My guest this week is Jessica, an unschooling mom living in Germany. Unschooling is illegal in Germany, so we’ve kept everything on a first-name basis to protect her anonymity. Jessica decided even before her son was born that her child wouldn’t attend conventional schools, but she had no idea that the alternative schools that sounded so great wouldn’t work well for her son either. In our conversation, we dive into the challenges they found with two alternative schools, how her decision to make the leap to unschooling unfolded, what deschooling looks like for them both and lots more!
Quote of the Week
“That was one of those really big important parts about actually validating and taking that time, because I thought I was doing it before, but it wasn’t until I didn’t have those time constraints on us that I realized this can take hours and hours, or days as it needs to, and it can just keep coming up because we’re always together.” ~ Jessica
Questions for Jessica
Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?
When your son hit school age, you chose an alternative school. How did that decision come about?
You became a teacher at the school as well, right? But eventually you saw signs that your son wasn’t doing well in the environment. What were some of the aspects he found challenging?
Next, you tried a Montessori school. How was that experience?
How did your decision to make the leap to unschooling unfold?
Even though your son only attended alternative schools, did you find that he still needed some deschooling time?
And what about your deschooling? With schools now out of the picture, what have been the more challenging shifts as you move to unschooling?
What do you love most about your unschooling lives right now?
Episode Transcript
Thank you for this episode. I am from Germany myself and left pretty much overnight. It was a pretty scary and unsure time. We moved to France first, but found that, at least in the region we were living, unschooling to still be very difficult. You know, angry letters from officials and all. I am always amazed at how many unschoolers or Freilerner, as we call it, there still are in Germany, despite the difficulties.
Thanks for sharing a bit about your experience, and I’m sorry about all the challenges you’ve encountered! I hope things have settled down now for you guys. 🙂