The Unschool Space

To mark the podcast's 100 conversations, this episode is a little different. I am in conversation with Melissa Crockett-Joyoue who runs the Weave online community  and is also an unschooling mother. She and I co-founded The Unschooling Summit with last year and we are currently working on this year’s event. It is free, online and takes place on March 20th-22nd, with recordings available. You can sign up for reminders at www.theunschoolingsummit.org.
We just wanted to talk a bit about the summit, and how our experiences, and all the podcast conversations have helped to shape this offering. And we go off on a couple of tangents too. I hope you enjoy the conversation and hope to see you at the summit!

You can find my blog, workshops and courses at:
www.esther-jones.com

Or, connect with me on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherjones.unschooling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace

My guest this episode is Cassie Emmott from East Sussex in the UK. Cassie lives with her husband and four children, who are all neurodivergent, and two of her children have additional needs. 
We talk about how unschooling looks in Cassie’s family and how she and her husband manage everyone’s different needs and interests. We talk about the deep learning that she sees happening in its own time, and the importance of those moments of deep connection with our children that naturally arise in the day. And we talk about how important it is that we are able to stay resourced in order to be able to stay present and keep our own nervous systems regulated.

Connect with Cassie on Instagram
You can find my blog, workshops and courses at:
www.esther-jones.com

Or, connect with me on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherjones.unschooling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace

In this episode, I am talking with Stephanie McDowell. Stephanie lives in the US with her husband and five-year old daughter and is a former high-school teacher. Burnt out from her teaching career, she and her husband chose to homeschool their daughter, but Stephanie found the structure and school-focused ways of the homeschooling community an uncomfortable mismatch. She realised that she needed to focus first on herself and began to unpick some trauma from her childhood and her relationship with food. Stephanie shares how a large part of the healing work came from realising that there is no one way to live, as she had been told as a child and how this helps her to live in a more authentic way with her daughter. 

Stephanie's website: https://www.mamabearyourself.com/
Weave online community: https://weave-community.mn.co/

You can find my blog, workshops and courses at:
www.esther-jones.com

Or, connect with me on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherjones.unschooling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace

In this episode I am chatting with Linda Velwest, who lives in New Jersey and has three adult son, now aged 26, 28 and 31, who were all unschooled for many years. It’s always lovely to talk with parents of adult unschoolers, and Linda reflects on their journey, the very different paths each child took and the many things that she and her family all took from the experience.
Linda also recently published a fiction book called City Rescue Pets: Second Chances for Love and Hope featuring an unschooling family, and inspired by her own family’s fostering adventures. You can find the link to that in the notes. I hope you enjoy the conversation!
You can find my blog, workshops and courses at:
www.esther-jones.com

Or, connect with me on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherjones.unschooling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace

Today I am chatting with Ash Winton. Ash has lived in Queensland, Australia for the last 12 years, but is originally from Alaska, and is of the indigenous Tlingit people. She and her husband, who run a trail building company, have a four and half year old son, who they unschool and plan to continue doing so. Among lots of things, we talk about what natural learning looks like, how social norms can often be in direct opposition to our intuition, and the importance in all this of being in touch with our own nervous systems, and what it means to be our true selves. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
You can find my blog, workshops and courses at:
www.esther-jones.com

Or, connect with me on
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherjones.unschooling
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnschoolSpace