Stark Raving Dad

We spend so much of a child’s first 18 years making sure they’re proficient in everything we’ve decided they’ll need in life that we don’t hear them when they try and tell us what they want. And, thus, what they’ll actually need. Kids have interests, passions, hopes and dreams…and if we listen in we’ll realise they’re actually pretty serious about them from quite early on. But when the good-grade pressure kicks in the dreams often start gathering dust, and then…well…someone else starts shaping new ones for us. Usually, dreams that are more ‘practical’ and ‘sensible’. We don’t really even know it’s happening until we look back later in life, reminiscing…

Imagine a child or teenager running home and proudly announcing to their parents that they’d failed a test that day. Silly thought, of course. From early in life we’re taught that failing is bad, the consequences unpleasant. Failure quickly becomes intrinsically linked to our sense of self-worth – so much so that we’ll actively avoid even the chance of failing (and even blame others when we do) right into adulthood. On the flip side, not failing becomes a primary data point of progress. But there are powerful learning opportunities on the other side of failure. If we’re reflective, analytical, confident, relaxed and free from judgement, we will learn from our…

There was a time when being busy was a badge worn with pride – a way to show the world we were contributing and achieving because we were doing things… By the time we realised how much it was impacting our lives, it was almost too late – it had become an epidemic. Working overtime was respected more than producing results. Being last to leave the office five nights straight was an achievement. Leaving early to watch your kid play sport…aren’t you committed to your job? I know a lot of people trying to fight that now. And it is a fight – many of us are so conditioned to…

Back when our kids were in school our eldest son – a gentle, caring soul – gave his mum a much tighter hug than he normally would when he got home one day. With slightly teary eyes he said: “Mummy, my teacher…I think she was trying to be nice because I was lonely at lunchtime…she said I didn’t have to worry because she was a bit like my mum now…I’m with her more than you, even, and she would look after me…and I guess that’s nice, but…I want to be with you more!” After fixing the teary eyes with a mummy-made hot chocolate, we reflected: Taking out any pre-school care time,…

It is not black and white, compartmentalised.  Every concept, thing and person in this world is connected, related, intertwined, blended with something or someone else. To remove a piece of that, to silo a concept, to study it in isolation from what it naturally wants to connect to, does a disservice to both the thing itself and the studier of it. Why? Because important context sits outside that silo. The learning becomes disconnected, and so the learner becomes disconnected. Not from the subject – they may even master it – but from how it connects and fits with the real world. Over time that learner accepts the compartmentalising. No, they…

Ok, real talk: as an unschooling dad I find myself willing my children to outperform their school peers in things, despite believing the measures are pretty much irrelevant. Not all the time, but the feeling bubbles up now and then.  To prove to others that the road we’re taking works? To prove that…to myself? A blend of those things, I think. Sometimes the feeling scares me. But then the road less travelled usually is a bit scary. We’re explorers charting new territory – that’s kind of the point.  I just need to keep telling myself: The measures are irrelevant. The comparisons are meaningless. Age should not define an academic standard.…

None of us were part of building the school system, most of us would have designed it differently if we were, and all of us can choose to construct our own world.