I have some inspiration for those wondering what it looks like when you let your child follow their passion.

I have been home educating on and off since 2018, when my eldest was 11 and begged to be home educated. She left school for the last time in early 2021 and studied with Wolsey Hall for a year. Then, aged 15, she asked to be unschooled and to follow her passions.

Her argument was, “When was the last time you used Pythagoras’ Theorem?” To which I replied, “In 1992, when I sat my maths GCSE.”

Since then, she has been allowed to learn and study as suits her best.

I have just got divorced from her father, who is anti-home education, and I had to provide evidence of what she had learnt in a year with me. I asked her to compile the information, and this is what she came back with:

I’ve read and analysed classic literature like:
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë,
“The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath,
“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee,
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde,
“Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka,
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and
“Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov.

I’ve read, studied, and learnt to recite by heart various poetical works such as:
“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll,
“A Dream Within A Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe,
“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson,
“The Garden of Love” by William Blake, and
the last four verses of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.

I’ve also been studying two philosophical books:
“Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche, and
“The Book of Disquiet” by Fernando Pessoa.

I’ve memorised many countries of the world as well as states of America. I can name all 50 US states, all 47 countries of Europe, and nearly all 54 countries of Africa.

I have been researching and studying many philosophical theories such as:
Panpsychism (the theory of consciousness),
Nihilism,
Existentialism,
Absurdism,
Taoism,
Solipsism,
Infinite regress.

I have been learning about and studying art history such as:
“Ophelia” by John Everett Millais (about Ophelia’s death in Hamlet, considered one of the biggest deaths in literary history),
“Lady Godiva” by John Collier (the myth of Lady Godiva’s naked ride through Coventry in order to lower the oppressive taxes),
“The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche (the execution of England’s shortest reigning monarch, she was executed at 17), and
“The Lunatic of Etretat” by Hugues Merle (a real woman who went mad with grief over the death of her baby and started carrying a log of wood around as if it were a baby).

When I was 16 I attended a “Café philosophie” debate with French adults on the paradox of self-awareness. One of the attendees was a teacher, and she thought I was studying philosophy at university because of the level of understanding that I brought to the discussion. This was all in French, which is my second, and weaker, language.

I studied a creative writing course from Wesleyan University on Coursera.

I studied an academic and business writing course from Berkeley University on edX.

My daughter is possibly one of the most intelligent, educated, and informed people I know.

I hope that inspires or reassures those of you on this journey.

To clarify – this is learning she did in just one year, AND most of the time it looked like she was doing nothing (because of the way we think learning looks).

Trust your kids – it’s the best thing I ever did!

Shared anonymously with a member of our Streams Team at the author’s request.