About

I am a forty-something Mother to two children: Daughter (born ’02) and Son (born ’04). In my previous life (i.e. before kids) I was a medical research scientist. Now I run my own part-time business as a consultant to lawyers in need of expert medical opinions. I am also a Leader with La Leche League.

Husband is an engineer who designs circuit boards and chips for a wide variety of electronic devices. He and his partner are independent contractors, a flexible position that allows him to spend at least half his time working from home. We live on beautiful Vancouver Island, just off the southwest coast of British Columbia, Canada.

Free Learning, also known as unschooling, is a type of homeschooling whereby children are free to pursue their interests on their own time, at their own pace, and under their own direction. Free learners have total ownership over their education. Parents play an active role by being involved in their children’s lives, providing them with learning resources and a supportive home environment, a varied selection of regular activities, and a community of like-minded families (where possible). Inherent to this type of homeschooling is the belief that learning is a natural process, that children are driven by biological instinct to learn, and that this natural process is disrupted by coercive, instruction-based schooling methods.

I was very fortunate to have met a few unschooling families when Daughter was still young and Son had not yet been born. They were part of a small community of local mothers, myself included, who had found each other through the Internet and who pursued a philosophy of Natural Family Living. As I spent time with these families I learned about choices in education I hadn’t known existed. I got to see the products of a Life Without School in the older children, ask endless questions, and explore the possibility long before having to make that decision for my children. The more I learned, the more books I read, and the more time I spent with my children the more it appealed to me. When Daughter was three years old we made the decision to homeschool and have never looked back.

Our province is very progressive when it comes to education; there are several Distributed Learning Programs that cater to homeschoolers. We are with the Self-Design program, whose methodology focuses on learner-directed, enthusiasm-based learning. The program provides resources, support, and funding to its families for the K through 12th grade learning years.

In early 2010 we moved to a rural property with a small mobile home and 4 acres of very overgrown and neglected woodland. We are slowly turning this place into a family farm – clearing land, putting up fencing, acquiring livestock, growing vegetables, and generally figuring it all out as we go along. You can follow that journey on my other blog, Rural Aspirations.

This blog contains older posts from past blogs that include musings on parenting and life in general. Then for a while I was focusing solely on unschooling, but recently I’ve expanded the subject matter to include adventures on our new homestead, parenting issues, rural living, and anything else that tickles my fancy.

Thanks for stopping by!