EU236: The Unschooling Journey: A Field Guide, Part Five

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

Last week, we covered stages eight and nine. And while our deschooling story to that point was working through much of the nuts and bolts of unschooling, in stages eight and nine we begin the personal growth and transformation aspects of our journey in earnest.

In Stage Eight, Accepting the Value of All Experiences, we come to recognize the connections between the ups and downs of life and truly understand that we gain valuable insights from both kinds of moments. Judging them as “good” or “bad” adds no value. In fact, it can get in the way of valuable learning. And it hits us: life isn’t about trying to avoid “bad” moments so we can finally live our “good” lives. We’ve been living our full lives all along.

In Stage Nine, Accepting Our Nature, we do battle with idea of temptation. We learn to accept, rather than fight, our nature. To accept all facets of ourselves—confident, fearful, tempted—and no longer judged them as “good” and “bad,” but to see and accept them all as part of our nature.We move beyond judging ourselves so that we can mindfully move through these moments of temptation, learn what we can, release what isn’t working, and continue on our journey.

And this week, we’re covering stages ten, eleven, and twelve to reach the holy grail of our quest: unschooling with confidence and grace!

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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.

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 Bharadwaj’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.

And for listeners who prefer interview-style episodes, this week I’ve selected episode 37, Ten Questions with Carol Black, first released in September of 2016. Carol Black unschooled her two daughters, after dropping out of a teacher education program, sparked by reading John Holt’s How Children Fail. She has written some wonderfully insightful essays about unschooling, which you can read on her website, carolblack.org, and she directed the fascinating documentary film, Schooling the World.

I really enjoyed our conversation!

The goal of life is not to be better than other people. It’s really important to remember that and make sure that our kids understand that as best as possible because this society is so competitive.

Carol Black