blog post

The Education of the Free 🕊️

Matthew Lawler
October 15, 2025
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“The Education of the Free” is a personal declaration and cultural critique — a call for families to reclaim their children’s learning from systems built on compliance. Matthew Lawler shares how, when the world locked down during COVID, it became clear that true education couldn’t survive inside a machine of fear and obedience. From that realization, Bēhere was born — a movement starting with outdoor enrichment for alternative educating families with aims to deliver a technology platform dedicated to restoring freedom, privacy, presence — and total ownership of education data and insights — to the family. The article explores how education must return to rhythm, curiosity, and nature, powered by Privacy AI that protects children’s data and honors their sovereignty. It ends with a call to parents everywhere to step outside institutional control and help pioneer the new foundation for learning on Earth.

Why I refuse to raise my children to be compliant in a propaganda system.

When our oldest was just reaching kindergarten age, the world shut down.
The lockdowns made something unmistakably clear: the system wasn’t designed for learning — it was designed for obedience.
Children were masked, isolated, and expected to sit quietly behind screens while adults argued about “safety.”
In that moment, I saw the deeper lesson our culture was teaching — not curiosity, not courage, but compliance.

It was obvious: we couldn’t hand our children over to that machine.
If we wanted them to grow up free — free to think, to question, to create — we would have to pioneer new systems ourselves.

For generations, schooling has confused control for care.
It rewards those who follow instructions and punishes those who dream outside the lines.
We call it “education,” but what it really produces is conformity — citizens who obey rather than sovereign souls who build.

🌱 Freedom Begins at Home

I want something different for my four children.
I want them to learn the way they breathe — naturally, curiously, unafraid.
I want them to know that freedom isn’t rebellion; it’s responsibility.
It’s the courage to ask why, to walk their own path, and to listen to the quiet voice of truth inside them.

When we began Bēhere, it wasn’t to build another “program.”
It was to build a path — a place where families could step out of compliance culture and remember what it means to live in rhythm with life itself.

We learn in gardens and oak groves, around kitchen tables and campfires.
We learn by doing, by creating, by failing, by trying again.
We learn because curiosity is our birthright.

đź”’ Freedom Requires Privacy

In the new education industrial complex, data is the new leash.
Children’s thoughts, voices, and learning patterns are harvested and sold.
AI in mainstream education isn’t teaching — it’s surveillance.

Freedom without privacy is a costume.
That’s why the next evolution of Bēhere — our Bēhere Rhythm app — is being built on a foundation of Privacy AI, in partnership with the innovators at Nillion.
It’s technology that protects the sanctity of learning.
It lets families use AI for good — to plan lessons, track growth, and reflect together — without surrendering their data to corporate servers.

Our vision is simple:
A family’s learning belongs to the family.
A child’s story belongs to the child.

🌕 Education as Liberation

Real education doesn’t happen under fluorescent lights or through standardized portals.
It happens when a child feels safe enough to explore, and free enough to fail.
It happens when learning becomes life again.

The education of the free is not a curriculum; it’s a consciousness.
It’s families living in truth, presence, and rhythm — learning from the land, from one another, and from their own inner wisdom.
It’s a generation of parents reclaiming their authority to guide their children without permission from systems that never knew their names.

This is what Bēhere stands for.
A new foundation for family freedom — where technology serves the heart, not the hive.

🌿 A Call to the Brave

If you feel the same ache — the sense that our children deserve more than a managed childhood — then you’re already one of us.
You’re part of the quiet revolution of families reclaiming learning, presence, and peace.

You don’t need permission to start.
Just step out of the line.
Plant a seed.
Build a rhythm.
Protect your child’s mind as sacred ground.

The future of education isn’t a reform.
It’s a return — to truth, to nature, to family, to freedom.

Welcome to The Education of the Free.
Welcome to Bēhere.

‍

Article by
Matthew Lawler

Matthew Lawler is the visionary co-founder of Bēhere, a platform dedicated to revolutionizing the way families live, work, and learn by embracing a slower, more fulfilling lifestyle nurtured by nature, creativity, and the power of community. As the Editor-in-Chief of the Bēhere Recast podcast, Matthew brings his passion for storytelling, spiritual exploration, and personal growth to every episode. Through insightful conversations and inspiring content, he guides individuals and families on a journey of self-discovery and transformation, helping them align with their highest values and embrace the magic of co-creating a brighter, more conscious future.

‍

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