You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Things I absolutely love about the work we do is watching people see something that is completely disconnected from the work that they do, suddenly enable them to make meaning or make connections in a new way.
That's why I love this episode, partly because the conversation that I had with Kate over coffee when we first met enabled both of us to make new meanings, but also in the days and weeks since we recorded this podcast, I've realized that she is describing in this conversation the philosophy that we have of how we train coaches, which is give you the least that you need to know and enable you to make your own meanings. So I hope you love this one to listen to as much as I loved recording it.
And if you like it, we would absolutely love it if you shared it with one other person, because we'd love to get the coaching in. wider, deeper, further into the world. Let me know what you think. Welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching In. Today, I'm having a second conversation with Kate Carrow, who I met in Sheffield earlier on in the year, when we had the most interesting conversation about homeschooling and coaching.
And I said to Kate, why don't you come to The Coaching In and talk to us about it? Welcome, Kate. Hello. Thank you very much. It's such a delight to see you again. So just give us some context about what you do with your day. Well, I have two children who I'm home educating now, which feels a lot easier because in total I've had six, but they've gone to school at 14.
So now with my two boys who are eight and nine, we tend to get up at a reasonable time and then they do their maths and music practice and they might do maths on the computer. of their own accord. They might ask me to get involved or I might be doing jobs on the computer because I organize out of the box and acquire called Steel City Choristers as well. So I've got my work to do and they've got their work to do.
And they should do some, they know they need to do a bit of writing as well, a few, a few spellings or copyright. And then at coffee time, we then come together and have a snack and I have a cup of coffee. And we come together for stories. And we start off with a bit of sort of presencing, kind of something peaceful to bring us together in a relaxed frame of mind. And then we have maybe a couple of hours of different stories.
And I read, and then they tell back what they've heard, so they're obsessing things themselves. And then... Then we have lunch and then they have a bit of free play. And then we often do something later on in the afternoon, like, or evening, like, or going to see friends or beavers or choir or tennis. So there's a lot of them taking responsibility for their own learning.
Yes. And that's been quite a big shift because I always felt quite responsible early on with my... older children who are now 20 and 18. And I've had to learn to let go of control, trust that they can do it for themselves. Trust that children are born with an innate curiosity and eagerness to learn and they're interested in the world. And if I can harness that, then that's the most powerful way of them learning. But then you have to create.
some habits so that you've got like a container for the learning. You have to create some habits of like, so they don't question yet. Like, okay, you always do your teeth on brush your teeth on the morning and okay, you always do your maths and some writing and some music practice on the morning. So there's some expectation around it, but within those boundaries then to trust them, to trust them and also to trust. the content of what they're learning, that it is really interesting.
Like I might not necessarily find maths all that interesting, but I remember talking to a friend who's a maths professor when she had little children and she said, the trouble with English is that it's so difficult to know how to do anything with English with your children. Whereas maths, it's just everywhere. Everywhere you look, there's shapes and numbers and fun things that you can do with the maths. Her children were in school.
This was just the way she lived, enjoying seeing the world through that lens. Yeah. And so there's all sorts of different subjects and it's learning to appreciate that there's something exciting. Wow. Me feeling that and trusting that so that the children can have. pick up and have confidence and not that I need to know about it, I just need to be interested in it. So you're trusting very young children to do some really great learning with a little bit of facilitation from you sometimes.
Yeah, and quite a lot of play and they'll learn a lot through play. And some of that play can be like I can suggest it. Or maybe there's not maybe that sometimes it's not what's the difference between play and and learning. I'm not sure. Maybe it's the fact that if I suggest something, then we should. It's just the way that you do it.
It's not necessarily what the activity is, because any activity can be play for somebody if they're enjoying themselves and if they're in flow and they're interested. So it's the way that you introduce something or the way that you do it together or the way they do it themselves determines whether it's a play or not and all of it's learning. I'm interesting. I love the word flow and play and learning. Yeah, I think that's the most. important.
It doesn't have to be play like, I'm playing with my, I'm just playing with my Lego and that's what I feel like doing. It could be, it could be. So today we had some friends around and we'd all done a little bit of looking into maps and then we, and then the children each brought something to show each other about what they'd learned about maps. And part of that was, we looked at contour lines. And so I've got it. Like we made with plasticine, we made a hill. nice. A knife.
We do the contour lines. Yeah. It's a show. And then we and then we do the picture onto a piece of paper. And like and that was fun. And that was I mean, it was it wasn't playing that they just decided that they were just going to go and do that today. It was I had decided that we were doing this. Well, we'd all decided that we were doing. Yeah. having this gathering about maps and then we did, and that was one of the activities.
And another of the activities was playing battleships because we were looking at grid references. And so that is, it's really, I don't think there's all that much difference between. play and schoolwork, if it's done in a playful way. And that's where most of the learning can happen. One of the things that we talk about often in coaching is what's the least that the coach needs to do to facilitate the other person to do some thinking.
And it feels as though your philosophy of education is what's the least that you need to do so that they can do it themselves? yes, definitely. Because I have to... get out of the, keep out of the way of the children because they've got it in themselves. I need to suggest something and then, and then sit back and see where, wherever it leads. Because I follow Charlotte Mason's ideas. She was a educator in the Victorian times.
And she talked about getting, getting yourself out of the way of the children because they've, they've got this. innate curiosity and playfulness and desire to learn and we just need to get, just need to keep ourselves out of the way so that we don't squash it. then it'll happen. You don't need to do much. But she's inspired you. Yes, she I came across her ideas a long time ago, maybe 15 years ago. And I was I was quite excited by what she said.
But when I tried to implement them with the children, then it just didn't seem to work. I couldn't quite understand how to make it happen, how to get it. them to be interested in these books that were being suggested and how to do a nature journal that she suggested. And I just couldn't make it work. And over the years I've realized now we're doing that style and loving it, but it's been about me transforming myself, which is what your book was about.
It's about this coach transforming themselves. Like, With a nature journal, I used to suggest to the children that they go and do this nature journal and then help them do it and then it would peter out. Whereas now I've learned that I can do a nature journal for myself and be genuinely interested in doing it for myself. And then that kind of becomes a norm and the children can pick up on that. And I think a lot of education...
The gap between the children who learn really well and children who don't have such good results in school can be what their home atmosphere is like. And all these things that you take for granted in the atmosphere of who you are as a person and the things that you're interested in, that has a massive influence on the children's education more than any activities that you do. It's about who you are in your character and what you love.
I know that our listeners with children, some of them are doing a full -time job and then supporting their kids to do the homework in the evening. And you're saying that you've moved away from the rules and you simply let the children find their way with a little bit of shaping from the outside sometimes. What would you want to say to those parents?
Well, I think they can't, they mustn't compare themselves with, I'm not working full time and I haven't got the pressure of the school asking me to do things that I've got to do with the children. That's different. I think the main thing is for them to find what they enjoy doing with their children and follow those interests. and enjoy themselves with the children whenever they can.
They've got to do what they've got to do, but otherwise the main purpose is to enjoy the children and do stuff with them and talk to them and let them talk to you. Yeah. So your children are in three buckets, right? By the sound of it, you've got the older two and then the middle two and then the younger two. So what's changed? Can you tangibly notice what's changed about how you be with them in this home education space from the first two to the middle two to the last two?
Well, my first, the first two and the second two, they're all quite close together. They were really a good four. And I think I felt responsible that they had to get through certain things and that I had to plan these things and also maybe a bit more written work. So we had more output that I could see the proof of what we were doing and that would make me feel better. better. Whereas, whereas now there's not so much proof, you can't, it's more about the input. There's not as much output.
And, and I think I would try to plan ahead a bit more as what I was hoping to do. Whereas now I try to be more spontaneous and just see what's available and what's around and then make the most out of that. So there's a lot. I plan what books we've storybooks and things we're going to read. But for example, I thought I might do a play, this term, a Shakespeare play. But then I saw that the the Hyperchondriac by Moliere was on at the theatres in Sheffield.
And I knew I had a copy of Moliere for some reason. So I just thought, well, let's just do that because it's easier. And... and let myself be, just go with what's happening around me and then make the most out of that. It feels more natural and it feels easier because... You don't have to try to organize quite as much stuff.
You just have to make the most out of what is around and, and enjoy that and be present to that and realize every little thing is an opportunity to learn even if it's an interruption or even if it doesn't seem, even if it's something that gets broken and then do something about it. I mean, it sounds a bit idyllic. I'm not, it's not idyllic.
I am putting any really on top of things in, I'll have my ideals that maybe I don't live up to, but, but also I suppose, I suppose as well, I feel more comfortable because my older children have done well. And I know it can't, I know that it's not going to be perfect, but, but it'll, it's good enough. And it has been, has been, has been, has had good results. I would probably do things differently if I was to do it again. Nobody's going to have to be perfect.
And it's quite exciting that it's, that the children have done as well as they have despite me. So you've got a confidence in the process being good enough that feels like it's allowed you to lighten up a bit. on your expectations of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that's right. I don't feel... And so then that allows me to enjoy what I'm doing a bit more, which then becomes a virtual circle because then the children pick up on that. And also, I suppose I've learned...
I've learned what's important, what's important. I went for science. I used to not particularly like doing science experiments. And I knew about the scientific method. But I would really worry about the science experiment, whether it might work or not, how interesting it would be, whether the theory was going to be interesting. Whereas now I feel like, well, She doesn't, it doesn't work so much.
It's just, I need to be a calm presence and notice, observe clearly, be methodical, take notes, be interested, be happy with whatever we're exploring. Even if it doesn't work, it's that's still useful. Maybe talk about the forward model T being the T at the time that they'd. try to make something. It's just, it's those things that are more important than the content of anything that you're doing. The content doesn't matter.
And the content of the children haven't necessarily covered the content that they would cover in schools. But they go in, they've been into school at 13 or 14 and they have got some gaps in their knowledge, but they've got a good attitude to learning. They've got a sense of... responsibility for their own education and their own self. And so then they can pick up any extra knowledge that they need to. Because they know how to learn.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the same for, the children have gone on French and German exchanges and they've gone for six months to France or Germany and then we've had a French or German child back with us for six months. And these French and German children have been in school in their country. So our children go to school in France.
or Germany for six months when they're with them, but, and then these children, when they come to us, they either go to school here or they buy home, educate them. And so they do something completely different for six months and then go back to their home country. And, and, and often they find that they, they're ahead. They might miss some content, but they, they might be ahead with their maths or they've just got to set their...
Character has grown, their brains made more connections, they've had this adventure. It doesn't seem to matter that they miss the six months of content. It's just your experiences and your character that develops and that seems to be similar to anything in home ed, that it's not about the activities and the content. It's just about who you are and how you are. That's amazing. Who they are and how they are as much and more important than what they learn.
And, you know, in many contexts, but, you know, particularly in coaching coaches get very anxious about what do I do? How do I do this? What else do I need to do? What else do I need to bring in? And that feeling that value comes from what we do. But what a beautiful description about immersing for six months when it's entirely about who you're becoming and how you be. Mm -hmm. Yeah, and the confidence that you can have in yourself. Mm -hmm. and the new experiences that you're having.
Yeah. That all come from exposure rather than education. Yes. Or knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. And so. that's quite radical with the six month exchanges. But in the rest of your life, it's about being exposed to all sorts of things as well. And so that's why it's about input and about reading stories. And I'm reading much more complicated or more engaging, advanced stories to my children now than I would have done with my older ones. Interesting.
So we've read, we've read Swallows and Amazons and the James Herriot books, Shakespeare plays and. And Moliere. Well, yeah, and that was fun. Did you just take it? Also, I suppose because of this way of. You take it.
you read a little bit and then you ask the children to tell back and they can tell about what they wanted to say and you trust them that they're going to sift through their heads as to everything that they've heard and they're going to choose what they think is the most interesting or the most important and then they tell you back and you accept what they say because they're the learner, they're doing the work, you don't know what thought processes went to do.
in their head, so you can't see everything that they're learning. You can only see what they're offering. And it's not for my benefit what they tell me. In any case, it's for their own. It's their own decisions and their own education, their own journey. And so they can't fail because you ask them to tell you something and they tell you something. And even if it's brief, then you might tell them something too.
If they... don't want, have hardly anything to say, then you can tell them what you liked about it too. So then you get to model that narration, we call it. And you get to recap in your own words about what you've just read. So they hear it again and then you move on. So there's no, there's no, there's no pressure. It's just, and it's all in small bits. So it's short, short chunks. And you're not leading them to the place that you think they ought to be?
No. Yeah. I'm not asking them questions and ask, and I'm wanting to check whether they've got the, they've been listening and had the right, got the right answer for me. I don't mind what they've, what they've come back with. It doesn't matter. I'm really curious about what the conversation was like when you came out of seeing Marlier's hyperchondriac. Well, it was funny because he was, it was quite, it was really comedic and much more accessible than you might have thought.
And it was, and they, they talked about the poster was quite different to what the actors were actually wearing. So they were like, why is that? Why do they got a poster with this man in a black velvet jacket and a pink hat, whereas actually he was all in beige and he was small and skinny and on the poster. And then we're saying, why are there no more children? Why weren't there any other children in the audience? And also it was rewritten by Roger McGoff in rhyming couplets.
It was funnier than the play, even though the play had been quite funny too. Wow, what a beautiful thing. They probably understood it more than some of the adults in the audience, didn't they? Well, probably because we'd just read it and talked about it. Yeah. Yeah. So you talked about Charlotte Mason. What was her philosophy that so attracted you? She talks a lot about...
Education being an atmosphere and I heard other people who were following their ideas about it being a life home education being a lifestyle and So I was so although I didn't understand it for a long time.
That is what attracted me to it this idea that it was It education infiltrated all of life all of character who you were what your whole family is like all the nonverbal things that you have around your house lots of stories and art and being out in nature, about treating education as a as people as the whole person is about your about the character of the whole person. It's about formation. Rather than the transference of information.
Yeah. Yeah. And. Because it's about your whole personhood and then a lot of the way that Charlotte Mason suggests that you learn about things is through the lens of another person and their life. So she talks about using living books rather than textbooks. And so living books would be the story of somebody's life that's really emotionally engaging. often might start, if you're reading a biography or something, it often might start with the person as a child.
So you get an insight into who they were as a child and where their interests lay and why they went into the field that they went into. So you can relate to them. So you might be reading a science book, but we've just read one on Isaac Newton, and you read it.
and you see him as a child and you hear about how he was intrigued about these workers who were building a windmill near him and how he... and we were reading about Leonardo da Vinci as well and how when he was a child, he got some animals and collected them and then drew them with perspective and made it look really lifelike and his dad thought it was a real dragon or something and got a copy and that was funny and...
And so you don't really sort of getting an insight into people's lives and then learning about their discoveries along along the way makes it I feel like can relate more and it feels more accessible and feels more relevant to you because as you can imagine them as a child and then yeah. So a lot of connecting. Yeah, she talks about education being a science of relations. It's all about relationships and always asking, well, what does that remind you of?
And seeing how everything interconnects and noticing. So like this book about Isaac Newton, then we've just finished it and. the children have been writing. We've had a group of friends, everybody's written a bit of a narration about each chapter and then you put it in the post and it goes to somebody else and then you get another book and then you write the next chapter in the next book and put it in the post.
But then we were watching Doctor Who and then Isaac Newton was mentioned on the Doctor Who and we went down to... Cambridge for my daughter's advent carol service. And then we'd go past the Isaac Newton pub there. And then I was listening to a podcast about children's curiosity and they were talking about him there. And there's always connections in everything. And so that's why we are always looking out for those.
And you can't really compartmentalize into, I'm doing, we're doing history now and then geography and then science. I have to answer the council. They'll ask me, what do I do for these different subject areas? But. I don't really, the children don't really learn in subject areas like that. It's all, it's always just learning about life and then making connections between.
That reminds me that in coaching often the organization says that they want this and this and this and that to be covered, but actually the conversation, the dialogue and the growth comes from the connection and the humanity of it. Yes, the whole story. So Kate, we met at an out of the box workshop, which is something that you do and we've interviewed, we've had Catherine Lord on here and Tula Valconen.
So for you, what's this connection between meaning making and out of the box in the way that you do home ed? So a lot of the ideas for Out of the Box came. for Catherine from Godly Play, but for me from Charlotte Mason and my experience of home ed. And... Cause I, when we went into lockdown, I wrote a little bit about home ed being about the atmosphere and life and not just about activities. Cause people were needing to do homeschooling, which was quite different to, through home ed. Yeah.
Catherine and I found a lot of connection about this kind of idea that it's about a way. way of being and how that way of being is the most important thing. And then we started this Facebook group called Dooby Doo, which was about doing and being, because we wanted to focus on this idea of this. So there is something to explore about what it is about being the most important thing in any kind of activity.
And then I was talking about stories, being a vehicle for learning and... being emotionally engaging. And so then we, eventually that then led to us designing Out of the Box because I like the idea of using stories as a sort of stimulus for the children's learning. We could use, we've developed wisdom stories for Out of the Box, but we're going to develop science and history stories and things.
Cause we've got a story like a King Canute and the waves and then you tell the story in out of the box with the figures on the sand or on the cloth and tell the story about King Canute trying to get the waves to the sea to stop coming in. And then the children then get to see that enacted in front of them and then opening up the dialogue around what did you like about that? What did you not like? They get to say what they want to say about the story and how it impacted them and what they notice.
They get to play with the story and say, well, what would you do? Where would you be in the story? And they get to really engage with their physically, with the materials, but also emotionally and with the conversation and dialogue about how do they relate to that story. And it's just fun and playful and light. And that can then lead to more study about. Viking towns or whatever, but it just ignites an interest. And you could have that.
You could have the same for a scientific character, Gregor Mendel with his peas or you could do all sorts of little stories and they're only so short. It could just be a little way of introducing a topic. I think it would be, I mean, schools do loads of creative things, but this was just another. creative way that I think is really nice to get the children really talking and because there's having their own ideas and having their own agency over something.
And for us as the adults to kind of get out of the way of them and just play. Because you're inviting them to stand in a different place in the story, aren't you? And getting them to look at the story from different perspectives in a really simple way.
Yes. And getting them to think about the humanity, the people in the stories and what were their motivations and why were they doing what they're doing and playing with the people and because the children can work out, make meaning as they play and think about what it feels more playful having little wooden figures and being able to play in a group. than just thinking theoretically about what were the motivations of the advice, the king's advisors or, but to actually play with it.
Yeah. Inhabit it a bit more and you just have a bit of fun and mess around and experiment and there's no right or wrong, but I think you can get, have more ideas and be more, yeah, more creative if you just get a chance to play with things like that. Touch it, inhabit it, try it out, play with it. And then think, and then think about what, and then what does that mean for me? Like, who do I relate to and how would I be in that kind of situation?
And... And I felt with our home edge that when I was first home educating, then people would talk about their children playing history stories and things. And my children didn't do that so much. Whereas now they do. And I think it's because we, I give them more input with more in a more relaxed, playful, lighthearted way out of the box is, and then I give them more free time to play. So they can play with their Lego, their claim a beer and, and, or. free play in the garden or whatever.
And then you do see them then playing out these stories. They played out like Hengist and Horso who were in a feast and the Saxons and then they whipped out their daggers at the end of the meal. It was terrible. But they play that and it becomes their own.
And then out of the box if children can get to play with the stories afterwards and the materials, they can... inhabited and it can become their own, they can relate to it and enjoy it and I think it ignites a real interest in anything and you can have any kind of subject in there. I'm laughing to myself because it's common isn't it for adults to say let's play with some ideas but that's entirely in the head. Okay let's sit here and discuss.
otherwise known as play with some ideas, but you're talking about actually touching, feeling, experiencing. Yes. And really, well, I used to work in, for a media agency and there was one time when we wanted to come up with some ideas for a client. I can't remember what the product was, but it was a, some sort of youth campaign. And in order to get people to be more creative. come up with more ideas and things, then they invite, they sent everybody an invitation.
It was just a meeting to brainstorm some ideas, but you got an invitation to a meeting that was a box with a, they opened up with a balloon, a helium balloon, and came out and it said, come, come along to this meeting basically, but in a fun way. And then you went down to this meeting room and there was bean bags and pizza.
And we were all supposed to sort of kind of pretend to be teenagers to to get into the mood of thinking like that in order to get more ideas to flow and be more relaxed and playful. And so it's good to inhabit and really play with your body to then be able to come up with more ideas. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. So what would you like our listeners to hear? and to think about in relation to learning from what we've talked about around home educate.
I think that learning is fun, that relationships are the main thing to enjoy yourselves and... and be interested, but have a nice time and follow what you feel like doing. and relax into it. And I love how you've done this with two separate bundles of your children and how you've learnt from the first go, so the second go, and that you still recognise that the first go was good enough. That's beautiful. Yes, it's quite good to have six children because I can keep experimenting for a bit longer.
Great. Thank you so much for coming to the coach again. How do people get in touch with you if they want to talk more about out of the box? They could go to our website, outofthepoxstories .org and we're on Facebook as out of the box. Would be great to hear from people. Brilliant. I'm interested in the exchanges that's Aleph, the Association of Language Learning on Famille. A -L -L -E -F.
Brilliant. Thank you so much, Kate, and what a pleasure it has been to have you here at The Coaching In today. And thank you everyone for listening. Bye bye. Thank you. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media. And if you'd like to become a regular at The Coaching In, you can subscribe on Podbean and all major podcast channels. We look forward to welcoming you next time.
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