 but that was it.
And there was no anything screen-like, so no internet, no computers, no television, nothing. So, I think those were two major things that didn’t sit well. It didn’t sit well with me. So, those were two other things I was thinking for Emma, but would I want that for her? That seems kind of restrictive, or like closing the world instead of opening it.
And that message when you were talking about what I was being told about not knowing the multiplication tables. There was a lot of, and this kind of ties back to Rousseau, his ideas about education, that you should be stuck in nature and society is bad, they never talked about Rousseau as being part of their philosophy, but later when I read about him, I was like, well, that sounds exactly like my school. Nature is good and children’s innate inspiration is good, but society is corrupting. So, we need to keep children away from that corrupting society.
So, there was a lot of messages like that, like, oh, you don’t know your multiplication tables, but those poor kids in school, they’re sitting at these desks and they’re learning all these things by rote memory. But they’re not really learning them. And so, there was a lot of talk with the adults of like, poor these people from this corrupting society and we’re doing this wonderful thing.
And also, expectations from the adults at the school, but also from my family, that we would be great. So, there were all these stories about these great people, like Mozart, who was wonderful without having gone to traditional school. So, there was this expectation that we’d be doing these great things, but I felt these expectations, but no real support. “I want to learn music.” “Yes. These are the notes. Go learn on your own.” That’s the way I felt a lot of times, but other people from my school don’t feel like that, but it was me.
PAM: Yeah, no, it is very unique to the person. It is very individual, the kind of environments that are supportive.
DANIELA: Yeah, so I think my quest for the best education is also silly in a way, because it’s not like there will be one education that’s perfect for every single person. It’s more like, what do different people need?
PAM: So, how did you find it when you were in the university programs?
DANIELA: Yeah. Right. So, I went to university to study arts, multimedia animation, actually. So, drawing animated characters, and then bringing them to life in video format. But it was a liberal arts school. So, they had us do all kinds of courses like economics and math and biology. There was a range of requirements that we had to meet to graduate. And so, I was always curious about education courses because I had started to teach English as a second language when I was 16, first as a way of making money and I was really scared to teach. And then I found it really interesting, trying to think of all these games to make it more interesting for my students.
And then I started teaching in an institute, but then it was really regiment, so there was this curriculum and they already wrote the test for you. And you had to have the students do the test. So, there wasn’t a lot of creativity on my part. And I thought, oh, that’s education. I don’t want to do that. No way. But then I took a class at university and they were talking about all these different theories. So, I was reading about that bit of Rousseau.  And so, it’s so exciting to me, even now, to read all of these different education philosophies or views and try and understand them with the different schools I’ve been to, I guess. So, reading about all of those things.
So, then I started getting really interested with those courses, not with the mechanics that I had been doing at work. And some of the classes were like, you teach this way, you evaluate this way. And that I didn’t like, but I really liked learning about all these different education philosophies and also like psychology related to education, like motivation and things like that. And then, I guess I kind of thought, so the Pesta didn’t really work, I thought at the time, because there was no structure. There was no help, or the teachers weren’t trying to motivate us, like, “Oh, there’s this chemistry thing. Do you want to see this experiment?” There was no inviting.
So, then I got into all of these bits at university and all of the education theories and things. I was reading about psychology. It was kind of like, oh, well, the school structure works like this. There are these things you have to do. The whole coercion bit, with the grades and everything, but we don’t like that. So, we’re going to ignore it and we’re going to talk about all these wonderful ways that teachers can motivate students to learn and present these ideas in these cool ways and all that. So, I really liked that for a long time. But it also didn’t really seem to be working.
It didn’t seem to make sense in other ways, because, for example, we’d have all these cool ideas about like how to present something or how to engage students. But then there were these lessons on differentiated education, talking about all the ways that students are different. All of their interests and their learning styles and their gender and their culture and maybe neurodiversity and all these things. And I was like, okay, so I’m going to have 25 students that are completely different. So, no matter how engaging I make the lesson, it’s not gonna work for all these students.
PAM: You need 25 different versions of it.
DANIELA: Because I need to do 25 different lessons. This is not working, either. So, that’s a takeaway from my undergrad, where I was just still confused. Like, this doesn’t seem to be the answer, but this kind of traditional education even made amazing-sounding doesn’t seem to work, either. So, it doesn’t really work. And then for my master’s and now PhD, I’ve been studying. I am still a student at OISE, from the University of Toronto, and there, the focus is on society, education and society.
So, it’s a very different focus and also very interesting. How does racism play out in schools? And all these gender roles. And what happens if students are in this school that doesn’t reflect their culture at all? And what’s the relationship between culture and school? And it’s a very different lens from what I did in my undergraduate, which was mostly classroom-focused, like plan a good lesson and things like that. A really different focus and reading historically how schools have been used for colonial purposes. So, all of those kinds of things.
PAM: Cool. Yeah. That is very, very interesting because that bigger picture is so much a part of understanding how that system tries to fit in there. It just gives you a bigger picture idea of that and how much of it isn’t really about the learning.
DANIELA: Right. Exactly. Exactly. My graduate education has just opened up my mind so much about the different purposes of schooling that have nothing to do with learning. That’s a nice way to sum it up.
PAM: All right. Now we get to the super fun part. Let’s put all of this together.
DANIELA: Yeah. Let me try and see if I can pull it all together.
PAM: Yes! So, all those ways, it’s fascinating. It’s really fascinating to me what your experience was growing up in that school and the pieces that you found challenging. And then how that inspired you or had you thinking almost the opposite of it, but just more structure would have been more helpful. And so, now you’re participating in that structure, you’re questioning it.
And then you’re learning such interesting bits, like that piece where it is very logical that learning is in the context of each individual and their experiences and their styles and who they are and where they are in that moment is what you need to connect to. So, there is this kind of air gap between yes, make it personal, make it interesting and kids love learning. And you have to do it in this classroom with 25 kids. How do you bridge that gap? So, that’s super interesting.
So, how did you come across unschooling itself? And what are those pieces that lit up for you, that made you think, okay, now unschooling is hitting these particular pieces and that’s what I would like to do with my family?
DANIELA: Yeah. So, what happened? I guess as soon as Emma was born, I started to change some of my thinking because of who she is and her very strong knowledge of her own needs and the things that she wanted and not wanting to be directed or not wanting me to be leading her life or telling her, this is good and this is wrong.
She really knows what she needs and what she likes. And so that’s the big starting point for me of wanting to meet her and not to try and be in conflict with her all the time like, “No, actually this is good. This is the right thing. So, now I’m going to try