EU051: Deschooling with Luminara King

Luminara King is a former Steiner-Waldorf teacher turned unschooling mom. She’s also the author of Unschooling – 7 Steps to Beginning the Journey and blogs at Living the Education Revolution. This week we have a great chat about her deschooling journey.

Quote of the Week

“I think that, as parents, we have to be very careful because there is a real tendency to jump on any interest they have, and just run away with it.” ~ Luminara King

Questions for Luminara

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family, and how you came to unschooling?

You’ve written a book called, Unschooling – 7 Steps to Beginning the Journey. You have a great chapter about learning and I love how you describe becoming an unschooling parent as training to be a Zen Master. You wrote, “You learn the delicate art of allowing and following the flow of your child’s learning; knowing when to offer up ideas and when to step back.” That stepping back can be hard to figure out as you move to unschooling, can’t it?

You have a fun intro to unschooling video on your website and in it, you mention how Lego was a catalyst in your journey to unschooling. What happened there?

I love your blog post about embracing averageness.  I think that’s such a valuable shift that can help us parents shed expectations that we might still carry about who our children “should” become in the future. Because that can interfere with how we see them today, can’t it?

You’ve mentioned you have a college degree. What’s your perspective on college nowadays?

One of the hot topics around unschooling is “screen time.” I put that in quotes because I think the phrase itself is part of the problem. It lumps together so many different activities and part of deschooling is teasing all that out. What has your experience been on this topic?

Recently you published a post on your blog titled, “I’ve had enough of justifying our unschooling life.” And you mention this idea in your book too, in a chapter on dealing with other people’s negative reactions. What are some tips you can share for dealing with those moments?

What has surprised you most about your unschooling journey so far?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Luminara’s ebook: Unschooling: 7 Steps To Beginning The Journey (it’s available in Kindle Unlimited)

Peter Gray’s book, Free to Learn

We Don’t Do That School Thing by Jessica Robinson

Ken Robinson’s TED Talks: Do schools kill creativity?, Bring on the learning revolution!, Changing education paradigms

Pam’s blog posts about unschooling and extended family: Enjoying Visits with Extended Family, Supporting Our Kids’ Relationships with Their Relatives, When Negative Relatives Won’t Let Go

Carlo Ricci’s episode, including our chat around the idea that “children are capable”: Unschooling as Alternative Education with Carlo Ricci

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here