EU284: Deschooling with Lane Clark

Lane Clark joins me this week to talk about her unschooling journey and to dive into what she’s learned through deschooling. Lane’s journey began when her family was living abroad and felt their best option was homeschooling. When their carefully chosen curriculum didn’t feel like a good fit, she discovered unschooling and has been questioning all of the boxes we’re put in by mainstream society ever since.

We talked about how deschooling felt like opening Pandora’s box, how Lane has found that her unschooling community helps her navigate her tendency to overthink things, and how her new ways of thinking inspire her to plant seeds of change in her community. It’s such a rich conversation!

Questions for Lane

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family? What is everybody interested in right now?

How did you discover unschooling and what did your family’s move to unschooling look like?

When I think about deschooling in the context of learning, I see two distinct phases. First, we widen our definition of learning beyond “academics” to recognize all the learning that’s happening as our kids pursue their interests. And then, we find that our need to look for the learning and to ponder where it might lead starts to fade away. We see that we can just focus on the living, on the moment in front of us. It’s a fascinating journey, isn’t it?

Another conventional idea that we often need to untangle is the idea that if children get to choose what they do, they’ll never do hard things, or even just things that they don’t find particularly enjoyable. On the surface, that seems to make sense, but as we deschool and dig deeper, the story is very different. Can you share your experience with untangling this idea?

What has been one of the more challenging aspects of deschooling for you? Can you share a bit about how you worked through it?

What is your favourite thing about the flow of your unschooling days right now?

Things mentioned in the episode

Check out the Living Joyfully Network

Pam mentioned the podcast How to Save a Planet

Lane’s Instagram is @liz.lemonade

Transcript

Read the transcript

Video

Watch the YouTube video

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