I reposted a meme that I saw from Sarah Jenks yesterday on Instagram:
“All the girls who got ‘talks too much’ on their report card grew up to be powerful.”
Did you see it?
It definitely sparked something.
This is one of the many reasons why I have said NO to the compulsory school system and am choosing something radically different.
Self-directed Education. AKA “unschooling.”
About 10 years ago, I went to a workshop where a woman got on stage to talk about the power of homeschooling. Her middle school kids were there marketing their business to the crowd.
I was so inspired I said “I want THAT someday if I have kids!”
But as I became a mother with a full time business, I didn’t think it was possible for me.
I mean how could I both homeschool and work?
Covid changed that. I saw that I DID have a choice.
I realized that I don’t have to be their only teacher. I can have a nanny (who loves them and is engaged with them) and other facilitators help guide them.
Unschooling is child led. It’s not focused on an arbitrary curriculum that is based on memorization and testing.
It’s based on the belief that children know how to naturally learn (look they walked and talked on their own without a book, right?) and we simply give them “the people, resources and space around them to pursue their own interests, develop their own mastery, and gain essential skills and knowledge.”
The school system is not interested in education (even though some amazing teachers in the system might be and I had many of them growing up!)
It’s interested in teaching compliance. It’s an antiquated system designed to create factory workers in the 1850s. It became the status quo and is draining kids from their creativity and zest for life.
It’s a traditional, authoritarian, top down approach that “can be viewed as one of the great threats to human freedom and the development of human potential.”
Most people (not all) can’t think for themselves, have lost their voices, are disconnected from their dreams and desires, need permission to do anything including being their authentic selves, and are going to a job all day that they hate because it’s what they think they are supposed to do.
The past 10 years, I’ve been unschooling myself. Reprogramming limited beliefs, discovering the truth of who I am and reclaiming my power and freedom as a woman. Circle has been one of the most powerful, eye-opening, paradigm-shifting vehicles for my unschooling.
I’ve mastered facilitation and training in my self-directed entrepreneurial career and know that learning (and wisdom) comes from embodied experience more than memorization and listening to a lecture.
So now I’m going to TRUST MYSELF and everything I’ve learned as a circle leader to unschool my daughters so they are bold, bright, creative and innovative leaders who know how to think for themselves, choose their own path, and pursue their passions.
They are strong willed girls already, who don’t do well being told what to do. A coercive model could potentially break them, not empower them to be themselves.
I’m not interested in taming their wildness.
I’m interested in inspiring their authenticity.
With so many parents seeing how ridiculous online “learning” will be this fall – that essentially they will be homeschooling – now is the perfect time to challenge the status quo and do the research on the alternatives.
The impact on the next 7 generations could be tremendous if more parents wake up to their children’s innate power and set them free.
And … it starts with us as women setting ourselves free.
That’s why I believe it is more important than ever to step into leadership and start a circle. There is a direct connection between women circling and self-directed education for our children. There is no separation, circle is a new way of living.
We step into our authentic truth as circle. We learn to be ourselves, trust ourselves, direct ourselves.
Community is essential.
Sharing in a sacred circle of women is essential.
Opening up is essential.
Being honest about what you’re feeling is essential.
This is indeed the time to choose what’s essential. Not the “supposed to” or what has always been. To chose something radically different, to chose the new model of feminine leadership.
This is the time to hold the light for women worldwide.
This is the time to become more VISIBLE in your unique gifts.
This is the time for the spiritual women — ie priestesses, witches, shamans, lightworkers, healers — to come together and support one another in collectively rising.
This is how we reclaim our power, our collective power in the midst of social anxiety and angst.
I’m holding the light for our collective. Will you join me?
In sistership,
Tanya
