Speaker 1: 0:10

Today we are together with Kate McAllister, and Kate comes recommended from a friend who have also appeared on the podcast, rebecca. We talked with her about who should we find as guests and she said you should talk with Kate. So, kate, here we are, make Rebecca proud.

Speaker 2: 0:29

I'll do my best. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:33

So, and that's basically all I know about you, kate. So I was on the way to the podcast here, thinking about where should we start, and I think I would like to start with what makes your brain tick, what makes you happy, what is it that drives you?

Speaker 2: 0:52

Gosh, that's a big question, Okay, human beings is it that drives you gosh? That's a big question, okay? Um, human beings human beings and how to support them to feel as energized and contented and purposeful as possible. And that's my family, my children, my friends, people I've never met before. I think that that is something that has always driven me and it's never become boring. Sometimes there's been periods in my life where I've put myself in a position to support a particular group of people and it's been really challenging for me, but it's never been something I said I don't want to do that anymore, I've had enough. I think I've moved that, that sense of my purpose. Maybe I think as I've grown older, I've noticed the pattern and thought that's the pattern in my life, maybe that's something to do with my purpose, and so that's what makes me happy. So, learning about how humans function, learning about how minds work, learning about how bodies work, learning about how energetic relationships work, learning in humans they're my two things that I'm most passionate about.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Wonderful. One of my go-to solutions is chocolate, and I haven't had enough today, I think, because I have kind of a low energy day, so I hope that is okay. Bye, but what is it you are working with? Rebecca shared that there's this hype thingy. Can you put some words on it? That?

Speaker 2: 2:34

there's this hive thingy. Can you put some words on it? Yeah, so I started an organization called the Human Hive nearly 10 years ago with a friend of mine, darren Abrahams, who is a trauma therapist, and that organization offers training and support to people who want to do interesting things in the world to support other human beings. And before that I was a schoolteacher in the United Kingdom and I kind of started off being a traditional educator. Very quickly became much more fascinated in learning and children and works, and so I moved all the way along the spectrum from traditional to progressive, got to the end of the spectrum, jumped off and then went off the map and started looking at alternative models for learning who was doing what out in the world, learning who was doing what out in the world.

Speaker 2: 3:38

And I ended up in the Dominican Republic and people come together and we work in a concentrated way, six weeks at a time, on one of the global goals. So we learn about a global challenge and we look at it through the local lens of here. How does that affect people and planet in Dominican Republic? And how does that affect people and planet in Dominican Republic? And how does that affect people and planet wherever you're from in the world, and then we look at designing a solution that will leave an impact in our local community. So we do lots of social impact projects with local people here, and what we learn through doing that we everybody takes back to where they came from or back to wherever they're going next, and so they become more skilled at noticing what's going on in the world around them, and if they feel strongly that they want to do something about it, they have a skill set and a global network of other people to do something about it with. That's what the Hive is.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Is it families or educators, or which kind of people is it attracting?

Speaker 2: 4:42

So families come bring their children. The children mostly work on the projects and the parents can help if they want to and get involved if they want to. And I also run a similar program for young well, adults, of any age actually, but it tends to be young adults who are coming at the end of university and so they come and train with me and then they work with us in these projects and they work around Cabrera. So it's sort of blending the two aspects of my life really my educational background and my humanitarian human skill building that all come together in this.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Yeah, and I actually don't know what about you and kids? I have two children, nice and did you end up on this spectrum where you ended up homeschooling or you couldn't yeah yeah yeah, like us.

Speaker 2: 5:38

So my first child is a fully grown adult now. He's off in the world doing his own thing, and he went to regular school. I grew up in a very traditional family. My dad drove trucks, my mom was at home, the three children went to the local school, and so ending up here has been quite a journey for me.

Speaker 2: 6:01

And so my first child, my son, went to school, and there's quite a big gap between my children, and so I once said to somebody I was really sad that I'd only ever had one child. That's just how life worked out for me. But if I ever got to come back and have another life, I would be braver. And then I suddenly found myself expecting my daughter at the age of 39, not particularly planned. And it suddenly struck me that I was at the age of 39, not particularly planned and it suddenly struck me that I was going to get to live a whole other life in this life, and so I needed to be braver. And so I am always trying to repair for my son that I wish I hadn't. You know that, maya Angelou, as soon as you know better, you should do better.

Speaker 2: 6:45

And so I was young when I had him, I didn't know that there was this whole alternative world out there, where there were no dragons, grew up in such a traditional way. The idea of living somewhere else and not putting your children in school and just growing your own food and, you know, just being self-sufficient. That wasn't considered something that successful people did, that was something that odd people did who couldn't quite make it work in the real world, and I just sort of grew up with that. And then the more I traveled and the more people I met, the more I questioned this belief system and the more I started to explore and the more I moved myself from this very traditional view of the world in that standard paradigm out into the big world where everything just and I'm still learning and I'm still growing and I'm still meeting new people. And so my daughter is on this journey with me and she's now 12, nearly 13.

Speaker 1: 7:49

I, like you, said there were no dragons.

Speaker 2: 7:54

There's an expression in English there be or old English, there be dragons. You know, when you used to see a picture of a map and then off the map there be dragons. And it was just this sense that there's a map that you're allowed to live in and raise your children in, and that's what everybody does. And then there's dragons. Don't go off the map, don't do it differently, and then when you step off the map, it's just the most interesting people. There are no dragons. You can somehow make it work. Food is on the table and it gets to your mouth, and you get to travel, and you still get to do other things. And the world doesn't end, it just becomes much more beautiful.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Cade, don't you miss the British winters.

Speaker 2: 8:40

No, no, there's not very much I miss. I miss my friends, I miss my family, I miss people, but I don't miss what it does to my nervous system to be in that environment where everybody feels too pressured to move too fast, to achieve too much, to do too many things. I have found that the more natural rhythm of living in the Dominican Republic is much, much healthier for me body, soul and spirit. Natural food, natural rhythm just all of those things are definitely, definitely working for me yeah, well, how did it become the dominican republic?

Speaker 2: 9:32

so I came here I about five, six years ago. I sold everything. I had to go out and find the answers. I was going to travel the world and meet alternative people who ran alternative education provisions and the families who went to them. And we set off two weeks ahead of COVID, and one of our first stops was here in the Dominican Republic. And so we decided, rather than have a knee jerk, jump and try and go somewhere else we had nothing to go back to, so we decided to stay here, and then, as I couldn't really travel anymore, I I kind of came to the realization that I already knew everything I needed to know to get started and everything else that I wanted to learn. I could invite to come here and we could cross-pollinate together and lots of different people could come and we could all learn from each other, and so that's kind of how the hive was born nice that makes sense makes sense.

Speaker 3: 10:38

It's funny when you said you don't miss anything and the nervous system and you know how it feels to be back or how it would feel to be in England. I was just about to say that we happen to be back in Denmark, where we originate from. We've been traveling for something like seven a little over seven years, I think and I was about to say I think Denmark is growing on me. I think maybe feel better about being part of that whole system now, after seven plus years. But then I thought about it and I realized I feel like shit. Honestly, we've been here for a month and actually it's not growing on me, it's it's eating my. I mean eating my.

Speaker 3: 11:30

I need to get out, I think yeah I think I need to get away from here. I think there is something exactly about that whole. I think there's something about your home country, yes, but there's also this whole Western lifestyle, all the I don't know. It's quite complicated because there's always with all the travelers we meet, and also within ourselves, there's something we're leaving, there's a reason we leave, and it's not just about the culture, and it's not just about the culture. It's also about maybe being a traveler or maybe just needing a different. You could have the natural lifestyle in england. You could have your days and your nights and your rhythms, and you could have natural food in england. I've just been there for a month, yes, but it's just somehow you don't. Somehow there's something about the way the whole thing is structured that just doesn't really.

Speaker 2: 12:26

It's not natural there. I think that's the difference. Here it's natural, it's warm, so that helps. So everybody lives outside and they're all barefoot and the fruit is just on the tree and it's just easier to go to the beach to catch a fish, to pick a mango, to flip-flop around, to stop when you're tired. It's just easier.

Speaker 1: 12:52

Kate, you being from the UK, we have been there a lot. We have friends over there. We attend a home education family festival every summer, which we love. We have also been there when school is on and school starts and for me it feels very weird to see all the school uniforms.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Oh yes.

Speaker 1: 13:14

How was it to wear them, as you have been brought up in UK? Is it as weird as I think, or does it get normal? For me, it really looks like. Actually, sometimes I'm like, oh, where's Harry Potter? Because I think that all of them are like small, yeah it becomes not, it's normalized right.

Speaker 2: 13:36

So until you go somewhere else, you don't realize how abnormal your normal is. And my school uniform was and I had before my hair went white. I had quite red hair, so I didn't like wearing a pink blouse with my red hair and everybody had to wear the same clothes and you were policed on the clothes that you wore, so how long your skirt was, whether your shirt was tucked in. So all of the focus was on conformity and I was probably already a non-conformist. I think I was born non-conformist and so therefore I was always.

Speaker 2: 14:20

I can only ever remember feeling deeply uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable in the clothes that I wore, deeply uncomfortable in the shape that I was supposed to be, and I no longer feel that way. It's like I finally, at the end of middle age, just chose to move myself to somewhere where I could be comfortable, and school uniform was part of that and school rules were part of that. Just chose to move myself to somewhere where I could be comfortable, and school uniform was part of that and school rules were part of that, and I don't. But the good thing about it is you don't have to think about what you're wearing every day. You just wake up and put the clothes on, so it does allow you to think about use some of your brain space for different things. Some tech entrepreneurs wear the same clothes every day, don't they? They just have one style of trousers and one style of T-shirt and I guess that's the same for the same reason. Fewer decisions every day, but that's the only good thing I can think of about school uniforms.

Speaker 1: 15:17

So, Kate, what is the plans with the Hive in the coming years?

Speaker 2: 15:21

the hive in the coming years. So still the same really to just continue to attract families who are interested in raising kind of wholehearted children who've got a broad range of skills, a diverse set of knowledge and relationships with people all over the world. So it's kind of similar thinking families really who are curious and engaged in the growing up process, how they are growing up together as a family, how their children are growing into young adults.

Speaker 1: 16:00

But for the people listening, then we're here in Denmark. Kate is all the way in the Dominican Republic with a styling and it's a wonderful tool, but one of the issues it has is that it sometimes jump in between satellites and it gives some breaks. So our talk is a little abrupt. I hope I can edit it so you can't hear it. But it also makes that we will do a shorter episode this time and then once in the future we can record a longer. So, Kate, what is the most important thing you have learned about? What kids needs to grow up? Family needs need to grow up. What is it you are sharing of all the things you have walked through?

Speaker 2: 16:46

so my big thing is self-regulation, nervous system regulation. I think that it is missing from most models of education and I think it's essential to feeling strong and well and able to build upon a foundation. So, understanding your nervous system and understanding that your feelings drive your behaviors, your behaviors drive your patterns of action and they drive your belief system. If you can manage your own nervous system, you can feel in control of how you behave and how you act. That impacts how you feel, how you think, how you learn and everything else. So my big thing is teaching nervous system regulation and, on top of that, learning how how to learn. So I think that if the whole world understood themselves, they understood what drives them, they understood what makes them act as they do and they could recognize their own patterns, that we would all be able to feel better about ourselves, understand one another better and, hopefully, make more peaceful choices.

Speaker 2: 18:02

I think that's what underpins all of my work, but I also think it's quite particular. It's not widespread yet. It's becoming more widespread, but it's not widespread enough yet, and so that's my thing. That's what we teach at the Hive, that's what we learn here together, but we practice out in the world. So I would just love more families to come so that we can learn together.

Speaker 1: 18:28

I hope this episode can help with that. But for the people just listening, Kate, how do they find you? How do they get in contact with you? What is the name of the homepage if you can share these things?

Speaker 2: 18:40

So it's. Thehiveadventurecom is the website. We are at the Hive Adventure on Instagram, Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn as Miss Kate McAllister. That's kind of got all my professional stuff on there as well. But you need the Hive Adventure. So if you just put the Hive, there's lots of hive things. So we're called the Hive Adventure and we have a pink hibiscus flower as our logo.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Wonderful. I will put it in the show notes and we will cut this episode a little short due to a laggy internet. But, kate, it was a pleasure talking with you and I can see you are a place that looks warm and wonderful. We have had nice days in Denmark, but right now it's gray outside and I am envious.

Speaker 3: 19:29

Definitely would rather be the Dominican.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Well, you're welcome to come and bring your kids and see if that helps your nervous system reset a little bit.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Sounds like fun. Sounds like a good plan. Thanks a lot for your time, Kate.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Thank you for having me on Take care.