Self Directed

Hannah Beach explains why true play and “void moments” are essential for healthy child development. She describes void moments as unstructured, unstimulated time where children are not directed, entertained, or managed, and shows how these moments allow children to process experience, develop identity, regulate emotions, and build resilience.
Hannah is an award-winning educator, author, and emotional health consultant with more than 25 years of experience developing play-based and relationship-centered programs for children, families, and schools. She is co-author of Reclaiming Our Students and works internationally with educators, school systems, and organizations to support children’s emotional well-being through play, attachment, and community.
🗓️ Recorded December 15, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗  Relevant links
https://hannahbeach.ca
https://www.instagram.com/hannahbeachedu
https://www.facebook.com/hannahbeachedu 
https://www.youtube.com/@hannahbeachedu 
https://x.com/HannahBeachEDU
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-beach-edu
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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily

Anthropologist Jeppe Trolle Linnet explains how men’s fear of vulnerability is shaped by dominance, shame, and competition, drawing on years of work with men’s groups and recent field research in Greenland. He describes why men struggle to share pain, how loneliness and divorce intensify isolation, and how fatherhood, emotional listening, and community spaces offer alternative models of masculinity grounded in trust rather than control.
🗓️ Recorded December 8, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗  Relevant links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeppelinnet
Jeppes personal Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067588879414 
🔗  DareGender
https://www.daregender.dk/ 
https://www.facebook.com/DareGender 
https://www.instagram.com/daregender/ 
https://x.com/daregender 
https://www.linkedin.com/company/daregender/ 
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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily

Ex-detective turned homeschooler Victoria Lenormand describes leaving a policing career as it shifted from service to force and recognizing the same pattern in her son’s early schooling. In this conversation, she explains how grading, labels, and constant assessment eroded confidence, and how home education replaced pressure with agency, learning by doing, and community built through shared interests rather than age-based classrooms.
🗓️ Recorded December 8, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗  Relevant links
https://geminidirections.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-lenormand-2129227b/
https://www.instagram.com/geminidirections.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/geminidirections
https://amzn.eu/d/dZz1BqH
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Support the show
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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily

Nicklas Bergman is a deep-tech investor and technology explorer who focuses on how new tools shape everyday life rather than predicting distant futures. The episode examines AI, social media, and regulation through concrete examples from work, education, family life, and investing, with an emphasis on curiosity, skepticism, and personal judgment.
🗓️ Recorded November 19, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗  Relevant links
https://www.nicklasbergman.com
https://ncklsbrgmn.substack.com
https://se.linkedin.com/in/nicklasbergman
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Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
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Susan Yao is an educator, school founder, and advocate of self-directed learning. She previously served as Middle School Head at Friends Academy in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, following more than a decade of teaching. She co-founded the Vermont Village School, a community-based microschool emphasising student-led learning, autonomy, and community engagement.
The episode connects her parents’ years in China’s school closures with her own path through American schooling and into the early stages of unschooling. The conversation outlines her family’s approach to dyslexia, late reading, and open learning rhythms.
🗓️ Recorded November 6, 2025. 📍 Tarragona, Spain
🔗  Relevant links
https://susyao.substack.com/ 
https://www.vermontvillageschool.org/ 
https://www.lionsroar.com/author/susan-yao/
The Math Myth by Andrew Hacker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1620970686/ 
Send a message
Support the show
SUPPORT & CONNECT
Podcast website: https://www.cecilieconrad.com/self-directed
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theconrad.family
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theconradfamily