy and the rules made no sense, there was no logic, it was unfair, it was unjust. He saw his friends getting hurt and cry and you know he just he would come home and just be like, please, I cannot go back to that, and it was so interesting to hear that from a child's mouth. You know, like, we know that, but when you see the lack of sense and how that actually impacts somebody, it's just, yeah, it's just, it's really outrageous. Basically, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's just, it's really outrageous, basically, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 11:17

What's also interesting, I think, is how we hold that idea. We, the adults, because we were schooled. We rarely talk to adults who were homeschooled, so I suppose you weren't in school.

Cecilie Conrad: 11:29

I was schooled yeah, most of us were schooled. Yeah, and we hold this idea that this is a necessary evil. This is a fact of life. This is how it is, and you start when you're three, four, five, six something and uh, and then it's confusing in the beginning, but you figure it out and and then you spend your 10, 15, whatever I spent 23 years in school and then you come out and then you're educated and you need that. Yay, we have that idea. And at what point do we wake up and realize, oh, we don't have to do that. It's a little bit like we have this idea. You sleep in a bed, right? So first time one of my friends said yeah, I threw out my bed, I just I just have to take my sheepskin off the sofa and I sleep on that and I really enjoy it.

Cecilie Conrad: 12:27

I mean crazy. And then another one. He said to me yeah, I always do 50 push-ups before I go to bed because I have a hard time falling asleep, and then I just sleep on the floor, otherwise my back hurts before I go to bed because I have a hard time falling asleep and then I just sleep on the floor, otherwise my back hurts so I use the bed just to lay out my clothes and I thought wait. So I mean, there are many things that are like that. We think that's how it is yeah and the school is a big one.

Cecilie Conrad: 12:54

Now that I talk about the beds, maybe it's not such a big deal that some people choose to sleep in a different way. You can get your head around that. You might think it's a little bit crazy, but you're like whatever. But if you take your kids out of school, yeah, Everything stops, yeah.

Essie Richards: 13:10

Yeah, because we're conditioned by the school system, certainly in the UK, that if you don't, all these terrible things are going to happen. They're going to fall behind, they're not going to learn how to be amongst other people. You know, you're building a rod for their back. Someone said that to me at the nursery that Theo went to. You're what You're building a rod for your own back. Have you heard that saying before?

Jesper Conrad: 13:32

Like having a straight back. Yeah, like going to school, okay oh that's how you learned it.

Cecilie Conrad: 13:38

So you're blowing your spine basically because you kind of wait.

Essie Richards: 13:42

I think, if you, I think it's the opposite. It makes no sense to me, but they were basically like, if you pick up Theo when he's crying from nursery and take him home, you're going to teach him that that's, that's what will happen. And I was like, yeah, that's, yeah, that's like really good, right, I'm sad my mummy comes. And they were like, oh no, he's going to do that every day. And I was like, but if, but, if he wants to do that every day because he needs his mummy, then that's great that he knows how safe he is, that that's going to happen. They're like, oh well, he's just going to cry. And I was like, what you know? So before he even started, right, we were getting this sort of fear.

Cecilie Conrad: 14:21

Yeah, they're right, right. They're right to the respect that you can condition the child to learn that you know you're completely helpless, there's nothing you can do about your situation, so there's no point in complaining, right, exactly it's back to front right.

Essie Richards: 14:38

It's crazy and I think you know. And then you, you step outside that of construct. We didn't even believe in school. We, you know, before we started school we were like we don't believe in it as an institution, we don't like it. My and I, we worked with young people who were homeless, so they'd had terrible lives and had terrible experiences. We had both had awful experiences at school. We didn't believe in school at all, but we just didn't really understand the other options. And so we found this school that we thought, yeah, we can make this work. Maybe it's something about us, maybe we're just a bit hippie-ish or something. Maybe we can work. You know, we'll give it a go and it was.

Essie Richards: 15:22

It's so hard when you actually see the things that you had already seen, but your child goes no, it's really like this. And it caused us to really look at the things inside ourselves. Like you know fear of confrontation, fear of authority, fear of man, like for our son. We got over that shit stand up to school and be like no, that's not cool. But what was so interesting was how there was so much blaming of the victim, so much blaming on our parenting. This is probably your parenting. There's not really anything happening. Um, you're probably not doing it right. You're probably being too soft. Theo's probably a bit strange. Um, you know, it is really horrifying.

Jesper Conrad: 16:08

I think there's an interesting subject to dive into, which is resilience and how. How I think a lot of people use it wrong. I think everybody, every parent out there, wants a child that, when they come out into the world, is secure, is standing on a secure foundation of knowing yourself and that version of resilience, yes, but I mean all this. Just brush it off, you will get stronger. What doesn't kill you, hurt you, what doesn't hurt you.

Jesper Conrad: 16:49

What doesn't kill you. What doesn't kill you? Yeah, that's how it is. What doesn't hurt you will kill you, yeah. What doesn't kill you? Yeah, that's how it is what doesn't hurt.

Cecilie Conrad: 16:54

you will kill you.

Jesper Conrad: 16:56

Yeah, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, but it will also hurt you. But it's not fun getting hurt. Of course you can get stronger through it. Of course you can grow out of bullying and take something away from it, but that's not how you make strong people. I don't believe that committed, but that's not how you make strong people. I don't believe that. I believe that's how you make people who are fencing themselves in and protecting them against the world, and that is not strength.

Jesper Conrad: 17:23

In my world, the strength should be to be able to walk into the world like you are. And then what? How do you handle meeting people who are not nice? It's difficult because they are out there, and I take it personally sometimes and I can get sad if people are weird around me. But I think the best we can do for our kids is let them grow up in a caring, loving atmosphere. Them grow up in in, in a caring, loving atmosphere, where we, if they say it's not fun this, then just then. Don't just retort to. You will get stronger. You'll just get up on the horse again, get on and don't cry. You're a boy and all this stuff.

Essie Richards: 18:08

that was more common when we were young yeah yeah, yeah yeah, because what you're doing is you're teaching kids or people to deny parts of themselves, like I'm really hurting right now, no, you're not, okay, I has pushed that down and and deny that. And you're teaching them the messages that when I'm struggling and I share that with somebody, they're not going to listen, so so I just won't do that. So you're teaching them all these strange rules about connection and community and survival and you know like things that you just totally have to unlearn throughout your whole adult If you want to have any sort of authentic connection with people, or else you're just living out of all these wounds. So many of them happen, you know, at school. It's, yeah, it's so interesting.

Cecilie Conrad: 19:01

I just wanted to say that. That circles us back to the question at what point is it we stop? Yeah, think that this is a good thing, that this is an axiom, that this is how it has to be, that this is how it has to be, that this is just part of life. We have to do that, just like we have to sleep. We need a bed, otherwise we can't sleep. We kind of need a school, otherwise our kids can't grow up. And at what point do we stop? Because we all know it hurts.

Essie Richards: 19:31

We all know it sucks.

Cecilie Conrad: 19:33

We all know that the stories are about how the you know the fictive stories and the movies and the children's books how kids hate school. We all agree with that. Everybody hates it. Most people hate it to some extent and most people, if you talk to them, were hurt by it. Somehow they will tell you these stories if you talk to them as adults. That hurt and they got hurt and they had to work with that trauma to get over it to have a good life after.

Cecilie Conrad: 20:01

So my question is what? What happened? I mean, I heard your story. What's stopped you, your child saying I'm not safe. Why are you putting me there? It's your job to keep me safe. You're my mom and I'm not safe. Why are you putting me there? It's your job to keep me safe. You're my mom and I'm not safe.

Cecilie Conrad: 20:20

So that was maybe you're like stacking on other things. I get that and because you are who you are, something stopped you and we have a parallel story, basically, and and now we have listeners to this podcast who might actually have kids in school and the question is when do we stop and question the root problem? When do we stop and question the everything of this child's life? Could this be different. Why are we doing this? Is it right? Is it true they need the school to grow up? Why do we go so far? Why do we put the kids there for a year and a half? Why do we put them the next day, the first time they tell us that they got good? Why do we take them back? That's so. I mean it hurts to ask the question, but it's strange strange isn't it?

Cecilie Conrad: 21:15

if they were at a playground, let's say, and there was some rough surface somewhere, some really unsafe swing, that kind of always would unhinge and they would fall into a pond and almost drown, we would never go to that playground again and we would complain, yeah, but in the school we put them back, even though we know they get hurt. Why do we do that?

Essie Richards: 22:20

it's so, so complex. There's so many reasons, right? I mean, there's some people who just have to because their whole child care is based around school and they just don't have choices. And that's really painful and really hard. And the system's created around that, right to keep people in school so that children can go through school and be workforce ready, right, we understand that the system is created and designed for that and it's it's designed to make it very hard for people to live without it. You know, financially it's really really difficult to live without school. You're unsupported. If you're a single person, that's really tough, you know. If you're then on a one income, that's it's harder. It's harder unless you're in a fortunate position, you know, where one of you's earning quite well. So financially it is harder to live without school, definitely. You know we've made lots of sacrifices which we would make over and over and over and over again, but it the reality is it is harder. And then there's conditioning some people are just so entrenched in. I think we were lucky because we were already, you know, had deconstructed a lot of this stuff.

Essie Richards: 23:39

I'm neurodivergent, so I would always see through the system of things anyway. It didn't really make sense to me. I don't have respect for authority I never have had it just because I'm supposed to have it, whereas I see other people that abide by those rules of society where you're supposed to respect people in authority and they do. That's just what they do, and it's very jarring to hear that someone's not doing that to people, and so their tolerance for school is going to be much greater than mine was, which was pretty small really. Going to be much greater than mine was, which was pretty it was pretty small really. I've also met quite a few people who you know, even if they've been wounded by school and their families, they still think that it did them good. You know they haven't kind of.

Jesper Conrad: 24:27

I think that's an interesting thing. If you do something over, over, over and over and, over and over and over, then it's very difficult to stop up and say, oh, I shouldn't have done that, not to try to make sense of the choices we have made. You could turn it around and say, as we are doing, we are making sense of the choices we have made and is arguing that they were the right choices. And if I have had a child in school for that long time, I would argue that it was the right thing to do and see how well it went for her and stuff like that, because it is very difficult to, to, to grow and and say out stuff loud that we are sad that we have done um but isn't it also a good thing to look at the bright side of things?

Jesper Conrad: 25:26

yeah, yeah yeah, focus on the positive yeah, of course, because you can't't change what you have done. So we can only grow from the past.

Cecilie Conrad: 25:38

But there's also the present. Let's say we had our kids in school and it was a wobbly thing. I would still say it's a good thing to focus on the positive. It's just at some point maybe's not, yeah at some point I'm reconditioning myself. At some point I'm lying to myself.

Jesper Conrad: 25:58

Yeah yeah, I like. We have just been in the in england for from three months during the fall wonderful long time to see and explore the country, and one of the things you get to see is this, and I will make fun of england is like parents being like nah, I want my kid to grow up to be individual and learn a lot. Here's a school uniform so you look exactly like everyone else. I know, right, it baffled the shit out of me. I mean how was the uniform the uniform for us?

Cecilie Conrad: 26:31

I don't understand it.

Jesper Conrad: 26:33

I don't understand that people don't scream when they put their child in a uniform and they're like now you can be individual, together with all the rest who look exactly like you. Oh, how was it if you have this aversion towards school and then putting your child in a uniform and you've been raised to be like this is a proud moment how was it to do that?

Essie Richards: 26:58

well, it wasn't a proud moment for me at all. Um, I've always been a little bit of a had a different perspective, I guess, and you know I didn't like it. It didn't feel good to me even then. You know point, I felt the kind of stripping away of their ability to be able to express themselves, whether they wanted to or not. Um, and you know, certainly for my son that was really important, what he wore, how he felt in those clothes, sensory wise, was really important. And, um, there were bits of him that were kind of excited, like oh, I've got this uniform, and like you know, um, but he'd always wear like funny little socks to kind of like have a his own little expression going on. And, yeah, I didn't like it. It felt like a little, it felt like putting them in a little army uniform or something.

Jesper Conrad: 28:09

It felt very odd to me it makes me remind where you did a wonderful choice. But when we graduate high school in Denmark we buy a really ugly hat. No one likes to have on for more than that week after and everybody say congratulations and it's kind of army kind of style and I really hated it and I have a big ass head so I couldn't find one that fit and it looked really terrible at me. But at the same time you have been told during those three years oh here, this is the hat you wear when you are proud and finished. And my wife were more aware of herself than I was at that time.

Cecilie Conrad: 28:50

I wanted the exam because I wanted to go to university, and that was the only reason I was in what you call high school. Yeah, yeah. No, you don't call it high school in England, that's American. Anyway, we needed this preparation course. Everyone takes some version of it. I did it because I wanted to go to university and it's the only way to get in in our country. I didn't get it to get a hat.

Jesper Conrad: 29:12

No, I was pretty clear on that.

Cecilie Conrad: 29:16

Yeah, so I got into university, so mission accomplished.

Jesper Conrad: 29:20

Oh yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 29:21

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 29:23

How you said, when you put your son to school, you slowly saw the light dwindle and then he felt insecure about the, the bullying. How, how was it to take him out and and see him grow in the last eight years?

Essie Richards: 29:38

uh, they might it was quite a ride yeah, I mean, initially, that first six months was beautiful. It was like, oh my god, we got our boy back. It was so nice and it was so lovely. And there was, you know, just the pressure. You know, because it was very hard to get him to go to school as well he was. You know, it was painful, he'd be crying and I would just be in bits like what the fuck am I doing? You know, like this is ridiculous, this is insane, like this does not feel good in any which way. Um, yeah, so it was a big relief to not have to deal with all of that and to see him just chilled out and happy and playing, and um, and then we because we were decided to not go back to school and I, you know, I wasn't going to work, we had to leave London, so that was quite a big move.

Essie Richards: 30:30

Um, and while he was at school, he had had about three hours in the evening just these violent kind of outbursts where I think he was just processing all of this shit that had gone on in the day. It was terrible, we didn't know what to do. You know, we would just hold him as lovingly as we could, but I mean he would just be saying this stuff and he'd be drawing these pictures with like people stabbing each other and, you know, it was it, in a way, so good that he could express it and get it out. But we were like, oh my god, what is happening, what is going on? And, um, that didn't. That stopped in the first six months but then, after we moved, it started again and we were like, what, what, what are we doing? And at that point I was training to be have you heard of like hand in hand parenting? It's like, um, it's kind of like a really beautiful way to support parents when they get triggered by their parenting journey. So, giving them space to sort of process their big feelings, so that they can be more present for their kids when their kids are having big feelings, it's really beautiful. Um, and uh, yeah, so I was training to be a consultant for for them at the time and luckily, I got to speak to some of their people who had, like you know, been around for ages, and I was like, what is going on? What are we doing wrong? What's this all about? And they were really supportive.

Essie Richards: 32:02

Um, looking back, what I can see had happened was that he was just really burnt out. He was just so burnt out from school trauma but you know he hasn't had a diagnosis but I suspect he was also burnt out neurodivergently as well, just by the over stimulation of being in school. And so when we moved here, we had a couple of years where he refused to do anything. He got really into gaming, which was beautiful. He began this beautiful, incredible relationship with gaming and but that was good for us because it threw us right into the pit of fear that we needed to work through right. It was just like we didn't even have a telly before we moved to Cornwall and now our son is like gaming 24 7, doesn't want to leave the house, only wants to eat beige food. And we were like, oh my god, it's a difficult one it was hard.

Essie Richards: 33:00

It was hard but so good it was. I think I don't know. Maybe I'm the sort of person that needs it to be quite extreme to push them to make them look at all of their stuff, and it certainly did that. It was really de-schooling 101. But he was burnt out and he was also really upset that we'd moved here and you know we hadn't understood anything about respectful parenting, we just knew how we didn't want to do it. We were trying to clobber out a new version, but we hadn't been very great at the way that we'd moved.

Essie Richards: 33:35

We'd sort of gone oh we're going on a great big adventure, it's going to be brilliant, instead of saying how do you feel about this? What would that be like for you? How can we make it easier? This is the reason, you know, we didn't do any of that. We were just like it's going to be amazing, we'll buy you a scooter and it's gonna be great.

Essie Richards: 33:52

Just denied his feelings. So it just added school trauma, neurodivergent, burnout, total lack of autonomy and disrespect for his process and he was just like I'm just gonna do this thing that I can control, that, I can win at that, I can feel safe at that, I can control that, I can win at that, I can feel safe at that, I can choose to stop and start. And he was just like that was it for like two years. So that was hard, it was pretty brutal. And then he started to kind of, you know, take steps out of that and go to like little things and meet little friends and stuff like that, and I mean it's it's kind of a long journey. Our journey is a long journey because that coincided with as we de-schooled.

Essie Richards: 34:42

I think this happens to a lot of people. You start by de-schooling, sort of like this outer conditioning, don't you around education and institutions, all that stuff, learning, parenting and then it's like, oh, now I'm gonna look at all these things within myself, all these limits, all this pain, all this stuff, why I behave like that? You learn about autonomy, consent, respect, trust. I'm like I want to trust my kids. Oh, my god, I don't trust myself. And that threw me into a really sort of deep healing crisis.

Essie Richards: 35:18

So I I had CPTSD, which I'd had a lot of therapy around, but I think a little bit like we were talking about with school. I'd had intense therapy but it got me to the point where I could function and that was good enough in the eyes of the NHS and I thought that was as good as it got. So I was just like this is as good as it gets. I better just like do what I can with this. But then we entered this beautiful, authentic, deep journey into de-schooling and I was just like this isn't as good as it can get, like I need to understand and experience all these things for myself. So I started a journey of somatic experiencing therapy, which was quite brutal with young children, and it wasn't really a chosen thing. It was kind of something I had to do in order to continue, you know, living really. It got to that point. So Theo now had to see his mama go through, you know, two years intense pain, yeah yeah, I think it's really difficult.

Jesper Conrad: 36:28

Growing up as a person, and I mean it was somehow easier to just have your kids in kindergarten and you go to work and then someone else have decided what is good, and I think there is for me I think it's very difficult because you start questioning everything period, and I went through everything is wrong with the society, but also like I love the society, and then you start going into a oh, should I work on myself? And no, I shouldn't. Where do I?

Jesper Conrad: 37:10

start no, but that's also like a, the base of just getting life to run. You don't need to, I don't want in. In danish we would call it poking your navel. Uh, I don't know.

Essie Richards: 37:23

You have the same expression in english I think it's interesting what you said about like you know, you couldn't afford to navel, gaze and and, and I think that is true. But I think some people can't afford not to like. That was my experience. I couldn't afford not to like do that. I wanted to be here for my kids. I wanted to like, not pretend to have relationships. That was super. You know, superficially I could manage to hear, but underneath I'm like suffering. I was like I want the real thing, like you know, geez, like I'm not going to pretend, and so I couldn't afford not to do that work.

Essie Richards: 38:00

I didn't particularly want to, but and I think I've seen I've seen that with a lot of people that I think maybe unschooling is quite attractive. It sort of magnetizes people who want authenticity, who are sick of, like, the superficiality of stuff and the lack of community and the lack of understanding what it really feels like to be in their bodies and in connection with people. I think it really attracts people like that who are willing to do that it. I think it's quite brave work. You know, unschooling I don't think it's for the um faint-hearted. You know you've got to really be prepared to take stuff apart and really look at it and think do I want that? Or if not, how am I going to move through all that stuff to get to the other side? It's? I don't know. Has that been your experience?

Cecilie Conrad: 39:30

it clearly unravels a lot of stuff. I feel like we were pretty radical before, but of course this was taking it to what most people would say, the extreme level. Um, I'm just wondering if it has to be like that. I don't really know. I can, I can talk from my perspective and the people I met and there are just some people who don't really take no for an answer, who don't really. If someone says to you that is how it is they're like, but does it have to be like that, or are you sure, or is it always like that? Do I have to live with that um who are more ambitious on a personal level, um who just will not like accept the cap and say why, why did you put a cap there? What if I want more?

Cecilie Conrad: 40:25

or less, who also take you know, they're not like just functioning in there who will always try to do a little bit better or explore and try to do something new. There are some people who like to do what they always did and cook the potatoes exactly like grandmother did, and you know. But there some people who like to do what they always did and cook the potatoes exactly like grandmother did.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:48

But there are people who enjoy that. I think I'm just not like that and I don't have any friends who are like that, and my husband is very much not like that. So, yes, it attracts people like you described, but it also attracts, I think, people who are, or maybe at least it feeds that part of your personality that really wants to question things and that really wants to be ambitious and that can always come up with the question could we do this a little bit better? Could we do this a little bit in a more fun way, in a more beautiful way? In a more fun way, in a more beautiful way, in a more efficient way? Um, and of course you're right.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:34

First we do the deconstruction of the world around us and a lot of new ones. Schoolers have a lot of social critique and critique about the society and they talk about the history of schooling and we go back to Germany and the Volksschule, all these things, and I've done that, I still do it sometimes and it's fine. And then you take it to the other level, where it's oh, but what about my life, my family, my culture, my local community? What happened in in me and how? How do I arrive at the authentic point of view.

Cecilie Conrad: 42:07

Can I question my own way I function, and I think your rant started at a point of and we we've talked about that many times how, yeah, but we also have to stop at some point. We, we also have to just cook the potatoes, take out the Hoover, call grandma, take out the trash, make the money, pay the insurance, move on, watch the movie. Sometimes it's not a process, sometimes it's just life, and sometimes we just need to get things done and we need to get over ourselves. And it's not about me, it's actually about changing that diaper, washing those clothes, brushing the teeth, doing the things. My point is there is a practical level to being a parent and to being an unschooling parent as well, and sometimes just do the work. I think that's where you're like.

Cecilie Conrad: 43:08

I don't have to go out and make some money. I have to. You know I have my end of things I have to do and you know, suck it up and do it.

Jesper Conrad: 43:16

What I actually think could be fun was to turn back time, clone me and see one guy not going on as an unschooling parent and then the other going as an unschooling parent and then seeing how different would I have been because sliding doors yeah, because in reality, maybe all these experience I'm going through and maybe I praise unschooling and the choosing of not school more than it needs, maybe it's just part of becoming a 50 and being a parent and you learn by being a parent, so so I I maybe would I have been different maybe you've got.

Essie Richards: 44:02

Maybe you've got a bit beyond. I certainly feel like now unschooling isn't something we do. I don't even really think about it or talk about it. Really, it's sort of like just a way of being, like actually, theo has now chosen to go to school, but we're still unschooling, like that hasn't changed anything, whatever they do. It's just. It's really more about the way we relate to people and I think that's the luxury of being a little bit further along, like being 50, having maybe older kids. You've been through, you've done like that really hardcore work right, and you don't have to think about it so much. But I think there's a time where you have to think about it a lot, to wrap your little head around what, what, what is this we're doing? You know it's.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:46

It takes a lot but I think in our life, the life we share, it's also a question of it changes. So, of course, unschooling took center stage when that was the new thing, the new shiny object and and we had to like wrap our heads around what are we doing? And it took some time, and I still sometimes have to stop and think about what are we doing in these regions. They will always be relevant. Obviously, we don't get up in the morning and not go to school. That's not what we're doing. It hasn't been for more than 10 years. School that's not what we're doing. It hasn't been for more than 10 years. It's. It's not a thing any longer we talk about on the podcast, talk about when we meet new people, but we, we don't think about it that much. Obviously, I think that that's a few years down the line you stop thinking about it.

Cecilie Conrad: 45:41

But then it's other things. Then we move, move on. Then we start questioning other things. We start questioning oh, do we have to live in a house? Yeah, do we have to live in the same place? Is it a university degree, something you have to take on a university? Do we have to eat like this? Do we have to? You know, do I have to feel this way, it changes. But the base idea of the questioning and the I want to say ambition I don't know if it's the right word actually, but this, you know, pushing this I'm not settling. You know, I will always try to do it a little bit better. It can annoy my children and potentially my husband. Could we do a little more? Could we do it do a little more? Could we do it a little faster? Could we do it a little better?

Jesper Conrad: 47:23

and it's a wonderful balance between wanting to push life and get the most out of it without being unsatisfied with what you achieve. That that's a wonderful balance, then, that I think we have learned to master, and I still question myself if I push for this and I want this thing over here, do I remember to be grateful for where I am? Yeah, but I know if I'm not pushing, I would maybe go into like a stalemate of just routine. And there's a graffiti artist in Denmarkmark and he have made like with big ass white letters on a wall. In the translation it's anxiety marinated everyday routines, big letters on a whole wall, and I I love it because that is what terrifies me to make everyday routines based on a deep, deep fear in my life of I need to do it like this, otherwise stuff will break. I won't be satisfied. I love that graffiti artist. I want to hunt him down and interview him at some point.

Essie Richards: 48:32

I think like that thing, though. I think once you've deconstructed something, whether it's education or faith or race or whatever, you have this sort of blueprint, don't you? And then you seem to just certainly it's been my experience like then I seem to approach everything with that posture of like curiosity and wanting to look at it from every angle and just be like, oh, maybe there's a different way if that doesn't feel great or doesn't work for people or and I love, I love that, I love it just doesn't have to be that way if it's not working. Like I was gonna say before, when we're talking about school. So I have a, an agile learning center which is, um, it's really interesting because we set it up for unschoolers, right to build community for unschoolers. We're in rural Cornwall, there's not a whole lot of unschoolers, so I was like perfect, we'll do this and that'll be a way of meeting people and actually the majority of people there are kids that are unable to thrive in school. So they've, their parents have got a breaking point. Their children just can't go anymore, and I'd say pretty much everyone at Luna is neurodivergent if they've got a diagnosis or they're in the process of it. So there's that element that the school environment really doesn't work for most neurodivergent children. So they're like the canary in the coal mine. You know they're the first to like go no, and so they end up at Luna. And that's really interesting to me because over the last two years I've seen parents battling for support, financial support from the local authority to look after their kids, to get what they need and stuff, and often they have to go to tribunal to fight for it and things like this.

Essie Richards: 50:25

The local authority now are seeing these kids leaving school in droves, like they just can't deny it. It's not the odd one. I think it's got worse since COVID because people realise, oh, actually, maybe life without school isn't so bad right. Actually, maybe life without school isn't so bad right. Um, but instead of school saying well, kind of what they have done, the local authorities said, huh, luna seems to be providing support to these kids. They went, made us go through this quite laborious process and they pay a higher rate for kids to come. So they've sort of said it's an alternative provision, it's certified an alternative provision.

Essie Richards: 51:05

But instead of saying, the government now saying oh wow, school really isn't working for a lot of children, a lot of children seem to be leaving. What do we need to do to make us better? Maybe we could get the kids and the parents together, teachers together, and make some changes so that this environment help the children to thrive. No, they don't do that because they aren't. They don't have a root of love and care, they have a root of fear and control. So the only thing that they know how to do is to control people and fear and make everything fear induced. So what they're doing now is they're saying oh my god, all these kids are leaving. What are we going to do? How are we going to get them back in? Oh, we're going to bring out a new bill and make places like luna impossible and illegal, so they can't exist, and then those kids will have to go back to school. We're so clever, you know yeah, has it been.

Jesper Conrad: 52:05

Has the bill been approved? I know our friend randall is fighting a good fight it's a lot of people are fighting it at the moment.

Essie Richards: 52:14

And places like luna. There's a lot of places like luna, the Agile Learning Center writing in, you know evidence.

Jesper Conrad: 52:21

Has it been approved or not yet?

Essie Richards: 52:22

No, not yet.

Jesper Conrad: 52:25

No, no, but it is the challenge that a lot of places face, and I mean, there's countries where it's even illegal. It's illegal right but what.

Jesper Conrad: 52:34

I like is to take inspiration from our talk we had recently with Peter Gray, who say they are up to around 8% now that is being homeschooled, and as that is growing, then everyone knows someone who is homeschooled. And then there is this point where the tipping point, where it is not strange. It is not weird, everyone has seen someone do it. So the choice will be easier and I'm not fearful for the future because I live in this focus of sharing the information and helping to get closer to the tipping point. When we started in Denmark, we were around 10 families maybe, and now there's hundreds In Denmark.

Essie Richards: 53:17

It's still below 1%, I presume, but we are getting there, we're pushing, and then the world will follow, I believe yeah, I mean you have to keep imagining, right, you have to keep reimagining and, like the thing you were talking about, like you know, be grateful and not just sort of like, be complacent, so keep moving forward but be grateful for where it is. And I think, yeah, we need to get really informed by what um is going on, but keep reimagining, like what it can be, and see the ridiculousness of and the futility of that way of being. It's just not, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not going to last, it can't.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:57

Like, you know it can't, it's just getting more and more crazy maybe the good part about that bill pushing everyone back into the school system will be that it will be so much clearer that it doesn't work. Yeah, if you have all these little loopholes, these little ways of solving the problem, the canary um, everyone else have to survive being in the mines yeah, whereas if the canaries just keep dying in there and I suffer for all the kids who have to go to school every day, I don't think it's a good thing. But if we are looking at the bright side, then maybe that will be what makes it fall apart, what makes people take their kids out of school, and I, I totally, and I mean, if it's enough kids, then our society at some point will have to come up with something, I suppose, um, to provide for those who are not in school. At some point, the libraries will change and be more learning center-ish maybe.

Cecilie Conrad: 55:08

We have structures for this, we have museums, we have libraries, we have sports facilities with a lot of space and options for everyone, including children who do not spend their days in schools, and lots of these are owned by local governments. So this could change and become something that is. I mean, our kids have been ice skating while we've been in Denmark in a professional ice skating ring where you know it's play the ice hockey and stuff like that. They do the dances, but from 12 to 3 30 every day it's open for the public. But who's that? Yeah, who is it who is actually agreed to ice skate because it's only weekdays? Yeah, as it is open for the public.

Cecilie Conrad: 56:01

There is a facility for homeschoolers now, which is, in our little country, amazing, and what I'm trying to say is maybe we don't need all the individual kids to have their or not have their, or have to fight for their diagnosis, and every private individual family say oh, I lost my income, you have to help me. Maybe we have to set up a whole society that's ready for families for whatever reason. We don't have to be victims to choose to homeschool. We don't have to have anything wrong quote, unquote with us to choose to homeschool. We don't have to have anything wrong quote unquote with us to choose to homeschool.

Cecilie Conrad: 56:43

We just choose this and our society is ready for it because we have and we do have, we live in fairly rich countries we do have a library we can go to. I mean, it's not like it's not there and in our country it's still free. So there are some things, and maybe pushing the kids back into the schools, pushing the families to take the kids out of the schools, but holding on to the responsibility at home. Now it's my problem. Problem quote unquote will, if we get to a tipping point, enough families doing this will change the society instead, which I think is better. I mean, I'm not against your agile learning center, obviously, but I'm just saying yeah it's way better, it's more accessible, it's more available.

Essie Richards: 57:34

It's just normal. It's already there, normal, right, it's just normal. That's the thing. Because people always say, oh, oh, my gosh, it's so amazing, this environment, what. It's just normal. That's the thing. It's because people always say, oh, oh, my gosh, it's so amazing this environment, what it's doing for the children, and we're like it's not really like we're doing anything right, we're just being normal.

Essie Richards: 57:50

What our new normal is, and that's just like the basic. For me it doesn't feel that amazing actually, because we don't have a whole lot of capacity and resources to really make it amazing. But the but the basics is feels amazing because, comparatively, when you have an environment full of concern and respect and trust and self-direction, comparatively that feels amazing. But I can see that will become the new normal because, like you say, more and more people are hearing about it and understanding it and I meet more and more families.

Essie Richards: 58:26

I find this so exciting that didn't have to go to a crisis point to then go oh, there's unschooling. They're like hang on a minute, we're already respectfully parenting. School just does not align with our values. What should we do? Oh, we're going to unschool and they, they don't even get to that point. So already these are, you know, like people that I meet in the unschooling community that I host. They're like in their 30s and they're only so. They're only like 20 years younger than me, but they're way ahead of the game. You know, like, and I'm like, yes, what's the next like. And all our kids, you know, all our kids. They're not going to have to wade through this shit, it's, it's already creating a new normal, isn't?

Cecilie Conrad: 59:10

it.

Jesper Conrad: 59:10

It's unlikely we will have grandchildren in and I think that it's a wonderful place to start. I think that what you're doing, what we're doing, what a lot of people before us have done, is sharing about the opportunity of choosing something else, of going down the path of what feels right for us, and I think we should all just share it with the world so more could be inspired. There's a small quote from a guy called Ross Jackson I've worked together with, who have been in the ecovillage movement for 40 plus years and he's like 83 now. He said when he looks back at all the ecovillages out there, the ones that survived was the ones that didn't fought against but fought for something, and that is what I'm trying to do. In the start I was against everything because I was like needed a mental cross to step out of the everyday norm, but now I stand for something and hopefully more can choose this way.

Essie Richards: 1:00:19

So thanks a lot for your time.

Jesper Conrad: 1:00:21

It was a pleasure talking with you.

Essie Richards: 1:00:23

Thanks so much for having me. It's been lovely to meet you guys. You're doing great things. Thank you Likewise.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:00:29

It's been fun.