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About this episode
Laura Grace Weldon came to homeschooling the hard way. The daughter, granddaughter, and niece of public school teachers, she spent years trying to work within the system — until the day her son called from school to say he'd been shown a gun and didn't expect to survive the day. The school didn't call the police. The superintendent suggested her son would be safest at home. He never went back.
What followed was a years-long process of figuring out what learning actually looks like when you stop trying to replicate school at home. Laura's book Free Range Learning grew out of that journey — and out of the mistakes she made along the way, including the very human tendency to take over the moment a child shows interest in something.
The conversation covers the difference between free-range and incubator-raised chicks (it maps onto children more directly than you'd expect), the research on what happens when you show a toddler how a toy works versus handing it over and stepping back, how an inclusive homeschooling community tends to outlast exclusive ones, and why meaningful contribution to family life matters as much as any curriculum.
Laura also talks about what happened to her kids — the one who rebuilt Opal cars at 12 and ended up presenting at engineering conferences in Japan, the one who spent 16 years working with hawks and owls, the one who came to college without formal math education and became the person everyone went to for help understanding the principles.
▬ Connect with Laura Grace Weldon ▬
Website: https://lauragraceweldon.com/
Free Range Learning on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeRangeLearningCommunity
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laura.euphoria
X: https://twitter.com/earnestdrollery
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earnestdrollery/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/LauraGraceWeldon/
Bit of Earth Farm: https://bitofearthfarm.wordpress.com/
🗓️ Recorded April 16th, 2024. 📍Belton, Missouri, United States
SUPPORT & CONNECT
Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily
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