Self-directed education and unschooling

I hope you enjoyed last week’s Equinox. The timing couldn’t have been better for world affairs, with the equinoctial emphasis on balance and harmony. Albeit, there would only have been a small percentage of humanity meditating on peace - amongst the noise of everything not listening.

On my recent tour of New Zealand I talked about the value of the middle-ground in following a more peaceful resolve than polarising to one side or the other. The Equinox is about balance and flow. Being in alignment with Nature’s rhythms is a language that speaks to peace and continuing change. Change is healthy, and I am hopeful that this crisis will soon become peace without any force needing to be applied.

Despite the oil prices, from the moment I returned home, I felt the energy uplifting yet again. It was a new and positive change. I was asked to be a panelist on The Unschooling Summit, a three day online event that was well represented by many different countries. The organisers from the UK and New Zealand did a top job in staging the event and I must admit I was impressed by the level of enthusiasm and commitment coming through the parents of many unschooled families.

Over thirty years ago my partner and I decided to homeschool or “unschool” our kids. There were a number of reasons we went forward with this, but mostly it was about our belief in children being able to educate themselves and at the same time, parents being available with the necessary resources when required. It didn’t take long before our beliefs were proven, with all four of our children having a strong sense of themselves and being able to apply this to their chosen fields. It was on this basis that I was invited to be a panelist, speaking to “Reflections from parents of grown unschoolers”. Further to this, I was able to comment as a grandfather of four grandchildren also currently being unschooled from home.

One of the surprising things for me was seeing how unschooling has grown so quickly. This was most inspiring as I have always believed that our western system of education has long been due for an overhaul. The exponential growth of “self directed education” is I believe, the beginning of a whole new approach to a complete and inclusive education. Of course, parents play a critical role in this, so we are also talking a new generation of aware parenting.

I have always valued human creativity and intuition. These are qualities that I have used most of my life in creating music for meditation and the sourcing of universal information. During my school years I felt I had to protect these qualities from invading autocrats who believed logic and reason to be far more useful to me. However, with my return to being an unschooling parent courtesy of The Unschooling Summit, I am now happy to say that unschooled children today would have no fear of similar confrontation. Creativity, imagination and intuition are safe. So just for the record, as I move forward in my communications, I will be referencing the subject matter to Self-directed education, as well as my philosophies on meditation, inner peace and self healing … and of course, the Music for all of the above.

If you are interested in the idea of unschooling your children, follow this facebook link to the content and comments of the recent Unschooling Summit.