Self Directed

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Blake Boles joins us to talk about his recent editorial, "I Don't Want a Nuclear Family, I Want a Galactic Commune - on the pursuit of quality conversation", which is about the decline of quality conversation and his resistance to the nuclear family model. 

We discuss the difference between daily logistics and real dialogue, why travel often brings deeper connections, and how temporary communities can support richer conversations. Blake shares ideas like hosting travelers, playing structured games like Hot Seat, and treating every interaction as a chance to learn something new.

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Adolescence is often seen as something to endure — awkward years full of turbulence and struggle. But what if these years could be a time of discovery, adventure, and growth?

In this episode, Jesper and Cecilie Conrad talk with Chris Balme on the launch day of his new book, Challenge Accepted: 50 Adventures to Make Middle School Awesome. We were introduced to Chris by our friend and former guest, Blake Boles, and quickly said yes to the conversation.

Chris shares why adolescence is one of the most po...

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How can we recover the essential human connections that make life meaningful and sustainable? How can we create a world where neighbors know each other's names, children play freely outdoors, and no parent faces the overwhelming challenges of raising children alone? 

Sarah van Gelder, founder of YES Magazine and author of "The Revolution Where You Live," joins us to explore the troubling fragmentation of our social structures and the promising alternatives emerging in response. A growing number of Danish households are single-person dwellings, and approximately 95% of Danish children attend daycare. There i...

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In this episode, we talk with Ben Feliz (14) and Addison Harding (13), home-educated children and contributors to the anthology “Hidden Voices Speak.” Addison came up with the idea for the book, Ben designed the cover, and they worked together with others to publish it. Both care deeply about children’s rights and wanted to respond to recent news stories and new UK legislation affecting home education.

They discuss the motivation behind the anthology, which was to give home-educated children and families a chance to share their experiences directly. Addison notes, "Nowhere in the bi...

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We sit down with Andrew and Heidi Schrum, just three weeks away from starting their life as a full-time nomadic worldschooling family. They ask us direct questions about our seven years of unschooling and worldschooling.

We discuss how the biggest changes happened in us as parents—not our children. We describe letting go of academic pressure, seeing teenagers choose their own academic interests, and how travel creates natural learning opportunities. We also talk about why we stepped away from curriculum-based education and what we've learned about trust, autonomy, and family life on...

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We sit down with Heidi and Andrew Schrum, who are about to leave home and begin travelling full-time with their two young children. 

They ask us what we wish we’d known at the beginning, and we talk through everything from reluctant kids and screen time to preparation that doesn’t help and the emotional crash that often comes six months into travel. 

We also get into how to parent while unschooling—without stepping back too far—and how public perception shifts when you reframe unschooling as world-schooling. 

This is...

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Charles Eisenstein is an author and speaker whose books and essays explore themes of community, human connection, economics, and social change. He is known for works such as The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.

Charles joins us to explore how modern family structures have evolved and what's been lost in our transition from community-based living to isolated nuclear families. 

What gets lost when we accept today’s idea of “normal” life? Together with Charles we discuss the shift from community to isolated nuclear families, the fad...

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What if our traditional education system is fundamentally misaligned with how humans naturally learn? Jesper and Cecilie Conrad continue their conversation with Jamie Rumble, exploring the philosophy and practice of unschooling within a nomadic lifestyle.

Jamie shares how his background, including influences from Paulo Freire and the concept of eco-pedagogy, shapes his approach to teaching and learning.

The discussion challenges the traditional structure of schooling, contrasting prescribed curricula with the emergent, curiosity-driven learning that happens in real life. Cecilie and Jesper explain why their family chooses not to worry...

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We got an email from Jamie Rumble... "I’m a Master of Education student at Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada. For my thesis, I’m researching how digital nomads are adapting their lifestyles in response to climate change, and what insights their experiences might offer for future education and planetary citizenship." 

We thought it could be an interesting talk and said yes, given that we could use the recording for our podcast.

In this episode, we, Cecilie and Jesper Conrad, sit down with researcher Jamie Rumble to discuss our s...

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What happens when a single mom chooses to reject conventional norms, embraces van life, and takes her daughter out of traditional education? Vanessa Woozley joins us to share her inspiring story of courage, resilience, and transformation.

Vanessa’s adventure began with short trips, gradually evolving into full-time worldschooling in a van. She dispels myths about needing significant resources or a traditional two-parent household to pursue a life of travel and alternative education. Vanessa reveals how her daughter thrived after leaving conventional schooling, becoming self-motivated and deeply engaged in learning through genuine in...

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When Jack Stewart turned off the internet, he discovered that digital connection often acts as a “social appetite suppressant”—satisfying on the surface, but not deeply nourishing. In this conversation, Jack explains how removing online distractions led him to seek out in-person connection, from literally knocking on neighbors’ doors to organizing his own book and writing salons.

We discuss the qualitative difference between digital admirers and real friends, and why meaningful conversations rarely happen through casual online chat. Jack outlines how he created formal spaces—book clubs, writing groups, salons—to foster intel...

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Sociologist Jennie Germann Molz joins the podcast to discuss her book The World Is Our Classroom: Extreme Parenting and the Rise of Worldschooling. Jennie is a professor at the College of the Holy Cross whose research explores mobility, technology, and alternative forms of family life. Drawing on both academic insight and her own experience traveling the world with her ten-year-old son, she examines what happens when families move beyond traditional education models and choose to learn through travel.

We talk about how worldschooling challenges conventional ideas of parenting, risk, and education...

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After her eight-year-old son was expelled from school in the UK, Corianda Shepherd and her partner Joel left behind a life that no longer worked. They moved to rural Spain, bought the first house they saw, and slowly built Shepherd’s Rest—a worldschooling community where families live together, learn in nature, and reject the idea that difference needs to be managed or corrected.

This episode is not just about homeschooling. It’s about what happens when the social structure becomes too rigid, when families are stretched thin, and when children who do...

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What if the real magic happens not when you push harder, but when you let go? We explore surrender as a powerful, often misunderstood key to living a fuller life.

Kute Blackson is a transformational teacher and bestselling author of The Magic of Surrender. Known for his dynamic presence and multicultural background, he’s guided thousands worldwide through teachings on surrender, purpose, and authentic living.

Kute shares how walking away from his father’s Ghanaian mega-church, following his intuition, and embracing the unknown led him to unexpected success and deep...

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In this episode, we explore how modern culture has stripped childhood of the freedom it needs to thrive—and what can be done to bring it back. Our guest is Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, launched with Jonathan Haidt, Peter Gray, and Daniel Shuchman to champion independence, resilience, and real-world learning.

Together, we unpack how fear, measurement, and control have come to dominate parenting and education. From the rise of isolated family units to the spread of enrichment culture, today’s children are surr...

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What happens when your child simply won't fit inside society's educational box? 

When Anna Vestlev Sandfeld realized her son didn’t fit into the structure of kindergarten—and likely never would fit into traditional school—she and her husband chose unschooling. In this conversation with her cousin Cecilie and co-host Jesper, Anna reflects on the first year of stepping away from the system.

Anna shares how the loss of her first child shaped her parenting values, what it meant to leave a job she loved, and how her son’s strong...

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Outschool founder Amir Nathoo explains why education built on passion—not curriculum—may be the only way to truly prepare kids for a rapidly changing world. We talk about his shift from traditional schooling in the UK to building Outschool, how becoming a parent deepened his beliefs, and why interest-led learning offers more than just flexibility—it offers resilience.

Amir shares the emotional challenge of stepping away from conventional paths, how Outschool helps parents manage fears without compromising child-led learning, and why AI is forcing us to rethink what human intelligence really...

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Ever wondered what life could look like if you broke free from the conventional 9-5?

David Cole and his family sold their home in Chicago in 2019 and haven’t stopped moving since. Cecilie and Jesper talk with him about how they made the shift from occasional travellers to full-time nomads.

"I think what stopped us the most was mindset," David reveals, reflecting on their journey from dreaming to doing. After years of passionate but occasional travel, they finally made the leap—starting with house-sitting across the US before boarding a 22...

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Dr. Cam joins us to discuss parenting teenagers and why efforts to control them often create more distance. She explains how control can undermine trust and why focusing on connection leads to better results.

We discuss the difference between respect and obedience, and how letting teens say “no” builds confidence and self-trust. Jesper shares his shift from being a “parenting by volume” dad to being more present and connected, and how time made the biggest difference.

Dr. Cam describes how many dads step back from parenting teens because they feel dis...

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In this conversation with author and speaker Jacob Nordby, we explore the paradox of freedom in modern life. Is it simply doing whatever we want—or does real freedom require something deeper?

While many consider freedom to be about doing whatever they want without constraints, Jacob challenges this perception. "A lot of people assume that freedom means the ability to do whatever they want," he reflects, "but we're learning that most of what we think and believe happens pretty unconsciously." True freedom, it seems, requires the difficult work of se...

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Yasmin and Andy left a comfortable life in the UK to join a small off-grid community in the jungles of Belize.

Fifteen years after cycling through Central America, Yasmin and Andy returned—this time with three kids and a desire for a different kind of life. What began as a plan to visit intentional communities in Europe shifted during the pandemic, eventually landing them in a small permaculture community in Belize.

They describe the emotional and practical steps behind leaving the UK, the grief of letting go, and the cl...

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In this episode, we speak with Amanda Diekman about how her parenting changed when her six-year-old son went into autistic burnout. He lost verbal communication, stopped eating most foods, and couldn't follow basic routines. Faced with a crisis, Amanda chose to stop trying to fix him and instead removed demands to create safety.

She explains how this shift became the foundation of low-demand parenting—an approach that prioritizes accommodation, reduces expectations, and gives children more agency. We discuss the fear many parents feel when stepping outside conventional norms, how control-based parenting da...

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Luz and David from Evolving Education left careers in biotechnology to explore and document alternative education models worldwide. Frustrated by rigid schooling systems, they traveled to over 170 learning centers to understand how children learn best outside the traditional classroom.

In this episode, we talk about  how compulsory schooling originated in 19th-century Prussia as a system designed to produce obedient soldiers and workers, a model later exported worldwide as a tool for colonization and cultural suppression. We discuss how education has been shaped by these historical forces and why so many modern s...

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Iris Chen, author of Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent, shares how she shifted from a strict, high-expectation parenting style to a trust-based approach.

Raised in a Chinese-American household, Iris grew up with academic pressure and obedience as the norm. She carried those expectations into her own parenting—until she saw how control and punishment were harming her relationship with her children. A parenting workshop on neuroscience led her to rethink discipline, ultimately guiding her toward unschooling.

This conversation looks at how tiger parenting is often rooted in...

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The moment you carve, knit, bake or start folding paper, something remarkable happens in your brain. The anxious spiral of thoughts quiets, stress hormones recede, and you enter a state that Dr. Anne Kirketerp calls "meaningful self-forgetfulness."

Dr. Anne Kirketerp is a psychologist, researcher, and craftsperson who pioneered Craft Psychology—the study of how hands-on creative activities impact mental well-being. With a background in both psychology and craftsmanship, she has spent years exploring the health benefits of making, from reducing stress to enhancing focus and problem-solving skills.

Fo...

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What does it mean to truly connect in a world that’s becoming more digital by the day?

Asger Leth is a Danish filmmaker, writer, and creative visionary known for his documentary and feature filmmaking work. He gained international recognition for Ghosts of Cité Soleil (2006), a gripping documentary set in Haiti, and later directed the Hollywood thriller Man on a Ledge (2012). Asger has spent years living and working globally with a background deeply rooted in storytelling and cinema. 

In this episode, filmmaker and creative visionary Asger Leth...