Mystical & Infamous

Unschooling & the Power of Child-Led Learning with Janine, the White Raven

Blaire Stanislao @Happy Lyon Center Season 3 Episode 41

Meet Janine, the White Raven, who shares her incredible journey from conventional public schooling to the liberating world of unschooling. When the pandemic hit, she took a leap of faith, stepping into homeschooling, only to discover the profound benefits of allowing her children to learn at their own pace and follow their passions. Drawing connections between unschooling and the Montessori method, Blaire Stanislao & Janine offes a fresh perspective on how hands-on, exploratory learning can be tailored to each child's developmental stage.

Through heartfelt stories, Janine illustrates how her children thrive without the pressures of structured curricula, embracing their natural interests and strengths. We also explore the ripple effect one's own healing has on those around them, and others expanding the love vibration across the planet. 

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Speaker 1:

they do that thing where they like read and talk about whose person is. And then they, I don't do all that shit. I'm like, okay, you got the introduction, this is the story. And then we just talked about, we just I just cut straight to whatever we're talking about. So when we get to the meat of it, so I'll cut all this out when we get to the meat of it. That's where I started. So, but it's not bad for you to, I mean, you can tell us, tell us your story and a little bit about your story.

Speaker 2:

Well, I am different. I am janine and I am the white raven, okay, and I am a mom of four and I'm a healer. And I didn't know I was a healer and I didn't know what I was.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know I can already feel this coming up how, like I raised my children and do the things that I do, I didn't know that the world will be changing and forming into the way that I do things.

Speaker 2:

I was like when I first started I was very structured, like our kids were in public school, um, and then we um, you know, when the COVID happened, everything kind of switched and changed and I knew I could feel it in my gut that I couldn't put my like basket on my kid, couldn't do that. So then we decided to homeschool. I did all these kind of research and I tried to figure it out. We homeschooled, we tried that and then we actually transitioned to unschooling. And then unschooling that was like the catalyst of me changing my ways and not adapting, to do like looking at things differently instead of just having a narrow, linear perspective. I actually opened up my mind to to learn new things and have new opportunities come and with that coming is unschooling uh, where it's really child-based it's they get to learn on their own, like their own terms.

Speaker 2:

So, like my one son, he's very much into tractors and cars and he can tell me all these different things about cars and I have no idea what it is. My other, my oldest daughter. She's super into farming. She always loves to do works with the cattle, like they're very different so they're very self-learned children so they kind of do their own things.

Speaker 1:

So it's similar. Are you familiar with montessori?

Speaker 2:

I think it's, it's something similar like that. Um, yeah, it'd probably be closest like for the, for a visualized, to understand what that is.

Speaker 1:

I just want to touch on that briefly for listeners who are not familiar with that. And I know Montessori because I have a degree in education and that was just one of the things they make everybody learn. So the Montessori program is they do still go to school, so in that sense they still go to a place, they all go together, but it's more of an open environment where the kids are driven to explore the things that interest them. But they also do things that you know, you kind of have a feel for developmentally, where children are so, like when they're young, they need to touch and feel. They can be very tactile, so they'll have them like trace letters with their finger right. But you know, for a child of the right age that's really interesting because they're really just sensing that and they're getting that motion, that almost muscle memory about what the letter is. And I'm sure they go through.

Speaker 1:

Unfortunately I didn't do. I didn't teach Montessori and I didn't go through it. But when I learned about it I thought to myself if there's any way I could do this for my kids, I would do it. It didn't work out for me. I didn't wind up doing that. But the Montessori programs in the United States are only actually through eighth grade, so it's about age 12 or 13. And then after that they have to go into the regular school system if they're going to continue with that. So would you say that the unschooling is more about kind of releasing the structures and the linear path that the school systems usually have.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the way that I can see and like visualize because I'm such a visual person is like school is a box and we're learning to play outside of that box, learning your math in your own way. You're not learning in that structure, you are learning how you are naturally meant to learn. So my daughter will come up to me my younger, she's seven and she's like I want to read this. All right, let's read it. You know like, and she just does that and like my other son, he's really good at math and like they will naturally do their own things and in their own time, without forcing.

Speaker 2:

Because we love to put labels and we love to compare being in school while this child can read and that like, the comparing is huge. So you're taking that comparing element. Now it's like okay, what are you good at? Okay, well, you're really good at you know, like, working cattle you're really good at, like my son, we have cows, so he feeds up with a tractor, like he's 12 and he's really awesome at running a tracker. So you let him do that and he's been great at it. So we give him opportunities for him to thrive in his own element or working in the shop, like pulling wrenches or like learning tools. I send him to the shop. I'm like, okay, go grab this. And he knows exactly where to grab it in the shop. So it's very much child-based learning. So sometimes it has papers, but most times we don't have papers.

Speaker 1:

We just kind of learn as we go. So I know you're in Canada. How does that work, because I don't think you guys are all that much different than the United States? But how does that work in terms of you know? I actually did my thesis.

Speaker 1:

I can't remember I should say I know what my thesis was on, but the most interesting part of my entire thesis was looking at the purpose for education. Like, what's the driving motivation behind the education system? I'm in America. It was about American right, and the whole purpose behind establishing a school system in the United States was built upon creating an environment where it creates citizens that could read and understand what the politicians were saying, so that they could vote as critical thinkers.

Speaker 1:

Now, do we do that? I don't know right, like there's a whole lot of stuff we could say about that, but that was the intent behind it, and I find it really interesting that what you're talking about, this unschooling, is more about developing the person than it is about, like in the American system, that really was set up to create a society in a way that benefited the politicians, right, and so it's the people that have the people that run things, which is not necessarily a bad concept, but it's not about developing the individual person you know to the best of whatever it is they are to do and it's so structured too, like we're so used.

Speaker 2:

To start, you have to sit down, you have to do this, you have all the rules. Do math only this way, like you did, you got the right answer, but you did like the problem.

Speaker 2:

So, like you did the, the work was wrong, wrong meaning not the way that somebody said that it should be done yeah, exactly like you still got the correct answer but you used your own method, but it's you still get x strong because you didn't do it their way. So it's really like self-exploring. So then, what I've really noticed so my daughter is 14 and she's my oldest. She has a lot of confidence because I've healed on it myself, but also like she's out of that system. She's not in that constant drama scene either, and she has cousins and friends that are in her age group and they are very non-confident.

Speaker 2:

One was suicidal, one had lots of relationship issues and there's just so many things because they're in that environment and it's always just like drama and chaos. And I remember being in high school. I went to public school, um, and I didn't. I didn't love myself, you know, like I wore, like I wore makeup and like I was always trying to like oh, if I look thin, I'll like people like me, because I thought people who thin, like didn't have any problems, was my thinking like like this. So I'm thinking I don't think that's abnormal.

Speaker 2:

Honestly, I think a lot of people think that yeah, so now, like with healing that and working on myself, like, no, like, instead of like putting clothes on because I'm still a bigger lady, um, it helps me channel work, since I am bigger, um. And so, instead of like putting clothes on, it's like oh, does this make me look fat? I've changed it. It's like, well, does this like? Does that, do I look good? Does this outfit suit me? Does this match me? Does this match my energy? Yeah, so it's like, it's very empowering.

Speaker 2:

So I've noticed a change, uh, within my kids of they're more freedom, like they think more and they, um, they're more freedom thinkers. So with unschooling, it's more um, they're always like lifelong learners because, whether whatever they're going learn, whatever they're interested in, they're going to learn about what in school is like you have to learn, it's like I don't want to learn it, you know, and then they don't care and then they just do the test and they completely forget about it. But you can ask, like my kids, you know, like my son knows all this stuff about cars, but he's interested and he loves it, and so it's like, well, that's his thing, that's his passion, it's so interesting I couldn't even remember what my thesis, my master's thesis, like it was not a pleasurable experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's because we're so forced, yes, yes, and actually I just want to touch on because we usually talk about you and I talk about healing. But I talk about healing all the time with anybody. A lot of times we want to, let's say, somebody has a confidence issue. I mean, even what I just did was like we, as infants, babies, we come here and I'm convinced that babies are incredibly intelligent. They just don't have language, they don't have control of their body, but they're like expert energy readers, so they're completely aware, whether they know it or not, they're completely aware of what's going on.

Speaker 1:

And when we have our, whatever relationships we have with our parents or don't have right, we start to associate that with what we would call normal. I mean, that's our environment, where babies were trying to survive. That makes total sense. So then there's this principle of okay, now you have to heal all this stuff that you experienced, as it doesn't matter how old, whatever young person you are, you have these things that you need to heal.

Speaker 1:

But still and it's not that there's blame on the parents, but there are even in mainstream Western medical system there's a lot of emphasis on you know she's got mommy issues or she's got daddy issues or you know, and they can work on it forever. Right, really, it's not about the other person, it's about you and how you're dealing with whatever is going on for you inside of you, and what I really love about that is it takes that at least partially out of the bag. It's not because these cousins of your daughters don't have loving parents. I don't have any clue about them, I don't even know them but that's not to say that that's the cause of their feeling discomforted in their own body or discomforted in their environment. Part of it's that they're not really embracing their inclination to go and explore the thing that really interests them. Would you agree?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we choose our parents before we come down so we know what kind of like situations we're going to be in. So we're here to change that. So A we can't blame our parents for everything you could, but you're not going to go anywhere. But when you stop blaming other people, like your parents or siblings or whatever, it's always self-reflection. And that was the biggest thing that I've learned, because before I was, I was so ego. When I first had my like my first daughter. I'm like I'm the best parent I am doing. I'm playing with my kid on the playground. You guys are just sitting and I was so good ego. It's terrible.

Speaker 2:

But once I started doing this healing work and the healing work like I literally like we were unschooling and I felt really good about that. But I also felt that I was lost and purposeless and then so I wrote in my journal that I need help because I just wanted to find that purpose. So the next day I got an email. It's like would you like to go on a spiritual retreat? And I could feel in my body it was like, yes, around this time.

Speaker 2:

I got like spider bites on my ankles too. I'm around this time. I got like spider bites on my ankles too, like that's really interesting, and that took me actually to a year-long program where I learned about that I was a healer and all these kind of things and like learning on a channel and learning how to reset boundaries, things like that, and then. So I really had to absorb that. And then after that I got spider bites on my ankle again, and that's when I met my mentor that I've been working with for a year. So I know I need to change was understanding my body and understanding how things go, excuse me, oh, and now I'm just getting to know you a little bit.

Speaker 1:

We got a little distracted with the school stuff I love. I do like education, I like kids, you know. So I'm gonna get distracted that way. But okay, so you've, you've gone on this healing journey. You part of it was schooling, yeah so I did it.

Speaker 2:

So I did this work for myself because I know I felt, I felt in my body I needed to do this and I never understood the impact it had on my children and my the people around me. So by you doing the work yourself, by you healing, it literally changes the people around you. My daughter has confidence. My son can speak up for himself. Now we are visible. It's okay to be seen Like things like that. And it's not like I did a healing on them. I literally just healed myself and they felt the energy from me healing.

Speaker 2:

So I'm doing all this work on myself because I know I need to do it. It's always that like self reflection, like how do I need to heal? And that's why I do healings once or twice a week minimum. That's like with a healer coach, because I know that I need it and it makes a huge improvement. Like we've gone from like living in a small little town to an acreage. Now we have a farm and now we have to like build a new house. Now it's like, uh, you know, we had like no cattle to like we're expanding yeah, yeah we keep expanding and growing and going like jumping timelines.

Speaker 2:

we keep, um, like I even jumped to like a parallel timeline um just a couple months ago when I went from an 80 happiness to like a 95 happiness and I can see things how it all plays out, like things are leaving, like chaotic, things are leaving us and it's I'm just happier all the time. It's awesome.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So last night I had trouble sleeping I need to work on that but the last thing I listened to I don't listen to him all the time, but I do listen to him occasionally and it's usually very succinct. It's like oh, that was, that's what I've been waiting to do. So, anyways, this video comes out with Bashar and I actually just shared it on my social media and I don't remember what it said. It was like how to change your situation right now, that kind of thing. I'm actually just going to check it because I know we're here. Okay, so the video says this is how you change instantly. So it's referring. I didn't know what it was referring to, but I thought, okay, I'm going to listen to that, right. And so I listened to him, and if you've ever listened to Bashar, you know he's very good at being very articulate specifically about certain things, and this is one of those things. So, as I fell asleep, I was like, okay, so he's just really, really articulate about timeline shifting. And then we have our meditation today and I'm like, oh, it's actually about that too. And now, as you're talking, I'm like, oh, that's what it's about. So the video really was emphasizing so this idea of helping, like you're talking about that ripple effect where you help yourself and then all of a sudden, all these other people they're the people around you. But then think about what happens to your kids. Your kids are around their cousins, they can speak up and say what they need to say. They don't feel any hesitation around that, and so the cousin that's questioning themselves can go and talk to her, right, and then, okay, so it's a huge ripple effect. So the comment on the video was how do we essentially shift timelines? How do we go from being where let's just throw out there I don't want to talk about politics, but that's what I'm like. Politics are so terrible, right. How do we go from that environment to where things are really a lot better? And the whole video really talks about you, and I actually channeled this in a hypnosis session several times.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't that you say no, I'm not going to look at that, Because that is that's Abraham Hicks talks about that a little bit. It's like if you deny something, you're also still giving energy to it, because you're still saying no, no, no right, Whereas you don't do that. You just simply kind of like if you think about looking at something instead of looking at it or instead of like deliberately looking everywhere that it is not, you simply soften your focus and then you go to what is calling your attention, what is of interest to you, you so what is it like? What is in your environment that represents what you want to have happen?

Speaker 1:

So, if we're talking about politics being so terrible, we don't want to ignore politics, we don't want to trash talk it, we don't want to praise it, we don't want to do any of that. We just want to say, oh, look at you. Know, if you really want to go with politics, maybe look at this politician who's doing these amazing things and you focus on that. And by focusing on that part of it, whatever part of life you're looking at, if you're focusing on that part of it, then you cause that to grow and expand. Just like you're talking about your family expanding, you're looking at yourself. You're healing yourself and your family and your environment and everything around you is just getting bigger and bigger. So same thing applies.

Speaker 2:

It's. Where do you put your energy right? It's because I've chosen not to listen to the media for the last few years and I'm happy. I am like, I am good, I know people like did you hear this?

Speaker 2:

I'm like I didn't like, choose to have, like live a happy life. I choose to be where I live. I choose to live on a farm. I choose to be grounded. I choose to be, try to be my most authentic self. I choose this life.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to know other people's opinions, especially like seven empath. I'm autistic, like if you tell me things, I'm going to absorb it. So it's like no, like I keep my circle very small because I don't want to absorb other people's energy. And where I give my energy because, like being the person I am, I'm actually constantly healing, even if I don't like, um, think about it, my, my energy is also like, uh, my body is always healing, like with earth or whatever, like it's always constantly healing. So it's like where do I want to put the energy? Like, well, I want to touch down with earth, I want to connect with her, like I want to, and it's so beautiful.

Speaker 2:

Like we planted some, some, some peace and oats for our cows this year and like, okay, like I really like I'm about full crop and I really put that like energy into our field and we have this big, luscious crop and I like we drove around and seen some other people's crops around us and it's like it's like like sparks, it's barely like anything. There's like wow, like what, like sparse, it's barely like anything. There's like wow, like what I do really matters, like energy, like. Or we're like we really need rain, cause we like had lots of fires last year. I'm like, hey, we need a lot of rain this year, like, and it just came in as it needed to. It was like thank you, and it just it's always being that, finding that connection of who you are, who you're meant to be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I want to touch on something that I got into meditation one time. It was very clear. It was in our little group meditation. I don't remember what the story was, but this is something that came out of it and I was like, oh wow, that was like really super clear. So I had this. I don't know why. I was trying to move energy, right. So I'm in meditation pretty deep. I heard the other person in the room. I heard her, but I wasn't like completely in tune. I was that much into meditation, no-transcript.

Speaker 1:

I got the image of like you think about it, like moving your arm. Before you move your arm, you think about what it is to move and then you, you have a, you have time before your arm actually moves. That that's when the energy is moving. So and I was in that meditation, I played with that. I didn't move because I was in meditation, I was trying to stay still, but I was still in that particular instance. I was actually moving my arm per se to show myself, and I got visuals in that particular one. I don't always get visuals, but I got visuals and the message that I got was very, very clear is that just by thinking of it, you are moving that energy. Just by having that intention to move the energy, it is actually moving. So, and just because people can't measure it with whatever mechanisms they have, doesn't mean that it's not happening.

Speaker 2:

So for you to say you're always kind of working on something, I think, I think we all are on some level because, like you said, wherever you put your attention, wherever you put your energy, that's what's going to expand so then if like, let's say, going back to politics, if you're like, oh, I don't like like a lot of people in canada, don't like her prime minister, yeah, um, it's like, are you going to put that attention on there? Are you going to like, oh, he's like where's. Like like, um, you know, I wish he wasn't here or they replace. I mean, I was like, okay, like, okay, come back to yourself. It's like, what do you need? You know? Like coming back to yourself and stop giving your energy away. And it's, it's not you're. You're fueling the fire that way by like adding your energy to it.

Speaker 1:

So, like, bring your energy back and just work on yourself, and like working on yourself changes the world and actually I find for me it was like super duper literal translation of exactly what you're talking about, because a couple of years ago, when it felt like a couple of years ago when Trump was president, that was a big deal Okay. But part of it is that Trump is somebody who kind of lights the fire. He, like you know, instigates stuff, so he does whatever. And I used to see people and I'm not on either side, but I have friends on either side and sometimes they would post things and their responses that people would get and give and they'd be so angry about it They'd say exactly the reason I don't like this person, I don't want this person there. And it was a perfect literal example. It's like somebody posts something on social media and somebody always has something negative to say. Sometimes they have stuff positive to say, but just by saying it you're putting the energy there.

Speaker 2:

So if you really want that thing to stop, you just pull away from it because I know, like, like when covid hit um is like I was very angry at it. I was angry that people had to wear masks. Like I literally went to like one grocery store because I could get away without wearing a mask. They wouldn't see anything and they were like everywhere you go, people are wearing masks and I go, like it bothered me so much, like it hurt me. It took me back to my concentration camps. Like it was so bad, um, but I I was so angry at it. But with that it literally catapulted and changed who I am, because before covid my kids were in the public's system. My husband's like do you want to homeschool our kids? Was like no, I don't want to do that. That that's stupid, you know. Like our kids will be dumb, you know. So being angry can be a catapult for something beautiful too. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to stop the recording here, cause that's actually a pretty good.