Living Joyfully

Helping parents cultivate a thriving unschooling lifestyle in their family.

  • Start Here
  • Deschooling
  • Unschooling
  • Parenting
  • About
  • Contact
  • Podcast
    • Q&A Episodes
    • Ten Questions Episodes
    • Interviews I’ve done …
    • TUC Talks
  • Books
    • Book Clubs
  • Network
  • Summit
  • Questions?
  • Articles
    • Spanish Translations
  • Blog
You are here: Home / Hero's Journey / EU233: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Two

EU233: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Two

July 9, 2020 By Pam Laricchia 2 Comments

This week, I’m sharing part two of the audiobook edition of my book, The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide.

Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey framework, The Unschooling Journey is a weave of myths, contemporary stories, and tales from my journey. It’s not a “how to” book—no two paths through the world of unschooling have the same twists and turns—yet having a general sense of where you are on your journey can bring valuable insight as you navigate the challenges that will inevitably appear. I share this book as a field guide to the stages and characters you are likely to encounter in some form on your unschooling journey.

Last week, we dove into the introduction and the first two stages, answering the call to unschooling and refusing the call.

In the intro, we set the stage. Choosing to accept this quest to create a thriving unschooling learning environment for your children is to embark on your own hero’s journey to appreciate, understand, and, in the end, integrate, these unschooling truths—that learning is everywhere and that humans are wired to learn—into your lives. I also touch on why I chose to call this a field guide and the value of having a general sense of where we are on the journey, being careful not to see the stages as tick boxes to race through, and the difference between understanding a stage intellectually and experiencing it enough times to believe its truth.

In Stage One, The Call to Unschooling, we begin in our ordinary world. Often, we’re reasonably comfortable with how things are. We know the general rules and expectations and, for the most part, are happy to go with the flow. Then, something happens. Something that gives us a glimpse of a new and previously unsuspected world: the world of unschooling. This is our call to unschooling. Often, this call is delivered by a herald, whether it be a person or an event. The fascinating thing is, when the hero is ready, the herald appears. That’s because the change that sparks the call happens within us.

And in Stage Two, Refusing the Call, the realization hits us that choosing to answer the call to unschooling isn’t a simple question of yes or no and moving on. Those first weeks—even months—can feel like a see-saw. One day we’re gleeful and thrilled by the possibilities. The next, fear looms large and we waver in our resolve. This is such a common aspect of the journey that it has its own stage. Contemplating refusing the call shows that we are starting to understand the commitment involved in choosing to undertake the journey. If you want to develop a thriving unschooling environment for your family, be sure to take the journey. Don’t look for a shortcut. Engage with your questions as they arise, rather than pushing them away because they don’t fit a preconceived idea you have about unschooling. This doesn’t mean you need to understand everything about unschooling before getting started. It does mean that choosing unschooling with your family is the beginning of the journey, not the end.

And here we are.

This week, we’re diving into stages three, four, and five—finishing up the departure phase of our journey, which I’ve called the ‘Choosing Unschooling’ phase. We’re going to find our guides, match wits with threshold guardians, and spend some introspective and valuable time in the belly of the whale.

It’s going to be a wild ride!

You can buy the ebook direct from me or from your favourite online retailer.

And the print edition is also a journal! In the print edition, you’ll also find plenty of room to document your journey along the way. Hema’s illustrations are printed full page for you to colour as you contemplate your journey, there are journal pages for writing down your experiences and clarifying your thoughts, and even blank pages for doodling and sketching.

You can purchase the print edition on Amazon, or find it on most other online print book retailers.

For listeners who prefer interview-style episodes, I’ve curated a wonderful collection of amazing back list episodes for you to listen to.

This week I’ve selected episode 57, Ten Questions with Akilah S. Richards, to share with you, which aired in February 2017.

Akilah is an unschooling mom with two lovely daughters. She’s also an author, a podcast host, and is on the organizing team of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education. She answers my ten questions about her unschooling experience with candor and enthusiasm, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

Filed Under: Hero's Journey, Unschooling

Comments

  1. Tamra says

    July 20, 2020 at 10:33 pm

    Hi, I love your work. But I noticed when you click on part 3 from the latest newsletter the link takes you to part 2 of the audio journey not to part 3. I’m looking forward to hearing what you say in part 3.
    Cheers

    Reply
    • Pam Laricchia says

      July 21, 2020 at 2:14 pm

      Hi Tamra, sorry about that!

      Here’s the link to part 3: https://livingjoyfully.ca/blog/2020/07/eu234-the-unschooling-journey-a-field-guide-part-three/

      I hope you enjoy it. ?

      And here’s the full archive of podcast episodes, updated every week, in case there are other episodes you’d like to check out: https://livingjoyfully.ca/podcast-2/

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Living Joyfully Network community

The Living Joyfully Network

The Living Joyfully Network is an online community for parents worldwide to explore unschooling with other like-minded parents who are also choosing to embrace lifelong learning and develop strong and connected relationships with their children. We invite you to join our candid and wide-ranging conversations about living and learning through the lens of unschooling!

Learn more about the Network here!

free intro to unschooling ebook

Click the book cover to get the book from your favourite online retailer, or click the link below to join my mailing list and download the book directly!

What is Unschooling? A book about living and learning without school.

Exploring Unschooling Podcast

click to listen to the archive of all Exploring Unschooling podcast episodes

Choosing to live and learn without school isn’t as intimidating as you might imagine!

The podcast archive is now home to more than 300 episodes, filled with unschooling goodness.

support the podcast on Patreon

Have you read my books?

Free-to-Learn-Cover Free-to-Live-Cover Life-Through-the-Lens-of-Unschooling-Cover Living-Joyfully-with-Unschooling-Box-Set-Cover The Unschooling Journey Libre d'Apprendre cover Libre para Aprender cover Szabadon Tanulni cover

Journey with us to a new way of seeing your child

icon-logo

Join Anne Ohman, Anna Brown, and I in our online Summit where we share the experiences, insights, and tools that we found most helpful on our unschooling journeys. We will walk with you from where you are now, to where you want to be.

Looking for something?

I've been exploring unschooling for many years now and there's a lot of content here! I've been working to tag things to help you more easily find information about the questions you're curious about right now. I'll continue to work on this.

Click a topic to explore:

college

dads

deschooling

food

grown unschoolers

learning

life

math

reading

relationships

relatives

technology

teens

work

Welcome to Living Joyfully

Pam ... an online resource for parents who are curious about unschooling. If you're passionate about exploring the world with your children, this site is for you. I'm Pam Laricchia, the author and owner of this site. Thanks for inviting me along on your unschooling journey!

The Living Joyfully Network

The Living Joyfully Network is an online community for parents worldwide to explore unschooling with other like-minded parents who are also choosing to embrace lifelong learning and develop strong and connected relationships with their children.

Learn more and join us here!

SEARCH LIVING JOYFULLY

Living Joyfully participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the iTunes Affiliate Program. This allows me to earn a small commission, at no cost to you. I appreciate your support!

Read my Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

Copyright © 2023 · Living Joyfully Enterprises

By using this website, you agree to the use of cookies. I use cookies to provide you with a great experience and to help my website run effectively. OK READ MORE
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT