123: Corianda Shepherd | Creating a Worldschooling Community in Spain

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Jesper Conrad: 0:10

Today we are together with Coriander and you have Shepard's Rest, and I've been seeing your post on the social media and then I got curious and wanted to ask you a bunch of questions. So first of all, welcome. It's good to have you here.

Corianda Shepherd: 0:26

Thank you very much. I've been looking forward to chatting to you as well. See your posts and they look really exciting. They're my colleagues. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jesper Conrad: 0:38

So for people who don't know what Shepherd's Rest is, if we can give it a quick couple of words first so we know what we're talking about.

Corianda Shepherd: 0:47

So Shepherd's Rest is a full-time world schooling community. That's how we put it. We're open all year round and we say one month minimum stay here so that families get a chance to connect. And we spend a lot of time in nature and we don't really offer a program as such, although on occasions we do for certain structured months, but on the whole it's pretty unstructuredructured, self-directed and just people getting together with community meals each week and odd days out and meetups yeah, and where are we in the world?

Cecilie Conrad: 1:24

we don't know it's all important, actually isn't it well, only for those who want to come, I mean true, I want to hear about it. It could be anywhere.

Corianda Shepherd: 1:33

We're in Oria, andalusia, which is in Almeria, so we're in Spain and we've been here since 2015, 10 years.

Jesper Conrad: 1:43

Wonderful, and how old are your kids? And stuff like that.

Corianda Shepherd: 1:47

So I've got six children. The oldest is 28 and never moved to Spain with us because she was already in uni, and the next one down is 26 and didn't come with us because she was already in uni, and the next one down is 26 and didn't come with us because he was in music school. However, we've now got one of those over here, so we've got three here and three in England basically. But yeah, the ones that we traveled here with at the time were 10, 8 and 7, and then we've since had Magnolia and she's now 8. So two years before we had Magnolia. So then we had four children here and we've done a mix of school system and homeschooling since we've been here, but they all finished by homeschooling for at least the last two to three years, and Maggie has been homeschooling since well, a good, clear year, and we dabbled with it beforehand as well, but it's just what suits her best, really what led you to leave UK, besides the weather, yeah, obviously that was a strong one.

Corianda Shepherd: 2:51

At the time I was in the UK, I had three boys and two girls. My three boys are all on the spectrum with high functioning autism, and two of them also have ADHD and one has Tourette's with the autism. They didn't fit the system, and I used to be a parent that thought that more should be put in for my children and they should be able to be treated as individuals, and I used to be a parent that thought that more should be put in for my children and they should be able to be treated as individuals, and I used to fight for whatever I could for any children that had needs like this so that they could stay within a system. I've really, really changed my whole idea on this since trying homeschooling. Since trying homeschooling, because what I can see is that then why should someone else provide something for my children when we can provide it for ourselves the very best thing for our children? We know our children inside out and we can see where they struggle, where they're strong, and for me, I want my children to grow up with positivity surrounding them instead of the negatives. So when we were in the UK, the boys all had a lot of issues around the structure of school, around the social side, with too many people and one of them actually got expelled at eight years old Probably pushed us to look at things a bit clearer and question things a little bit more, as they always have done.

Corianda Shepherd: 4:18

A lot of people believe that your children choose you as a parent. I definitely feel that way now and I feel like my boys, especially, have taught me many, many lessons that I needed to know and needed to learn, and I've grown so much from that. That I needed to know and needed to learn and I've grown so much from that. Joel and I met in 2014. And we got together January 2015. I said to him that I'd been thinking about moving to Spain and would he like to you know, give it a go, and everything. And so we came out here in the March, found the property, property. We just looked at one house, the house I'm in right now and we loved it and we thought, yeah, this has got scope for something. So joel and I, after being I think, we were only five months together, we moved to spain together with, like I say, the seven, eight and ten year old and started life out here.

Cecilie Conrad: 5:13

Wow, amazing.

Jesper Conrad: 5:18

I've never met anyone with Tourette's and when I see it portrayed it almost seems unreal, because the clips you see are like is that fake? Isn't it fake? Is it just one clip? So my curiosity if it's okay, how is it in reality living with it?

Corianda Shepherd: 5:33

So in reality for my, my son, it's actually quite easy because, number one, he has a different sort of Tourette's, that's mainly physical tics other than verbal. So he very rarely has a verbal tic. If you are trying to watch a film alongside him he is 20 now but you can sit next to him and watch a film and he will make little noises but nothing that really affects anything, but it's the motion of like maybe his shoulder or something. If it is touched or if a friend comes up and doesn't realize that he has these sensitivities, they will touch him or brush past him and that will set off his tics. Set off his tics. He actually he's really super cool. I really love the fact that when he was maybe 14 and he was really struggling with some of this and the tics became very prevalent in his life and again, teenage years, you know you're with all these and everything and people start asking like, why are you doing that? You know doesn't help.

Corianda Shepherd: 6:33

No no, and then the insecurities and the anxiety comes out more. So he said to me oh, do you know anyone that might be able to help me with this? I just want to get a handle on it. And he's always been very lateral thinking and calm and I said, yeah, so they think I might know someone.

Corianda Shepherd: 6:51

And my friend did this treatment called say no mentology and you are treated, you are like taught by this one. I go, I guess he's like a guru or something in say no mentology. He came up with the whole process and it's my son puts it in a way like it's half meditation, half hypnosis. But it's all about you don't need to be seen very many times, you don't need to speak too much, which was great, because he'd started holding in his words quite a lot and become quite introverted. But it was all about relaxing and listening and learning to think more about yourself and how you perceive yourself and how you want to be perceived by other people. Therefore, you're getting the strength for you and not taking on other people's problems, because he is incredibly sensitive.

Corianda Shepherd: 7:41

So after this, after he had this treatment when he was 14, it was like 45 minutes he walked out the room, a different person, lots of areas of his life, really caught up, I would say and he gained a sense of self-worth and a sense of confidence that has just carried on growing. I think he's had three appointments altogether. We still know the lady that treated him and I thank her like loads because, honestly, it just made such a difference, and I'm a great one for alternative therapies. If there's something out there that you can try an alternative therapy for, why take medication? I'm really glad that he was open-minded, because a lot of people aren't, and especially a lot of men and a lot of children also. They're worried about you know what it means to try all these different things that are, you know, classed as sometimes airy-fairy or a bit hippie you know.

Cecilie Conrad: 8:35

Yeah, just ask our kids well, was it another hippie idea? You've got there, or does it actually work? And yeah, you just like try it.

Corianda Shepherd: 8:45

Well, if your symptoms disappear, I would say it worked, you know, yeah exactly, or lyndon saw this firsthand so he was just like he was super happy and has just moved on loads. His tics are now minimal. He's actually when he was eight. He didn't speak for a year when, so he was selective mute and now he's recorded songs professionally just cover songs and stuff. But he's recorded songs professionally and that's a love of his that he did have before he stopped speaking, so I knew it was in there all the time, but now he's like everything's coming out, you know which is good so how old are they now?

Corianda Shepherd: 9:26

I need to just understand, yeah so I've got Terea, and she's 28, beckham's 26, lyndon's 20, holby's 19, talia's 17, and then I've got magnolia, who's eight?

Cecilie Conrad: 9:40

all right so yeah, so we've got the 26 most, actually through the whole, yeah, regular school age, and you see yeah, yeah, most of them.

Corianda Shepherd: 9:51

So all 17 and above, except for Matt and Maria.

Cecilie Conrad: 9:54

Yeah, yeah, but other than I'm sorry, go on.

Corianda Shepherd: 9:58

Sorry, I was just going to say other than the oldest one. All of them have been homeschooled for at least two to three years, which made a massive difference.

Cecilie Conrad: 10:09

I just noticed. So we have four, and one has been in alternative schools and the three others have never been to school and I've just noticed with mine and also with other homeschooled kids that I've seen and known about. You know you get the quote-unquote results quite late.

Corianda Shepherd: 10:29

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 10:29

You know, it's when you come out on the other end that you can see, oh, this really meant a big deal, whereas when they're small maybe also you're a beginner homeschooler it's all these milestones of do they read, or minor things that actually don't matter, yeah, and that they all obviously learn at some point, that you think about because you kind of wrapped up in the system and you have this age marker thing going on. But then, as you say, now you know, you see your son, he might have some sort of diagnosis 10-15 years ago and today, yeah, exactly, does it matter? When you're not interviewed for a podcast, probably you know it's crazy.

Corianda Shepherd: 11:14

Like you say, I feel like even their diagnosis for me at the time because again, would I get them diagnosed now as who I am now At the time being in the system, I felt it would offer them help. Yeah, and I also didn't want them put on medication, so I wanted to understand more from professionals as to where I could begin to help them and read up on it. So I don't think I regret it, but I think the emotional regulation is just a little bit slower and the more time they have in the right environment they're not far behind. That's what I found.

Cecilie Conrad: 11:52

Yeah, yeah, it's funny how it changes when you change the context, right yeah, exactly, environment was a massive thing actually.

Corianda Shepherd: 12:02

I have to mention that because moving here wasn't solely for the boys, it was for the whole family. My grandparents lived in Spain whilst I was growing up and I spent most of my holidays with them from probably 12 years onwards, and they had a place on the beach and a place in the mountains, and I loved being up in the mountains. Now I'm from a busy city, brighton, on the south coast, and it's always packed cars, noise, trains, buses, you name it. You can't go anywhere without just general noise and chit chat. That really got to my boys. They were wearing ear defenders and stuff like this and everywhere we went they couldn't cope with the numbers of people.

Corianda Shepherd: 12:43

We came here to find something that would allow us all to relax a bit more. To actually become more cohesive as a family and be able to provide something for our children was the initial thing. So we bought somewhere that was a lot cheaper, that we could afford to buy outright. That meant that Joel and I could become full-time parents to the children instead of both being self-employed and out at work. So we spent the first two years with the children settling them into school, and well, we didn't even know if we were going to send them to school. The children met other children at the park, found out that there was only seven children in each year group rather than I think at their last school there was 190 in each year group. The school had over a thousand pupils, so this school had 70 complete. They asked can we try the school? And I was like, of course you can. You know you want to try it, let's go for it. Did incredibly well, so I just need the number again.

Jesper Conrad: 13:53

You're saying seven on each year group. That is a luxury. Yes, sounds almost unbelievable. I know when you think about these schools that are out there today.

Corianda Shepherd: 14:03

Yeah, exactly that, a three-minute walk from the house. Seven children in each year, ranging from three years to 14 years. So, like you say, all is good. You know, that's very lucky, fortunate, to have on your doorstep, and it allowed the chance for the three of them to go to school, learn Spanish fluently, which they did, which is fantastic. I'm learning all the time, but I'm pretty reasonable and I do speak Spanish every day, person to person, because I feel that for me, that works. I do speak Spanish every day, person to person, because I feel that for me, that works, and I don't mind laughing at myself if I get something wrong. I'm not perfect, you know. So if you move somewhere, I feel you've got to embrace and also show your children how to fit in and integrate, you know yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 14:50

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 14:51

Yeah, yeah. Coriander, I would like to ask you how moving to Spain have changed your perspective on where you came from, the society you came from, the culture, how you were as a person before versus how you are now. Yeah, how had it unraveled in your life?

Corianda Shepherd: 15:58

So I was always quite a free thinker and maybe, like many people, thought I was a bit of a daydreamer or something like that. When I met Joel, I felt like I'd met my match and we both had the same sort of plans. We're both quite impulsive, but we both felt very restricted by our environment that we were in. We thought a bit differently. We're more creative sort of people that want to be doing stuff for the local community. We've always been involved in community projects Joel with videography and filming, and myself and photography and myself with music promotion and band management and things like this. So we already had that side to us where we knew like entrepreneurial sort of things where we could make something up, come up with something together. So we started making plans for coming out here. And, yeah, back there I was when the children were young. I was 19 when I had my first child and at that age I was quite a conformist, quite an anxious I guess anxious or maybe shy more than anxious person. I couldn't use a bus, I couldn't go on a bus and ask for a ticket, which is seems now like that was not me when I was young, if I needed to go on a bus and ask for a ticket, which is seems now like that was not me. When I was young, if I needed to go to my friend's house 12 miles away, I'd get my mountain bike out and I would ride there I liked. I was always outdoorsy so it was no hard shit, but I just something always niggled at me. I didn't just just quite fit. Do you know what I mean? And for us, we always wanted to provide something for our children that fitted better. Joel took on the role of, like stepdad the children don't call him stepdad because they were Joel's actually only 35 and I'm 48. So he was 25 when we got together and it's worked perfectly. He's a great friend to the older children and a great support. They call him as well. If I'm too close to the situation sometimes, or they think he can help, they'll give him a call. They've got their dad around as well. So you know, like it's having two male role models, which is fantastic. And yeah, it's been a real growth, I suppose, for me personally.

Corianda Shepherd: 18:17

But, like I say, a lot of that happened because of the children. So when they had needs, I realized I had to adapt. I can't let them struggle. I need to move forward with this and know that I'm going to be able to provide for them as a parent. That's what you want to do to enable them to get somewhere in life that they going to be able to provide for them as a parent, that's what you want to do to enable them to get somewhere in life that they want to be. So, yeah, I mean, stepping outside of that was quite difficult for me because my family, we all talk and get on, but you know you can't have exactly the same opinions, even though you've been brought up the same way.

Corianda Shepherd: 18:51

I'm the oldest of five children and none of the others agree with homeschooling and various other things that we've decided to do or not to do. So, leaving that situation with three boys, you know, diagnosed and everything, we would fall. Don't do it. You're crazy. Everyone. We had so many agencies involved with helping with the care of the boys and things like that. They were all just going. Are you crazy? What are you doing? You're taking away everything that they know and you're taking them abroad where they don't speak the language. They have flown, they have flown. It's been the best thing, and I want other people to know how much things can change when you really look at yourself deeply and look at your family situation and think why are we struggling? What is not right here because you have the strength and the power to change it for your family and what can go wrong if you just try something. So it's definitely worth a try.

Corianda Shepherd: 19:52

Initially when, when we got here, the house needed to bring up, so it was completely empty. It just had windows and doors, no floor tiles, no bathrooms, nothing. So we rented for a year. We kept our house back in the UK, rented that out and then, once everyone had settled here, so we did have a little bit of a safety barrier. Then, once everyone had settled, we thought, right, a little bit of a safety barrier. Then, once everyone had settled, we thought, right, sell up, put the money in over here.

Corianda Shepherd: 20:18

So we did up the house and we've got three apartments attached to the house so that, like I say, we knew when we looked at the property this has potential to do something. So initially we had a lot of friends that were yoga teachers or poi teachers or circus skills and things like that. So we started with the idea of hosting the teacher and they would bring their students with them for yoga. We did a few yoga retreats and we also were lucky enough to be followed by a uk tv channel, channel four, and they followed us for a year and that was in 2019. And so that was called A New Life in the Sun, where they basically follow people that have moved abroad and started a business and see how it's going, and then they visit every couple of years and spend a day with us just to like update what's going on in our project.

Jesper Conrad: 21:13

That's not bad for business, huh no, it's not bad.

Corianda Shepherd: 21:16

It was difficult, though, being followed around when you're super busy, but the camera guys were great it I mean to be fair. Like I was saying, I was a nervous, shy person when I was younger and I hated my photo taken. I couldn't sit like this in front of a camera. It doesn't feel natural to me. It's getting easier because I'm just less. I'm trying to not even think about it, if you know what I mean. That's sort of what you've got to get past. Yes, caring, you know. So, yeah, it was a real learning curve another one, so but we did well out of it. You know. It got us known a little bit.

Corianda Shepherd: 21:55

The local thing got to appreciate what we were doing over here as well, and then we just thought, when we had Magnolia and we just looked at the situation and we thought the yoga retreats were fun and they were lovely people, but it didn't fit our family very well because it was bringing lots of adults into a situation. But we had lots of children. We had four young children, so we wanted to then create something that would provide for our children and mean that we were around more and, even if we were working, that they could be included more instead of quiet time here, and you've got to be this and you've got to be that. That's what we wanted to avoid. So it's amazing how organically it happened. Actually, we had a really lovely lady, an australian lady called sarah, and she came with her husband and four children and, like I know her, I think you might yeah, most homeschoolers should know her.

Corianda Shepherd: 22:53

I think she's been a big part of it for years. Right, for like five years I think they did traveling. I think they were only meant to do a year or two, but they stopped with us all together. I think it was only around seven weeks, but I think it was like a four-week block and then they came back because the kids got on so well.

Corianda Shepherd: 23:11

So they really opened our eyes to the home schooling, the unschooling. We had lots of conversations about it. We didn't agree on everything. It was very new to us, like I say, and we were like, oh, do you reckon that can work? And we were the ones going, oh, but what about further education? You know? And and these are the question, yeah, yeah. And this is the hilarious thing now, because I'm working as a home educational consultant telling all these other people now that are just new into it and panicking and going I can't do this, I can't help my children, and what about this? And what about their exams? And they're not going to go to college? And I'm just like slow down, sit down, sit back, relax. And this is exactly what Sarah was saying to me. She was just like you, just you get it, you know. And, yeah, we just realized how much it would work for our boys especially. And, yeah, once, once we got into it, more and more things clicked into place really, and it just became our way of life.

Corianda Shepherd: 24:17

I don't know if we're classed as unschoolers or homeschoolers. Really we don't do sit down lessons as such, we don't have set times for anything, but our daughter's been reading since she was six, by choice, because she would see other children come here and she'd make friends with them. And we had some lovely twin girls from Canada that were here and they were just going through all the books. We've got a library out the front and a playroom and she was sitting out there with them and she was going are you really reading all of that? And my daughter was like wow, and she said I really want to learn to read. And again, like you were saying earlier, we don't need to force our children. You can put things in their way and they can choose what they. You know what's around them that they want to pick up, and it's so nice to see them follow their own heart, their own timings and their own rhythm.

Jesper Conrad: 25:56

Yeah, I remember the first time we met someone who decided to homeschool. It was two or three houses down on the road we lived. Now they live in Spain, Dawn and Marcus and their family wonderful people.

Cecilie Conrad: 26:13

Do you know them? No, I don't. They're in La Andalusia as well. Yeah, so I feel like I did a whole podcast series with Sarah Beale. I mean, I know her quite well. I was kidding, okay. Yeah, we spend a lot of time together, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 26:28

And we must actually have been together with them right before they visited. Yeah, we were together in Granada for the World's First Singing or something.

Corianda Shepherd: 26:36

See Granada. They left here to go to Granada and then they came back here.

Jesper Conrad: 26:41

Ah, how fun, Then you met her first.

Cecilie Conrad: 26:44

No, it's not about that. No, small world, no.

Corianda Shepherd: 26:47

Yeah, I can imagine that she's probably influenced a good few hundred people in her lifetime. Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 26:54

It happens when you meet people and talk to them and they get their eyes open because a podcast hours, like many others out there, is still relevant. Yeah, even though I am surrounded by people who world school or homeschool or unschool often.

Corianda Shepherd: 27:14

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 27:14

Then I remember how it was before. Before I had heard about homeschooling, I was like it sounds weird, is it really possible? And all the questions and fears you have. Then, when you meet someone who shares about it and even better, when you meet someone who has kids you look at them and they're actually just normal.

Corianda Shepherd: 27:39

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 27:40

The big, big inspiration to see how they interact with each other, talk and really like the sharing part of it when people are actually interested, not when it's the so will they ever get socialized? The two minute question we were at a wedding here recently where a guy who was like, oh that sounds interesting, do you want to share? And we ended up sitting talking a couple of hours and I I look forward to see what happens in some years when they get children, because I'm like that seed was planted there that will route into a new homeschooling family and that's how it happens, right, and I think more and more people are coming on board with this idea.

Corianda Shepherd: 28:25

I don't know I mean, I don't look too much into where does autism come from or anything. We've just sort of dealt with it as we go and we've dealt with it very positively. We've managed to stay away from medications and things, however. So, along with what Sarah did for us, she opened our eyes and we thought you know what? There's so many people doing this. We could provide something like this because this would suit our children down to the ground and then we could hopefully enable other families not just with children with difficulties or learning difficulties or any behavioral issues or anything like that, but everybody we could have families stay here and they can connect with peace around them, space around them, not to be forced by a system.

Corianda Shepherd: 29:15

So we actually changed our business, partly because of what we saw in the potential from what Sarah was telling us about, and we changed our life to fit and our business to fit our life. So it happened quite quickly and we only we came off of Airbnb, because obviously you can't then choose who your guests are, so we had only families. So we were a little quiet in starting up, but then we carried on with all the advertising and now I would say I would say we're quite well known, like a lot of people in the world, school environment, seem to know us and pass details on to other friends. A lot of it is word of mouth. So when people have an experience somewhere and find that it fits their family and don't get me wrong, we know that we don't fit everybody no hub or community will fit every but every family, because everyone is looking for something different and everyone has their own agenda for doing this as well.

Corianda Shepherd: 30:17

So we have had some struggles, but we have mainly had, I think, we always say it's about 95, absolutely fantastic. The five percent it hurts. It really does, because you are doing just the same thing as you were doing with the 95 when it works. So you know you've got it right and you know you've got your whole ethos set to where you should be, but it just doesn't fit for some people. So you have to swallow that and just go right, let's carry on. And you know, hold your pie and keep going with this, because we know we're doing something right.

Cecilie Conrad: 30:53

We're so vulnerable socially yeah we're really little things that actually are small. They hurt a lot, yeah, but I think they should. I mean, if we toughen up, then we just let go of our humanity, and we don't want that either. Yeah, exactly.

Corianda Shepherd: 31:13

We've had families here that have been to other hubs that I think are fantastic and I've been in touch with them for years. We've had people here that have had a fantastic time time, but they've written massive complaints about the other one. And then we've had the other way around. We've had someone in complaints about being here, but they fit over there and it. When we looked at it the me and the other owner of the of their group we looked at it and we looked at the ages of the children and the makeup of the family and actually we could see actually where one fitted one more than the other and actually it just wasn't a good makeup for things straight away, and so you need to really look at that and try and sell exactly what you've got, not more.

Corianda Shepherd: 31:55

We're as down to earth and as basic as we can be with the information, putting on regular videos, not telling people that we're providing things we're not. We have a community meal which we love. I mean, that's just a bring and share meal and it's usually every Sunday afternoon. We'll do a little bit of art, maybe once or twice a week. If someone says, oh, does anyone fancy a wander up to the market, then I'll take all the new family, we'll go up to the market, then we'll do a little tour of the village.

Corianda Shepherd: 32:24

It's only a small place but again it's getting all the families together and we've just had a family here that left three weeks ago and a family that left this week. The family that left this week are going over to the UK. They weren't even going to the UK before and week going over to the UK. They weren't even going to the UK before, and now they've booked five days with the family that left a couple of weeks before because they've just met and their kids got on and my daughter did as well. It's amazing when you see those connections and the parents too, because it's not just about the children, it's the family situation and I think if you're traveling it can be quite a lonely place to be, depending on on what children you've got and you know what ages they are and things. But connection is such an underrated thing.

Jesper Conrad: 33:09

Yeah, I actually think that when I look back at the life I had back in Copenhagen before we started full time traveling, then there was absolutely a community and a lot of it came from the homeschooling environment. But if I look back before that, then I tried to serve my social needs by the workplace and became friends with the people I worked together with and stuff like that, stuff like that. And I really love this deeper community feeling of living together with people co-living or living close, and I actually think that we sometimes in the normal eight to five everyday job kind of lifestyle forget to have a social life but we have got our social appetite like dwelled or satiated by going to work yeah, yeah, I would agree.

Corianda Shepherd: 34:14

That's how a lot of people manage. It's like they're not necessarily choosing their social life. It's sort of happening and, in the very small amounts of time, the snippets of life when you're working those hours. And that quickly became very relevant to me because when I became a single parent, I was single mom of five children for five years. So was just like right, what can I do? So I set up my own promotion, my music promotions company and, like I say, joel was already working alongside my company with his company and four other people who I knew two of them as well. So our community was with work, but it was a very creative community and we I mean we're still very good friends with all of them now so it was more like we chose our work life a bit more. It wasn't set hours and I think I was lucky to be able to do that actually, but I only did it because I was pushed out of the mainstream system. I couldn't go and get a nine to five job, so it almost helped me find my circle.

Corianda Shepherd: 35:24

Because of being a young mom or because of I was such a young mom, but because of the boys having the issues they did one being expelled at eight I had no one else who was going to take him on and it was my job, right. So I went back to uni and I was doing music and event management. My daughter was in the room next door doing their performance music performance. So we were at uni together, which was fantastic. It was great fun and our classes worked together. But again, I didn't finish the course.

Corianda Shepherd: 35:54

And do I look at that and feel regret? No, because I was needed with my other son and he was 14 at the time, so I couldn't finish the course, but I was there for him and that's what it enabled me to do. I learned a lot and I was able to continue with my business. So I got everything but the piece of paper saying that I'd passed or whatever you know. So to me, I always feel like I'm grateful for the experiences I've had, and also I'm grateful that I've got an open mind and I'm just probably annoyingly optimistic in quite a few situations, I think.

Cecilie Conrad: 36:32

Well, that makes you aim for the good stuff. I think, yeah, it's a very healthy view. It will create momentum in the right direction. I was thinking this lifestyle that you've chosen, where you choose the people you hang out with, shutting down the Airbnb and then choosing what families will come, and, of course, you can't predict the future. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately none of us can do that it just reminded me of.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:01

We're fully nomadic and have been for seven years, and the funny thing is we often get the question so how do you decide where to go and what's on your bucket list and what's the next countries you want to visit? And actually the reality has been for the majority of the time. I'd say after maybe two or three months, we realized the adventure is the people, not the place. Yes, we don't choose where to go, we choose who to go. You know, who do we want to go with? Do we want to travel with us somewhere? Yeah, or who do we want to visit? Or where is there a community that we could? We don't do that. Actually, we haven't done a lot of hubs and communities. No, we just you know, oh, we have some friends over there, but we could bring these friends and that would be a great match. And you know it's.

Cecilie Conrad: 37:51

You know so funny how life is about who you share it with I absolutely agree fully nomadic and you think you want to see the great pyramids and whatever rivers or cultures, or now I do enjoy that. It's just yeah, it's just number nine on the list. When I think about where I want to go, it's the first thing is who do we?

Corianda Shepherd: 38:16

want to hang out with. I'm totally with you on that. And obviously where we're at at the moment we don't go away very often, so it's like having a staycation, as they would call it, and the people come to us again. That's suited where we were back then because my boys didn't like going away and I've still got one that doesn't really stay away from the home, he just prefers. Like you know, there's this English saying an English man's house is his castle, Like everything is there, you know, and he is very much like that suited what we needed at the time.

Corianda Shepherd: 38:48

But as Maggie gets older and the more and more people that come through, we are doing like you were saying about meeting people that we then want to travel to or travel with. We stay in touch and we've had a lot of return guests. So over the last three years we've probably got five regular families that come back and it's getting more each year. There'll always be another family and I think we've just met three great families in the last two months that have already said oh yeah, we're coming back. You know just the call Cause. Oh yeah, we're coming back. You know just the call because we're coming back soon.

Corianda Shepherd: 39:22

And just to make those connections is amazing. And again, actually some of them come from the UK where, like you say, the weather is not great. But I'll go because the people that we feel like part of their lives, that is far more exciting to think, right, let's go and hang out with these people that we love being around, the energy that it creates, the vibe, is so much better than going somewhere to see a building or something. Yeah, I love architecture and different countries and things like this and different cultures, but sometimes it's just got to be the basics of the people.

Jesper Conrad: 40:01

Oh yeah, and things are just better shared. One of the first big trips we took was like a month at Tenerife many, many years ago and there we met up with the brother of a friend and we talked about why they had moved and stuff like that, and he told about a ruined marriage back in Denmark and how it was, and one of the things he said that was quite interesting and had this long-term effect on me was that he said the sunset is more beautiful shared.

Corianda Shepherd: 40:37

Yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 40:38

And I think everything is more beautiful shared, even us as a family. We are five when we travel full time and two dogs, and it's really wonderful and we can have a lot of joy together. But us with another family, I actually enjoy that even more. There's more people to share experiences with, talks with, and the sunsets just gets better. Yeah, share them.

Corianda Shepherd: 41:03

Absolutely.

Cecilie Conrad: 41:05

Agree yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 41:06

Yeah, yeah. What was your dream when you were young? Was it to end up on a mountainside?

Corianda Shepherd: 41:14

So my nan lived here from when I was 11. And so I visited from around that age and my nan always told me she was like a best friend to me, we called each other every day and she passed away 19 years ago so just after my son was born, maybe a few weeks after he was born and she always said to me, corrie, you're gonna be in someday. And I love to obviously think that and at the time I wasn't so in control of what was going on Everything seemed to be happening to me and me not having much control of what was going on going forward. So yeah, I mean I guess I made things happen. I started looking at things, at possibilities, starting my own company, working out, you know, getting the children to the right ages as to when it could work for us. But also a lot of it happened to us. So I then adapted and adjusted and my nan was a great person for the outdoors as well.

Corianda Shepherd: 42:50

She had my dad's the oldest of five, and so then I was the oldest of five as well and she was also the oldest of five. So there's like there was always this strong connection. She loved camping and when she used to take my dad and all of the family camping. She would take loads of other kids as well. She was the mum that did that, that. That was always surrounded by all the other children and she loved adventure. She had a great heart for adventure and a great sense of fun and I wanted to carry some of that, you know, and I feel like I do. I've got something there that connects me still, even though she's gone, and I'm so glad and I know she knows I'm here, you know.

Cecilie Conrad: 43:34

Yeah, that's great yeah you haven't other people around you like she did basically yeah, yeah.

Corianda Shepherd: 43:41

I just want other people to benefit in the ways we have and seeing their children grow and strive for something a little bit more, instead of putting up with things that can change, and I want to let people know be positive, go for these changes, you know.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:01

You said, in what I feel like is the beginning of our conversation, something down the line of you know you could sit down and think about what your family really need and what would actually work for your family. And you said between the lines, or I reckon from the conversation we've had, that you could think that quite far outside of the box of the mainstream life, to think you know how would it work, what would work when you're struggling, when you maybe have I don't know, that could be stress, it could be kids with diagnosis or just kids not thriving in the system yeah could be.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:41

Many things could be maybe hard with the marriage or sibling rivalry, whatever. Life is not working. You're frustrated. Maybe sit down to think about what would work.

Cecilie Conrad: 44:55

I've been thinking about we have this thing. I say it very often how would this look if it was easy? Sometimes, when I get really frustrated with a situation, I just feel like it's just overwhelming and I can't, I just cannot make this work and it seems like this is the most complicated and annoying thing and I there's no way out and I'm just want to scream and I breathe and I think, how would this look if it was easy? And that makes also takes you quite far out of the box. I, I mean, we live a quite radical life and have done so for many years, even before we became fully nomadic, so we are outside of what everyone would consider a box. But still, sometimes I do box thinking. You know, I think I have this problem and I have this problem and I have this problem and it's in here and there's nothing outside of it. And then you stop and you're like okay, but if it was easy and not this problem, how would it look? Yeah, and that can just.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:04

I'm saying this to the listeners maybe more than to you personally, because I kind of get that you're doing that already. It can just sometimes open the whole. I just had a complicated situation with one conversation with one of our kids yesterday who was struggling with a problem, and I got myself caught up into it, like okay, this is actually really hard. But then we stopped and we were like, okay, but if it was not hard, how would it look? How would it look if it was easy? It's such an eye-opening backflip of your own mind to do that.

Corianda Shepherd: 46:37

Yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:39

And I'm just impressed with what you said before about being a single mom. Lots of kids with all the letters, diagnosis, spectrum things, thinking, okay, well, what could work? Yeah, it's kind of the same as what if it was easy exactly.

Corianda Shepherd: 46:59

I didn't like the fact that we had all of this external help coming into our family life and I feel that, family, you should support each other. That didn't really happen with my parents and my family, because they didn't fully understand what was going on and would often tell me to chastise my children for being out of turn, for example, because they didn't see the anxieties and the other things behind the stuff, where they were actually struggling. That was a massive thing for me that I chose when I had children. I will guide them, tell them what is right, what is wrong or what, in my opinion, when they're young.

Jesper Conrad: 47:40

You touched on something I find quite interesting, which is what is the family structure? You suppose you would have had help from your family with the challenges you had from your son, but it was not there. Instead, care was outsourced to the system and I am trying to picture together in my mind what have happened in our society and culture since we have ended up where we are. But I think I need to dive deep with some some professor-like type and go into it, because I think it's both the move from being families in small cultures and societies on farms moving into the big cities. Yes, it's the nuclear family development living smaller. Something also happened when women began going to the workplace. Not that that is a bad thing, but all of a sudden we went from having one parent at home to having no parent at home.

Corianda Shepherd: 48:46

It has an effect on how the families are this is another important thing, actually, because he touched earlier on the cultures and how the cultures are different, and what I'd always grown up with coming over here in spain is the family ties, and they are so much more well they're they just align with family life so much better. It's a family-centric country, I feel. Being in Spain, you usually would have the grandparents around, like we came past the school earlier and no one I saw there was under 70 picking up the children and there must have been 10 to 12 adults. Now that's all the grandparents, because the parents are at work. So yes, like you say, both mum and dad out. However, the grandparents step into that role and they do the correction at two o'clock and the lunch and the siesta time and then they might cook for their children as well. So for the parents of the children in school, all eat together and then disperse back to school or the children go off with their friends. But it's so much of a family structure here and I really feel that having your children with you and that being accepted is a massive thing.

Corianda Shepherd: 50:07

If you go out in the UK to a restaurant, if they serve alcohol, you can't be in a restaurant, I believe, after 7 pm with your children. But here you can turn up to a fiesta. It doesn't even start till 10 pm and you're dancing there till 4 in the morning with a candy floss, you know, yes, and you all turn up home together and everything's great. Yeah, the whole family are there and it's just such a different vibe and our children needed that. They needed to feel surrounded by something held. Held, you know, and when you're in the UK it's children there, adults there, you know, on a level sort of thing. The children are like seen but not heard is what the English would say.

Cecilie Conrad: 50:58

And if you're plus 70, you're in a nursing home. You're not walking the paseo with your grandchildren, yeah.

Jesper Conrad: 51:06

But also imagine what you're telling you as a parent, what the state told you or the society. It's like hey, Corey, you're not good enough to handle your own child here. You're not capable of giving him what he needs. Yeah, that is not a good place to help from if that's the message you get no, it is.

Corianda Shepherd: 51:29

This is the gray area for us at the moment and this is our difficult thing. We've got to this point. Like I say, we've been homeschooling maggie since march last year, like straight through, and then in february this year we got a message from social services to go in, and also the guardia turned up with a letter that, when we opened it, told us that we had to be down in almeria meeting with a prosecutor the next day. So joel and I drove down there and basically, homeschooling is classed as illegal. Now, when you check out the law, it says that you're obligated to provide an education for a six to 16 year olds. It doesn't, however, stipulate that it's got to be in a school. So we felt okay about doing this, and we know there are many other home educators in spain. However, if you're living here, yeah, a lot of people look down on you and go well, you moved there, so you should follow the rules, but it doesn't fit our daughter. So we were told that we would receive a 6 000 euro, fine, or possibly have our child taken away. You know, it's just ideas thrown out there. Now this is in a country where we feel completely at home, so this has been like a bit of upset and people saying to us, oh, you're gonna have to move away, there's no way around it. And I'm like, no, we're not, we're not moving away. This is our life here. You know, we're committed fully to being here and we love everything other than this in my mind, this small thing that should be able to be changed. Now we're looking into ways around it that will allow us to homeschool.

Corianda Shepherd: 53:25

Initially we were completely like thrown by it and we put our daughter back into an even smaller school. So again, the 70 children that was, you know, a good size. But the other school 15 minutes away only had seven children completely aged from three to 11 children completely age from three to eleven. So we felt we felt like we were sort of pressured to put her in there. So we did for four weeks, for the whole four weeks she was back in there. She changed massively and when she would get home from school it's nine till two, so it's not a massively long day. She became overwhelmed by and, like I say, it's not a large group there, but overwhelmed by having the structure and everything to fit to and the changes throughout the day.

Corianda Shepherd: 54:24

We go by natural sleep patterns, for example in our house. So Maggie will go to bed at the same time as us every evening and wake up naturally around 10am 10.30am in the morning. Now that works for her and she has a very productive day afterwards. We can get our bits of work done and then have time with her when she's up as well. So we feel like that's works perfectly. But obviously we're then getting her up.

Corianda Shepherd: 54:50

We were having to dress her while she was asleep because her sleep pattern just didn't fit. Get there for nine and she was crying. And that is exactly. This is not a child that cries. She is super happy, really I don't know articulate, and she can explain exactly how she felt. And when she was getting home in the afternoon she was climbing into bed at 2 30 we'd just about get some food inside her and then she'd go I'm gonna go and lay down and you'd look in and she'd just be like laying and she was getting quieter, more introverted just in the four weeks.

Corianda Shepherd: 55:32

So we pulled her again and we both decided at that point it was difficult because they're thinking oh my god, we could get into real trouble for this. But essentially, what did we come here for? And and we've done this before, we fought for this before, and so let's do what we know is right. We don't want to damage our child. We don't want to allow that to be a thing of our everyday life. So at the moment, we had a meeting with the school yesterday and they've allowed us, as such, not to sign her in. They even said to us that they haven't got an opinion on us homeschooling. They're not against it as such, but as professionals and as a head teacher and class teacher, they can't help us, if you know what I mean, because then they would be seen as going against the law that you know that applies to them, so that that's fair enough. They were all very polite about it and everything like that. So we've signed out.

Corianda Shepherd: 56:29

School term finishes June 22nd usually, and then restarts mid-September. So from now until then we're fine and we're just going to be. We've got we put a post out about this to be quite open and honest and to say life can seem perfect, but there's always something, you know, that can just throw something in there or throw you just like whoa. That's a curveball that I didn't expect, you know. But again, it's adaptability, it's learning what you could do, what you can put. You know we've got a lot of avenues now to check out. We've been given the number of two, the contacts of two lawyers over here that are both homeschooling mums and Spanish. So again, we're applying the different contacts and hopefully working our way towards finding something that can.

Cecilie Conrad: 57:24

Oh, I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. You wouldn't be the first in spain who found a way. Yeah, we should have a conversation again, and after the summer november ish. And you how you did it? Because it's a big deal for a lot of people who want to be in spain. How do they?

Corianda Shepherd: 57:40

get exactly. We've had so many people contact us and I think only one person out of about 160 comments. One person said you moved there, deal with it. The rest of the people were like, actually, how do you know what your child's going to be like? And so you're saying choose the system over your child. Is that what you're saying?

Jesper Conrad: 58:01

I would like to quote a fellow unschooling, homeschooling, world schooling traveler and friend of ours, carla Martinez, who says the amount of freedom you have or can get equals the amount of uncertainty you are willing to walk through. And sometimes, in this lifestyle we have chosen, you meet obstacles, challenges, and then you adapt and you need to adapt.

Cecilie Conrad: 58:30

Or you make the world adapt.

Corianda Shepherd: 58:32

The one thing that I really want people to not be scared of moving to Spain or visiting Spain, because I think there's so many countries trying to take control, so many governments trying to take control of the educational system and how and where we can educate our children.

Corianda Shepherd: 58:49

Now there's so many people that feel like they're I don't know refugees, almost like educational refugees. They're moving from country to country trying to find something that fits. Now, what we provide, ironically, isn't suitable or enough to qualify for our daughter because we're residents here, but it does qualify other people to stay for up to three months, usually on their visas, depending. They can stay here for three months and homeschool and be within the legal rights. So it's not that it's not recognized here, but if you live here and you are resident here, they want you in the system. Just to say, there's plenty of communities around in spain as well, and they're very beautiful and the culture that you will be immersing your children in has also got a lot to give. So I just yeah, I just don't want people to feel like spain, oh, we can't go there.

Cecilie Conrad: 59:49

Homeschooling is illegal, you know, because as long as you're not a resident, it's not a problem.

Jesper Conrad: 59:54

I think we've spent a year and a half combined in spain you mentioned how spain is very family-centric in their culture and it was interesting for me. We traveled to spain and had it as a hub where we were like three or four months a year in Spain to see how both the grandparents but also the young adults still was a part of the family and lived at home. In Denmark, you move out when you're like 18 or something, and here it was, oh. You can actually enjoy being together with your family so long that the culture I come from. I started to ask questions to myself about why it's my normal like that.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:00:40

Yeah, so the grandparents picking up from school being part of this family-centric culture, I think it's great. It looks great, you know, and warms your heart, but at the same time, because of this liberation of the women and women in the workforce and the modern culture of the two incomes and all things, I mean, I'm obviously not against equality between the genders, but at the same time I really have a problem with the fact that we've created a shared. One of the shared elements of all the cultures we usually call the Western world is that you have the two. Both parents work outside of the home, which means basically no one really has time for the children. And we hire professionals to have time for the children, but that's one professional to 30 children, something like that. That's obviously ridiculous when you look at it.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:01:31

When you have two or three or four children yourself and you feel pretty busy taking care of them, then having five times that amount of kids obviously the suffering I mean. And how can we be so fortunate, so wealthy, in such a progressive and amazing world of technology and abundance and no one takes care of the most precious element our children? It makes no sense to me. It's great to have the grandparents step in there, but at the same time I also feel in there, but at the same time I also feel, as you've said several times in this podcast, I'm the mom, you're the dad. The parents are supposed to take care of the children, not the system. Should we stop for a minute and think about having created a culture?

Corianda Shepherd: 1:02:22

where no one really has the time to take care of the children. I think it will make a lot of people question it as well, though, because that's what we're doing essentially is we're taking back our rights. Our obligation is to our children. Why are we obligated to who? To pass our children to someone else? My obligation when I fell pregnant with my children is to my child to make sure they are happy, well-rounded and enabled to do the things they love and enjoy in life, and it's your problem.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:02:52

No one else as well, maybe the dad.

Jesper Conrad: 1:02:54

But yeah, exactly, full stop, man so it's my opinion coriander, it has been a pleasure and I would like to ask you to share how people can find out more about your project if they want to read about it, if they want to visit, if they just want to follow you on social media. So I will also put it in the show notes, of course, for the people just listening.

Corianda Shepherd: 1:03:19

if you can wrap up this episode, Perfect, get in touch with us if you're interested in coming over here. Basically, we've got a website that describes how it is to be here and what goes on here, and that's wwwshepherdsrestorg. And yeah, we've got a Facebook page as well, which is Shepherds Rest. And, yeah, just come on over, even if you just want to ask some questions or you know. Message.

Jesper Conrad: 1:03:46

We will invite people to do that and finish up by saying goodbye. It has been a pleasure.

Corianda Shepherd: 1:03:52

It has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.