Traditional schools were never built for real children

Have you ever worried because:

Your child is miserable at school.
Your child has ADHD and anxiety, but gets good grades so the school won’t do anything for them.
Your child used to be curious about everything, but now you see them losing interest in the world.
Your child has dyslexia, and school has convinced them that they are stupid. They don’t even want to try.
Your child refuses to go to school.
You want your child to do well in school, but their teachers just don’t have time for them. The classes are just too big.
You want to stop micromanaging homework, but you don’t want them to grow up to live in your basement and smoke pot.
You just know school could be a better, more inspiring place to grow.

School isn't working for your family right now, but you don't have to take school on its own terms. Changing your relationship to school can be scary. You probably went to school. Almost everyone you know went to school. And how are children supposed to learn the things they need to know if no one teaches them? You’re a parent, not a teacher! But learning in a classroom, instructed by a trained teacher is a modern invention and intervention. Children are innately evolved to learn, given the right circumstances. Together, we can build better circumstances.

Deschooling Ourselves Will Give You New Tools

Learn...

The principles of a deschooled mindset
How learning really works
How motivation works
The many ways to define success
The many purposes of school, good and bad
How children make the transition to adulthood
How to let your child be the architect of their own life
The many ways to educate happy, healthy, capable children

With a deschooled mindset, you can...

Confidently choose an alternative to traditional school
Stay in a less than ideal school on your family's terms
Stop trying to live your child's life
Be a calm, non-anxious, confident guide and consultant to your children
Parent from wisdom, not fear
Build a child-inclusive life, not a child-centered life

Worry less. Trust more. Relax and raise happy, sociable, educated and successful children, with or without school.

About Me

Hi, I’m Alexa!

When I was 11, my mother asked me to describe my ideal school. I described a community full of resources, capable and supportive adults, and other kids, with classes or seminars available for people who wanted them, an open campus, decisions made democratically, unlimited time to explore, create, and discuss, and with no grades, tests, or required classes. It turned out, just such a school was opening in town. The next fall I became one of the inaugural students. The experience of being so involved in choosing my own educational path led to an abiding interest in education and how people learn, as well as a deep belief that children don’t have to be forced to learn.

That experience led me to become a trained Montessori guide, and I have been leading Montessori classes for 6-12 year olds for a decade. I became a Montessori guide as a return to my own Montessori roots and because I thought it would be a place where I could help children really enjoy learning and doing new things. In other words, the exact opposite of what many children experience in school. Instead, I spent my days judging children’s choices, telling them to choose “real work”, interrupting them to come to lessons they didn’t want, and worrying about whether they and I were doing “enough.” I felt constant, often unspoken, pressure to track, assess, manage, and control the children. The anxiety left me completely drained at the end of every day.

Why the pressure? Because the societal norms of schooling insist that teachers create learning, and thus are responsible for micromanaging children’s learning. But this is not how learning works. Maria Montessori herself was adamant that children must learn in freedom, and that it is our role as adults to provide them with the tools they need, not to dictate what or how they must learn. The experiences of thousands of self-directed learners demonstrate that children can be trusted with their learning. And yet, the culture of “instructioneering” children’s lives to prepare them for adulthood has so thoroughly infiltrated society that we rarely allow children such freedom.

I am building Deschooling Ourselves to say , “No!” to instructioneering, “No!” to micromanaging, and “No!” to believing children can’t possibly be trusted to learn.

The Benefits of a Community

Deschooling Ourselves is more than just an online course or coaching, it's a community. School is so much a part of our world, that questioning it may feel not just radical, but actually impossible. But we can question the role of school in our lives, and we don’t have to do it alone. We can stand shoulder to shoulder in support of each other as we question the system, choose alternatives, and trust our children. Community can give us the courage and tools to make changes we just couldn’t make on our own. That’s why Deschooling Ourselves is for every parent who wants to question schooling thinking, not just unschoolers, not just alternative schoolers, not just desperate parents looking for a solution for their child.

With Community we can...

Learn from each other and together
Create a safe place to question received assumptions and childhood and school
Stand shoulder to shoulder with other parents in trusting our children to be the experts on themselves.
Gain courage to go against the grain.
Say "No!" to overbearing schooling!

Ready to radically rethink school?

👉🏾 Join Us Today! 👈🏾

You get these benefits when you join Deschooling Ourselves:

Access to a like-minded community of parents (and a few teachers)
Weekly challenges to help you not just rethink school, but re-experience the world through a new lens.
A guided journey through the realities of schooling, learning, teaching, and parenting.
Resource guides on alternative options and ways to make traditional school more manageable
And more!

Escape The Tyranny Of School

Start your deschooling journey today.