This new docuseries shows us another world of learning
Plus: The Diplomat is back, Catherine Called Birdy is still a delight, and a new local murder-mystery hits TVNZ+.
As the wind blows through the poplar trees and the sun begins to lower, a young girl and her mother are busy in the garden. They’re creating a magical piece of art, a hanging sculpture that sways in the breeze and captures the golden rays of the late afternoon sun. The girl – Kensey – weaves in lavender, thyme and roses, freshly cut from the garden, as she and her mother Alesha talk about Tāwhirimātea, Māori god of the weather. “Remember, he blows things away because he gets mad,” Kensey tells her mother, as they carefully place the flowers onto their string work of art.
This is the opening scene from the latest episode of The Spinoff’s short documentary series Home Education, which follows six different whānau around Aotearoa who have embraced learning at home. Made by filmmakers Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith (The Ground We Won), each 15 minute episode introduces us to a new family as they educate their children outside of the traditional classroom. While each family has their own approach to learning in a variety of settings – including a house bus and a dahlia farm – they are all among the 10,000 New Zealanders who educate at home each year.
Alesha and Kensey live in Cromwell, and Alesha reveals that they chose to home educate Kensey when she began to fall behind in class after experiencing illness. Having only seen home education before on an episode of Country Calendar, Alesha feels like their learning journey is just beginning. She’s at a very different stage to Jen, who features in episode one of the series, and has been home educating for several years. We watch Jen’s daughters learn on the family dahlia farm, where they tend the flowers and serve high teas to customers, with every aspect of farm life linked back to their learning.
In episode two, we meet Auckland mother Rachel, who decided to home educate her son Felix after he had trouble fitting in at school. She’d never considered home education before, and later watches Felix flourish in a local forest school, surrounded by nature. Episode three follows the Fairul Izud family, as accountant Irma teaches her two sons at home, one of whom is a promising ballet dancer. They’ve found that learning at home offers a freedom that they didn’t experience in traditional schooling. “With home education, you learn to be your whole self. You don’t have to hide anything,” Irma says.
Each of these families has their own individual approach to home education – some follow Unschooling style, others are influenced by Steiner and Montessori philosophies – but there are similarities that run through the series. Each whānau values spending time together, and throughout the quiet, observational docuseries we see several heartwarming moments between parent and child, whether they’re making something in the garden, reading on the couch, or swimming in the creek.
There’s also an awareness of the sacrifices that it takes to home educate. In the first four episodes, it’s the mothers who give up their careers to home educate their children, and they speak of the challenges that arise from being with your child 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There’s also the juggling of social expectations about home education, which the families counter by regularly meeting up other home education families, or signing up to group sports and activities. Rachel also knows that stepping outside the traditional educational system comes with its own risks. “It’s a huge gamble,” she says. “What if it doesn’t work?”
What shines through in each episode of Home Education is the love each parent has for their child, and their dedication to doing what works best for their whānau. The series’ gentle, fly-on-the-wall approach gives an insight into an unseen aspect of New Zealand education, with every family in Home Education driven by a desire to help their children thrive. As Kensey’s garden sculpture blows in the Cromwell breeze, her mother Alesha reminds us of what’s important. “Everything we do is out of love for our daughter.”
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Why you should watch: The Diplomat (Netflix)
Season two of the Keri Russell blockbuster drama dropped on Netflix this week, and if you’re looking for a fast-paced, bingeable political thriller, you won’t go wrong with The Diplomat. Russell plays a career ambassador sent to a new post in the United Kingdom, where she has to defuse political standoffs, uncover government conspiracies and persuade her volatile husband not to be a plonker in public. The impressive cast includes Rufus Sewell, Rory Kinnear, David Gyasi and Celia Imrie – with the legendary Alison Janney joining for season two – and this early review called it “one of the best shows of the year”.
Why you should watch: A Remarkable Place to Die (TVNZ+)
Rebecca Gibney, Chelsie Preston-Crayford and Alex Tarrant star in this new local four-part murder mystery series. Preston-Crayford is fantastic as Anais Mallory, a detective who returns to her hometown of Queenstown to help solve a series of perplexing murders, but she discovers she’ll have to confront the many ghosts of her past to do it. If you’re a fan of shows like The Brokenwood Mysteries or One Lane Bridge, you’ll enjoy A Remarkable Place to Die, which channels a similar murder-mystery-in-a-small-town energy. The Central Otago setting, of course, is stunning. The series kicks off on TVNZ1 this Sunday night and will screen globally on Acorn TV.
More pop culture news from The Spinoff:
Looking for something good to watch this weekend? We’ve got all the new shows and movies streaming this week, including the third and final season of Somebody, Somewhere (Neon).
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith had a busy week, first watching Thom Yorke in concert (which was so good she went twice) and then to seeing all the “scraps and shit raps” at Travis Scott.
There’s so many great yarns from the multi-talented broadcaster Brodie Kane in this week’s My Life in TV.
It is what it is: Love Island Australia (TVNZ+) is back, and Alex Casey chatted to host Sophie Monk about reality TV and the time Bardot blundered the national anthem.
To celebrate Halloween, The Spinoff writers went deep into their repressed memories to share the scariest movie they’ve ever seen, while these New Zealand writers reveal the books that spooked them the most.
Anna Rawhiti-Connell shares why the sex scene of the year comes from the very British (and deliciously fun) Rivals.
“Strong in our culture, thriving in our language”: alt-pop singer Theia shares her perfect weekend playlist.
It might be 30,000 words long, but don’t miss the trip down TV memory lane in our catchy “Top 100 NZ TV Shows of the 21st Century…so far”, which is now in one handy list for your reading pleasure.
Why you should watch: Catherine Called Birdy (Prime Video)
I recently rewatched Catherine Called Birdy with my teenage sibling, and the 2022 film delighted me just as much the second time. Based on the Newbery Honor winning children's book, it tells the story of a spunky 13-year-old girl in medieval England who is ardently opposed to her father, a minor nobleman, marrying her off. The adaptation by Lena Dunham has a distinctly modern sensibility – when Birdy’s (Bella Ramsey) favourite uncle George (Joe Alwyn) returns from the crusades, The Angels’ ‘My Boyfriend's Back’ echoes over the cottages of the medieval village. The cast, including a wonderfully camp Andrew Scott and tender Billie Piper, is totally stacked. But most of all, Catherine Called Birdy is interested in fun and freedom, with lots of jokes (A dead tiger! A little bit of box!). A perfect film to watch with kids, with enough glimmers of wisdom and humour that you don't need to wait for anyone younger to hit play. / Shanti Mathias
Before we pop off…
Netflix have released the first trailer for season two of Squid Game (which drops on Boxing Day), and it looks just as twisted and addictive as the first.
“Ladies and gentlemen – she got ’em”: I loved Marina Hyde’s take on the Saoirse Ronan/Graham Norton moment that took social media by storm this week.
I also enjoyed Claire Mabey’s revisit of Margaret Mahy’s classic novel The Changeover, which Claire reckons is “still the greatest young adult novel ever”.
Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen? Sure, why not.
That’s it for Rec Room for this week. If you liked what you read, why not share Rec Room with your friends and whānau.
