Rogue Learner
35 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 24 ratingsDo you want your children to enjoy learning? Most parents would agree that their ultimate goal in educating their children is to create motivated life-long learners. Research shows us that motivation and excitement for learning are best achieved when learners are offered autonomy, trust, and resources that support their interests. Self-directed learning is at the heart of this educational model. In this podcast, we’ll explore ways to ignite our children’s curiosity and passion for learning through interviews with experts and families who have experienced first-hand the advantages of pursuing self-directed education.
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Episodes
Supporting our Self Directed Teens with Blake Boles
March 09, 2022 12:47 - 1 hour - 50.2 MBGuest Blake Boles Official Bio: (From his website.) Blake Boles is the founder and director of Unschool Adventures and the author of Why Are You Still Sending Your Kids to School?, The Art of Self-Directed Learning, Better Than College, and College Without High School. He hosts the Off-Trail Learning podcast and has delivered over 75 presentations for education conferences, alternative schools, and parent groups. Blake and his work have appeared on The New York Times, The Christian Scie...
Learning Timelines, Screens, & Parental Compromises
February 23, 2022 12:39 - 1 hour - 46.7 MBGuest Philip Mott Philip is a former elementary school teacher who now offers parenting advice for busy and frustrated parents. He and his wife home school their three young children. He’s a regular contributor to Fathering Together and First Time Parent Magazine. www.philipmott.com www.fatheringtogether.org https://www.firsttimeparentmagazine.com You can also hear an interview with him on the podcast Front Row Dads. There are two parts: Part One https://frontrowdads.com...
Online Alternatives to Traditional Schools: a conversation with Victoria Ransom from Prisma
February 09, 2022 16:43 - 50 minutes - 34.8 MBGuest Victoria Ransom Victoria Ransom is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand. She has developed four companies including Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing SaaS company, where Ransom was CEO until it was sold to Google in 2012. She was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for New Zealand in 2011. Fortune Magazine honored her as one of the Forty Most Powerful Women Under Forty in 2012. In 2013, she was invited to the White House by President Barack Obama to recei...
Seeking More; An Educator's Departure from Public School Teaching
January 26, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 54.8 MBJae says he reached the breaking point in 2020. With the pandemic in full swing and talk of schools opening back up that fall, he started to realize that parents were not focused on their child as much as they were needing teachers to return as babysitters so the parents could go back to work. He didn’t want to be a glorified babysitter. Five months later, he quit.
Raising Kids in a Consent-based Environment
January 12, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBGuest Sophie Christophy Sophie is the CEO for a charity called Phoenix Education. An organization that is working to change the education system so that schools are more collaborative and offer rights respecting spaces. She is also co-founder of ‘the Cabin’, the first consent-based education setting in the U.K. - a self-directed learning community for children aged 5-11. She runs courses on consent based education and works with people of all ages on changemaking/education activism and ...
A Self Directed Career Path
October 06, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MBGuest Vincent Pugliesi Vincent is the founder of the Total Life Freedom Community. Living a life of freedom is of huge importance to Vincent and his wife Elizabeth. They homeschool their three boys, and believe that having control of your time, your money, and the work you do, leads to the ultimate life freedom. While teaching others to do the same, the movement of Total Life Freedom was born. https://totallifefreedom.com Instagram @totallifefreedom1 Intro Hey Everyo...
Personal Finance and Unschooling?
September 15, 2021 05:00 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBJoin me on the Show! Show Notes Hello Everyone and welcome to the Rogue Learner podcast. My name is Jenna Reich and I am the host of this show. Today is going to be a quick episode where I may ramble. I’ll try to keep it relevant to SDE, but with no promises! The first thing I want to share is a bit about my daughter’s experience so far going back to the school system and my son’s new opportunities after moving Stateside. And since I’m doing a solo show, I also want to share a b...
The Benefits of Leaving Oppressive Systems and Relationships
September 08, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 42.9 MBJOIN ME ON THE SHOW!!! Guest Megan IG @theunschoolfiles www.theunschoolfiles.com I’m a mama + unschooler from Austin Tx - kiddos are 10, 12 &15 i parent from the heart, and unschool just the same. the liberation of all people is the reason, for me - once I understood how oppressive school was, there was no stopping what came next. sometimes I podcast about it :) Show Notes Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Rogue Learner podcast, I’m Jenna Reich. Every...
A Grown Unschooler's Perspective
September 01, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBJoin me on the Show! Leave a Voicemail! Guest Summer FB @thisbeautifullivingfreedom www.mermaidartglass.com I am a mostly self taught successful glass artist and entrepreneur who has had absolutely no formal education or instruction of any kind. I am a student of life itself, and I could not have had a better teacher. Not only was I unschooled, I was raised by the most incredible woman, whom I am honored to call my best friend and mother. Her parenting philosophy of ...
Reflections After One Year of Unschooling
July 28, 2021 05:00 - 40 minutes - 28 MBJoin me on the Show! Leave a Voicemail! Show Notes On today’s show, Chris and Jenna wanted to talk about their takeaways and experiences after one full year of unschooling. Chris shares how he had expectations in the beginning that homeschool would be a replication of the schooled environment, only more customised, lively and fun. He now admits that it was a pretty silly idea. He realized that everyone learns differently and therefore we require different learning environments. It took...
What can Microschools Offer to Unschoolers?
July 21, 2021 05:00 - 47 minutes - 32.6 MBGuest CoHost Emily Gregoire IG @the.rainbow.room_ YouTube @theunschoolingdiary Holistic Microschool Owner/Creator, Unschooling/Multicultural family of 6, lifelong self directed learner with a deep respect for babies and children as creative, curious, natural learners. Heavily influenced by Montessori philosophy. Member of 100 Roads a group of educators and edupreneurs. Show Notes Emily got started in self directed learning years ago. In fact, she earned her d...
What Are Microschools?
July 14, 2021 05:00 - 51 minutes - 35.5 MBGuest Mara Linaberger Founder & COO, Microschool Builders, LLC Dr. Mara Linaberger believes that each of us has chosen to be here at this moment in time for a specific reason—that we are each on a mission that we choose for ourselves. And that figuring out what we love, what we’re good at, and how we can be of service is the engine we need to fuel a lifetime of joyful learning. Mara also believes that school often slows down or stifles that excitement for students. So she is on a missio...
Key Takeaways on Adventure, Socialization, & Individualized Learning
July 07, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 44 MBGuest Co-Host Jessica McGough Hi All! I am a nature enthusiast and aspiring adventurer and was born and raised in Sonoma County, California. I attended college in northern California and then spent five months in Massachusetts where I participated in an AmeriCorps/Student Conservation Association program to work on environmental education and complete trail work projects in 2010. I taught at the preschool level as a college student, which is where my passion for working with children was...
Family Adventures; Creating Connection Through Shared Experiences Together
June 30, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 42.7 MBGuest Heidi Dusek A catalyst, healthy disruptor and unshakeable optimist, Heidi’s passion lies in challenging the status quo, driving change and delivering experiences. Known as a translator between sectors whose background transcends education, health, nonprofits, university, business, philanthropy, design and podcasting. While stacking talents and lived experiences is her superpower, she continually embraces each role with a lens of empathy, trust and curiosity as critical threads ...
How Do Family Values Shape Your Individual Unschooling Journey?
June 23, 2021 05:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBGuest Cohost Sue Monteiro I am a violinist and violin teacher with an online teaching studio. I have been a homeschooling mom for 16 years. I also run a musical themed online book club called "Learning Music With the Authors" where we read literature based on music and history and discuss the books with the authors. I also have a podcast of the same name where every month I go over the book introduction and review along with author interviews and interviews with musicians as w...
A Third Wave of Unschooling & Children's Rights with Lucy AitkenRead
June 16, 2021 06:40 - 1 hour - 55.6 MBGuest Lucy AitkenRead YouTube IG @lulasticblog Lulastic.co.uk https://discolearning.com Show Notes Topics Discussed in Today’s Show: Lucy is a mom of two, a 10 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. She is originally from London, but now lives in New Zealand. They moved there to bring out a little more of their wild. Her kids have never been to school. The moment her daughter was born, they began thinking about life without school. Her and her family too...
Transitioning teens; how to facilitate mentorships, apprenticeships & socialization
June 09, 2021 05:00 - 58 minutes - 40.1 MBGuest Co-host Erin Rosemond IG @ever.learning Show Notes Jenna has Erin Rosemond joining the show today as a guest co-host. She has been home educating for 18 years and has four children. She became interested in home education early on when a friend of Erin’s mentioned she’d be home educating her son. That conversation happened when her oldest son was just a baby. Erin explains how they were self-directed from the beginning as her family is very self-directed anyway. She...
What's Missing in Our Current School System, Deschooling, and a Future Without College
June 02, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 53.6 MBJOIN ME ON THE SHOW!!! Guest: Zak Slayback Author published at McGraw-Hill; former research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania; principal at 1517 Fund, a VC firm spun out of the Thiel Fellowship. Zak is a career & communications expert whose content has been highlighted or featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, The Muse, Newsweek, and the New York Observer. He was an early team member at the startup apprenticeship company Praxis, where he was charged with recruiting ...
My Unschooled Child Wants to go to School
May 26, 2021 05:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBShow Notes Announcement: Jenna is looking for guest co-hosts to help her with the key takeaways from her guest episodes as she currently does with her husband. You can connect with her here if you’re interested in finding out more information. Jenna will be giving away 1 book for every 5 reviews given on Apple Podcasts. If you leave a written review and want to win a copy of Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher or Free to Learn by Peter Gray. If you’ve left a review, just send an e...
The Fifth and Six Optimizing Conditions for Self Directed Learning and 'What About Math?"
May 19, 2021 05:00 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MBShow Notes The fifth optimizing condition is free age mixing with children across all ages. Throughout history, children have spent most of their time in the company of other children, not adults. Sudbury Valley School offers this model. Children learn from one another. Kids don’t inherently self-segregate if they aren’t forced to. Age gaps provide learning opportunities for younger children by way of the older children boosting the younger ones up to an activity level they wouldn’t otherw...
The Six Optimizing Conditions for Self Directed Education with Dr. Peter Gray
May 12, 2021 05:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MBDr. Peter Gray Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology at Boston College who has conducted and published research in neuroendocrinology, developmental psychology, anthropology, and education. He is author of an internationally acclaimed introductory psychology textbook (Psychology, Worth Publishers, now in its 8th edition), which views all of psychology from an evolutionary perspective. His recent research focuses on the role of play in human evolution and how children educate the...
Neurodiversity and Self Directed Learning with Naomi Fisher
April 07, 2021 05:00 - 56 minutes - 38.5 MBShow Notes Jenna starts the show by describing her family's learning philosophy and home education style. My family has been home educating now for approximately 9 months and we’ve chosen self directed education as our approach to learning. What does that mean exactly? Well, it basically means that our children control what, when and how they learn. We actually refrain from labeling “learning” as we believe as humans we are always learning and there aren’t particular subjects or skills that...
Choosing the right Learning Environment for Your Kids with Naomi Fisher
March 31, 2021 05:00 - 55 minutes - 38.3 MBShow Notes | Part I Jenna first discovered Naomi Fisher’s work through the Offtrail Learning Podcast hosted by Blake Boles. She then discovered the comprehensive YouTube video produced by The Phoenix Education Trust called The Psychology of Self Directed Learning by Naomi Fisher. Her most recent work, a book she wrote called ‘Changing Our Minds’ was published in February 2021 and is highly recommended by Jenna as a comprehensive guide to self-directed learning. Naomi and Jenna had...
Skilled and Unhappy; The Promise of Conventional Schooling
March 24, 2021 05:00 - 28 minutes - 20 MBShow Notes Chris and Jenna share their takeaways from episode 009. Selling your house and beginning a co-housing project of this scale is commendable and courageous. It takes a lot of effort to take the alternative path and create a life more aligned with your values. If we stick with the school system, we by default assume the values of that system. Every step toward living a life that’s in line with your values is a step in the right direction. It will eventually lead you to the lif...
Intentional Co-housing Community with Unschooling in Mind
March 17, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 45.5 MBShow 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 m...
How Does Self Directed Learning Differ from Conventional Schools?
March 10, 2021 06:00 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBJenna shares a voicemail from the community. Sue calls in to share how her son “reverse engineered” his driving course to make it more efficient and relevant to him. You can call in and leave your own message by going to www.roguelearner.com/podcast and click, “share message.” We’d love to add your stories to the show! Jenna’s husband will join the show today. If all goes well, it may become the new biweekly format. Jenna invited him on so she could: extract and discuss the key t...
Self-directed Learning from an Educator's Perspective
March 03, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MBKristen grew up in Tampa, Fl and attended public schools her whole education. For elementary school she attended an IB school. As a gifted student, she was given many fun opportunities such as: Battle of the Books and Mathletes. In Middle, she felt a huge shift in pressure. She had 4 hours of homework, so she switched to a local public school. It was not very challenging though, and felt really uninspired to attend. In high school, she moved to Texas. She attended the 5th largest hi...
Self-directed Learning from an Educator's Perspective
March 03, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 41.7 MBKristen grew up in Tampa, Fl and attended public schools her whole education. For elementary school she attended an IB school. As a gifted student, she was given many fun opportunities such as: Battle of the Books and Mathletes. In Middle, she felt a huge shift in pressure. She had 4 hours of homework, so she switched to a local public school. It was not very challenging though, and felt really uninspired to attend. In high school, she moved to Texas. She attended the 5th largest hi...
13 Ways to Address Our Fear and Doubt
February 24, 2021 06:00 - 28 minutes - 19.8 MBDoubt and fear come up a lot within homeschooling forums and groups. It’s natural to feel doubt and fear when you’re choosing something unconventional for your family. Media and social norms make it difficult for us to stay confident in our choice to homeschool. Jenna shares a list of ways to realign with your values and boost your confidence. 1. Remember your “why”- On days when you’re feeling a bit low, you can try to remind yourself of the reasons you decided to homeschool in the fir...
Learning Through Play and Perseverance in Unschooling
February 17, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 54.7 MBOn today's show, I'm talking with Heidi Steel. She lives in the UK and has unschooled her children from the very beginning. She's a former teacher, and now spends her time advocating for unschooling and sharing her experiences with other families. She also coaches families as they transition to unschooling and as they need support on her website Live.Play.Learn. She shares why she decided to unschool her kids, her thoughts on uninterrupted play and how we can identify the learning taking pla...
Letting Go Of Control
February 10, 2021 06:00 - 20 minutes - 13.8 MBHomeschooling can seem overwhelming when you consider the anxiety we experience based on societal pressures. How can we gain meaningful employment and get into college without attending school? However, we can alternatively ask the question; “does our school system do a good job of ensuring success for everyone?” Our faith in the school system is supported by a false assurance that if we control our children’s lives, they’ll be successful adults. Curriculums are limiting, learning isn’...
Building a Global Community of Self-Directed Families Through an Online School
February 03, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 45.6 MBKelly describes her educational upbringing as traditional and not too exciting. She was focused on sports and socializing. She remembers playing “school” as a kid and growing up around educators. She remembers the adults in her life being respectful and talking to her “like a person.” Kelly was undecided about a major as she approached college, but eventually studied communications. She had an opportunity to teach in Fiji with a group of teachers and tagged along on that trip. It ultimat...
An Educator's Transition Away from Traditional Schooling
January 27, 2021 06:00 - 48 minutes - 33.5 MBJoin the Facebook Community if you want to get support, learn about great resources, and get inspiration for self-directed learning. Record a voicemail! If you want to share any challenges you overcame this week or family wins. Jenna will play them on the show. www.roguelearner.com/voicemail Talia joins the show to record Jenna’s backstory and journey to homeschooling her kids. Jenna shares how she felt like a teacher’s pet growing up and never felt like a rogue learner herself. S...
Get Started with Self-Directed Learning
January 20, 2021 06:00 - 17 minutes - 11.9 MBHere's What We Talked About in This Episode What is a rogue learner? A rogue learner in my definition is somebody who takes their learning by the horns. It's somebody who makes their own path, creates their own learning journey, and is not afraid to question the status quo. Somebody who is really, really motivated to learn on their own terms. How and why did we choose self-directed learning? School was really dull for my kids and there were a lot of subjects that they were coveri...
Rogue Learner podcast coming soon!
December 03, 2020 16:09 - 4 minutes - 2.84 MBWhile you wait for our launch, check out the FREE online directory of learning resources I created for homeschooling families. http://www.roguelearner.com