Ep 155: What Are School Wounds?

01/23/20 • 16 min

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In episode 154, Sage, a 13-year-old unschooler, talked about her frustration with the ways that there is this allegedly measurable, observable boxed in idea of how learning happens that is prioritized over an individual person’s process for understanding how they learn, pursuing their interests, and creating their own courses of study, and their own schedules and to a large extent, without the pressure of needing to turn into a job or something quantifiable to someone outside of themselves. This is something Sage noticed from being in a lot of different SDE learning centers and homeschooling and unschooling centered communities and events. She is in a position, as someone who travels with her family to be in community with other unschooling centers and collectives, to hear the patterns of the types of questions and concerns that parents and other family tend to have when they allow children to self-direct their education. Though they want their children to feel “free” schoolish ideas prevail, often showing up as children competing not with other children, but with adults’ fears. School wounds don’t just happen in school, they happen because of the influence of school culture, and can happen at home, too. In this episode, Akilah engages mad question-askin’ out loud , about school wounds, and invites you to do the same.

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Previous Episode

Ep 154: Is An Unschooling Curriculum a Thing?

What is the best unschooling structure?

How do unschoolers learn structure if adults aren’t telling how to manage their time?

How will unschoolers learn how to manage time and tasks if they just do what they want, when they want?

The answer is that they don’t *find* structure, they create it, and then they develop the personal leadership skills, IN PARTNERSHIP with willing adults, to refine that structure where needed, but mostly to support the structure.
You and I had very little practice using our actual interests and curiosities to dive into, design and develop, and refine a way of spending our days in deliberate studies. The truth is that we’ve mostly experienced structure as a tool of oppression, not as a personal leadership tool, and certainly not a tool of liberation.

Sage joins me this episode to talk about structure in unschooling.

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Next Episode

Ep 156: Resources for Liberation Work

Liberation work - is reclamation and transitional work. It is the shifting away from something harmful for many years and not our norm, because the norm is NOT oppressive tactics disguised as education, parenting, inter-generational living.

Deschooling is shedding the programming and habits that resulted from other people’s agency over your time, body, thoughts, or actions. Designing and practicing beliefs that align with your desire to thrive, be happy, and succeed. Deschooling is part of unschooling, and unschooling is a lifestyle and learning approach.

Unschooling is a child-trusting, anti-oppression, liberatory, love-centered approach to parenting and caregiving. It is also creating and expanding communities of confident, capable people who understand how they learn best, and how to work collaboratively to learn and to solve things.

And while unschooling isn't something everyone will want to do, or need to do, deschooling is for EVERYONE, even people in school because it’s about recognizing what’s happening and beginning that process of shedding the programming and habits which can be done anywhere, anytime -- even in a classroom.

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