The 2023 season of the UnschoolingFuture Podcast was devoted to children on the internet, their digital rights and access to information.
It's because I’m writing and illustrating FREE TO BROWSE, a comics journalism project in progress about coming of age online.
It delves into the stories of vulnerable teens, including my transgender son, for whom the internet has served as a crucial lifeline.
Expected in 2025!
Free to Browse with Ben Draper
When we talk about self-directed learning, we always talk about it in terms of educational experiences, how life learning can be very educationally enriching and how it prepares kids for the future. Is that really what is most important about self-directed education? Why do we feel the need to try to sell young people’s formative experiences as “academic” or “educational”?
Ben Draper, a former MIT fellow and the founder/ executive director of the Macomber Center in Framingham, MA, a self-directed learning community for ages 5 to 18, believes that children who grow up with their basic needs being met will have the tools they need when they get older to figure out how to continue to create the kind of life they want to live. In this episode, Ben and I tried to come to the core of how self-directed learning unfolds today and the role digital technology plays in that delicate process.
Free to Browse with Peter Gray
What are the actual reasons why children and teens are so stressed out? By controlling their online lives, are we taking the last vestige of freedom that children and teens had? What is the tipping point theory of social change and when can we expect a wider acceptance of children’s ability to self-direct their learning and possibly less discrimination of youngsters as a minority?
For this episode, I had the honor to sit down with my long time hero Peter Gray, research professor at Boston College, famous for his studies of children’s play and self-directed learning. Professor Gray is also the author of Psychology, an introductory textbook that has survived many editions, and of the hugely popular book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.
Free to Browse with Bill Budington and Jason Kelley (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
What are the main concerns about the newly introduced Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)? What are the stumbling blocks on the way to tech literacy and proficiency? Why, in the 21st century liberal West, do we see so much talent and resources going into surveillance tech and what strategies will today’s young minds pick to survive this phase in the internet’s development? Is it just a phase? To quote my son Simon, "I still find it astonishing that it's a privacy law that kids should not have any privacy”.
For this episode, I sat down with the digital freedoms nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). I hope you enjoy this conversation with Bill Budington, senior staff technologist on EFF's Public Interest Technology team and Jason Kelley, EFF’s associate director of digital strategy.
Why We Are Leaving Europe
I usually say our family are educational refugees. We have had to move countries to be able to homeschool and we are about to move across the Atlantic to be able to continue unschooling. We are seeking refuge from Europe’s bulging institutional control over learning and development as we want our children to continue self-directing their learning process.
In May 2022, Marta Obiols Llistar is releasing the second, updated edition of her beautiful book 18, An Unschooling Experience, this time in Spanish under the title #vidasincole. I’m honored to have been asked to write the closing chapter, Carta de mi amiga. In this audio fragment, you will hear me read my chapter, Letter from My Friend, in English. The “letter” briefly tells our family’s story and explains why we’re leaving Europe.
If you want to listen to the whole conversation, please go to The UnschoolingFuture Podcast, Season 2 Episode 9: Migration and Learning
Migration and Learning
Why is our family leaving Europe? How does moving impact learning and self-discovery? Are we still nomads at heart or are we in search of paradise, the ideal home? What is home anyway?
The Role of Community
How can we shift the paradigm where conventional schools have monopolized socialization? How can we liberate families from factory-like schedules they are obliged to follow and give them more sense of control over their children’s learning process? How can we give the children their right back to choose what to learn and when? How can we create a world where anyone can be both a teacher and a student, education for everyone by everyone, just like philosopher Ivan Illich had envisioned in his book Deschooling Society? Can local community be as democratic and liberating as the online community? Does your corner bakery allow kids to come and learn how to bake bread?
Sleep, Love and Unschooling
Does our society have a chronotype bias and how can the discriminated chronotype stand up for themselves? Is there a relationship between sleep and body weight? How can dreams help in problem solving and emotional regulation? What is the after puberty sleep phase shift? Why do some people have longer circadian rhythms? Do you co-sleep with your children? How can unschooling lifestyle help discover your biological clock and build a healthy relationship with sleep? What does an unschooling day look like?
How to Talk to Kids about War?
What happens to the new generation as they witness the tragedy of war and what does citizenship or nationality mean to them? Is the Metaverse as a collaborative space an antidote to war? Is military conflict in the Digital Age an anachronism? Does conventional school system fuel that anachronistic world view by revering hierarchical, patriarchal structures and patriotism? How can self-directed learning/ unschooling and respect for the individual, as opposed to categorizing people into buckets, help raise a generation uninterested in territorial feuds and focused on the value of human life instead?
Ed3: Self-Directed Education Empowered by Web3
How can new technology, such as web3, help make self-directed education more accessible, more affordable and easier to validate? Can Ed3 fulfill Ivan Illich’s vision of education for everyone by everyone?
Non-anxious Presence
Why is it important to become the non-anxious presence in our children’s lives and how do we do it?
Play vs. Work
What are the societal implications of the loss of play? Can the current technological renaissance, including web3, help bring play back to our lives?
Will We Take Our Labels to the Metaverse?
Labels, of all shapes and sizes. What do labels do to us? Will labels transfer to the metaverse or can we be anything?
The Hidden Library. Schools, screen time and mental health.
For this episode, my son Simon and I sat down to talk about screen time, YouTube algorithms and hanging out online.
Doughnut Education
Doughnut Economics says an economy is prosperous when all its 12 social foundations are met without overshooting any of the ecological ceilings. Education is one of the social foundations here, but while the other social foundations are pretty clearly defined (housing, food, water, etc.), it’s essential that we agree upon a definition of education as opportunity for personal growth, as access to tools and networks for fulfilling individual talents, rather than equating education to school attendance and academic credentials. Because let’s face it: can Industrial-Age-style schooling really serve as a foundation for a new sustainable mindset?
A Year of Wonders
Hundreds of millions of school students and millions of college students have become homeschoolers as their countries struggle to flatten the curve, or slow down the spread of the new corona virus. Newspapers are filled with quotes by parents who seem more horrified by this sudden disruption in their routine than the pandemic itself. If you are such a parent (or such a college student, many of whom sound equally perplexed by the prospect of studying from home), let me tell you a secret.