Use Your Outside Voice Unschool

Christmas musings and unschoolers & books. And, of course, a discussion about racism.

Episode recorded December 20, 2020

Producer: Brian Lane-Karnas

We circle around what it means to be unschooling through unprecedented times, when the arrival of a covid vaccine will not mean an end-date to the failing of systems. The context of these times is not just covid, when on a daily basis we can’t shut our eyes to all the things being surfaced and amplified. Like many homeschool parents right now, we have little patience for questions about forcing kids to perform empty academic tricks. It is the job of school to let us perseverate on things that don’t matter so that everything else remains irrelevant. Unchanged. Should it really take apocalypse to permit us to commit fully to relationships and health for our healing and thriving?

Episode recorded October 4, 2020.

Producer: Brian Lane-Karnas

“A lot of the work of homeschooling, unschooling, is our work on ourselves. And the fact that we are all survivors of that system, and so have been deeply socialized to believe, ‘No. If you bring your kid home, you are totally going to fail them. There’s no way you can ever do this—this is how your kid is going to be totally marred and not get the best they could out of this life. Don’t you love your kid and want them to get the best?’ Even if you know that, intellectually, that is not true, the way that can trigger a trauma response, and trigger feelings, is still really deep. I think all of us, at this moment—particularly as the governor is like, ‘Peoples’ mental health has just gone out the window if they can’t be in the school’—all of us need to go back to what our grace is that we can offer ourselves that we made it out of that system with a different critique of it, and that we are trying to raise people that have a different understanding of that system. And be really patient with ourselves and the people around us who are freaking out because they pulled their kid and what the hell. ‘What’s gonna happen now?!’ That’s a thing.” -Carter

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Episode recorded October 3, 2021

Producer: Brian Lane-Karnas

Listen in as we three unschooling mamas weave together our voices and perspectives on the metaphor of “windows”—the idea that there are (often unspoken) expectations for the “right” time to learn things in childhood; childhood windows where social expectations are ubiquitous (back to school, college readiness); even the idea of “play” being a window of time in child development that ends around 5-6 years old (spoiler—we debunk this one). Questions? [email protected]. Episode recorded September 2019. Producer: Brian Lane-Karnas

We chat about a topics posed by listeners: what about when your unschool kid wants to do/learn something you are uncomfortable with? And then, what about your own (adult) process of transformation while unschooling the kids? We hold up no illusions that the work is easy. The simple and complex truth is that it keeps coming back to relationships; continually building a much broader context for our shared understanding; meeting the needs of OURSELVES as people. And mostly, putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. Questions? [email protected], or Facebook. Episode recorded January 2020. Original music credits: Saoirse, Mae, and Juniper Producer: Brian Lane-Karnas