A desire to explore and learn from “unseen worlds and communities” was the motivation behind Miriam Smith and Chris Pryor’s documentary work.
The Thames-based filmmakers were in the middle of researching for a project when they came across families taking an “unschooling” approach to education.
Unschooling is one approach to home education, where instead of following a set curriculum, learning is directed by following the child’s interests or passions.
Miriam Smith told The Profile they found it to be both surprising and fascinating.
They were amazed that the homeschool community had been so little documented on screen, Miriam said.
“We got to thinking it would be great to explore the usually ‘hidden’ world of homeschooling in an intimate and personal documentary series.”
On October 8, viewers will be able to see the launch and episode one of the six-part documentary series called Home Education, which will be available on YouTube via The Spinoff website and also on Facebook and Instagram.
The series, made with the support of NZ On Air, observes six families across Aotearoa who engage in different forms of home education.
“This series took us from Kaikohe to Cromwell,” Miriam said.
The filmmakers, who were also known for their award-winning films How Far is Heaven and The Ground We Won, made the series as “curious outsiders” – and to date, Miriam said they had always been outsiders in relation to all the communities they had filmed.
The “discovery-led” documentary process of learning from people was something they enjoyed, she said. “We often say we make our documentaries ‘with’ our subjects, as opposed to being ‘about’ them.”
Even though they were not looking to advocate for home education, Miriam said they wanted to “share our findings and observations” so audiences could make their own conclusions from the stories.
But their “main joy” was getting to know the families they filmed.
During production, two of the families welcomed new babies into the world, which Miriam said “brought even more joy and cuteness” to the whole experience.
Chris also enjoyed it when the kids took an interest in the filming process. One of the young stars they filmed was really involved with the behind the scenes camera operations and earned himself a number one camera assistant credit.
However, the documentary process didn’t come without its hurdles. The biggest challenge for Miriam and Chris was “capturing the material as it happens in the moment”, Miriam said.
“If you miss a moment, it’s gone forever.”
But there was another challenge that turned into something special. Miriam said she normally accompanied Chris when he filmed, but now the couple had a young child of their own – Chris directed, ran the cameras and sound on his own.
While technically it was “quite a stretch”, Miriam said Chris being on his own created a much more “intimate shooting environment” for the families.
As parents who were not planning to homeschool, Miriam said they learnt a lot from the families that could be incorporated into their own child’s learning journey.
Things like following the child’s interest and “building learning around that”, she said.
“There’s a lot of stigma around home education”, and Miriam said attitude “gets in the way” of what could be learned from the homeschool community’s approach to education.
Miriam and Chris’ hope for viewers was that they would watch the series with the “mindset of openness”.
Although plans for a second series were not confirmed, Miriam said they were hoping this one would get lots of views and interest to “help show there’s [an] appetite”.
Miriam said it would be interesting to further explore the diverse range of approaches to home education.
“This is only the tip of the iceberg”.
DETAILS: Visit www.thespinoff.co.nz on October 8 at 12pm to view the first episode of Home Education.
