Inspired Learning Through Living
“This changed our lives and you can’t help but let it seep into other areas of your life.”
Karla Marie Williams is Unschooling The Sensational Six.
Karla Marie is a speaker, writer and global child advocate. As the founder of ispeak4kids global, her work has touched multiple countries and cultures. She is a homeschool conference speaker, mentor and author of Homeschool Gone Wild. Karla Marie is a wife of 22 years and mom of 6 inspired kids!
How The Idea Began
The idea to homeschool began with her first child. Her daughter needed something different. She was feeling anxious, down and suffered from dyscalculia. Karla Marie saw that her daughter needed not only more one-on-one time but she also realized that her daughter needed more of her. She needed that relationship. So after grade 2, she decided to homeschool her daughter. Her other children soon followed. They continue to homeschool to this day.
Homeschooling Was Not Enjoyable
Karla Marie started out homeschooling like many of us do. Repeating school at home. They plugged away for 3 years. They ended up hating it. It was just workbooks everyday. It never occurred to her that it could be fun and enjoyable because school was never fun and enjoyable for her. She knew no different. I hear this often. That the idea of school or learning was never something that was to be enjoyed. It was a chore that you just had to get through. If this is your framework around learning, then how could you create anything different?
In This Episode
In this episode Karla Marie shares how they moved from “school at home” to unschooling. She shares why this has worked so well for her family and why she believes that any child can unschool. Yes. Any child can unschool.
She also shares the key elements and examples that have helped to create a successful homeschool environment for them:
- Focusing on relationships more than shoving facts down their throat.
- The belief that any child can be an unschooler if their parent is willing to let go long enough to make it work.
- What helps when you have P.U.P. (Periodic Unschooler Panic)
- The power of documentation
- Karla Marie’s number one tool for documentation
- Defining unschooling
Inspired Learning Through Living
Karla Marie is also a global child advocate. We explored her advocacy work and the impact it has had on her and her family. All of Karla Marie’s 6 children are adopted. The experience she has had through the adoption process and raising her children inspired her work. She travels the globe speaking and mentoring. Her focus is understanding trauma, recognizing what trauma does to the brain, how to care for and love children that have been traumatized and how to be an agent of healing in their lives.
The organizations she works with must share a common goal: to remove children from institutions, to place them in families and prepare those families to care for them properly.
How is that for promoting positive, meaningful change? It is also a demonstration that parents can be the catalyst to showing their children how they can pursue their own dreams. It is truly inspired learning through living.
I asked Karla Marie what their main family belief or goal is. “To enjoy the journey, love what they do and make a difference in this world.”
You can find out more about Karla Marie through her YouTube channel- Unschooling The Sensational Six
Her books~Homeschool Gone Wild-Inspired Learning Through Living. Records the journey from traditional homeschool to unschool
Momspiration– how you can inspire your children to pursue their dreams as you pursue your own.
Her website~ispeak4kidsglobal
If you would like to listen to more example of parents that are doing inspired learning through living check out these episodes with Karen Ricks, Julie Bogart, Kerry McDonald, Sadiya Hashmi, and Gordy Bal
