Ashley Wright is a homeschool mom to two kids. When neighbor problems made their home unlivable, they decided to hit the road! They now live in a converted school bus, traveling around the country.Along the way, they love learning about the different places they visit, reading amazing books, watching great documentaries, and playing lots of board games!

Q1 – What is the name of your latest project? Tell us more about why you embarked on this project. If a writer, share your synopsis.

Gameschooling on a Budget: Learning Through Games Without Spending a Fortune is my effort to help bring the joys and benefits of gameschooling to more families.

Gameschooling, learning through games, can be amazing, however, the games can be very expensive. My family has had to practice a lot of economizing as we work first to make ends meet on just oneincome, then to travel and make ends meet with several side gigs. At first, I was going to write a blogpost about how to gameschool for less. But then I wanted to include a bunch of different card games, instructions for DIYing popular games, etc, and I realized it would be easier to just write a book about it.

Q2 – What inspired you when you encountered struggles along the way?

Getting the document converted into KPF was probably my biggest struggle and formatting pictures. Ijust knew I needed to get it done. I gave myself a due date (it publishes on September 1st) and I’ve been able to stick with it. I dedicated many hours to sitting on my husband’s PC to get the converting and formatting done.

Q3 – Have you ever traveled as research for your work/project/story?

No, our travels are integral to our current life, but separate from my book.

Q4 – How has your lived experience influenced your work/project/story?

Like I said, being on a limited income really forced me to get good at finding more games for cheap.

Q5 – What do you want readers to take away from your work/project/story?

You don’t need a large budget to play a lot of games! In my book, I have instructions for card games, dice games, games you can DIY, how to find games for cheap, and more!

Q6 – Do you believe books can inspire social change? How?

Absolutely! Books help us share knowledge and ideas, and those can definitely inspire social change!

Q7 – Anton Chekhov said, “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.” What is your opinion of this statement? How does it coincide or conflict with your perspective of the world?

I agree and disagree with this statement. In some regards, it’s true. What we conceive the world to be is a huge influence on how it is. And individuals are capable of being very influential and making huge changes in the world. However, most of us aren’t. Most of us just have ourselves, and not a lot ofinfluence. For most of us, the world is not the same as what we conceive it could be.

Q8 – What personal experience had the greatest influence on your worldview?

I can’t claim just one experience as the most influential. Probably one of my more influential experiences early on was my junior year history class. We read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which is a fantastic book if you haven’t read it. It’s American History, but instead of being from thepoint of view of rich, dead, white, protestant males, it’s from everyone else’s point of view. Women, children, people of color, poor people. I think I felt seen, but it also made me realize that the world was bigger and there were more perspectives than I’d previously known about.

Since then, homeschooling my kids has been really influential on my worldview. I want my kids to be kind, understanding, empathic, and accepting, so it’s really forcing me to grow in those areas. As someone with very light skin tone, I don’t naturally have to think about the plight of people of color. However, Iwant my kids to, so I do, so we can have conversations and learn more together.

Q9 – What perspectives or beliefs have you challenged in your work/project/story?

Maybe that board games are for rich white people. Maybe. I definitely assert that anyone can play games, but Idon’t know if I really challenge perspectives or beliefs.

Q10 – How do you see the relationship between writing and culture? How about the boundaries between fiction and reality?

Writing is an intrinsic part of our culture, as much as music, clothing, religion, or even food is. Writinghelps us communicate, convey, and spread our culture. At the same time, our culture impacts and influences our writings. People write about things they are thinking of, and our culture absolutely influences our thinking.

Fiction and nonfiction, or reality, are taught to children as two distinct and separate things. Parentsworry about their kids being able to separate fiction from reality, but I think they’re a lot more entwined than most people think. What we believe influences our reality. Our reality influences our fiction. A child who grows up in a rich world of fiction never stops asking, “What if?”

Q11 – Aldous Huxley said, “I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” How have you changed throughout your creative process? How do you improve yourself every day?

As a child, I always hated writing despite being told I was a good writer. It took me a long time to getpast my aversion to writing, but that is definitely a huge way I’ve grown since starting my blog. I really feel like my writing has improved, and my confidence even improved enough to write my book.

I don’t know that I do improve myself every day. Many days, I’m just trying to get through them. Ideally, I’d get back to daily meditations, using herbs daily, yoga every day, etc. Maybe when I’m not workamping and we’re boondocking instead, I’ll have time and energy for more self-improvement activities.

Q12 – To what extent can fiction affect or improve the developments in science and technology in human life? What about religion and politics?

My husband loves to point out the advancements that we’ve made in the last 20 years. 30 years ago, Star Trek was entirely fiction. Communicators that you kept in your pocket? Unthinkable. Now, you can buy abluetooth device for your phone that looks like the new Star Trek communicators that are on their shirts. A lot of science advancements started when someone said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if … “

The world of fiction is full of dystopian realities that warn us against taking certain paths. Using the thought-experiment of fiction, we can think about how our world may evolve if we make certain choices. Many now are drawing parallels between our current reliance on technology and development of AI, and certain fictional worlds like that in Terminator. How long before the machines gain sentience and take over?

Q13 – Eckhart Tolle said, “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” In your opinion, what is the next step and how can writers affect this?

Writers can help others be more aware. They can help readers broaden their horizons, live other experiences. Writers can issue warnings, like in dystopian literature, or imagine a better future, like in StarTrek. They can help us realize that change is possible.

Q14 – Intolerance and divisiveness are prevalent across the globe. Our voice may not be loud enough to right every wrong, but it is enough to make a difference one person at a time. Small acts move mountains. What one thing would you ask your audience to do to help inspire social change?

Choose kindness. Assume that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have. Not only will yoube more pleasant to others, but you’ll be much happier, too.

Q15 – Pick 1-3 social issues that are most important to you. Explain why you picked these and how we can help raise awareness/impact change.

This was a really hard question for me, as there are so many, and it is so overwhelming. However, I think if I had to pick one, I’d choose education. Our educational system in the US is broken. It was designed to create good little factory workers, but that’s not what our society needs anymore. We need creative thinkers, people who are willing to challenge the status quo. Our society needs a lot of change, and that’snot going to be accomplished by people who follow the rules and know what everyone else knows.

In addition, our educational system in the US is failing so many kids. Entrenched in the homeschooling world like I am, you hear all the time about kids whose needs just cannot be met by the public school system. High schoolers who are functionally illiterate. Kids who are sent home for behavioral problems more than they’re actually in school. Maybe it’s time we realize that our nation’s children are not made of dough, able to be forced into perfect little cookie cutters. Maybe it’s time we realize that everyone is an individual, different, perfectly imperfect, each with our own needs.

I think my favorite model I’ve come across is put forth by Dr. Peter Gray. Of course, now I can’t find the article. But he was arguing for public spaces to be connected; libraries, schools, parks, etc, and all be free, open-sourced, self-directed learning centers. Kids and adults alike could teach classes, take classes, and learn to their hearts’ content. At this point, I think we need more public safety before it would be feasible(since in my fantasy, kids would be largely unsupervised), but it’s a dream I have.

Q16 – Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do, but now that I know better, I do better.” We have all made choices that we regret. We are all flawed humans. Together, we are experiencing this human story unfolding. Share a transformative experience where you learned from a mistake. How do you actively choose to make better choices?

Right about the time my son turned 1, he was instantly obsessed with letters. I hadn’t planned to teach him to read until much later, but I didn’t want to miss out on a window of interest. So we worked onletters. I’m pleased with how we did that, but once he knew his letters and his sounds, I didn’t reallyknow what came next. So we started working on reading. Apparently, that was the wrong choice, as there are several steps between letters and reading (like phonemic awareness).

As a result, we struggled with reading. I’m not sure how I lucked out, but he still enjoys reading to this day, so I got lucky. Anyway, what followed was more structured learning than I think either I or my kids really wanted. It wasn’t untilmy son was 5, and we were all (my daughter was almost 4 at the time) burnt out on Khan Academy math that I finally looked into gameschooling. Since that point, we’ve waxed and waned through various levels of structure, but always leaning more on the side of unschooling. I am so glad I learned how to letgo, and grateful to friends I made who encouraged our unschooling tendencies.

Connect with Ashley Wright

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Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCH1W2W6

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