Da Ladies #11 | Does unschooling work?

00:00 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Welcome to episode 11 of the Ladies Fixing the World. We're going back to the first question I wrote down when we started the first episode, which is does it work unschooling? It's one of the questions we always get, or very often get, and the answers the answer's a question.

00:20 - Sarah Beale (Host)
I think the answer's a question.

00:21 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
Blowing in the wind.

00:22 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I was about to say that the answers are blowing in the wind. I think the answers is a question Blowing in the wind. I was about to say that the answers are blowing in the wind. I think the answers are several questions. So where do we start, girls?

00:33 - Sarah Beale (Host)
Only because I know that there'll be someone pedantic listening to this. I just wanted to say that song isn't from the 80s and it's not a pop song. But let's move on then. Sorry.

00:44 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It could very well have been very nice I could have. I could have let that go.

00:51 - Sarah Beale (Host)
I could have let that go, but I am raising at least two children who are head ants about certain things. Okay, whatever, so is it? So it's funny. You know, we're all in lots of different um, unschooling, homeschooling, world schooling groups. Of course, on Facebook right communities, we're all involved in those like chat groups, and most days of the week there will be a post that does start something like it works, and then the parent goes on very proudly to talk about the thing that their child did.

01:22
That proves that it works, which makes me smile. I mean, I always feel very pleased for parents that they can bask in some kind of comfort, that they feel like they're doing the right thing, because I do think that that can be important. But also it always just triggers something in me that says, oh, we're still needing to break down the performative aspect of our jobs as unschooling parents. Sometimes, if we're looking for something that says it works, potentially, although we do want to be comforted that we're doing a good job, because that is our job, we also don't want to kind of lapse into that old programmed response of there must be a performance, there must be a demonstrated outcome, which is actually almost, you know, contra to the philosophies of unschooling, in my opinion.

02:21 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So really the question does it work? Is part of the problem. If you're still asking that question, maybe you need to do a little more inner work. That's what you're saying, basically, I agree, but I get really curious because I don't follow social media. How do they look these posts? So what is it when a parent says really proudly, it's working? What's working Is it still the performances on the academics? Like, so I've been unschooling and now my child knows about Egypt. Or I've been unschooling and he's reading yes, it works.

03:01 - Sarah Beale (Host)
My child's finally staying up all night gaming.

03:08 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
Yes, I think sometimes there's a bit of like along the same lines, but it'll be like my child's going outside, even if they can, you know, stay on the screen or whatever. Or my child is eating vegetables, even if they're allowed to have ice cream. I mean, that's the same sort of like also with non-academic stuff, but yeah.

03:33
Social norms or accepted norms yeah, absolutely yeah, oh, oh, exactly, and like parental expectations too, I guess I I always think, like, when that question comes up, like does it work? Like immediately I always think you know what do you mean by that? Like it's the first question. Really, it's like I don't know. Like someone did ask me, like recently, like if my kids maybe would like disprove some of all of the you know, like negative ideas, maybe because my kids are almost all grown and I'm a bit like, well, I don't know, I don't know if they can.

04:19
Like, that really depends what you think of as a success. Like will someone look at my kids and say, oh, they were on school their entire life and, yeah, look at them, they're fine. I don't know if people will say that that depends. Of course they're fine, but whether, like whether they live up to someone's expectations about what a success looks like, I couldn't say I mean that really I don't know. If someone is very into academics, for instance, and looks at my kids, none of whom have chosen to go any sort of formal education route, well then I guess I mean you could say, if you had that view, someone could say, nah, that didn't really work out, did it? Because they didn't end up at that place, but it really all depends, so we're back to the whole.

05:23
Well, that's because there's some kind of specific idea behind the word work. So I don't know. I think it's interesting because it's really really really hard to discuss whether something works and we all have our own like. We touched a little bit on it, I think, also in the episode about conflict, because it's the same thing. Is this a conflict or not? Is this, like, we all have our different? And so for me, for instance, just in a general way, I think my parenting and my home life and my relation with my kids work when we're all like happy and chill and like each other. I don't. That is like a message of success for me, because, well, I don't know, because it is so, so, but so so yeah, when it's like that it, it works. And if you know, when there's like strife or or we annoy each other, I'm like things don't really work right now, because for me that's kind of a, but it doesn't mean that the approach as a whole does not work but it's more to like try to, yeah, get a little bit into the whole.

06:25
What do we mean by the word work, and when something works or not? So I don't know if I'm making any sense. This is so early and I'm not strong enough.

06:37 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think you're making a lot of sense. Thank you, and I'm pretty sure we could all use more coffee, but we always can, right.

06:49 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
Yeah, it doesn't work without coffee.

06:51 - Sarah Beale (Host)
See, that's the thing, nothing works without coffee the word right, I mean, I guess you could look up the definition. But when you're thinking about something working, you're thinking about whether the thing is fit for the purpose. That's it that it's intended. So my coffee pot works because all of the pieces work to support the function of the machete of the pot and then I get the outcome that I wanted. If, um, the filter, not the filter, if the seal, uh, disintegrated, as they do sometimes on the between the two pieces, the seal disintegrates, the coffee pot doesn't work.

07:31
And you might not know that until you go to actually halfway through the brew and then coffee is going to be coming out everywhere. There's going to be little grains in the. You can't drink it right, and then you're like, oh, that doesn't work. But the way, the only way you can use that term doesn't work or it doesn't work is if you already have a presupposed idea of what it's supposed to be at the end. So the very question, does it work? Means that already there's an idea of what the outcome is supposed to be, and really what we're doing within unschooling as unschooling parents because our kids are just living and arguably we're the ones that are doing this up here is breaking down the question of do we actually need to have a presupposed outcome in our mind? And if there is going to be one, it's probably going to be actually very, very different to kind of the mainstream idea of of how a child is going to turn out at 18 when they leave school. Because with school, arguably with school, there is absolutely this is a product.

08:43 - Carla Martinez (Host)
This is a product that you can get and it's measurable and it's very specific, yeah, that's right.

08:50 - Sarah Beale (Host)
And and for something to work, for you to know it's worked, it has to be specific. It has unschooling and you ask does it?

09:00 - Carla Martinez (Host)
work. Yes, it works. I mean, this is unschooling. Anything works. Yeah, it's like you don't have these preset, preset expectations. The only expectations you have is that your kids and your family can operate. I don't know how to say like you can function, you can find solutions. And maybe you are not always happy, like Luna said. Like because, for example, for for me, I see I guess you also see it this way but when there are problems, you can go through them and it's fine. You know you will find a solution, you will make it work. So that's unschooling, it's working.

09:59
It's different that you feel uncomfortable, you don't know what to do, because you always think you have to be doing something, because then it's like you are not productive or you are not learning. So everything is inside. It's not inside. It's like the way we are looking at it, what we are waiting for, something for, results or everything. Yeah, we want result. The result is that we all are growing, our kids are growing and we are all learning, but we don't have a list of ticks, just the normal. Now, look, they can walk. Now they can get dressed by themselves or they can make a sandwich, I don't know, but we these are like simple things you maybe can expect, but then they do others that they are not in our list. We don't know. They are new.

11:01
Greta now is doing uh, videos in TikTok and it's like it's a challenge not that she, that she makes videos and on TikTok, because I like that, it's the kind of videos because she play a game that I don't, it's new for me. So she makes stories she recorded and it's like, oh, okay, it's like I cannot put, uh, this is good or this is bad or this is, I don't know. It's just what she's doing, yeah, and from that, yes, I can maybe extract something she's doing. Okay, she's making um script. I don't know a script like the things you're gonna say the story. She has to record it and then she has to learn how to you know how to operate with the app and if it's social I don't know accepted or not, or if it's correct, you know the response maybe he will have from the video or how she feels about it. So, yeah, okay. So I think that does it work? Yes, it's working, even if you think it's not. Does it work? Yes?

12:25 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
it's working, even if you think it's not. That's the thing, because when you think too much about it, I mean, I don't know, I yeah. I always kind of like to say that, well, unschooling does it work? It always, unschooling always works. Because it's not supposed to work Like that's the whole thing. It's not because it's not a method to get somewhere, to get a specific result. So it always works because it's more like a, like you were saying, sarah, it's like a lifestyle or like a way of looking at life. It's a way of like understanding human relations and interactions and looking. It's like a worldview more type thing, so, so, so it's like, yeah, of course it always works, because you can't talk about whether it works or not because it precisely doesn't. It's not a coffee pot.

13:09
It's like yeah, so so, but we're actually cheating massively yeah it's still so interesting because that idea of whether something works is just so, like, so inherent in society, I guess, because of how our society is built, and that, like everything we've all said, is that evolves around that whole freeing yourself from these expectations of what should be or could be, or etc. And trying to like learning to look at what is and what's going on, and it's like being in that, the whole. You know, yeah, being in the present, going with the flow, like observing, like I know, sarah, you love, you love to talk about the, the whole thing about observing. Um, yeah, looking at what is what, what's actually going on, what's happening, and then, yeah, then we, then we go with that and we deal with that instead of what, what we want or what should be happening. I'm rambling again.

14:27 - Sarah Beale (Host)
Someone, please take the mic, yeah, so what came to mind when Carla was talking about the TikTok videos or you know, whatever the format is short form video, and I mean one or two of my kids loves to make videos too, and actually Violet has got the last several years of her life documented, our lives documented, which they're not published anywhere. And I sometimes say to her so this is the part of me that obviously still needs a little bit of work. I'm like you are so funny, you should like go on TikTok, you would like people would love this shit, and like you'd be like a millionaire Cause. I'm like like you've made all these videos, they're so good, you should, and you should do something with them. And she's like no, I don't want to. Um, that wasn't what I was going to say.

15:14
When you're um, when you're not using your brain and your energy to measure the performance and to write down what the outcome is supposed to be, then you're free. Your energy and your mind and your heart are free to see what your child's doing and to share in the joy of that with them. So, instead of looking at them and I am, I still, even though it doesn't, it's not something that comes up for me. Of course, I live in the world and so I do know what other parents think. Sometimes they tell us right, but also I can see making short form videos or doing things, playing games, doing things that some parents think has no value. When I see my kids do it and I see that they're having fun and then they share to us what they're doing and they're excited because they've learned how to do something right and they tell us the thing that they're doing, I know that other parents would be going what a waste of time. What is that achieving? What's that going to? What's that going to lead to? So I know that that's the thing that people think.

16:17
I don't have that thought, so I'm free to just have the conversation with my child right and go oh, that's amazing, that's really cool. And they're free to tell us what they're doing and no part of their brain or energy is worried about any judgment. No part of them is saying oh, I can't tell my mum or my dad that I've been working on this thing because they're going to think it's stupid. They don't think that. They know that we're going to think it's fun whatever they're doing.

16:50
So then they can come and show us the thing and then we can all go, wow, that's really cool, even though the rest of the world just thinks we're doing nothing, and it's so freeing to be able to share in that stuff with your kids that everybody else probably thinks is a complete waste of time. And we know it's not right because Because they're telling us what they're doing and they have literally no shame about how they're spending their time. Imagine that. See, we're talking about fixing the world. Imagine, right, if we're actually raising a whole generation of humans who, when they grow up, are going to know inherently that they are not wasting their time, that everything they do has value and everything about them has value.

17:25 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Imagine that right, that would be great. I'm afraid that even though we have a lot of children together, it's not the entire generation.

17:37 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
It has to stop.

17:39 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
The ripple effects, they might become real. It only takes a few people to change the world. We have to believe that, otherwise we might as well not have that morning coffee. It's not good to get up. Believe that, otherwise we might as well not have that morning coffee. It's not good to get up.

17:55
I'm thinking this question does it work? Of course I came with that question when I arrived to unschooling in some form, and I remember being pretty annoyed with the answers the answers that I'm now contributing to, all of this blowing in the wind, bullshit about values and and respect and other things happening, and so I want to say two things. So now I'll just pick one and do it really fast. So the whole academics thing that we have in our heads when we arrive because we still have the idea of the curriculum and kids have to learn this, that and the other yes, it works. That's the short answer. It works when they're 15, they can all read, they all know about the world, they know some math, all the things. It's not like. I mean, it's just a byproduct. I've never met an unschooled child who's a mid-teen child that would be done with the basic schooling who doesn't know his way around. I mean, it's not like. So the short answer really is yes, yes, it works. And so you might as well just hang that question, you know, put it somewhere in the garage and forget about it. The whole academic thing yes, it's going to work. Just let go of that.

19:19
The other thing is that I will admit here in this little group of of safety, that I have a lot of agenda with my unschooling of my children. It's just very, very different from the idea of the curriculum. So with my, I don't, I don't have a, I don't care whatever, and it always works because it's not supposed to work. It's just other things, I think, for me unschooling, what I want to work, what I'm looking for. I have a specific outcome idea. Actually I want my children to be. I want them to have a solid moral, to have spent time thinking about values and ethics and you know how to navigate life, and I want them to come out in the other end with some experiences in this field, standing strong on their feet, knowing how to work with life when it happens, and to be able to take that helicopter and think about what's the big picture here and what are my moral standards or my ethics ideas about this situation. What has gone wrong in the history of mankind, what's going wrong all of the time around me, and how will I contribute or not contribute to that?

20:47
And I think unschooling, with all the time we have on our hands to spend with our children and the trust that we have and the way they actually do want to talk to us or other people about what's going on, ensures that they have time to think about these things. I don't have an idea what that moral standard has to be. I'm not shoveling an idea or a religion or anything down their throats. I just want them to have that, and I have to look at my notes now because I actually took notes. I also want them to have experience with relationships, to be able to handle relationships in a solid way, where they can stay with themselves but also be in the community of other people, because I think that's one of the most important cornerstones for a healthy life and I want that for my kids. So I have an agenda. I do. I admit it. Maybe you'll shoot me and say I'm not an unschooler, but I do. I think it's really important, but I don't give anything I couldn't say without a swear word about. You know math or whatever, grammar, I don't care, but these things I actually really care about them and I think that unschooling is the way to arrive at young people who feel confident with these things. Also, they've they've had some spiritual. Maybe they're thinking is there a bigger picture or not, and what's my relation with that? I want them to have time and space for that in their life. I want to introduce them to the options out there and I want them to just grow with this without judgment.

22:32
Um, I also want them to be able to be vulnerable, which I think is really hard if you grow up in these socially constructed, fake social groups of school life where you have to spend your entire childhood confined in the framework of people you didn't choose. So I think it's too hard. It's not impossible, but it's very, very hard to be emotionally and personally vulnerable if you live that life and I think without that vulnerability it's hard to be present in life. You're in this kind of stress response all the time and and there's not space to feel the wind and your cheeks and and your heartbeat, and I know it sounds like a super hippie style thing, but okay, whatever. If they're not, they don't have experience with being vulnerable and surviving that. Sometimes it hurts life, but you go back to the vulnerability anyways.

23:39
Then I think a lot of lived life will be lost, even after the school time, where we steal all of that lived life and put them in this weird box of school. But even after, when they have some freedom and they're young people, they don't have the ability to stay in the moment and to actually feel what they're feeling, and I think that's very sad. So I have the agenda with my unschooling that my children know how to move between a stress response or just a focused whatever i'm'm not feeling I'm from here up to the vulnerable, emotional, present life in the moment, which can be hard sometimes, but that's where the juices of life, in my opinion. So I have that agenda too. Here you go, I have a lot of agenda. To be honest, there is a lot of outcome actually that I want. It's just more feely, thinky, weirdy, blowing in the wind kind of thing, and I think it works but that's a really interesting point.

24:45 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
I mean I I love listening to that because it raises the question the whole. I mean can you live without like, can you free yourself entirely from expectations? Because that's also um, about, again, about what. What does that word mean?

25:00
what do we mean with the word, when we say it so it's just really that's very interesting because, yeah, I mean, obviously, even even if I just say, oh, I just want us to be happy and chill together, that that's an expectation, that's an outcome that I'd like, of course it is so and at the same time, you know, I'll say, oh, unschooling is about letting go of the outcome, the attachment to outcome, and blah, blah, blah.

25:24
But I guess maybe that's the thing, the attachment to it. So I know you just said that's very, very important for me. Obviously I also, I think we all have things that are very important to us, um, but but I guess maybe, yes, some of it has to do with the whole thing about how, how attached we are to an idea or or in what way we are attached to it, because I guess that's that can. That can cause a lot of trouble. When someone is too attached to an idea and the other person let's say our child does something else and does not conform to that and we aren't getting that result or that outcome that we were attached to, then, yeah, how do we navigate in that?

26:18 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think, of course, the difference also is that I have these ideas and I think the strategy of unschooling will help us arrive at the point where we were. These values, this is my personal values and my idea about the good life, and I want my children to have a good life. Like all parents on the planet, I have the idea that this is the base of the good life, not the question of how many languages they speak or whatever. So I have this idea, but I'm not married to it. If one of my children shows up and says but to me this is not really important, I want to do a go I z, then of course my job is to support that or have a communication about it or see if we can find some ground somehow, because as long as they're my children, they're sort of under my wings. It's also my parental responsibility to have an opinion. I I'm not supposed to be, you know, to have an opinion. Of course I have an opinion. I'm not. I don't think unschooling is about me not being a person.

27:24
I have to have an opinion, and I do have an opinion about the good life and I'll share it with them. But of course, if they come to me and say all that feely bullshit, I don't want any of that, go away, we're not. We're not meditating, we're not breathing, we're not whatever. I just, I just want you know whatever something. I haven't tried it so I don't know what they would say. They want it instead, but I'm not married to that outcome and I'm not going to insist on it until I drop dead. But I will stop my dog from howling, so you have to continue.

28:02 - Carla Martinez (Host)
I have a new phrase here, like does it work? It works for the kids, but maybe not for the adults.

28:11 - Sarah Beale (Host)
It works for the kids, but maybe not for the adults, yeah, well. Well, if the adult is holding tight to a specific desired outcome and that's not congruent with what the child wants, then there's, there's going to be, like the, the friction. I guess you know the conflict that we were talking about before, like in a previous episode. Um, that's probably really what we were all meaning by conflict, and it's kind of related, isn't it? It wasn't really necessarily the fact that someone's having an argument or slamming a door or someone's a bit cross or whatever. That's not really conflict to me. It's more about there, there's this idea here and there's this idea here, and they're they're not the same, and so there's that. You know, um, and that if, if one person has an idea of what working is supposed to look like and the other one has a completely different idea, um, and both hold resolutely to those opposing things, um, then you can't, you can't come together. You, you know you can't come together. You know you can't come together. And if unschooling is about relating and relationships, then that then becomes impossible.

29:18
I feel actually like those things that, cecile, you kind of listed off, are all things that I think are actually just human. I think they're innately human. So I've never thought that I specifically want them, because I think I just assume that they happen, which I see that they do when the environment allows for it. So you know you were talking about space and time, having time to think who am I in the world? That's what our children have. They have time, however much time they want to think about how do I relate to others?

29:53
what's my place here? How do I? It's so hard to talk about one thing without talking about another. But you know, we've also talked in some episodes about early attachment and we've talked about how. I'm sure we have talked about it, uh, but I think about it a lot, even if we haven't. If we were to compare once again what we're talking about and how we live to a very typical schooled child's life who gets rushed through those early years where they're supposed to be building mastery and their nervous system is settling via attachment with their parents, which really goes, should go for a very, very long time, but for most children goes till they're like two or three and then they get put somewhere. So then already at two or three, before they've even fully been able to express their thoughts, they already have that time stolen from them. They don't have hours and hours a day to think and to see what's my place in the world? What happens if I do this? What happens if I talk to that person over there? What happens if, whatever? They don't have that time, so they miss that. So then all they have is the prescription. So then of course, school gives that prescription right. Here's the outcome.

31:15
So all the things that are on your list is the. They're all things. I personally think they are all things that are part part of being human. But we do have to make sure that the time and the space and the environment are such that those natural human elements can be, can come out, can be nurtured. Because I actually do believe and I talk about animals quite a lot in the same, because I'm hearing all these birds outside right now. In the same way, the birds are not thinking oh, what are my values today? What am I going to do? They don't, they're not thinking about that and yet they're living in them because they're born into being a bird and they've had time to to learn from their mum bird how to be a bird. They just know it right. So I actually think humans do just know this stuff, if the environment's right well, isn't that interesting, because if the environment is right, so you are.

32:00 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
If you're saying, then aren't you that? Well, it could not work, because if the environment isn't there that won't work.

32:07
So we're just circling back to the whole it's. It's so interesting because it's really possible that, like it's, it's very easy to talk about whether something works in a different sort of mindset or conceptual framework, because you can say, oh, we want this result, are we getting it or not? Does it work, yes or not? You know really the coffee pot, but. But when you're outside of that framework and it just becomes so complicated it you really can't. It's very complicated to talk about whether it works or not.

32:44 - Sarah Beale (Host)
I think because of all this, yeah, because to me it just it leads to this question of what is it? What is it to be human? And do we know? Because, if you're looking at most of the examples in the world, many examples of people where maybe we would question elements of ethics or morality which is judgmental as well, of course, isn't it to look at another person and suggest that they're not living a good life because they're not living the way you would live? So that's that's confusing to my brain as well, because one of the things I guess I do strive for is to not judge how others live.

33:23
And yet I am human, as Cecile said. So we have an opinion about that. Um, and everybody in the world, every human in the world, is a human. They're all living as a human, and we're only ever living within the scope. Far out, my brain's going to explode. We're only ever able to live within the scope of human experience. So if someone's doing it and they're a human, then it's human. So then that does bring us back to what are the desirable elements of being human. So I guess we do want it to work. Man, I think I need to make another coffee you're muted did you want to say something, carly?

34:05 - Carla Martinez (Host)
yes, about the. You were talking about the like the, I think, correct environment. If the environment, it's okay for something to happen, blah, blah, blah. But I think we have the power to create environment or to look for environment. I think this is what I've been doing the last six years. I'm I'm going a bit in the in the world of traveling, because families that have kids and do different education and they just travel and visit and at some point they say, oh, how do you meet families? And for me, for the first day, it's one of the least. Maybe I don't have a written agenda For me, it's more, like Sarah said, I think I'm naturally look for those things and I found myself from the beginning where is, where are the people?

35:03
I'm looking for something. I didn't really know what I was looking for exactly, but I was looking for something and then I found it, I found those people, I found you and I found people doing, oh, this exists or this is doing that, so, and then from that I just know you just look for the, the correct, I mean the environment that allows you to be blowing in the wind, you know. So I think we are privileged, not only for choosing the way we want to live. But if we don't have it like just right next to me, I will go and look for it. I will create it Like at some point I will make a call hey, I'm doing this. Oh, I don create it Like as a point I will make a call hey, I'm doing this. Oh, I don't know. We have also a speaker to say okay, we're doing this here, I live this way so people can reach you, so you can connect with people, you can create things with people and you learn and keep on growing people and you learn and keep on growing. So we I think we can create the and that comes with the.

36:24
Every person. Uh, how do you say in english like character, how, how you are, because not everybody have the strength or the energy or the creativity, or so it's not the same for everybody. If you have a next to you people that is like no, you cannot do this, or it's difficult, or you are crazy. Also, how do you react or take these things depends on the person. Maybe you just do nothing, or you just fight and you go another way, or you keep on searching, or so it's not the same for everybody Because of the environment and how you are from the beginning. But I think we have the power to do things and change and search for it.

37:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
But that's the thing. Once you start unschooling, it's like unraveling everything. You realize, oh, I could question this and I could question that and I could do everything in a different way. So that happens to most unschoolers that I've met, at the very least that once you go down that line, you realize, oh, I could also have my social life in a different way. Oh, I could also have my living conditions in a different way. Oh, I don't have to do all these things that that are lined up as this is how you live life, and we realize we don't have to do that right. So I mean, even if you don't have the idea of traveling, maybe you have another way of doing things in an alternative way that will work for your family.

38:11
I wanted to go back to whether we get to judge if other people have a good life or not. At the end of the day, we don't. Everyone should make that decision, of course, for themselves. I think that's pretty obvious, that we believe that. But then, on the other hand, there is a lot of non-thriving people in the culture that we share in the western world. This is measurable problems. It's solved with pharmaceuticals. It's clear that lots of young people have a lot of problems and we see adults with, uh, divorces, and of course, of course, you should divorce if your marriage sucks, but a lot of divorces come from just not, I think, not having enough time to work with a relationship or or I don't know. I'm not going that way, I think.

39:13
But I think as a culture, that we see the numbers going up, that people split up, families get broken like that and, and we see the depressions, we see the stress reactions, we see the anxiety, we see all the tablets that people take. We see young people coming out of school Hardly, you know, so does it work? Also being the question does school work really? What is the product of school?

39:41
Even within the framework of what school wants to measure, they actually have problems arriving at a point where they have young people who can enter more education in a confident way, who can read and write and keep on studying. They failed their own project to quite a big extent if we look at the numbers. So, no, maybe we don't have all the answers for everyone. Yeah, maybe we don't get to judge too much, but, on the other hand, there are some facts out there that we can look at, and and unschooling is an alternative. Our idea, shared idea I'm pretty sure I can say that on behalf of all of us is that this is another way to do it that most likely is better. I mean, we do believe that, don't we?

40:36 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
I think it's an interesting one, the one about judgment, because I mean I agree, I mean it's like we shouldn't judge or we don't want to judge, etc. In that way because once again which I love it's like looking at what does what does the word mean? What do we mean by it? Because we have to judge, because judging is clearing your own values, like and or positioning yourself, making sure you can't make choices if you aren't judging. I mean it has to like. I don't know.

41:12
Someone cooks something. I eat it. I make a judgment about whether I like it or not. That's, that's a judgment. So we can't, we can't position ourselves and we can't live our lives and and know what we mean, know what we think about things, unless we judge. Um, but then there's judgment, which then then involves I don't know stigma and like voicing maybe the opinion like I don't have to tell the person who cooked the dinner that I don't like and I've now made a judgment that, oh, I don't like this food. I don't have to tell them, and even if I do tell them, I don't have to like, punish them by saying, oh, I'm never going to come to dinner at your house again, or is this kind of a weird example, but it's kind of like there's different ways to judge and like the biblical do not judge you know, because well, yeah, because that was a lot about, you know, throwing stones at people and things like that, and it's.

42:07 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
that's a different way of judging than just the very personal where I'm staying in like my space and I'm judging for me what I think and what's important for me, and I think we absolutely have to do that, or like that's a good thing to do from myself but also there's the humility that, knowing I make this judgment this is my assessment of the situation could be the meal, could be the world as it is, the world that we're trying to fix. This is my assessment. I might be wrong and I think judgment goes really wrong If we get too married to the idea that we're right and what we're doing is the only right way to do it. At least we can have that idea that we might be wrong. We might be right in most cases but wrong in some cases. Or we might be right but not have all the nuances. We might be right but not have all the nuances.

43:16
I'm thinking about the project human library, because the the initiative guy, the owner of the project, is a friend of my husband's, so we've been around that project ever since it started and he says we all do so. This is a tolerance project where you you can get to talk to people who have some characteristic and if you have an idea that all jews are idiots, then you can get. You get to talk to a jew and maybe meet a real person and that might nuance your perspective. Or that obese people or black people or people with piercings in their face or whatever. You have these ideas about people and and you can um in the human library. He says he has all the books are people and you can borrow a book, a person with certain characteristics, and you get to sit down, talk to that person for half an hour and maybe you're smarter after. But but he says that of course we all make judgment. We all make social judgment. We have to make social judgment. It's part of our safety system. We have to kind of feel is that person holding a knife behind his back or not? And of course we make those social judgments on the base of characteristica that we see, because that's all we have in the first 10 minutes when we meet someone. So of course we make judgments and we have to do it.

44:38
The thing is, in order to have real tolerance and to be nuanced in our perspective, we also have to know we might be wrong. So this is just a surface assessment. Most people with this kind of clothes are gang members. When I meet them in this area of San Francisco, let's say so maybe I don't walk up to them and kick them in the face that would be a bad idea or tell them what to do, whatever. But I might be wrong, that might be someone else, and I think, with our judgment of everyone else, we're unschooling and we think we're doing the right thing and everyone else should take their kids out of school as soon as possible and all these things, all the ideas that we have, it's just a healthy point of view to know that we could be wrong or there could be more to the story that we haven't figured out yet.

45:29
We thought about this for maybe 15 years. In the perspective of everything, 15 years is not that long. And four girls okay, not that many people, even though we might have read some books and you know so. I think this just be a little humble when we make judgments and still stay open-minded and talk to those tiger moms from China who do all the education and all the things and hear their perspective. I think that's the healthy point of view. And then, of course, we have to have an opinion, otherwise we can't move. We lost Luna Too bad.

46:18 - Sarah Beale (Host)
Yeah, I think that for me there's a distinction between discernment and judgment, and I'm not saying I'm right about it, but that's just how I sort it in my brain. If I'm discerning something, it's as a bird does when they decide if they're going to eat a particular berry or not, because one of them is toxic to them and one of them's not. Uh, so we do that. We sort like, oh, is that for me, is that thing for me or not? And obviously we're all going to be different about that. Um, and then the judge, the judgment. For when I think about judgment, I think about then assigning a good or a bad label to something which can't. I don't personally believe things can have a good or a bad label, but I do think something could be for me or not, or not for me right now, or not, yeah. And so yeah, I agree, cecile, like we've got to maintain this level of questioning, always questioning and never, ever knowing all the answers, because seasons change too. Something that can be really bad right now might be really great in 10 years' time. And so if we close our mind to everything and we are so totally like, doggedly resolute about something, then we close ourselves off to all of the other opportunities, which really is almost the opposite, again, of being self-directed, because being self-directed means that we constantly have our senses on to be attuned to the changing environment, so so that if something needs tweaking in the environment and you know, in a garden, if something needs tweaking, when a tree starts not looking very healthy, there's some kind of imbalance in the soil. So then you're like oh, I need to tweak something in the soil, or maybe that tree needs some more water, or maybe the soil is too, too heavy in clay and I need to put something else in the soil to just loosen it up so that the water can penetrate the roots. It's that's how I think of it and that changes all the time. A different season, different rainfall, something different in the rain, the tree looks slightly different the following year. So we're always just like tweaking and adjusting at the foundations, and then what goes on at the foundations naturally affects what goes on, like up here. So all of those like the values, the ethics, how we want to live as a family, that so all of those like the values, the ethics, how we want to live as a family, that's all down here in the soil and then we see the evidence of it, because I guess we are.

48:40
We're looking for evidence still, even though we're saying the idea of it working is is ridiculous. But still we're looking other leaves, looking the way they should look. Is the fruit good? Is there some imbalance of like a bug or something? Is there a bug living in the tree that shouldn't really be there in in that bigger quantity and it's ruining the fruit? So then we're like oh okay, we gotta fiddle down here at the. Can you see my hands at?

49:05 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
the soil I'm fiddling with the soil so I don't get to judge, I don't get to say that we should just close all the schools.

49:20 - Carla Martinez (Host)
I don't know if I understood, but I mean because I think that I judge, like Luna said before and even now Sarah say, like I don't put that if this is good or bad. No, but this is like very like he, like conscious, like I say, I'm not gonna say if this is bad or good, but for me sometimes I feel it here like I and it comes from here, so it's like, oh, I don't like this, and then I put, I can put words and maybe I'm making a judgment, maybe for me, but I have to, as Cecile was explaining, because I have my references in life, I have to put the things at some point. But what I have analyzed in me, my case is like when I don't like something or someone, or I feel uncomfortable or in conflict with their ideas, it's only a matter of time to just be exposed to this situation, person and me trying to put put different perspective till I change and I can like get, make bigger. I don't know it. I would say they make the space for this person, thing, whatever, to fit in my. Okay, now I feel comfortable, or I feel okay, or it can have a place, even though I think I don't have to agree or like, but it doesn't annoys me anymore. You know it's like I make.

51:14
Yeah, it's like I make more. I think it's like tolerance for more, but at the beginning it is something I have never seen, or it's like you know I do this in my head but then I think it's just like you make different neural connections till you change everything and okay, I know it's different, it's not my thing, but I don't care. And then it's not judgment, but I have to do all this process. That's my thing, my experience with this thing, and I have analyzed with different things and people and person and conversations Like I have real. When it's something very I feel in conflict, but still I don't run away from people of conversation. I just try to see why is making me feeling this? What is the problem? I don't, I don't think. I don't never say like it's the other person or maybe I am, but I don't run away. I just say why, why it's this making me feel so uncomfortable? And, yes, I just like and this is the process.

52:36 - Sarah Beale (Host)
I don't know if you no no, I get it, I love it. I love how you describe that and I think actually almost that that can bring us back to the original question, and there's going to be more questions. Does it work? And maybe, if we were thinking about someone just at the beginning of their unschooling journey, let's imagine someone listening to this. It's just at the beginning, they've got curiosity for it and maybe they're thinking, oh, I've got this idea, this narrow idea of what, what that will look like, right, which is a little bit like when you're confronted with something, initially like Carla was saying that, what I don't like, that I don't get that, and it's because it's outside, it's outside here. And then, as you sit with it and this happens on a macro scale, and a micro scale of course um, your edges like soften, and then you're like your face softens too, and then you're like, oh, okay, yeah, this, this can work.

53:45
My, my kids staying up all night playing video games oh yeah, that's working. Oh, my kid only wants to eat mini pepperoni pizzas every day. Oh yeah, that works. Do you know who I'm talking about? Uh, oh yeah, my kid wants to drink pepsi. Okay, yeah, that works. Like initially, though, you're like, but then, oh, and to me, that feeling, that feeling, if you can go through the majority of your life going and not like that, that's to me that's working.

54:27 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
Whatever you want to call it, that's working I think, I think that's what I'm saying when I'm talking about being happy and chill, that that's yeah, so, yeah, so just yeah, but even when you are like this, it's working because, yes, we, we will be able to.

54:46 - Carla Martinez (Host)
This is life, it's life, and if we, if one day you don't find anything that makes you do this, you will die. Yes, it will be the end. Nothing new, nothing to learn, nothing to nothing.

55:03 - Sarah Beale (Host)
I've got a totally new. I've got a new appreciation now for this. The new lines.

55:10 - Carla Martinez (Host)
In the end it a like we have said many things is, our attitude is how we embrace things that are coming. So that's unschooling, I mean. It's like how is your attitude?

55:28 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
you, we, yeah, I mean but I would even say that. Even so, back to the first question does it work? A, yes, b, what, what are you talking about? What kind of what's? What outcome is it we're looking for? What do you mean when you say is it working? That's the question. What is it you want to work and how? But even when you get that idea and you get the idea, it's always working because it's not supposed to work. I think judgment is part of the story. So maybe some listener who is just in the very beginning of unschooling wouldn't feel comfortable about the video games all night and pepperoni pizza only.

56:23
I do that a lot and Pepsi, and maybe some unschoolers never get to that point and maybe that's not the ultimate goal of unschooling to get parents to feel good about these specific things that can be very provocative and feel very wrong. I think even if you stick to the no sugar for quite a long time, you may call yourself an unschooler as long as you're on the journey of asking yourself why is it that I have this judgment around sugar or this idea that video games are dangerous and how can I work with that idea and can I be in some sort of communication with my children? Who wants to play video games about it? We've been around the all night thing before. That, for my personal family is not never going to work because we live in so small spaces that if we are to get some sleep, we have to sleep at the same time. If we are to get some sleep, we have to sleep at the same time. So sometimes it's a practical thing that you know you can never let go of that idea of bedtime. Even my adult children have bedtime because we have to agree. When do we sleep? Eight hours, at least eight hours of some sort of silence, maybe, you never, maybe, and that's fine. That's still unschooling Some unschoolers.

58:02
What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that the judgment, when we have it and we have this idea, we have judgments, we have things we believe are right and wrong, good and bad, and we have ideas of outcome could be that we believe our children have to know all the math or that they need moral standards, as long as we can take that helicopter and know that. Oh, this is my idea about outcome and this is my idea about good and bad, right and wrong, wrong. And I'm just one person here. I could be wrong and I need to stay in communication with everyone involved, including children who are less than five years old.

58:42
Then I think we're on the path and then I think it's working. That's what we need to work. We need to get the parent out of the bossy role and out of the idea of you know, I've got this and I'm sailing the ship and I set the standards and I make the rules. Once we start questioning all that and become a little more soft and open, at the very least to our own family, then I think that that's what we need to work. If anything has to work, it's that softness and being able to feel some you know. You know you're right, but then again you know you could be wrong. That's the healthy point of view, in my opinion.

59:25 - Sarah Beale (Host)
That's another song, far out. We started on a song, finished on a song.

59:31 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
What song is that for the not knowing?

59:34 - Sarah Beale (Host)
uh, you might you know you could be wrong, but you could be right that song, that is an 80s rock song.

59:42 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Oh, and I'm looking for an 80s pop song because I was so wrong in the beginning here with the blowing in the wind thing, I'm looking it up now.

59:53 - Carla Martinez (Host)
I don't know anything about music, really um, I want to say something can I yeah, uh, because you, um, I think that unschooling, or if it works, or the goal is not to for the parents to end in a point where they can, okay, just do everything. It was you just say we're saying, cecilia, maybe not everybody see what sarah was saying about the pizza and the pepsi video games. For the beginning, it's again, we have the space to maybe consider and talk about it. What you were saying, just like being flexible, or maybe, yeah, you have the song.

01:00:47 - Sarah Beale (Host)
Billy Joel Couldn't think of who's singing. Yeah, you know that you may be right. Right, I may be crazy, or I just may be the lunatic you're looking for no I don't know that song but,

01:01:04 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
it sounds exactly like what we're trying to say.

01:01:07 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
You may be wrong, but you may be right, and I've been talking about judgment mean, I shall name no names, but I know someone who's a dear friend, who absolutely judges my music taste. What and she's vocal about it too Is she?

01:01:25 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Not so vocal even so, does that make you feel vocal?

01:01:30 - Lune Maj Vestergaard (Host)
But we managed to make co-living work, though. See that, there you go, there you go.

01:01:42 - Sarah Beale (Host)
Because I might be wrong about that later. That might be right. Well, that's a good place to end, do you think?

01:01:53 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I think so, yeah, yeah, I was about to say, ladies, we've had fun, we've talked and I think the time is ready for more coffee and all the other agendas we have for the day. It's been interesting. Again, thank you for allocating some time in your busy schedules to talk about unschooling. May the sun shine on you today.

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE