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Home Education | Life-Led Learning | Poetry

@learningwithoutwalls_

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📕 8 years home-educating
🌲 Qualified Forest School Leader & outdoor learning advocate
✍️ Author and writer poetry books on motherhood,neurodiversity⤵️

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“The world is her classroom, there’s everything right there, with fire in her belly and the wind in her hair”

Words by @emilyfoulkespoetry

#poetryreels #lifeledlearning #unschool #unschoolers #unschooling #homeeducator #homeeducation #poetryinmotion #naturesplayground #neurodiversity #adhd #1000hoursoutside #homeeduk by @learningwithoutwalls_

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9 months ago

You were never expected, to raise them exact
No two are the same and that is a fact

They do not need to align, or need to conform,
No matter what life will tell you, there is no ‘norm’.
Normal for one, is not for the other
You know their natural, as you are their mother

You know in your heart, all their little ways, their challenges, their talents, their favourite days
So don’t let them tell you, they are ahead or behind, you know the reality, in your own mind.

A child can’t be measured, like on a weighing scale, to determine if, they pass or fail
They are their own, without need to compete, there isn’t a balance, to try to meet.

The only importance, in any young life, is someone who listens, and supports their interests and strifes.
They will flourish, with you as their mother, trusting in them, more than any other.

So have faith in them, don’t fear what they ‘lack’. No need to compare, just follow their track. 💕

Words by Emily Foulkes @thebarenecessitoys

#homeeducation #homeeducator #homeeduk #homeed #poetry #poetryreels #neurodivergent #neurodiverse #madetobeme #unschooling #unschool #unschoolers #adhd #childmentalhealth #poetrycommunity #motherhoodreels #homeeducationuk by @learningwithoutwalls_

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3 years ago

I’m here for the wild children, the misfits, the fits, the individuals!

I support adults and children to be comfy in their skin and connect with who they really are without need to compare.

Head to madetobeme.co.uk for more or drop me a message!

Be you!!

Poem written and copyright of me, Emily Foulkes

#thewildones #poetry #poetryofinstagram #wildone #wildones #unschooling #unschool #unschoolers #unschoollife #unschooled #homeed #homeeducation #homeeduk #naturalchildhood #waldorf #waldorfeducation #reggioemilia #reggioinspired #montessori #montessorieducation #madetobeme #personalitycoach #coach by @learningwithoutwalls_

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3 years ago

It's been a while..... But How could I miss World Poetry Day??
My book is so nearly finished, I am tripping over the last mental details, to get it to print!
Poetry, is my art, and knowing when to paint the last stroke, the last word, and also to reveal my art, my truths, feels vulnerable once again. A second published book feels exciting and nerve-wracking all the same, putting my work out there! But I know bravery and leaps of good faith are the door to more gumption to do things outside of my comfort zone, so I am ready!

This new book, focused on neurodiversity, and celebrating individuality, will be coming very soon, watch this space!

A shout-out to all those still creating raw! Without AI, who are making things from scratch the old-fashioned way. With a pencil, brush, pen, tool in hand to carve out something human, something real.

That's worth keeping alive and a rarity amidst the fast art these days that can be created in a click.

Support those who take the time, with joy and care, to create it themselves!

Keep creating! #worldpoetryday by @learningwithoutwalls_

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9 days ago

How do procrastinators get stuff done??

They recognise they get distracted and remove the distractions - entirely!

I’m talking delete insta for a while.

I know this via my own learned experience as I’ve done this once and produced a book while coming off of here.

But I also read and listen a lot about others pursuits, on socials, in books, audio books and podcasts.

One common thread you see from all the go getters is they disappear for time periods. They hide away from the world in order to sink into their mind, into their plans, into their dreams. They minimise all the distractions in order to focus.

Because being on social media is a constant flood of consumption - it is a flood of information that gives your brain little capacity during constantly processing all that it is receiving, to be its own. To think for itself, analyse for itself and just BE itself.

This space can be inspiring but it can also be diluting, and detach us from clarity of our own heads and thoughts.

For me, it has to be drastic - app deleting or it’s too tempting. Too autopilot to just click back in.

I published my debut poetry book Mum Me Moments in July last year and I have been writing my next poetry book.
This one feels more vulnerable, more deep, more current - it’s all about individuality, neurodiversity and empowerment to be authentically you.

I feel more nervous excitement about the release of this one, but it contains some of the poems I have connected to the most which I can’t wait to get in print. I want to do this one justice as I think it could be an important one for many adults and children on the bookshelf to return to when you need some inner power to live life intuitively, being, you 😍🤩

Here’s to the crazy ones !

#poetryreels #poetry #neurodiversity #neurodiverse #beyou by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

Panic Attacks

Why am I sharing this on here? Because this account has been about understanding yourself, how we learn, how we thrive, what makes our nervous systems calm and how we can find contentment.

I’ve got to this place more readily because 7 years ago in my office of my corporate job, while planning for a conference with my colleagues, I had a panic attack.
I didn’t know what it was then, it just happened. I hadn’t been panicking, didn’t feel frightened, I was at work like a normal day.

My body tightened, I was sweating, tense, completely shaking and felt my life flash before me. Frankly, I was terrified.

I never will truly know why it came that day, but my two eldest girls were both babies at that stage and I believe the build up of trying to still be the career girl I had been, and also be ‘Mum’ took its toll on me.
I was burning out and not doing either very well.

Life changed from then as I read a lot about panic attacks and how to prevent them, and I became more aware of my own capacity.
Lots of the journey has been overcoming the feeling of weakness and realising that everyone’s stress can show up differently. Be it in depression, skin conditions, anti inflammatory conditions, general irritability, anxiety or mood and more. Our bodies have their own ways of telling us when they’ve had enough.

Over time I rediscovered my love of writing, and a big connection with the outdoors and my family as my happy places, and discovered techniques and signs that helped me overcome them.

@jessiej shared a video of her on stage experience with a panic attack and it made me feel ready to share this poem that I’ve had archived for a while.

Panic attacks get mistaken with mental anxiety, that you’re in fear. For some this may be true, but others can show up when you’re in a very comfy environment and be totally unexpected. Usually though, there are signs before once you learn to notice.

If you are reading this, and they are part of your life, please be reassured they can be prevented, and managed. There are ways. 💓

#panicattacks #panicattack #learningwithoutwalls #poetry #mentalhealthpoetry by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

It’s such a short phase. 💓 by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

I looked at all the fences the other day.
Across the different gardens, as far as my eye could see. I noticed the height of these fences has gone up over the years.

I remember back to the fence in my Nans garden when I was a little girl.
Her small little garden fence that you could easily see over to next door, and when she walked out, she’d natter away to her neighbour and they’d get things off their chest, have a giggle and go back inside.

People talked. Not across phone wires and internet connections, they talked over fences in human connections.
They paused in their days, or chatted as they hung out washing.

Then we extended the fences. We put up the walls, rushed through the washing and put our face back to the screens, back to our own solitary chaos.

And you might say, but it’s just a fence?
And really, you’re right, it’s not about just the fence.

But the fence depicts the story of the change. Of the barriers we as humans have allowed to rise up, so gradually inch by inch, that we barely noticed until we barricaded ourselves in mentally and physically from what connects us and were left wondering why we felt more lost, divided, disconnected.
Days busier, pace faster, moods heavier.
Time sparser.

Locked in our own spaces, drowning out the faces.
Every other garden appearing greener because we are too busy, to see the grass.
To see true reality, humanity, with calm connected clarity.

But, of course, it’s just a fence.

Words by Emily Foulkes by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

I have set up a Patreon account.
I know it sounds silly but backing myself in a small way to pursue my writing feels hard.

I have set up a space to quietly support my writing, without expectation or presumption, just to provide a space away from this one that feels a bit more wholesome.
Where thoughts can be shared without the busy algorithms fighting for your attention and some deeper bits can be shared.

These social media platforms aren’t great for writing in these recent times, as they feed off short attention spans and fast paced flicking through videos.
Where video binging becomes the norm, it leaves behind the allowance for longer reflective pieces, or even anything without a great 2 second hook…

I hold back, delete, and re-write many a post that often doesn’t get shared because my inner voice tells me not to click send. That no one is reading. The patience to pause has gone.
Social media can feel daunting putting writing/art out as the creation is often personal, vulnerable. It seems easier to not post at all. But I know myself that when other creators share I feel more connected by their humanity and openness and less alone in my own thoughts.

Patreon will act as a community space where I will more confidently share my words on everything home ed, learning, motherhood and poem updates as well as progress on my second book that is pages away from the finish line.
The tricky bit is getting it over the last hurdles to publish.

You can be part of something from the start that I hope to build and grow over time.

It is £5 a month to support, and I will only post once in this way with these details as I do not want anyone to feel obliged - I want others to feel empowered to create, to make, to write, to experiment and to pursue their work in similar ways and not give up on being creative, being vulnerable, being human.

Link is in my bio 😍

#poetryreels #homeeducator #unschooling #unschool #poetry by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

At 5, isn’t this what life should be?
Play!

She loves to write, she’ll dabble with reading, but she’s doing all this through play on her own terms.
She’s not having to recite phonics or feel any pace or pressure to do anything other than be a little 5 year old.

Maybe it helps having an older home educated child now to realise that learning pops up everywhere along the way, and children come to discover and experiment with new things when they are ready, and almost always this starts playfully. Curiously. It starts just by living.

Many countries don’t start formal education for children until age 7 and are heavily play based up to then, but in the UK we seem to be loading the ABCs and 123s earlier and earlier and there is no evidence to suggest that this equates to life long readers and maths confidence, in fact in can have the opposite effect if the pressure is applied too soon.
The countries that start later often demonstrate better long term results academically.

So why oh why do we steal play from these little ones so young when it is not necessary?

Childhood needs reclaiming - it’s so short, but so sweet.

#poetryreels #homeeducator #unschooling #unschool #homeeducation by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

Out of the mouths of babes and this one stopped me in my tracks.

I was, like many parents at bedtime, ushering the girls to finish teeth and wees so I could read some bedtime stories.
At the time, 8yo was transfixed on her bedroom light shade from the top bunk bed. It had some details on it that she hadn’t noticed before. She loves all the little details of the world.

Then she came out with it “are we too busy rushing that we miss all the beautiful details in the world’?.

As always with many things children say, I find them more profound and wise than many adults.
They see the world from a different angle. From a simpler, innocent stance.

Lives are busy with many things, some we can’t escape to keep things turning, but I do believe life has become so full, we struggle to slow at all. Always consuming, rarely being.

Since home educating I have tried to slow our pace. During walks we try to be less about the destination, more about the journey. Noticing trees, spotting nature and the little intricacies of the seasons that would normally pass us by in our haste to be somewhere.
We have seen so much more just by pausing to look, to listen and take things in.
It’s only a small snapshot though and her comment was that sobering connection to a child’s connection to what is magical in the little details. The ones children, who with less hectic minds, pause to absorb.
They see beauty and wonder in what’s around us, and what’s there. Maybe our children are our greatest teachers of what’s important, what’s available for free if we stop rushing, and chasing, and learn to be.

#poetryreels #homeeducator #unschooling #unschool #slowdownandbreathe by @learningwithoutwalls_

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6 months ago

A Writers Mind, and that of a creator.

I often feel I have a lot I’d like to share on here purely because my mind is constantly engulfed by thoughts, and this may sound a bit woo woo, but my poems, my words, it’s as though they are delivered to me.

They are fed to my mind and it’s up to me to catch them and make something of them otherwise they evaporate away and they are lost into the mental wilderness.
It’s made me really understand how some of the great minds in business, and writers and creators lock themselves away in silence to complete books, projects or explore ideas.

I infinitely believe we are all fed gifts, that learning can be a layering process to add new knowledge but we all are born with innate talents that just are there.
They can be hard to explain, to teach to anyone else, because they come so fluently and naturally it’s like they’ve always been there.

No different to a spider spinning a perfect and strong web that scientists cannot fathom. The spider just knows how to spin it.

I think the reason people take themselves into the quiet is that in the busy state of the world, we are too chaotic in our minds to allow these natural gifts the space to surface. Shutting the world off gives scope to hear them.

Which is why I value the time home education can provide or at least the ability for children to have the space to be, to think.

The time to listen to themselves, to discover what’s already there, because in everyone there is something.

The key is daring to quiet your world enough to let them in, and to hear them.

What comes at ease to you?

#homeeducator #unschooling #creator #poetry
#poetrylover by @learningwithoutwalls_

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7 months ago