E-Gen

08/01/2026

STARTING HOMESCHOOLING?

When we began homeschooling I began setting up timetables with subjects slotted into timeslots, mirroring a school routine at home. I quickly learnt this wasn’t working.

The next steps for my son and I involved an unravelling of our beliefs about what education and learning actually is.

We began to discover a different way to learn. We naturally morphed into being ‘unschoolers’ and followed areas of his interests, unfolding and discarding conditioned beliefs that mainstream school was the only way to get a good rounded education.
The contrary is true in our world, and many others, now.

The number of families choosing to homeschool and unschool is growing. It’s an exciting adventure, authentic and one I am so relieved we followed.

Life is a rich platform for learning - it is real, immersive, and contains the foundations we need to build our strengths and learn to be confident inner leaders, agents of our own lives.

If you’re unsure it will be the right decision, just try it and stay with it if it’s working better than mainstream.

Looking back living with regrets that you didn’t make a decision to try because you were scared, will eat you up.
Summon courage if in your heart it feels like what may work. You can always return to what you always did if the trial doesn’t work.

03/01/2026

REFLECTIONS 🌟💭💜

School Can’t
Deschooling
Unschooling
Another way?

Having tried 3 schools because we thought a different school would be the answer. It wasn’t!

His mental/emotional health hit rock bottom. He heard about homeschooling from a friend and told me he wanted to do this, not school.

We restructured our life and built our world around a new way of life. I started up a homeschool coop for his and my social needs and after a year plus of deschooling (resetting his collapsed nervous system), he began exploring his interests, learning about what motivated him.
Slowly, the curiosity to learn that he once had as a very young child, emerged.

We followed a form of ‘unschooling’.
It was a different way.
We discovered it supported his natural way of learning.

Fast forward - he is 19, happy, has a strong inner confidence and a group of lovely friends, has further explored his interests through TAFE education and is working, saving money to set himself up for his future, and beginning a business.

Like many his age, he’s not yet certain of what career he wants to delve into, and really, the whole ‘what do you want to do and be when you grow up’ paradigm is flawed. I’ll expand on this in another post.

Sometimes we need to question the status quo, what we blindly believe and what others say is the ‘right thing to do’, and summons courage to try a different way, then trust that the different way may be the solution.

First and utmost…
Follow the rule of 80:20…
Focus 80% on your child’s mental and emotional health, 20% on academic development.
When their mental and emotional health (their happiness, esteem, and confidence) is on track, they will expand academically regardless of the way they learn.

School is not the solution for all!

Michelle Heriot
Visioneur & Founder
E-Gen

12/11/2025

🌟📣ANNOUNCEMENT📣🌟

GREAT NEWS 🤩
A NEW opportunity…

Join us this term for a:
• 1-session trial (19/11)
• 4-session block (26/11, 3/12, 10/12, 15/12)

Start with the one-session trial then continue with the 4 sessions, or just do a one-off trial, or just do the 4 sessions.

There are between 1 and 3 places available in each of our Wednesday programs.
Choose a bundle of 2 or 4, get a discount 😃

PROGRAMS

9:00-10:30
🪚 🔨 Woodwork
📝📚 Authors Club

11:00-12:30
🎭🗣️ Improv-Confident Communication

11:00-1:00
🌱 Nature Culture

1:30-3:30
🎨✍️ Media-Art-Design
🏗️🗼STEAM-Engineering

DM me for more details 📲 💬

Once your child/teen is enrolled with us, they have first choice for booking into TERM 1, 2026 before opening up to the general community.

06/11/2025

Many of you know I am deeply passionate about education and how people learn, especially with the learning journeys our young people travel to build wisdom, knowhow, and their inner compass for navigating life.

5 years ago I established E-Gen and the E-Gen Home Education Community, where hundreds of home schooling families have benefited from supplementary skills and self development in areas such as creative writing for authorship of stories, poetry and lyrics, as well as nutrition, natural medicine, permaculture & organic food growing, landscaping, media (film, animation, photography), improvisation and performing arts, multi-sensory maths and literacy, STEM exploration, engineering, woodwork, architecture, entrepreneurship, design, visual arts, cooking, music, outdoor adventures, and so much more.

E-Gen is an education framework and way of learning that awakens the genius in us.
The genius in our desire to be curious, ask questions, develop discernment, be innovative, express creatively, and emerge as impactful citizens in the world.

Please join us at our E-Gen page www.facebook/egenways to follow our journey as we prepare to launch our education framework and new way of learning with loads of insightful gems…..🛫✈️

Sir Ken will be grinning from ear to ear to know of this news 😃

Michelle Heriot
CEO & Founder of E-Gen

21/10/2025

The Phoenix 🕊🔥

If you’re in the state of feeling lack, helpless, guilt, fear, overwhelm as a considering, new and practicing homeschooling parent…

I’m sharing this with you because of how essential this metaphor has been at various times in my life, especially as a new and ongoing homeschooling parent of a sensitive, intelligent, neurodivergent child who became broken and could not continue education in the system.

The Phoenix is one of the oldest symbols of rebirth, and its message is clear …

‘Nothing that has been broken stays broken forever’.

The Phoenix appears when the past has burned away — heartbreaks, endings, doubts — and all that remains is the chance to rise renewed.
Not as who you were before, but as who you were always meant to become.

The Phoenix does not regret the fire.
It knows the flames are part of the story — the clearing away of what no longer serves, so that life can be lived with greater clarity, courage, and freedom.

If this resonates with you, you’ve walked through fire of your own. You’ve carried losses, endured endings, maybe even wondered if your heart could ever feel light again.

Especially if you’re feeling lack, helpless, guilt, fear, overwhelm as a new and practicing homeschooling parent or considering this journey for you and your young people…

This is not the end. This is the rising.

This is my Phoenix gift to you given with love, courage, and experienced homeschooling parent wisdom 💝

✨ A Phoenix Ritual ✨

Light a candle 🕯️

Write on a piece of paper one thing you’re ready to leave in the ashes — a memory, a fear, a pattern, a regret ✍️

Fold the paper, hold it to your heart, and whisper: ❤️

“I rise renewed. My heart opens to love that honors who I have become.”

Then, safely burn or tear the paper, and let the energy release. 🔥 🌬️

The Phoenix reminds us:
“You are not starting over empty., you are starting over wise.”

Sending you all my love 💜

16/10/2025

Day 1 - Off to a great start at E-Gen Home Education Community…

We were too immersed in activities today to capture everything going on.

* A place has become available for a trial of these programs next Wednesday*
Msg me for details…

Here’s a snippet of today’s Spring-Summer experiences…

WOODWORK:
After the usual OH&S briefing, the group learnt how to use a hammer & chisel to make door hinge jams.

AUTHORS’ CLUB:
Each person focussed on their unique genre of writing. We have a film script in the making, poets proses, bibliography, fantasy story, and the beginnings of more imaginative writings.

IMPROV:
An uplifting symphony of laughter bellowed from inside the tent today as the group engaged in fun theatre sports activities, developing confidence and communication.

NATURE CULTURE:
What better activity to begin our Spring-Summer season with - seed sowing, and
learning about the fundamentals of Permaculture and how each element applies to our own lives.

MADE CREATORS:
Each person honed into their own exploration of Media, Art, and Design through creating digital art, Stop Motion, traditional drawn animation, canvas painting, imaginative drawing, and short film skit creation, while the Engineers teamed up to prepare their exploration of natural energy forces and moving structures.

13/10/2025

Motherhood 💜
To all you beautiful mums - you’re a great human, you’re doing your best by loving and caring for your young ones.
Just love them and the rest is a bonus 🥰

07/10/2025

TRIAL OUR PROGRAMS - on Wednesday 15 October

Bookings are open between Friday 4pm and Sunday 4pm this week, by appointment only.

Please DM me for details.

31/08/2025

24/08/2025

If you’ve just made the decision to home educate your child or if you’re on the fence and are dealing with opposing views from family or friends, remember why you’re at this cross road, why you decided to fly in life this way.
Like the eagle, no flight path is easy, but the one that holds the reason you chose it because it’s what your heart and gut said is important, is the one you’re meant to be on now…

THE ONLY BIRD THAT DARES TO ATTACK AN EAGLE IS A CROW, BUT THE EAGLE NEVER FIGHTS BACK. HERE IS WHY:
1. The crow is the only bird bold enough to sit on the eagle's back and peck at its neck.
Relentless. Annoying.
But the eagle... stays calm.
2. The eagle doesn't flap. Doesn't fight. Doesn't waste energy. It does one thing: It rises.
3. The higher the eagle soars. The thinner the air becomes. The crow? It can't handle the altitude.
4. Eventually, the crow gasps. Loses strength...And falls off.Not because the eagle attacked
But because the eagle ascended.
5. Let the crows talk. Let them peck. You don't have to respond. Just keep going higher.
6. They can't follow you forever. Your growth will suffocate their noise. So don't engage. Elevate.

17/08/2025