Intentional Co-housing Community with Unschooling in Mind
Show Notes Nickee’s boys are 61/2 and 4 and have always unschooled. Her husband brought the idea of homeschooling into their family. Nickee had a gut feeling her son would not fit into the school system model. It wasn’t too difficult for her to question the dominant system, as she had been doing that in other areas of her life outside of unschooling, particularly with her work in psychology. She says she fell naturally into attachment parenting and gentle parenting because it made sense to the theory she had been practicing with adult clients. Nickee explains how her son was able to find his authentic self through attending a self-directed, consent-based learning center. She feels like deschooling is something she’ll always be working on, although her mother’s open-minded nature was helpful in her ability to embrace alternative mindsets. Deschooling is probably the most important piece of unschooling. She didn’t want her children to have to unravel years of dominant thinking from various systems they’ve been exposed to. Sophie Christophy does a course on deschooling yourself, in which Nickee was able to find ways to better listen to her body’s response to things - she uses the example of trying to control and plan the day, and then noticing her physical reaction to her boys wanting to do something different. Deschooling, in Nickee’s words, is taking yourself out of the schooling system and the dominant system in order to successfully unschool and parent your children. It’s bringing awareness to the constant influx of messaging from the media, advertising, consumerism etc. and instead listening to yourself and your intuition. Jenna shares how reflection, understanding her feelings, and reconnecting with her interests was part of her own deschooling process. Earthrise is a project Nickee is working on together with her husband. It’s a co-housing, sustainable intentional living community. Her vision is to create a small community of families living and unschooling together. She was thinking about how to create more connection, collaboration, resilience and self-sufficiency for her and her family. Jenna explains how exploring her values was also part of her experience in coming to unschooling, similar to Nickee wanting to live her core values through the Earthrise project. Nickee describes Earthrise as having 3 pillars: environment, connection, and unschooling. Unschooling fits into this community because the ethos of the group are inherently self-directed and democratic. They want to grow food and give back to the community. They’d also like to offer something for homeschoolers, possibly workshops or experiences for families. Service to others is an important piece of the overarching vision of Earthrise. The Cabin, set up by Sophie Christophy and Sarah Stollery, is a self-directed learning environment. The guiding principles are consensual learning and everyone’s voice matters. Nickee stresses how much it helps to have like-minded people to connect with when trying to live out your values. On a smaller scale, Jenna suggests finding ways to create safe and intentional living “bubbles” for your family as a way of creating community. In the future, Earthrise will evolve and adapt to the needs of the community. Nickee is currently exploring how fear plays into our lives. She mentioned Hakomi Therapy as a resource. She learns best when the learning applies to her lived experience. She has found Reading Eggs helpful in inspiring her son’s reading progression and The Cabin has been instrumental in their learning journey as well. She also mentioned that enjoys listening to the podcast, A New and Ancient Story by Charles Eisenstein and has his book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible in the queue. Helpful Resources Mentioned in Today's Show Hakomi Therapy Reading Eggs The Cabin A New and Ancient Story Podcast The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein Ways to Connect Email me: contact.roguelearner@gmail.com Facebook Instagram Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rogue-learner/id1543224038 Google Play: https://podcasts.google.com/search/rogue%20learner Spotify: https://roguelearner.libsyn.com/spotify YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCocbWsxxAMSbUObiCQXPg Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/rogue-learner