Have you ever been curious about the power of unschooling? Reclamation host Tonya Dawn Recla is joined by her husband Justin Recla, host of the Incorporating Superpowers podcast, and daughter Neva Recla, host of the Super Power Kids podcast. Together they share their unique experience with Neva’s learning, and what they have witnessed on Neva’s independent educational journey. Join Tonya, Justin, and Neva as they share the power of unschooling from their own pioneering trek through it.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us at Reclamation. We’re so excited to be back with you today. I am Tonya Dawn.
Neva Lee.
And Justin.
And we’re the Reclas. We are Reclamation. And today we’re really, really, really excited because we’re talking about the power of unschooling, and the reason why, well, we were going to cheer.
And the reason why we’re talking about the power of unschooling is that we’ve had such a unique experience with Neva’s learning, and with how she’s traversed and matriculated through an educational process of her own, and it bears witness. We were going to share it. And not only that, but she just wrapped up seventh grade with.
4.0 GPA.
That’s right, for the year. This was her first year of schooling. It was a little bit of an experiment.
Wait a sec, stop there, because she’s 11 and people are going to go, She’s 11. How did she do it her first year of schooling?
Shh. We don’t talk about that.
No. So that is exactly what we’re going to be talking about because she didn’t do schooling in a traditional sense. And the homeschooling that we did was rather unique as, you know, if you’ve listened to any of our episodes and, most of what we do is rather unique. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re really excited about it. And, of course, I’ve synthesized certain aspects of what we’ve witnessed from that, and we’re going to talk about it and how you can apply that into your kid’s life, and even apply it to how you hold your own educational experience.
Because folks, if you’re not aware that we get to have these experiences with others through these processes, and witnessing them and re-imagining them, then you’re only playing half the game, right? And so, by Justin being able to be here and witness, and observation of, and experience Neva’s walk with her, we get to re-imagine our own experiences, which were phenomenal. We had great experiences, but this gets to be even better. As well it should, right. We should be evolving with each generation. And so, first of all, I’m going to turn it over to Neva and say, okay, so how would you describe your learning, schooling, and educational experience up to this point?
Yeah. So that’s a great question. I would say the word I’d use for it is backward. I always talk about how my life has always been backward. I mastered the adult space when I was two, and now I’m getting into the kids’ space at 11, going into middle school. Well, I am in middle school. So in middle school.
It’s official, You are officially a middle schooler. In the middle of middle school.
In the middle of middle school.
Your middle, middle, middle, middle.
You heard it here. Now you’re getting me all distracted. So, we did. So yeah, I would say backward, because I did go to two schools when I was younger. One lasted a couple of months, the other one lasted a day and a half, and that’s a whole story within itself. It didn’t go very well if y’all were wondering. And so after that, I decided I wanted to be homeschooled. I’m like, I want to learn from home, this isn’t working for me. So then I was homeschooled, from what age would you say?
Well, I mean, I’d say pretty much, you were homeschooled.
Basically always homeschooled.
Yeah, you had a few months in a preschool-type situation.
So, from that point to now I’ve been homeschooled, except not now because I’m going to school at ASU Prep. Go check that out, there are awesome teachers, and they’ve helped me a lot.
ASU Prep Digital.
ASU Prep Digital. So yeah, I think backward, because I was able to master the adult space, and I think part of the reason I was able to master the adult space was that I was learning from home, and I am still learning from home now, it’s just more structure and an actual school. So yeah.
Well, what I really love about it is that we no longer have to provide the curriculum. Somebody else is doing that.
Well, to be clear, we didn’t have to. And this is why we talk about the unschooling component because there are phenomenal homeschooling programs that you can follow, and set curriculums. We didn’t opt for that because what we found was, as with everything that we do, the traditional kind of box, cookie-cutter programs just didn’t work for us. So we had to pick and choose and create the hybrid situations. I happen to have a master’s in an educational program, it helps. And so, and I studied all the philosophies of education, and so we had a really good framework, Justin and I both had matriculated through college.
My dad was a teacher.
Right. So we had all of the fixings to make this work. Go ahead.
Y’all may be wondering if homeschooling was working so well then why would I move to an online school?
Oh, that’s a great question.
And so now onto that, I’m sorry, it just came to my mind.
Sorry, not sorry.
Sorry, not sorry. So part of the reason is that I want to do college at ASU, and mom went to ASU, my sister’s going there. So there’s a lot of good Juju, I guess, with ASU. We’re hyping the school up, so go check it out because it’s awesome. And so then we discovered the middle school that just so happened to be online, and they also have in person, but I was like, Okay, I want to give this a try, because I want to be able to go to college there, but I also want to kind of stay free-flowing with my school, and that’s exactly what it had to offer because it’s online. There are certain classes, but I don’t have to go to them if I don’t want to. There’s some I don’t go to, and there’s a lot I do go to, and so it offers a really free-flowing space while still giving me the opportunities in the future that I was looking for.
That’s awesome. Yeah. A lot of insight in that, we’re going to cut to a quick break, and then when we come back, I want to dive into what we discovered about her doing this sort of reverse-engineered schooling process, and then how you can apply that in your own situation. So stay with us. Of course, if you want to know anything about the Recla’s, you can always go to superpowerexperts.com and check out the network there, and you can check out the IM series, where we share a lot about our teachings. And then of course, in the programs where all three of us participate with our clients and helping them move through their own journeys with their families and in their relationships. So go check that out at superpowerexperts.com and stick with us because we’ll be right back and talk more about the power of unschooling.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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