This Golden Hour
In this podcast, we specifically serve new homeschool families through engaging conversations with homeschool parents and families at all levels of experience and expertise. Listeners will increase their confidence and assurance about their children's education and future while diminishing their fears. This podcast helps you know how to begin homeschooling, navigate challenges, and answer questions for all stages of the journey.
The name “This Golden Hour” has meaning. First, this name refers to the years parents have to raise and teach their children from birth to when they leave home to be on their own. As parents, we have a golden opportunity to teach and learn alongside our children during these formative and essential years of growth and development. Second, “This Golden Hour” points to this same period of childhood as the children’s chance to read, explore nature, and enjoy an inspiring atmosphere of family, love, and learning.
This Golden Hour
46. Blake Boles and Unschool Adventures
In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Blake Boles from California. Blake is currently in Freiburg, Germany, and soon will be cycling in Chile. When Blake was attending the University of California, Berkeley, he began in the astrophysics program, but decided he did not want to research Science and started studying Education on his own. He came across the writings of John Taylor Gatto and Grace Llewellyn, and Blake knew he wanted to pursue alternative education. From his own experiences growing up and in college, Blake was always curious about adventures and wanted to facilitate the same experiences for youth. Blake created his business, Unschool Adventures, where he takes groups of youth all over the world on a variety of adventures so that they can face real situations and challenges that cause them to stretch, learn, and leave their zones of comfort. Over the years, Blake has written several books about self-directed learning and helping youth navigate both the high school years and decisions about life after high school, like getting into college. He values giving children and youth the freedom to learn and the freedom to fail, and he believes in communities that are consensual and interest based.
Connect with Blake
https://www.blakeboles.com/
https://www.offtraillearning.com/podcast/
Books by Blake
https://www.amazon.ca/Still-Sending-Your-Kids-School/dp/0986011975
https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Self-Directed-Learning-Unconventional-Education/dp/0986011959
https://www.amazon.com/College-Without-High-School-Teenagers/dp/0865716552
https://www.amazon.ca/Better-Than-College-Blake-Boles/dp/0986011908
Books
https://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Anniversary/dp/0865714487
https://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind-Teacher-American-Schooling/dp/1893163210
https://www.amazon.ca/Underground-History-American-Education-Investigation/dp/0945700040
The Teenage Liberation Handbook
The Case Against Education
This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org
I think that young people need to feel like they are living in a world where they have some real choice. They can really do something that feels like they're effective contributors to the world where they can be part of meaningful communities and not just be like these cattle that are arbitrarily labeled with their ability to perform on these completely fabricated tests. you can't just. Be an unschooler and, yeah, go play Fortnite in your parents basement all night and rub flaming hot Cheeto dust off your chest and be like, I'm self directed, hire me. It doesn't work like that. You have to do hard things. You have to show the world that you can do hard things.
Timmy Eaton:Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Blake Boles from California. Blake is currently in Freiburg, Germany, and soon will be cycling in Chile. When Blake was attending the University of California, Berkeley, he began the astrophysics program, but decided he did not want to research science and started studying education on his own. He came across the writings of John Taylor Gatto and Grace Llewellyn and Blake knew he wanted to pursue alternative education. From his own experiences growing up and in college, Blake was always curious about adventures. And wanted facilitate the same experiences for youth. Blake created his business, Unschooled Adventures, where he takes groups of youth all over the world on a variety of adventures So that they can face real situations and challenges that cause them to stretch, learn, and leave their zones of comfort. Over the years, Blake has written a number of books about self directed learning and helping youth navigate both the high school years and decisions about life after high school, like getting into college. He values giving children and youth the freedom to learn and the freedom to fail. And he believes in communities that are consensual and interest based. Welcome to this golden hour podcast today we have with us Blake Boles and I didn't mention this beforehand, but your name came up in an episode that I had about two months ago and I just was mad that I hadn't known your name. And so since then, I've been able to really look into it. And but Blake Boles is the founder and creator of unschooling adventures. And he's the author of several self directed learning books. And I just want to mention those because I really want to encourage this audience homeschooling audience to look into those. So like, why are you still sending your kids to school? The art of self directed learning better than college, which I love better and college without high school. So many like minded things that you're doing. So thank you for being with us, Blake.
Blake Boles:It's a pleasure, Tim. Thanks for having
Timmy Eaton:me. Yeah, and we were also talking about, besides being author and writer he did used to host and, still has a podcast, but we were talking about just trail running and biking and all the different adventures and so we're going to talk about all that in this episode. I think anybody will enjoy what we're going to be talking about, so again, thank you for being here.
Blake Boles:I believe literally every person will enjoy this episode. If you're listening, you've already made it. A good choice today.
Timmy Eaton:Awesome. Give us a little bit of bio just your own, whatever you would say about your upbringing and where you are from and whatever you want to say about your own personal
Blake Boles:bio. Sure. When people ask me where I'm from, I say I'm from California. Cause I do culturally identify with California and the West coast. U S. And I went to California public schools and did not have any sort of homeschooling or alternative education upbringing. I thought homeschoolers were those weirdo Christians that I've never actually met before. And then I went to college to become a research scientist and halfway through. I got to know the actual graduate students in the departments I was interested in, and I was like, they're just sitting in front of their computers in dark caves all day. And that's not the life I want. I was already interested in going back to work for the wilderness summer camp that I went to in the mountains of California as a kid. And I just like being outside and doing stuff with my body and being in the sunshine and I thought maybe I can take this science background that I've started and become a high school science teacher. And then I started reading books about what it's like to be a teacher in the United States. And I stumbled upon books by John Taylor Gatto and Grace Llewellyn. And then I started reading books about these crazy alternative schools like the Sudbury Valley School. And essentially through a lot of reading and discussion, I realized I should not even try to go into the conventional school system, public or private, because I felt like I already knew what the outcome would be, which would me being frustrated and quitting. And so I ended up designing my own bachelor's degree to study alternative education theory graduated with the least marketable degree ever issued by UC Berkeley and went into the field of outdoor and experiential education.
Timmy Eaton:So cool, man, and and there's a lot of questions there because it was astrophysics you were looking into, is
Blake Boles:that right? Yeah, that's what I started with and pursued for two years and it's a super interesting field. I just looked down the line and I realized that when you really go deep into this stuff, you end up studying something that's so niche that you can really only have a meaningful discussion about it with 15 other people in the world. And. And you value that?
Timmy Eaton:No,
Blake Boles:I do. I do value meaningful discussions. And I love the fact that when you work in the field of education, and especially maybe talking about why school experiences are often difficult for a lot of people, you can have that conversation with anyone in the world, because everyone has had some sort of experience with a school system or education system. And so it really is this portal to being able to talk to anyone in a way that Yeah. A highly specialized science degree or perhaps highly specialized anything is not a portal into that.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. No, that's good. And then I'm, I was intrigued by the idea of a self designed, I don't even know how that works. So and for people listening, one of the principles that you highlight just I'm inspired that you did that on your own. Cause you remind me more of my wife. Like she would ask the questions and say, where is this leading? And then, I'd just be like, I did my education degree because I got started in it and I finished it. You know what I'm saying? And, but I love that you were actually thinking ahead and going, where does this lead? And I think that's a really good principle for our listeners to think about is like, where does this lead? And then work your way backwards like you did, but talk about the, how you did the self designed program. How does that work even? Yeah.
Blake Boles:Yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention. And if there was an undergraduate degree in education I might've pursued that, but there wasn't, there was only graduate degrees. And so I was trying to create this interdisciplinary studies program, but they were still really trying to shoehorn me into some paths I didn't want to take and some unnecessary classes. And I'd read these books that had really given me this vision of what I wanted to study. Like I wanted to study these super radical alternative schools and very the box practices like unschooling that really give young people. This extraordinary degree of autonomy and choice and personal responsibility for their educations. And I realized that there was just not any, there were very few classes I could take at this otherwise wonderful public institution that would help me figure that out. And so by just like badgering enough people, someone finally pointed me in the direction of this one lady who coincidentally had her office in the physics and astronomy department building. And. She was in charge of something called the individual major, which I think was a, it must have been a holdover from like the free speech era at Berkeley, although I since discovered there are many other colleges and universities in the US that will let you do this, just oftentimes these opportunities are not highly publicized because it's a headache for the administration. And so I just had to come up with. An idea that I could get two professors to sign off on and then write a senior thesis paper. That's 40 pages. And I wrote a paper that was thoroughly mediocre, but it was good enough for professors. And
Timmy Eaton:that was your bachelor's too,
Blake Boles:right? Yeah, it was an honors thesis. Like it, it couldn't be complete junk. And yeah, that's essentially how
Timmy Eaton:it worked. And that's what I mean. It was a bachelor's degree. And I don't remember ever writing a 40 page paper in my bachelor's degree. So
Blake Boles:that's pretty good. And I am thankful for that experience. And that definitely kicked off my desire to write something that's longer and more substantial. Yeah.
Timmy Eaton:And I love that you like, again you're at school and that's a pretty demanding school as far as I understand this, as far as elite schools and rigor. And you just were reading on your own also. When I went to school, I was like trying to keep up with stuff. I was definitely not reading something else on the side. You were already, I think the product of what you were learning about, it sounds like I'm saying the idea of meta
Blake Boles:level experience, you were
Timmy Eaton:open to you, it seemed like you were unschooled or by. At least the principles of unschooling by nature and then discovered Oh, there's something that kind of fits me. It's like my wife is definitely classic introvert. She read this book called quiet, well years ago. And it was like so validating to be like, Oh, I'm not strange and this exists. And so it was so validating. It seems like that. So John Taylor Gatto, how did you come across him though? Like, What was it that you, because he's usually something that people hear about and then look into. How did you. Come across John Taylor,
Blake Boles:the ghetto. So I signed up for a peer led education class just for one credit. And this is something that's unique to Berkeley. They have a program called decal democratic education at Cal and it lets undergraduates initiate and lead courses for other undergraduates. I ended up getting involved with this program, leading a few courses myself, but I began by taking another person's course that essentially turned into a discussion circle about. education and critical thoughts on education. And the founder of that course, who became a good friend of mine, just bought everyone, all 12 of us in his course, a copy of John Taylor Gatto's book, a different kind of teacher, which had recently been published. And he said he had literally just stumbled across it in a Berkeley bookstore. And so I'm thoroughly indebted to Nate. And he really, Showed me through the lens of John Taylor Gatto that. Not only is the school system something to be like generally questioned, but it can be an actively harmful element in young people's lives and something to be taken quite seriously as this massively influential force. And, yeah, so John Taylor Gatto was just like this Madaroon Ram. Once he entered my life, I, I found his book, which he had just published that year, The Underground History of American Education. And sometimes you read John Taylor Gatto and it gets A bit too conspiracy theory ish, or you're like, where are your sources, buddy? But I think in general, his message and his heart is really genuine. And at this point. His writing is now two decades old. And so a lot of people haven't even heard of him anymore, but it's still relevant. I still tell everyone, pick up literally anything that John Taylor Gatto wrote, and it will, it might light you on fire like it did myself. Yeah. And
Timmy Eaton:I feel like in my exposure to like just homeschooling families I feel like the one that people always suggest versus dumbing us down. And that, that was, because it is, it's and you said like some of this stuff gets a little into the conspiracy area or something, but the reality is more and more, his ideas are being validated and fulfilled. The longer that we exist, I'm seeing like some of the principles just totally accurate to the day that we live in. And that's why so many people are looking for alternative education and homeschooling or unschooling could be, and it's because they didn't know about it. It's just you and I had a similar background. We went to school and we didn't know that there were these other options. And so that's one of the things I'm really interested in is just letting people know. At least that there are other options and then make a choice that's an educated choice, but a lot of times people just don't know, and they just have misconceptions or preconceptions about what homeschooling is or other forms of education, and so they need to know at least have the options available to you.
Blake Boles:I had all those preconceptions and misconceptions about homeschoolers. I agree. It's been an eye opening path for myself and I feel like it's a service to the world just to tell other people like these alternative paths are not just for complete weirdos or outcasts or people who really can't fit into the school system. I've met so many teenagers now who can fit into the school system. They're like, I just don't want to play by those rules like it feels fake. It's a waste of my time. And that was mostly my experience upon later reflection. I could succeed in the school system. I got straight A's. I could play the game well, you can feel that the game is rigged. You can feel like, Oh, I'm winning at this, but I don't have to try very hard. So what does it even mean? And and I spent so much of my time in middle school and high school in California public schools, just feeling bored and just feeling like my time is wasted. And these poor teachers who are completely overwhelmed are dealing with classroom management issues that no sane person could handle. No. And it's not working for them. It's not working for us. We're all just sitting around waiting for the bell to ring. What is this training us for? What's the point of this?
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. Yeah. So when you read that stuff, you were like, Oh man, this stuff resonates and this speaks to my experience. I can't believe that I haven't, I feel like I've heard the name mentioned, but I have not really gotten into Grace Llewellyn. And so I really want to look into her because. I've only heard her name mentioned but haven't really gotten. I was more into John Taylor Gatto and John Holt and then lots of Charlotte Mason influences a lot of what we do in our homeschooling. But have you read much of John Holt? John Holt,
Blake Boles:I know he's a luminary in the field, but he's one of these people. That his primary literature is just never something that I, that really pulled me in the way that these other authors did. So I completely admire his influence, the fact that he created Growing Without Schooling magazine. He was so influential for so many people, but yeah, his writing didn't call to me in the way that others did.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah, I just I just interviewed Pat Feranga and Pat Feranga is the one who came upon him and and then his now like really got all of his writings gathered and is doing quite a bit and really unschooling the term came out of the work that, that John Holt did. I wrote a dissertation on home education, like I did my doctorate degree at the University of Alberta, wrote a dissertation. One of my major findings was that homeschool unschooled kids are really self directed and usually by their freshman year, they are self directing the majority of their education. And I had a, somewhat of an understanding of what self directed education is. And I loved reading through a lot of the things that you have on your website about self directed learning but talk a little bit about that. Cause that seems that's why it makes sense to me why you would resonate more with John Taylor Gatto because He really does talk about that and and I love the way that you outline what self directed learning is versus the term that I don't know if you coined it, but unexamined learning, which definitely made sense to me. So talk a little about self directed learning and what that looks like or what that could look like for
Blake Boles:families. Yeah, it's definitely my preferred term over unschooling, which doesn't tell you what it is at all. It's just a very anti term, very counterculture, right? But self directed learning also has this very watered down version of it that you might hear in like corporate jargon or even, educational jargon which doesn't really mean what I think you and I intend for it to mean. And when I think of self directed learning, I think about really giving The freedom and responsibility to the learner and freedom means the freedom to fail also. And so coming from the summer camp and outdoor education world, I saw the value in young people undertaking these hard challenges, usually in the outdoors, where they really, have to deal with failure in the beginning. And that's part of the appeal of it, that there are these real boundaries. Like when you go on a, your first wilderness backpacking trip and you're 12 years old. You have to learn how to dig a hole and poop in it. You have to learn how to cook macaroni and cheese. You have to it's real, all these real things. If you are careless and you just put your sleeping pad down on some sharp rocks and it's deflating in the middle of the night and you can't sleep, like that's on you. Yes. And it was that kind of like freedom plus responsibility equals meaningful challenge and growth equation. That's the part of self directed learning that spoke to me. And that's why I was never that interested in these kind of watered down project based learning self, and then the same way that, Google has the genius hour. You can work on any project you want for whatever two hours on Friday and. Schools think that they're highly progressive or innovative if they do the same thing with their kids. And I'm like, try harder. Okay. Think bigger. What if half of the week was genius hour? What if the whole week was genius hour? So that appealed to me and. Of course, it's a scary thing to allow actual failure in the life of your kids. And this gets into cultures of parenting and accessibility to college and higher education and ramifications for what that means for someone's career and fears of parents, if their kids are perceived to be falling behind or failing in some way. And it just gets into All these other realms and often realms that, that touch upon the lives of the educators and the parents, not just the students and the identities of the educators and the parents. And who is the school system really serving when students aren't really engaged in what they're learning, but from the perspective of the system and the adults running the system, everything seems to be running smoothly. that's just a big charade to me. And so this is the version of self-direct and learning. I, I got into, and a way that I like to think about it and talk about it is consensual learning. And so the school system as we know it. Whether public or private is a largely non consensual affair. Students are mostly coerced into going there by their parents. They are mostly coerced by the systems and the adults present at school.
Timmy Eaton:And even voice it, right? They voice it. They go, and maybe it's just a cultural thing. But you seriously, I teach and, I teach freshmen to seniors and then young adults. And I teach like these religious based scripture based courses. But it's the same thing. They'll come over to my classes and they're in there again, it might not even be reflective of what they actually feel, but that's how you're supposed to talk in that those years. And so you go, I hate school and it's boring. And a lot of them mean it. And a lot of them just say it because that's what you're supposed to say. But I think what you're saying is so accurate. You cannot. You can't cheat the process of becoming with some fake way to do that. And so like your example of you, you put your pad down and it's well, you're uncomfortable. So you do something about that and you can't fabricate that in a setting, in a classroom where they just don't care because nothing's stabbing them in the back. That's
Blake Boles:right. It's all just created out of thin air, almost. It's a very fake environment. And they know that there are not real boundaries. There are not real consequences. What are you going to do? Send me to the principal's office, and so I'm not advocating for, whatever, starting to hit kids again, or corporal punishment or anything. I don't think we need those kinds of consequences. I think that young people need to feel like they are living in a world where they have some real choice. They can really do something that feels like they're effective contributors to the world where they can be part of meaningful communities and not just be like these cattle that are, late arbitrarily labeled with their ability to perform on these completely fabricated tests. Like they, they know that it's a made up world. They can smell the BS from a hundred miles away. And that's why they act like they do in schools. And that's why they have no actual buy in. And so that's why I thought. I'm going to go work in the world of outdoor and experiential education. Or what I ended up doing, starting my travel company. I'm going to take groups of teens on big international trips, that kind of stuff where, this is the stuff that changes lives. When I had a few chances to travel internationally as a young person, it's whoa, okay, now I'm paying attention. This matters. I'm someplace new. It's a foreign language. If I make the, if I get off on the wrong stop here, like I'm going to be in a seriously challenging situation. There's real challenges. You actually have to pay attention and therefore things matter. And I was in a situation where things matter.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. Yeah. It's real, man. Like you said I think that concept of it's real, like you I was intrigued that when you interview these kids that, isn't that right? You do an interview for the kids that sign up for your adventures because, and you're really vetting. Who is actually going to come and so a lot of the potential issues are vetted right from the beginning and I don't, and I don't think the intention is to like, I want to block, certain, it is that, but like you have kids that have buy in it's what you were just saying about the traditional classroom right now or in conventional schools. Like they come over with that body language and everything else. It's because they're not being asked to actually do anything. And when they are asked to do something, there's no clear this is going to make a difference. If you go play on a basketball team, for example if you're not performing, then you're not playing and you're not, why would you do it if you're not going to, if you're not going to get into it,
Blake Boles:That's, and no one forces you to play on a basketball team. You choose to play on the basketball team. And of course, you might be pressured by friends or parents or some other reason to be on the basketball team. But mostly I imagine that. Young people play on sports teams or they decide to skateboard or they decide to, throw pottery because they want to do it because there's interest and curiosity there. It feels meaningful. And so it's, yeah, it's that opt in, it's that buy in and that's what I screen for on these international trips. I do not, for very personal, selfish reasons, if I'm a trip leader, do not want to take some 15 year old whose mom signed him up for this trip. And he is. There's nearly zero buy in, like that's exactly how you get kids causing trouble for themselves, for other people, for the adult trip leaders. But I just believe in communities that are consensual and interest based and let's just, everyone needs to have some buy in and some skin in the game. That's, those are the kinds of communities that we want to participate in as adults. And I don't think it's really that different for young people, especially for adolescents and teenagers, the, right on the threshold of adulthood.
Timmy Eaton:So this, and this is a hard question because I don't there's no one size fits all, obviously. And that's what you're saying, like you do have to vet here and there, but as a parent, we've, so we've got six kids, we've got three boys and three girls. And they, even though they've been culturally nurtured in our family because that's all they've had is our family Just like anyone else you tend to do what your siblings do. And so it's so facilitating this environment where it's like. No, like you go after your interest and do what you really want. What do you counsel a parent or even a teacher for that matter, if they're trying to facilitate this environment where kids can really discover their interest in curiosities. What are principles that would lead to that? Because I find that's hard especially in the system that we, in the culture that we live in here in North America. It's not like that. It's you're told what you're going to do in your classes, curriculum is determined by a government agency. It's just so laid out for you and it's contrary to any form of entrepreneurship or you like, like self directed learning in the way that you've defined it. So what is the council? What are the principles that would increase the likelihood? Cause I know you can't compel it or coerce it. So how do you lay like Charlotte Mason calls laying out the feast and then letting them how do you do that in a meaningful way that can't be fabricated? Like we said, how do you accomplish that for a kid to go? I choose this and I'm interested in this when they're not offering that themselves. So some kids just offer it, but a lot don't.
Blake Boles:I think young people need to be exposed to what's out there in the world. And this is often an argument that's chucked against homeschooling or small alternative schools. It's like, how will they. How will they know that chemistry exists? How will they know that advanced math exists? Etc. Shakespeare, it's do you know that the internet exists? Do you know that these libraries are probably on the internet a lot, they probably go to libraries. It's like it's really a different situation now from what it probably was in the 70s when the library was the main portal to accessing the world. And this is why I'm a big fan of giving young people access. To internet and devices, within reasonable safety thresholds but still saying this is a tool for learning. And I understand why you 13 year old are constantly on YouTube or Twitch or whatever network you're on because. This has given you access to this world that is really hard for you as a 13 year old to directly access it. It's culturally hard. It's logistically hard. You live in Canada, the US. And, I remember growing up in the suburbs in Southern California, you need a car to go anywhere. There was a bus once an hour and it was a sketchy proposal to take that bus. And so that's one reason why I think It's okay often for young people to spend a lot of time online if they are if you have good reason to believe that they are exploring and discovering and exposing themselves to new things. But you have to go beyond that. It cannot just be like seeing the world through the lens of the internet and the screens. And so this is why I find that it's so important to create these opportunities for young people to go out into the world. In in a way that they have a lot of choice and freedom to explore. And so that's what I do on my Unschooled Adventures trips is it's not like a heavily pre planned day by day. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to see this historical site. Then we're going to get blah, blah, blah. No, it's like I take them somewhere and I say, you have most of this day to be free and go wander around, just don't do this stupid thing. Always stay in a group of three or more always have a way to contact the trip leaders, basic risk management and say, go discover, explore. I recently did this with a group of 16 teens in Berlin for the month of October, which every day their mission was essentially to take public transportation into Berlin. They almost always did this without trip leaders present and go discover amazing things to do in a big city, especially things that cost. Low money or zero dollars. Yeah. And of course, this is a special little world that I'm creating with these travel programs John Taylor Gatto something he wrote about frequently that inspired me was that young people need adventure more than they need algebra. They need this chance to go out and to experience the world directly. And. And that, as you mentioned is just like difficult to do. And so there really is this tension, I think, especially in the early adolescent years when kids are moving away from being so parent focused and wanting to be more social, but also they are restricted from being highly independent in their world. This is one reason why I honestly enjoy hanging around Europe more than North America right now, because I see groups I'm looking out. At a street here in Freiburg, Germany right now. And very likely I would see a group of nine, 10, 11, 12 year olds going around by themselves because it's such a dense area. There's so much public transport. It's quite safe. They learn how to bike on their own from a very young age. And so this free range kid culture that we talk about or certain States like Utah likes to say, we're super free range kid friendly. It's, it is hard to do that when just the layout of the cities, prevents kids from traveling around independently. So there are fundamental obstacles to letting kids explore independently. This is why a lot of them bury themselves into computers and screens for a number of years and games, because these are these little worlds where they have. Autonomy where they make their own friends, where they have their own lives, where they are creating their own lives, that doesn't mean that your kids should play Fortnite for 18 hours a day for two years. That's a problem, but it does mean look at the screens through a different lens, especially if your kid really has limited opportunities. To go around and explore to meet other kids to do that whole like 1970s, just like kicking around the neighborhood with the neighborhood kids type thing. I know. I don't see that happening very frequently anymore. I know.
Timmy Eaton:And it's not set up for that. Cause as you say that that's not, it's so appealing. And it's, but then I think about like where I live or other places I've lived and I'm going, if you did that if the kids went out and I'm just going by what they would do is they would end up going to somebody's house. And like you said, they would be playing Fortnite or whatever. And that's. Not everybody, but like the majority. I watch it every day. Like it's so interesting to me that you have all these, you're with all your peers, but like the phone is so compelling, man. And they just go to that. And that's not a, that's not like an inherently bad thing. It's just that but what it's caused is this. This inability to, and it's always the criticism of homeschools. Like this this social weirdness and then I watch it every day. And I'm like, this is not socially normal. There's a bunch of people here and nobody's hanging out because why would they? There's so much entertainment in their pocket, we live out in the country. And one thing I found that I, maybe I should do like a side study on this. I remember when I was doing my defense in my dissertation, the first person that said, Ed said something before we did like the formal actual defense. He's just he's I have one question before we start. He's like, why do so many homeschoolers live on acreages? And I laughed and I, cause I was like, that is accurate. And it's true. Like a ton choose to live out in the country with chickens and goats. And it's because we're trying to give some semblance of that. But even saying that it's like you said it's all a little fake because you're not a farmer and it's hard to fabricate that. You can't manufacture. Real life experiences. You going out on your own when you were young, going on these adventures, because that stuff opens your eyes and talk about education. You learn how a different country functions. You're exposed to a different language. You're scared whether or not you're going to end up in the right public transit, you're, you have to navigate the airport and a lot of these things. Like it's a cool educational experience. I wish we could do that more. And anyway. That was a lot of stuff, but
Blake Boles:yeah, the, one of the foundational experiences I had as a young person, aside from going to that wilderness summer camp in California was when I was 14, I got to spend a month living with the homestay family in Chile. And I only had one year of high school Spanish under my belt, not very good. And. It was just like thrown into the deep end. I went down as part of an organized group, but we all got split up into truly individual homestays. And so I was with a family that only spoke Spanish to me, a host brother who was 15, who only spoke Spanish to me. And I was just hanging out with him and his friends and going to parties. And I think I was taking Spanish classes during the day while he went to public school. But. It was just like sink or swim, right? Yes, immersion. Yeah, immersion and something that's on my radar now, especially as I spend so much time in, in these kind of more like liberal unschooled circles that are, really into feelings and talking about feelings and consent and emotional safety. I realized that a lot of these. Situations that I so deeply benefited from as an adolescent. These were not situations where there was much emotional safety guaranteed. Physical safety is important. I never felt like I was about to get robbed or assaulted or beat up. In fact, the closest I ever came to getting beat up was when I went to public school and but. This sense of I need to learn how to talk to people and make small talk, otherwise I won't talk to anyone. That sort of social survival and also the sense of being, being challenged, being culturally challenged by these people are like, ah, what's it like? And I heard this stupid stereotype about America and it's okay, how am I gonna respond to this? Yeah. Yeah. This is why I'm such a big fan of international travel. I would love to see, and I've. Tried in my own way to facilitate more things like international homestays and exchanges happening. But it's hard because there is an ever increasing culture of safety or the phrase I think is safety ism and the idea of sending your kid to a foreign country to live with some other family for a month or for three months. Like that has become less and less. Acceptable. Yes. Within the risk tolerance the Overton window of what can you do with your child just in my lifetime, I was born in 1982 and I've seen this become something that parents think is crazier and crazier as time has gone on. Yeah.
Timmy Eaton:And it's a lot of it's ignorance. Like we, we ourselves even haven't gone to these places what I was talking to somebody and they said the biggest danger is what we do by keeping our kids in our houses and then them just getting unhealthy and in front of TVs and screens and whatever when they really just need to go outside and explore and do some things that are a little bit more dangerous because the most dangerous thing in the world is them. Get forming those habits inside our homes where there's, quote unquote safe. And it's not safe, man. So how does an unschooling adventure, like if somebody was interested in that, how does that work? Then what do you do, where do you go? And all that kind of stuff. So just tell us the process.
Blake Boles:Yeah. Yeah. If I was a smart business person, I would just have a series of trips that ran every year and I would hire other trip leaders and have these established relationships with local providers. And I'd be like, okay, the New Zealand trip happens in February and the Argentina trip happens in November. But no, I've always wanted to be a trip leader on these. You like it. Yeah. I don't want to just hire someone else and pay them to have all the fun. And what do I do? I'm managing an office now. Yeah. So yeah, almost every unschooled venture trip that I've run since it started in 2008 has been a different trip and it's let's burn it down and start from scratch again next year. And so there's been very few repeat trips. I've done a lot of trips that go to Argentina or other parts of South America, New Zealand, Spain, now Germany, Nepal, Southeast Asia, Australia. And really it's hard to generalize because if we go to some countries, it's going to be a more outdoorsy trip. If you're going to go to another country, it's going to be more dance or arts oriented. Or like this Berlin one, as I mentioned, was all about urban exploration, learning how to navigate a big city and discover things in there that don't cost much money. And so they're really different, but I'm a big believer in go big or go home. And so I like to run trips that are at least a month and ideally six weeks long. And yeah, and I think that you need to have a certain threshold, a certain group size. And so I like to have at least like 10 teams come together, but I've had groups of up to 20 or 25 once. And. And these teams by and large, don't know each other and that's 10 or that's
Timmy Eaton:25 that you only, you are
Blake Boles:Oh no. I hire one or two other trip leaders. Oh, okay. I was
Timmy Eaton:going to say that's, that would be, I know that would be bold. It does sound like a public
Blake Boles:school class. Yeah no. I like the ratio of more like a four to one. These teens mostly don't know each other. So what that means is they will come from different parts of North America and every now and then another country, and we'll all meet up in a major airport in the U S and then I'll review the agreements, the trip rules with them, and then we'll fly together to the destination and the trip begins and they're sleep deprived and like I said, being thrown into the deep end, right? So now they're paying attention. Now they're like, wow, this is happening. And something that I've been trying, I've tried to stay very aware of is I would not be satisfied to just run trips for like really wealthy, really privileged kids who get to do these kinds of. And they're like, Oh yeah, I went to, whatever Thailand last month and I'm going to blah, blah, blah. And I have nothing philosophically against that. No, but just opportunity. I like the idea that I'm having a chance to change someone's life and to give someone an experience that they would not otherwise get. And so my idea with Unschooled Ventures has been to charge as little money as possible to. Pay myself and the other trip leaders, what we need to be paid in order to do this kind of work. And just take as many people especially those who have never had this kind of experience before. And like the ones who are just on the threshold of being ready for this. It's I'm not going to take you on a six week international trip. If you've never been away from home before. That you're just, you're leaping too far there. Maybe go to a summer camp first. Yeah. But the ones who are like 15 and they're like, Oh yeah, I just spent a couple of weeks away from home for the first time. It was great. I didn't get homesick. I'm ready for something bigger. Like the ones who are hungry for it. You just bring together a dozen of those. And you're like, you have this like dynamic group that is. Ready to go take advantage
Timmy Eaton:of this and they want to write, they want to, you said at least 95 percent you know, are interested in doing that.
Blake Boles:Oh, 100 percent are interested. And that's what we screen for with interviews. It's I got to make sure that a parent is not the one who's actually driving this process. I got to make sure they know. The team knows what they're getting themselves into, in the same way that if you're trying to sign up for a basketball team, or you're trying to go on a backpacking trip, or just join any other like civil society type organization, someone who wants to know. Are you really here for the right reason or are you just phoning it in to someone else doing, incentivizing you to do this? I don't know. So how many
Timmy Eaton:trips have you done now ish? Like how many of these? 30 maybe? Wow. So one thing I was just thinking about as you were talking is I imagine, I watch a group of kids come into a class that, their semester is made. And so they're all with the same group of kids for that semester. And man, if I'm being honest, unless they're just outside of class hanging out already, I have very seldom watched a friendship develop in the class that carries on afterwards. I'm curious to know what have you observed with the kids and their unity and their tightness in that? A month to six weeks, I imagine that because it's such a shared experience and so like emotion evoking that you're experiencing all this together. I have ideas of what that does to their relationships. But what have you observed among that among
Blake Boles:the kids. This is why I'm a big fan of overnight summer camps and overnight experiences like backpacking trips, as opposed to day camps or experiences where you get to. Retreat back to safety at the end of the day, because when you were around other people for 24 hours, and then you multiply that by seven days and you multiply that by four weeks, yes, then you see every part of another person, like there's a limit to how much we can hide ourselves. So that is the humanizing part of these experiences that I think really leads to friendships and bonding. And honestly, We bond when we have some form of shared trauma or challenge or Oh my God, we all had to deal with the bus being three hours late and the bathroom wasn't working. Right. You know, That creates bonding in a sense of community. So Thank you. I'm not going to tell you that people make their lifelong best friends on these trips. And when I did that Chile trip, when I was 14, I didn't stay in touch with a single person from that trip. I didn't even stay in touch with my host family. I still think of that trip. I still think of those people and I still know. In my bones that was a highly influential pivotal experience in my life because it was just this, it was like, it shows you that another life is possible. It shows you that you can go to a far end of the earth and you can survive. You can even make new friends. You can, it's not this scary place. It's not this where there be dragons edge of the map. It's you can go there. You can do this. This means you can do anything. And yes the teens who go on my trips they get along really well. Often they're like, Oh my God, there's other people like me out there in the world. It's and. I'm not very good at doing post trip follow up stuff. I don't know how many of them stay in touch. I know that some of them go visit each other, but you can tell when you're there together, you see them cuddling with each other. You see them, up at 1 a. m. having some late night discussion and, this is not them just phoning it in. This is not them just showing up at a class and saying like, all right, when is this over so I can go home again. Yeah.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. I just observed kids that go for a, a lot of times they'll do these like four day retreats with youth and they'll take no screens and then they have, but it's, it is like a laid out program that they'll go to a lot of times, but it still does just bring, it gives them a shared experience that they don't have on a regular basis. And so some of it's just novelty and other, but others, it is just like they're out in nature they're they're not distracted by constant technology. And then they have this amazing, like experience and they share it together, like you said, the
Blake Boles:bus, whatever. And I'm a fan of any version of that. So right after university I did a couple of years of working in outdoor ed in California, in which I would take groups of. Fourth or fifth or sixth graders from usually from public school, sometimes private, and they would come to this outdoor ed center for a week, or maybe even just three days. And I would take them hiking and teach them science through some like kind of fun, hands on activities, do some high reps courses and. From my point of view, this was all very like scripted and controlled. But for them, this was such a breath of fresh air. Getting to hang out with the same people that they see at school, but in this whole other environment. And it's a sleepover experience. That's all that matters is the delta between the normal experience and what they're experiencing right now. So I'm, After Ed proved to be a bit too repetitious and predictable for me, which is why I took the entrepreneurial route, but I'm still a huge fan of anything that gets kids out of the predictable, safe routines out into something more like the real world. Yes. The communal bonding the struggle through the hardships. That's what we remember. And that's what these kids probably talk about for months afterwards. It's
Timmy Eaton:Like something is better than nothing, because even like you said, even though it is probably a more controlled environment in a lot of the situations, it's better than not doing anything like that. Have you ever heard of John Muir Laws? No, only
Blake Boles:through your podcast. Oh,
Timmy Eaton:Did you listen to that one? He like So that one, when I listened to his, we've done his nature journaling and nature drawing for years. And so that was like a real privilege to be able to talk. I was like, I can't believe I'm talking to John Muir Laws right now, but he spent six years in the Sierra Nevada mountains and drew every single thing, every landscape, every night sky, every heavenly being that he would, see in the sky. And it was just amazing, his experience. And I was just like, That kind of thing. You just cannot, you can't make that stuff up. Like it was, it literally changed his life and career and everything. It was just amazing to hear him talk about that,
Blake Boles:but and I was a direct benefit beneficiary of someone who I imagined to be like John Muir Laws, like a real mountain man, the director of the wilderness summer camp that I went to called deer crossing camp. And yeah, you need these non parental adults who are good at managing risk and keeping physical safety as a number one priority, but who will take kids into these environments where it's like sink or swim. Now it's time to try hard to push yourself. And so anyone like that who is taking kids out into any form of the more real world I'm a fan of. And I think you need these kinds of weird or eccentric and I feel very happy and privileged to play the sort of crazy uncle role in the lives of many other people's teenagers. Cause I know that I can do stuff with those teenagers, that their own parents. Can't do if they tried just because, yeah, I'm a whole other person. It's a whole other environment, we have shifted out of the safe comfortable predictability of home. And now it's Oh, I'm on this trip with this guy named Blake. And he's asked me to go talk to strangers. And literally this trip I did in Mexico in early 2022. Was all based on the humans of New York model the idea that you can just go talk to interesting strangers, ask for their life story, take a nice portrait photo of them and then post it on the blog and that's your project. And it was a great excuse for these groups of teens to go initially they took the safer route and talked with other English speaking travelers, like in the youth hostels where we were staying, but then they built up to talking with people whose primary languages. Language was Spanish despite their own limited Spanish abilities and going out into the streets in Mexico to, to interview people in Spanish. Yeah. Oh, just that. It's so simple, but how often do we do that kind of simple stuff? You need some slightly eccentric person to nudge
Timmy Eaton:you into that. So and I don't usually bring this up just because I don't want to, I want to make sure that I keep this podcast open, but like I serve, I'm LDS and I served the mission in Dominican Republic and it's crazy, man. Like you go for two years and all of a sudden, and you're talking to everybody and you're immersed in the language and the culture. And you're on your own with another dude. And it's one of my, it's one of the favorite parts about my church because like my son right now is in San Diego and he's speaking Farsi. So he's, my wife is half Persian and it was cool for him to get that call to go to. San Diego. And I hear, I was just talking to him yesterday and to hear his experiences, like you cannot make that stuff up. Like it's real here. You're actually knocking on their door. You're actually talking to them and you're actually getting told to get out of here like a million times. And it builds a character that you cannot fabricate and muster any way other way. And so I love
Blake Boles:that you're on. An adventure and you are on your own, even if you have friends or a support community around you, it's like. It's the idea that the default outcome here is failure and the only way to even have a slight amount of success. It's like me and my creativity and my will to keep pushing on. And so no matter what form that takes, it could be some sort of, yeah, like nonprofits service trip and some developing country. It could be a religion. Religious mission. It could be just a long term backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. There are so many different ways to skin this cat. It could be something big.
Timmy Eaton:I was going to say you could either live your life, like going through your, just your everyday routine, which isn't bad or something, but like we on Saturday, it was cold here. We're in Southern Alberta, Canada. We took our kids.'cause we were just like, no, we gotta get outside. They've been inside too much. So we just took'em down to this river bottom and it was windy and cold and we dressed for it. And we just walked along this, it's literally that basic it was just like exploring a little bit of nature and you could live your life just doing everything you do or do something interesting and talk to somebody that you don't usually talk to. Just I love the word adventure because it and curiosity. It's do something that actually makes your life'cause you're gonna die. And so like, why not have. An adventurous life and do something that's not so normal or I don't know.
Blake Boles:Yeah. And I feel like a lot of parents really buy into this idea nowadays through the concept of like forest kindergartens, right? A lot of people are like, you know, Yeah, four schools. They're like, Hey, you know what? My, my four year old just like benefits from playing in nature with their friends. And maybe they could keep doing that at age five and maybe that would be okay. It's yes, take the same idea and just keep pushing the age of your whole life going. Keep going.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. I just talked to, I just talked to this girl named Angelina Robillard. She's one of the, she's one of my interviews and she does fairly close to me. She does a forest school. And I love the idea of Like basically it's like as much risk as possible without risking something too dramatic as far as safety, but give them hammers, give them nails, let them climb trees, get them outside. Literally just getting them outside is an accomplishment in in a lot of people's, Family routines. And so just getting outside consistently and doing things unmonitored and just go and explore and you just, your brain does something different. It does something to your soul. It's just good.
Blake Boles:Anyone who's not familiar with the adventure playgrounds of of Germany or Netherlands, Denmark, Scandinavian countries, just Google those and there are ways to incentivize kids to get outside more in one way. So have really cool playgrounds to interact with. Where it's like you actually get to climb up quite high on something and you're actually given tools to build stuff and if everything is bubble wrapped and kids are not allowed access to any spaces where they can meaningfully participate. I think this is why I was such a big fan of skateboarding growing up in the 90s. Because skateboarding to me represented this way to interact with the urban and suburban environments in a way where you no longer look and it's just everything's boring and adult oriented, but it's Oh, I could grind my escape, my skateboard trucks on that, or we could, skate really fast and Ollie over that, it turns the world into this interactive adventure playground. Yeah, I love
Timmy Eaton:that. I love that was so visual. I could just see that. I wonder, I wanted to read something and I know our time's limited here, but I just wanted to do a couple more if you're cool with it. I love what you said I took this from your website, but you said my mission is to help young people discover self directed learning and begin to take charge of their educations, careers, and lives. And I love that because I could see some people listening to this type of thing and be like, this just sounds wildcat and it just sounds unsafe or something like that. And I'm going, man, when you listen to employers and this is a part of my study as well, and I saw this a little bit on your site, they're looking for people who know how to learn, know how to Navigate a situation and aren't just a cog in a wheel. And so this idea that it takes charge of their education, their career, their lives, like it really does to facilitate, to engender this type of characteristic in learning about, taking risks and being thrown into a situation where you have to develop your character and self direct like it is what employers want. And so this is. And not that's even the intention, but it is totally beneficial for every aspect of their life, not just what they're learning right now, but I think this affects career. It makes you more hireable and more desirable by people. I just, I feel like it's like positive in every way. And so I love that mission statement. It's
Blake Boles:great. I'm glad to hear that. Do you mind if I push back a little bit on that, that rosy assumption? Please do it. Yeah.'cause I think it's pretty nuanced and I would not. Tell someone that being an unschooler or self directed learner is going to always help them with their career prospects. I think sometimes employers are looking for cogs in a machine. I think that there is actually a very practical reason why the school system operates the way that it does at this moment, even though it may lag behind what the employment market is actually seeking by 10 or 20 years. There are still a bunch of mindless dumb jobs. Out there. And if you're going to go work in a, I don't know, retail store selling clothing, and you just need to stand there and be patient and be friendly for a while, but not really have any big responsibilities, public school might be training you quite well for a position like that. We could talk more about like factory type labor and whether that's still like a real factor in many people's lives. It isn't some, but it's really going away quickly. So in general, I think that being a self directed learner does prepare you for more of the creative, more intrinsically motivated type positions that are increasingly like the ones that you want to have, you want your kids to have but it's still a scary prospect. And. And that's why the first book that I wrote was like, how do you get into college? If you don't go to high school and, or if your kid gets infected by this idea of self directed learning and they decide, I don't think I need to go to college either. I'm just going to self direct right through the college years. That is terrifying for parents because the credential power of a college degree, not so much a high school diploma anymore, but a college degree that is still extremely real. And my favorite book on this topic, one that I thoroughly dissect and analyze in why are you still sending your kids to school, which was the last book that I published is called the case against education by Brian Kaplan. Who's an economist and who really does a deep dive into. The it's a bit about high school, but it's mostly about college and the value of a college degree and whether it's really about valuable skills that college students are gaining, or whether it's just about what he calls signaling which means broadly speaking, showing an employer that you are someone who is basically you. intelligent, someone who can conform to social norms and someone who's like conscientious and has a work ethic and can show up on time. And that's what getting through a slog of four years of higher education means, even if your degree doesn't quite pertain to the job. Yeah. It's can you stick with it? Can you get through hard stuff? However imperfect this college rite of passage is that our society has created, if you can stick with it, that says something about you. And so this is why when I advise young people who are seriously thinking I'm not going to do anything that even prepares me for college, I'm just going to totally follow my interests as a teenager, I'm like, That's great. Yes, please do that. And also, if you want to have the chance to reenter the traditional higher education system, then make sure you do something that shows that you can stick with what you're doing, that you're not just flitting about from one thing to the other. And as soon as something loses your interest, as soon as it's not sparkly anymore, then you give up on it and you go somewhere else. Yeah. And especially if you're going to choose not to. Go into higher education at all, then what you should be doing during that time. It's still like hard, challenging projects that require commitment. I've been having this this mentoring relationship this year with a young person from Pennsylvania named Ben, who has been spending a year 18 and year 19 of their life as as someone who did a crowdfunding campaign to create an eight part documentary series about. Unschooling and self directed education, but accepted tens of thousands of dollars of other people's money. And is now doing a road trip and filming with all these different communities all across the U S and is producing these these documentary shorts and that is an example of something that shows someone include future employers. Yes. I can commit to something. I've accepted people's money and I'm delivering stuff that I promised. I'm doing something that's hard and requires a lot of organizational skills. So you can't just. Be an unschooler and, yeah, go play Fortnite in your parents basement all night and rub flaming hot Cheeto dust off your chest and be like, I'm self directed, hire me. It doesn't work like that. You have to do hard things. You have to show the world that you can do hard things.
Timmy Eaton:And again, I like what you did there and I love that you did push back because the, it's more clarifying than anything that there are principles of learning and there's principles of producing and that's going to be very recognizable for any employer. And I guess it's true. We live in a system where it is designed to, there, there are jobs. That are very coggy and, but the kid who does bring their self directed learning into something like that actually shows up and is, it is apparent to an employer or somebody else. I'm not saying they always reward that, but it's the likelihood is increased. Like I think of my, our two, we have two kids that have gone all the way through. They've gone through from from the very beginning through to to graduate. And the one I said is in San Diego. I have another daughter in Phoenix. And when they went to do their like summer job to save up and do what they're doing now. I really think that one thing that they learned was that they, or their employers observed was that they really dig in and they ask a few questions like what can I do here? And that they're innovative in what they're thinking. Every time I would talk to their employers who I know personally, they would say, Man, I like how they like would not just do the job, but they would go beyond that and, find something else. And that wasn't just I'm a hard worker. It was like, no, I thought a little bit beyond what the tasks were asked of and look for the opportunities. And I just feel like the likelihood increases when you give them those experiences that you provide for kids that are coming on your
Blake Boles:adventures. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the point where I want to turn around and completely agree with you again, which is what school trains kids to do. And even in many cases, what College trains kids to do is the least possible work to gain the outcome desired, which is the grade, because it's all about, deferring to this future moment where all of a sudden you have, yeah, the good GPA, or you get the degree. And then now my life begins because I have the rubber stamp of approval from the institution. And that's what's unschooling self directed learning and alternative schools. This is like the potential gift that it can give young people, which is saying. Life is not in the future. Life is right now. And either you are going to be personally and materially invested in what you're doing. You're going to have skin in the game. You're going to care about it. You're going to have your eyes open instead of closed or you're not. And that's the decision you get to make over and over again in life. Which is, am I going to throw myself into this? Am I going to care about this? Am I going to feel like I am actually making a decision for myself or am I just getting pushed around by these external forces, my parents expectations, what I saw on the, on news Oh, the world needs more nurses. So maybe I should go into healthcare. It's can you cut through all of these influences and say there's something that personally interests me and also something that the world needs and find that confluence. And then you're like, I have buy in here. And so you don't have to go to some expensive program that someone like me offers or even a summer camp or something else to learn this. Like you can learn this by just taking jobs or even, volunteering or interning in the community where you live. You can learn this through. Online relationships, you can be the person who organizes your team or squad, or I don't even know what the right word is anymore on Fortnite or some other online community. There are opportunities to, to take authorship and take responsibility no matter where you are. And so I agree. Ideally, that is what. The self directed learning approach instills and incentivizes, and to the extent that is successful, then people who are employers or whatever, even like people you want to date in the future, like they're going to see that nature in you and they're going to say, wow, this is a serious person. This is not just another cog.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah, no, so well said, I, my, my wife sets up these interviews and finds them and she's really behind the reason why we were homeschooling. And she really asked this question and has really taught me about the things that you were just discussing. But one thing, like one, one illustration of what you were just talking about is like living this life of, I don't want to be critical, but like of more meaning and have more adventure and more excitement. It's fun. Is this podcast that we're doing? Because all of a sudden turns out you can like email people and then they'll get back to you. And then you're. You're having this conversation. And it's it's so enriching to me. And I feel like I'm the beneficiary of my wife's self directed NIS. And it is amazing. It's Oh, I'm talking to John Muir laws all of a sudden. And it's just I could have done nothing or I could have started a podcast and had these really cool conversations that might lead to something else and it's just enjoyable. Like it makes life enjoyable. I would just say to people, do something like just do something that you want to do.
Blake Boles:And this is why so many adults stumble into this world of alternative education theory, or they read about these radical alternative schools or something like unschooling, and they get very interested, even though it's no longer practically applicable to them. And I've seen plenty of adults who don't have children get very interested in this because it represents this sort of, sometimes in a sad way, this opportunity that, that was squandered through their youth in which there was no one in their life saying take the initiative, like just email that person and ask if you can have a conversation with them, because what's the worst that's going to happen. Exactly. They're not going to write you back. They're going to write you back with a mean email and say who are you, 14 year old, please stop. You're not worthy to email me. No, no one's going to do that. The worst is that's good. That's going to happen is radio silence. And is that bad? It's not bad at all. It's common. Yeah, it's common. And that's, so this ability to like, invite failure into your life in the pursuit of these grand, more meaningful goals, like that's the real art. Yeah. That's the part of self directed learning that is. That's nuanced and tricky and does involve like finding the sense of emotional safety and being a mentor to your kid, but also helping your kid find these other adults who can help guide them through the process. And it's not easy. It's really not easy. And this is why a lot of parents and a lot of young people just end up going back to school because it is the easier default path. At least you're doing what everyone else is doing. You see your life represented on in TVs and movies. And yeah, it's not easy, but it's worth it when it works
Timmy Eaton:and it's fun like it adds a level of excitement that might be absent and so do something. So I've been talking to a lot of families, just harkening back to the your comments about college and it, more and more, I'm finding that these very educated parents. Are questioning post secondary and they're trying to find alternatives. And I feel like the common sentiment that I've been hearing, and I share it myself is, unless you are really pursuing a career that requires that piece of paper you can't get into teaching, for example, without a teaching degree, although you can do alternatives. I don't know that you needed a teaching degree to be able to go do all the teaching you're
Blake Boles:doing. And so there are, I didn't need anything for what I'm doing. Yeah,
Timmy Eaton:it's a business. And whereas before I would say even a few years ago, I was definitely more no, you got to get a degree because that's how the world functions. And I was scared for them not to more and more. I'm comfortable with them. Not doing it just to not get a degree for that, for the sake of it. But that school and education and university it's for you to utilize how you want for your benefit. So that it'll inform your future and so don't just go to take classes and don't, and certainly don't just go spend money. And so the idea is, learn what you need. And once you have what you need, act and do things and, you, you utilize it for what it was If I buy a tool, I use it when it wears out or it's completed its purpose for me, then I get something else or I do something else or it's done. And then, and if it keeps serving me, then I keep it. But if it doesn't keep serving you, then move on and then, and don't let it hold you back from advancement or progress. Yeah. It's a tool.
Blake Boles:The question of going to university and, taking classes, even if you're not really sure of what you really want to study, or it's not directly applicable to some job you think you want to get, I think this is all very tricky and it changes throughout time. Again, I really dive into these, the nuances in that last book, why are you still sending your kids to school? But what I wanted to say is that. College and university, just higher education in general is so replete with opportunities. And there are so many young people who go to college and just don't take advantage of those opportunities. If you're going into the sciences, you can become an undergraduate research assistant. You can get internships. You can, it's just like the world opens up to you. Many colleges are just these amazing conglomerations of resources and opportunities, but if you don't kids don't know how to tap into them. Yeah. And if you don't have that mindset, that attitude of even this is something that I can take advantage of because I am the author of my own life. Like I'm steering the ship here, then all of this can be squandered. And when parents say listen, I love these unschooling ideas, but I'm just, I need to make sure that my kid can get into college. I say, listen, I hear you. I understand the concerns. I want you to think about from the other side, which is if your kid only experiences being alone. Forced or coerced, however, subtly or soft handedly, through the entire education system, they're not going to go to college and take full advantage of college, but if they are the ones who are actually making the choice or making a significant amount of choice about whether they go to college, about when they go to college, maybe they go at age 20, instead of 18, maybe they go at age 16, instead of 18. If they're the ones with the buy in, then they have so much more reason to take full advantage of this incredible opportunity we call college. And so I think that it's often just as much an advantage, if not more to be outside of the. The traditional school system and then reenter the higher education system. And you can be like, Whoa, check this out. There's just like all these cool tools. And Oh my God, it's like this playground for me, instead of just trudging along and being low. This is just the next step before I can actually have my own life at age 22 or older. If you assume you have to go to graduate school. I
Timmy Eaton:know. Yeah that's totally it. And the interesting thing is, and the research actually shows this is that the homeschoolers, unschoolers are typically more prepared for that type of learning because that's what they've been doing through their high school years. Like they've really been doing the majority not all. And people do it differently. But they've already been learning in that way. And so when they get to university it's like for my own experience, when I went to university, it was like mind blowing. I was like, Oh and all of a sudden I was really interested. And all of a sudden I was like, my mind was being open to things. It still does that for kids that were homeschooled, but they've already been learning like that. And they're very well prepared in general for that type of learning and exploration. And so it's a great fit. Interestingly, but a lot of them are going, yeah, but I want to make sure that I'm using this for for what my purposes are and it is serving my. My interests. And then once I've said, okay that's what it's done for me. I don't know exactly. Did you end up graduating and all that kind of stuff, or did you just go Yeah I, yeah, I was just wondering because a lot of people I remember this guy up in Edmonton where I used to live. He was in a business class and he started this waste company as a part of the, a project in his business. And then the thing took off, and he has not looked back and this has been 20 some years and he's kept it very local and he's kept the prices down and he's just done an amazing job with his business. And I don't know him personally. I read the article, but it was around the same time I was in that area. And it's just so inspiring to me that in some would say, Oh that's, that was really risky. He left and didn't complete his degree. And I'm going, I get why people say that, but like, how amazing is it that he goes. I thought for myself, I was very intentional and deliberate with my learning. And I'm doing something with it and enjoying it. It's
Blake Boles:awesome. Yeah. And that is the blueprint for all of the Silicon Valley wonder child, success stories dropping out of these. Institutions, but I love the fact that this guy started a waste, essentially a trash company. And there's probably, like a lot of people who are working in in blue collar self employed in blue collar professions nowadays, they're probably making tons of money just in a very quiet about it. And whereas all these other people with, very Fancy sounding degrees, we are actually ended up working as baristas and we're like, Oh my God, my student loan payment. I cannot even make this with my current income. So I totally take your point. It's use the tool for as long as it serves you and then move on. My own experience in college I did coast a bit in the first year and standard student, like I'm here to receive information mode. And what helped kick me out of that and into a bit more of the I am the author of my own life mode was living in this very alternative student community. This student cooperative house with 125 people in it. And that was totally student. Run and organized and you have to do five hours of work per week for the house. And so I became a, one of the cooks for the Thursday dinner shift and all of the sudden I was responsible as part of a team for preparing dinner for roughly a hundred people and we needed to. Make stuff for meat eaters, for vegetarians, for vegans. I didn't even know what a vegan was. And just the kind of like interesting, weird people that this community attracted because it was a lower cost, but higher responsibility type. It's not just the dorms where everything is provided for you. That was a really big part of me, being able to think more expansively and not just continue with my public school, just do the minimum amount of efforts, whatever, this isn't too hard, just get it done. Kind of way. And. I stumbled into this alternative education world by taking a seemingly frivolous liberal arts course that did not have any connection to, not a clear connection to any sort of marketable job skill. And so it's hard for me to. Yeah. To say you shouldn't go to college if it's not really going to end up with a job. It's sometimes people go to college for just completely, I didn't know what I was going to do. Yeah. And they discover what they're passionate about. But I, I also had a parent who was. Ready to pay the 8, 000 a year of UC Berkeley tuition. And so I didn't have to worry about debt. That's a real privilege right there. The, all the German young people who I meet and other people in Western Europe who don't have to pay for university or their fees are something like 300 a year. And I'm just laughing when they say that, you mean that's what your books cost. They're like, no, those are the total fees. Okay. So you pay nothing. Wow. Yeah. It's a different set of. Motivations and incentives out here. And there are still definitely way more people going to college out here than need to. And there is credential inflation and it's all of a sudden you need to have a master's degree to be taken seriously instead of a bachelor's degree. And so it's certainly not perfect out here either. And also the professors at universities here, they don't. Really care about their students because they don't have to, because they're not really being paid by the students and families. They're being paid by the state. And so the whole incentive structure is different. No one has a real solution to this. I'm glad that people out here don't have to worry about student loan debt. They do have a higher tax burden when they become working adults. It's yeah, it's coming
Timmy Eaton:from somewhere, but yeah, it's coming
Blake Boles:from somewhere. And yeah. It's complicated, nuanced. It's hard to make a blanket statement about any of this. Yeah, it
Timmy Eaton:is. It is. It is. It's good
Blake Boles:to talk to smart people. Yes. I have principles and to have smart people in your life who will expose you to different views. It was still one of my all time favorite perspectives on the college or not question comes from one of the founders of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator in Silicon Valley. Paul Graham is the name of this guy. And he just writes these beautiful essays on his website. You can just Google his name, Paul Graham. And an essay I discovered a long time ago that still feels very relevant is called what you'll wish you'd known. And it was a, it was supposed to be a graduation speech for a high school, but he got disinvited or something at the last minute. And, but he published the speech anyways. And something that he said to these graduating seniors He said, no matter what anyone tells you, there's really only one thing you need to worry about right now. You need to find groups of smart people who are working on interesting problems. That's all. And just find the best group of smart people. You can working on a problem that interests you too, and stick with them. And if those people happen to be in a college, like if you want to do research science, you got no choice. You got to go to college. That's it. If you want to do medicine, there's almost no choice. You got to go to college. That's where you find the smart people working on hard problems. But. If they're like tech is this, incredible example of you don't have to go to college to find the smart people working on the hard problems. In fact, that's probably where you're going to go waste your time and spin your wheels and get a computer science degree. That's already a bit outdated by the time you graduate when you could have been building something with a cool team of people starting at age 19. Yeah. In the same way that this kid, decided I'm going to go build a waste management company starting at age 20 instead of.
Timmy Eaton:And if he went and did that company and was like, I don't dig this then he should know that and self monitor and go, I am going to go back to school or do whatever it is to pique an interest and we just have to be true to ourselves and really do that. I was just thinking like the skills that you learned at cooking for those people probably carried on to what you're doing now. And I was impressed with your list of like, All the occupations you had done truck driver, a delivery truck driver. And I love that exposure to things just a couple more questions and I think it will we'll wrap up by if, when you think of you don't have children right now, like if you were, do you have it very clear in your mind how you would. Kind of want to pursue their education. I know you'd have to negotiate that with your spouse and everything but what, what's in your head if you had, let's say you had three or four kids right now and you were approaching these decisions about education, what, how would you approach that? How would you navigate that? Yeah. I've
Blake Boles:been asked that question a number of times. And the response that feels most honest to me is I don't know. I'd have to meet my kids first. I'd have to see who these kids are. I'm I truly feel agnostic on the question of what's going to work best for any individual kid. I think that public school genuinely works for some kids. I think that the more like light progressive alternatives Montessori Waldorf truly work for some kids. And I've seen unschooling and the super radical alternative schools. Truly work for some kids, but I've also seen unschooling not work for some kids, but the parents are extremely bought into the philosophy. Even before the kid was born, the parents were extremely bought into the philosophy. And I'm like Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Is this about you or about the kid? It should be about the kid. It's good to be aware of the options out there, but I just. I'm skeptical of kind of fundamentalism in all its forms. And that includes attachment to a certain educational style. And so know what your options are. Don't just assume that my kid has to go to public school. It'll be a failure or my kid has to be unschooled or, they'll never. Develop a sense of self. It's maybe meet the kid first and then, see what the practical reality is around you. When I was growing up in Bakersfield, California, there was not an unschooling community there in the nineties. And so it. Actually would have been quite an isolated experience. I think to be a dogmatic unschooler at that place and at that moment in time. So it, yes, like you said, it depends on the spouse, depends on what's available locally, your financial situation, just a million different reasons. Yeah, of course. I would seriously consider unschooling or sending my kids to a wild alternative
Timmy Eaton:school. And I really appreciate that answer because I think it's good for everybody because there are principles that are driving your interests and your desires for your kids. But it is good to, like you said, to really review the landscape and say, okay, what is best for them and not necessarily for me. And that's a hard struggle. Like I can attest to that as a parent because you do have these ideals and values. And you're, you inevitably impose those on your children, but but it's true. Everything we've talked about today, if it is crammed down them, then it's not their choosing. And then how is that helping them develop and becoming intentional individuals who are self directed and self sufficient.
Blake Boles:And I've seen, I've encountered so many teenage homeschoolers, nonschoolers who feel socially isolated. And they're like, I think I want to try. Public school. It's like this forbidden fruit. And my parents really don't want me to go. Or if the parent asked me if I have any voice in this matter, I'm like, let them try. If it really is this, desolate landscape that you imagined it to be. And if your kid is the in touch with themselves person that you believe them to be, then they're not going to stick it out in this bad environment. And that's. Oftentimes what happens, they're like, I went to public school for a year. It was as bad as I thought it would be. I am now unschooling again with, renewed motivation. And sometimes they're like, you know what? It wasn't as bad as I thought. There's some parts I don't love, but I've learned to make the most of it. And so it's Yeah, don't just don't be afraid. There's no boogeyman out there. It's the same way that people who are so diehard like public school. If we don't have public school 100 percent attendance, then you know, democracies will crumble who are so afraid of homeschoolers. It's maybe go meet some. Yeah. And it goes both ways.
Timmy Eaton:Definitely. Yeah. And that is a conversation I personally need to have probably more often because I have definite thoughts about not wanting my kids to go to school and it's not, and most of it has to do with the time spent not with family and also the. The the waste of time, in my opinion, that happens. And so it's really, it would be really hard for me. Like I, I really do need to have that'cause it would, I, whereas I do want, maybe this
Blake Boles:is your growth
Timmy Eaton:edge too. It is. Oh no. I admit it totally openly cause it's such a bummer in my head and I'm just like. And then when I have the discussions with my kids that have expressed interest and I go totally, like I'm open to the, I'm open to the discussion, what are your reasons and what are your, and when I talk through it, I'm like, yeah, those aren't good reasons, and I'm, and I don't know, and obviously I'm imposing my bias and so I really do need to have that conversation more. Cause it's a tough one for me. Like it really is. And I just openly admit it and.
Blake Boles:I like the idea of little experiments that can always be reversed. I think that makes everything feel less scary for all people involved. And so yeah, as a parent who's skeptical of public school, you could say just for the sake of running the little experiment to verify our. Our assumptions, let's let the kid who's curious about what it's like, because, you see all these TV shows about what it's like in high school and, it's all fabricated. And they never show the time, the drudgery spent in classrooms. It's always like the fun times in between class or lunch or,
Timmy Eaton:drama. And that's the thing, you take your own experience. I went to this huge school in the Chicago area and I loved it. I love school. Like I was just, I played three sports and I loved it. And my kids play for the high school team here. Like they play on the teams and even that decision of having them play and them choosing that, like they, they all play multiple sports and that has. In one way, it's awesome because they're actually navigating both worlds. Most of my kids friends, they don't hang out with that many homeschoolers, and they have some, but most of the kids they want to hang out with are not in that same world, and of the like mind, their families aren't. And I'm seeing the strain that can be sometimes too, because it's hard to navigate both worlds. And I see that there's so much peer influence, and so much peer emphasis and it's just, anyway it's good because it's like they're having a lot of exposure and experience. And then, but there's other things that I struggle with and it's just it's a real thing. So I'm, I really appreciate the little experiment idea. I think that's good. And we, and it's good to, like you said, it's not like there's a boogie, man. That's not it. It's more like, Oh I know about this. And I, there are some things where you go, I think this might be best for you but you're right. We're constantly imposing on other people, our own values and it's hard.
Blake Boles:It's not good to act like you don't have values or preferences. Like your kids will sniff that out in about three seconds. Oh yeah. Yeah. But it's. The fact that you would even present options to them and say, listen, we've chosen to raise you this way or to educate you in this way, but we realize that we are also fallible creatures and, maybe this other thing might be better for you. Like just that alone is already so many leagues ahead of the default experience for most kids who go to school, which is you go to school because you have to know there, this is not a discussion and. This is why school feels like jail for most kids. It's like you're in this institution, you are, you have been incarcerated, you don't have a full legal rights and you are surrounded by people who are just demotivated constantly. And that's the real threat. It's not just like that for a month. Like any kid can go to public school, some horrible public school and survive for a month. But if you were there for year after year, surrounded by people who are just punching the clock and doing as little as they can to get by. And then that is when that the pure effects, that's when it really starts to soak into you. And then your kid starts to lose the twinkle in their eye. And that's that's the primary focus of a parent in this role, it's I see the twinkle disappearing. Ah, we better try something else. It's not
Timmy Eaton:like you're not demonizing it, but at the same time, you're not unaware of what's going on. And so that's why you can't just pretend go ahead and you just choose that. And because in my kid's case, it's like yeah, because they're going to be with friends all day and that's fun. And so I get that, but a two year old goes I'm going to eat ice cream all day long. This is awesome. But as a parent, somebody goes, Oh yeah, but you probably should have this vegetable here and you should have some bread and I don't know,
Blake Boles:whatever. This reminds me of one of the ways that John Holt described unschooling, which is he was talking to parents. He said, give your children as much freedom as you can personally bear. Parent. And I think that's just so honest, because if if you're not giving them as much freedom as you can bear you are denying them opportunities to grow and to challenge and to fail, but if you're giving them more freedom than you can bear, then you will become that, that sort of anxious and ultimately controlling parent, the pendulum will swing too far. Yes. And then yeah, finding that fine line of I'm going to give you as much freedom As I can bear giving you right now, but I'm not gonna, buy you cocaine and leave you alone with your friends in the basement tonight.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. That's good. No. And again, that's principle talking. That's so good. And for me personally, if I was, I really do think it's important to be open to things. And if that's one thing I'm trying to say to people also. And so I need to emulate that in my own life and really go, okay, let's consider this fully and let's really have the conversation. What I like is that it's an open communication constantly with my kids. And I think a couple might say yeah, it's not that open because, you're ultimately gonna, decide but I don't. I want it to be a win win conversation. And so I liked the idea of communication and I love that what you just said about John Holt, like ultimate freedom, as much as you can bear I just wanted to ask you as we end this tell us about where you're headed in the next couple of months and then tell people where they can find you and learn about
Blake Boles:what you're doing. Sure. Ever since I got my heart stolen by the world of summer camps, I've loved the model of work intensely for a while and then have real time off. And so that's how I've organized my adult working life. And so I took a group of teens to Patagonia earlier in 2023. I took a group to Berlin later in 2023, and now I have some real time off which includes some writing and some other stuff that kind of looks like work, but it's very light. And beginning around Christmas time, I'll be down in South America, down in Patagonia, right on the Argentinian Chilean border in the Southern Andes and about to do this month long thousand kilometer. Bike adventure called the it's on a road called the Southern highway. It's this highway built by Pinochet in Chile to as a symbol of national unity between Southern and Northern Chile. It's a road that should have never been built. It's an impossible road. It's still only half paved. And it's one of these like iconic destinations for people who like to do cycle tours. And you're just like cycling through these Patagonian valleys and then going over a mountain pass and then another valley and a lake and. And of course it'll be the middle of summer down there in December and January. And yeah, and I'll hang around there a bit longer than probably come back here to Europe. And I've got some more schemes, some more plans. I love scheming the entrepreneur at heart. Oh, yes. No, I won't talk about that.
Timmy Eaton:Yeah. And I didn't ask you this yet, but is your family in California, like your parents and siblings? And
Blake Boles:I have a bi coastal family, California and Connecticut and friends scattered all across the U S. And you're up and other parts of the world. So I find myself to be the perpetual traveler,
Timmy Eaton:That wraps up another edition of this golden hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it. If you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.
Blake Boles:always going to visit people.
Timmy Eaton:Very cool. And tell people where to find you. I think your website is the best place to find all that you're doing.
Blake Boles:Is that. Yeah, just my name, Blake Boles. com. The podcast that I was running until September 2022 was called off trail learning. There's still lots of good interviews in the archives there. And yeah, my books are on Amazon and yeah, check me out. Thank
Timmy Eaton:you so much for taking time. I'm sorry. It went probably a little longer than you maybe expected. I know this is really fun for me. Conversation
Blake Boles:was flowing. That
Timmy Eaton:was fun, man. Like I, I could go on. So thank you so much for taking time. I appreciate you being with us. Thanks a lot,
Blake Boles:Tim.
Timmy Eaton:That wraps up another edition of this golden hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it. If you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.