Fare of the Free Child

Latest Episodes:

Ep 261: Communal Care Ain’t Separate from Business Here! Dec 25, 2022

Ahhh….what an accomplishment! Our penultimate season reaches it’s finale… and ya’ll what a season it has been!!

Manifestation, magic, bridges, money as a tool, and the community that is MRM Village! We talk about how networking is actually all about creating community and linking up with folks who are willing to support each other’s missions.

Chemay talks about her intuition-led path to MRM’s updated business model that centers relationships, not dollars!
We learn how Chemay and Vanessa concepted their current STAR model in the Village.
We ear-witness Chemay’s passion for bringing SDE into every part of life and reimagining the work we do in the world.
We name the real FLOW chart of entrepreneurship: The pivot! Nothing is certain, everything will FLOW as it must and morph into iterations of the idea until it forms into what works best for the people involved

This conversation brings so much to the fore and it’s so important to bring these topics to the table and unpack things like: Intuitive work, embodiment, trusting the unknown, making space for what is to come, anti-hustling, and seeing that work is life and life is work.

As we close, we honor the energy of entrepreneurship, and we commit to the continual deschooling of it as one way of supporting the next generation in shifting the hustle-hard-at-all-cost lens they learned from us. Now, we choose to build a bridge for them to walk out of those old models into ways and modes of being that are more aligned with abundance culture, devoid of shame or guilt around money, and filled with mindful intentional and trust for the process.

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Ep 260: Vanessa Molano on Abundance as a We Thing, Not a Me Thing Dec 10, 2022

What is abundance culture? And what does pausing have to do with sustained abundance? These are some of the questions Vanessa Molano (our resident party animal + book nerd) asks us to explore in this conversation.
"I designed a spreadsheet to help you manage your bone$ and circulate that shit."
- Vanessa
Madd Question Askin' from this convo:

What are some of the alternative ways we can do what we’re trying to do, without the harm?
How do you manage money in a way where you measure success by the way your relationships feel?
How do we practice reparations?
How do we practice valuing healing as the center of financial management?
How do we do financial management in a collective way? with foundations for inter-class solidarity.
How do we practice “small is all”?

Highlights from this convo:
7:20 - 7:24 “what’s the point of being alive if you don’t have yourself?” VM
25:59 - 26:02 “For unschooling entrepreneurs, financial creativity is really at the heart of self-direction” ASR

30: 48 - 30:51 “authenticity is the most important thing we have” VM

31:08 - 31:17 “if you turn on the abundance lens, you’ll see that there’s a lot more support for the world that we want” - VM

Links from this convo:

Vanessa Online
Akilah’s Content Trunk
Emergent Strategy by adrienne marie brown

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 259: Tuning Into "Spiritual Tech" with Stori + Jasai of Alaiyo Waistbeads Nov 25, 2022

In this episode, and through the season, we are inviting you to listen, to notice, and to feel through what these conversations evoke for you; within you.
Madd Question Askin'

What new language is forming for you?
What are you resisting?
What are you allowing?
What are you reframing and reimagining?

Are you already using spiritual tech in your life? What does that look like?
Are you finding ways to introduce play/playfulness into your days?
What infuses more joy into just being?
What tools are you employing to navigate this life?
Are you taking on new skills to pull you through or pivot away from things?

Are you aware of or recognizing ways that help you be more mindful?
Are you getting stuck because you think you ‘know’ a way out or are you stuck because you’re actually thinking that but not doing it?

Are you trying to balance all the things in your life or are you going deeper and finding sustainability in harmony?
Are you in flow in your life?

What are you doing to face your freedom calling?

LINKS

Journaling Workshop List:

Expansive Journaling Updates

Grab your RFP Card Deck

https://schoolishness.com/store/

Alaiyo site

https://www.alaiyo.net/alaiyotv

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 258: Origin Stories | Remembering Some, Releasing Others Nov 16, 2022

What is your connection to your origin story? Do you feel tied to your origin in ways that feel good and grounding? Or do you feel tethered to something that doesn’t quite feel like you?

What do you think about when you read or hear the words Origin Story, anyway?

Do you think about the start of your actual life?
Or a particular relationship?
A specific place?
A type of food?
An event?

On this episode, you’ll hear some of me (Akilah) and Naaz’s (aka Fatima’s) origin story—how we met, and where we were in our respective lives when we joined forces. It’s more of an origins-to-now story, with plenty examples about following the threads that led us to peace and release! Plus, Dr. Crystal Menzies of EmancipatED and I have a real-ass convo about releasing aspects of our origin stories as creators, as givers, as liberation workers, so that we can live in ways that align with our current needs, energies, and intentions.

Related links:

Dr. Menzies on Parenting Decolonized Podcast

Rock Merch + Art to affirm your Raising Free People practice:

Buy Raising Free People Book

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 257: Spirituality and Intuition in This Self-directed Life Nov 08, 2022

This is the first episode of Season 9 and we’re delighted to dive into the work of shifting our spiritual and intuitive work to include our raising free people practice. This feels important because while some of us might already see the connection between our commitment to raising free people and the cultivation of our spiritual and intuitive practices, not all of us do. For some of us, the weight, pressure, and pace of our daily responsibilities make that particularly difficult to name, let alone practice. For some of us, the fatigue and frustrations that come with lack of community, for example, can have spiritual work feeling like a luxury we just don’t have time to get into. Our intention is that this season will offer you pockets of education and examples for how to begin exploring what spirituality and its first cousin, intuition, in your specific life and relationship work. And then, through that exploration, it is our hope that you can begin to clear away the not-it shit that’s taking up way too much space in your thoughts and actions, so that you can plant or nurture new seeds, seeds that align with your right and your connection to liberation work. This work is not just for, or because of our children. It is for us first, and then for all the relationship circles we are in, that require our nurturing.

Voices we’ll center this season:

Chemay Morales James of My Reflection Matters
Naazneen Mookadam (aka Fatima) of Raising Free People Network (RFPN)
Vanessa Molano of Empathematics and RFPN
Dr. Crystal Menzies of EmancipatED
Akilah S. Richards of RFPN

With special guest conversations about Spiritual Technology by Jasai and Stori, the mother|daughter team behind Alaiyo Waistbeads

MADD QUESTION ASKIN’ MOMENTS (MQA’S)

Are we afraid to talk about manifestation in relation to raising free people?
Is there something solid to this practice of believing something into existence?
Is Self-Directed Education basically intuitive lead education since it is, in part about listening to our inner voice, and respecting that voice in children?
Did Chemay Morales James create My Reflection Matters as a result of following her own intuition?
When y’all feel connected to us, know that it’s because there is also a thing in you that is looking to connect
When is it best to wait for answers before making a move, versus moving so that the answers can show up?

EP 257 JOURNAL PROMPT

As you listen to this episode, let's think about the prompt that would help you think through your current imperfect conditions.

What would you describe as your version of “$2 status?”

What are some of the realities that you feel are stalling your ideal life design?

As you work through these prompts throughout the season,

start with questions that can bring deeper meaning.

Start thinking in questions.

This helps in the unearthing.

This helps loosen the roots and aerate them for growth on this journey.

This helps bring change.

It helps us reimagine the answers, and how we come to those answers, and what comes forth from the way we ask these new expansive questions.

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 256: Season 9 Preview - Tuning In To The Themes Oct 20, 2022

As we continue our preparation for Season 9, you are invited to listen as Naaz (also known as Fatima) Mookadam tell us what showed up for her as she listened to Akilah S. Richards’s conversation with Dr. Crystal Menzies. You’ll hear much of that conversation in Season 9, so for now, hear Fatima’s insights and Akilah’s invitation to you. If you missed our first teaser, listen to it here. We are so excited to be centering the voices of five women who are deep in their own deschooling journey!

And here are the some of the topics we’ll be exploring all season long:

Shift /pivot/change
Spiritual work
Freedom, truth, trust
Spirituality intersects with SDE
Truth shifts
Grace
Bullets for safety
Arrows of justice
Savor, not savior
Seek, don't solve

Stay tuned. More soon!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 255: Season 9 Preview - Notes from the other side of the Pause Sep 28, 2022

What's on the other side of a pause? Last season, we leaned into a focused pause, over and over, episode by episode. We also took that pause with us when the episode ended, and now we are ready to slow-walk our way into what arose for us, and for you.
Listen as Naazneen (also known as Fatima) Mookadam and Akilah S. Richards speak to some of the themes we'll be sharing this season. You'll hear the voices of all five women who are centered in season 9. Here they are in the order you heard them in this episode:

And here are the some of the topics we touched in this episode, and will explore all season long:

Shift /pivot/change
Spiritual work
Freedom, truth, trust
Spirituality intersects with SDE
Truth shifts
Grace
Bullets for safety
Arrows of justice
Savor, not savior
Seek, don't solve

Stay tuned. More soon!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 254: Listening Party for ‘E. for Exploration Jun 04, 2022

Grief. Avoidance. Funky energies. We’re wrapping up Season 8 with all kinds of feelings in the mix. How do we embrace or transform these feelings as they arise? That’s the pausewerk, and this week we arrive at E, for Exploration.

“Noticing your behavior in that moment is about noticing that moment, which is really powerful. It grounds you in the now.” Akilah encourages us to trust the wisdom that emerges from a pause, and Domari shares a story speaking to this experience.

Domari reminds us that pausewerk is deschooling work. It’s the little moments where we stop to notice ourselves in our environment. But in what ways might this be a privilege? In what ways might this be radically transformative? How can pausewerk shape the way that we treat ourselves and others in community?

Why we pause

We are pausing from colonial habituation. We are pausing from autopilot. We are pausing to give ourselves undivided attention and to identify our needs.

“Definitely deep emotions this week…because I see myself sitting at this intersection where my liberation work is always about being in relationship with, not free from.” - Jonie

Around this gem, Akilah reflects on how it might feel to gather yourself and be in relationship with that emotion, embrace it, and learn to be ok with it.

Domari recalls a moment when she navigated an opportunity to pause and pivot: “I did [it], and I didn’t die.” Jonie (our wonderful Listening Party regular) validated how threatening a pause can feel: “this all can feel like negotiations with our survival sometimes.” Transformation ain’t easy! But we’re embracing the practice with open questions.

Madd Question Askin’ …

What system, patterns, or habits do you want to stick to or pivot away from?
Why pause? When to pause?
Why do we choose what we choose? Why do we feel the way we feel about it?
What might feel good to begin re-imagining?
How might it feel to spend more time focused on yourself and your interests as opposed to what your children are not learning?
What are you trusting right now?
What brings you back to notice what is impacting you?
What keeps you grounded?
What makes you proud about your children?

In case you missed any episode here you can revisit our P.A.U.S.E acronym:

Episode 244: There is Real Power in the Pause tho!

Episode 245: P for Pain Points: What’s hurting you? What’s hurting them?

Episode 246: Listening Party for “P. is for Pain Points”

Episode 247: A for Absent: What feels missing in your current relationships?

Episode 248: Listening Party Replay for ‘A. is for Absences’

Episode 249: U for Understanding

Episode 250: Listening party for ‘U. for Understanding’

Episode 251: S. for Sorting and Shedding

Episode 252: Listening Party for ‘S. for Sorting and Shedding

Episode 253: E. For Exploration – Seeing What’s Available Right Now

We’ll be away for a while but you will hear from us in-between seasons, so stay tuned with Raising Free People Network for more resources and surprises.

Thank you for sharing this 70-day pausewerk focu

Support the show

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Ep 253: E. for Exploration What are some resources you can tap into, based on where you are right now? May 28, 2022

The second to last episode in season 8 is live, #fofcpod fam! This week’s inquiry is about the E (for Exploration) in our P.A.U.S.E. acronym. We’re also sharing some post-season offerings and spaces, so be sure to take notes on the things that perk your ears up! These spaces help us find community and connection and are tools to decolonize and revisit our relationships and practices while we navigate through this deschooling journey with our #pausewerk tools in hand and in heart.

Madd Question Askin’

Have you thought about pausing as a skill set, not just an action?
Are any of your current beliefs stopping you from showing up how you want to show up?
How often do you reach for tools of oppression such as silencing, physical punishment, and emotional manipulation?
What do you trust? And why do you trust it?

Spaces where inquiry and pausewerk are welcomed!

Live Virtual Training “Co-creating a Thriving Family Culture”: Dr. Sundiata teamed up with Maryella Marie and Tomis Parker, two other SDE-minded facilitators, to create a fantastic offering: The live virtual training, “Co-creating a Thriving Family Culture.” This will take place on June 11-12, 2022. “A weekend intensive training designed for individuals in relationships and families with children who want to be intentional about learning new skills and processes for making decisions and resolving conflicts peacefully and collaboratively.”
My Reflection Matters Village: Decolonizing education
My Reflection Matters co-learning for Liberation Membership (OPEN FOR REGISTRATION)
Community and connection through local spots like Kid Cultivators, a space that Leslie Bray and Taiwan started and still help steward. You can hear more from Leslie on:
Episode 18: Self-Care + Sacred Space
Episode 110: Leslie Talks Conscious Community Collectives
We also have upcoming community workshops (late summer/early fall) on Reframing the idea of value. These workshops will focus on deschooling ideas about money and worth

Join us for the FINAL EPISODE OF THE SEASON!! It’s a live recording on May 30th. Here’s the link (this link will add it to your calendar)

LIBERATION WALK

Share your thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah and speak about what resources you found useful based on where you are right now at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 252: Listening Party for ‘S. for Sorting and Shedding May 18, 2022

Peace #fofcpod fam! This week, Domari is in the buildin’ for our Listening Party Live Chat,and she and Akilah share some experiences and examples of zoning in on the letter S. in P.A.U.S.E. We also continue speaking about the differences between practice and process. As we question what Sorting and Shedding look like, our hosts share some examples where pause work might be effective. What can we notice or re-imagine in our relationships, language, and self-care?

DISCUSSION POINTS

Domari talks about her relationship with pleasure (the card that continues to speak to her from our Practice Deck) and how pausing opened up comfort and awareness to think about the practices she has been sorting and shedding with her children and herself. Domari names aspects of decoloniality at home and points out the importance of honoring boundaries and consent.

“I’ll be working on identifying the ways that my kids and I are disrupting on a daily basis, and being intentional about noticing these moments and P.A.U.S.E.ing in order to listen and lean in. I’ll also be spending more time intentionally designing pleasurable experiences for myself as a mom (with the kids), as a woman (with others), and as an individual (with myself).” - Domari

Our two hosts talk about the importance of honesty and trust work by acknowledging our needs and honoring others as well. Just because I don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it isn't right or important. It’s about building a partnership where everyone can feel safe enough to speak up and say “I don’t want to do this” or “I want to change the way we are doing this” without feeling someone is disappointing or hurting others. If we can pause we can connect with certain situations, not necessarily figure them out.

As they speak about the differences between practice and process, they name the importance of paying attention to what triggers us and practice a different response. Be more kind to yourself, forgive yourself, and understand that “we have the right to change our mind” as we are navigating through joy and pain.

Then our hosts continue chatting about the distractions or systems that don't allow us to follow our intuition. They reflect on how practice invites more of the intuition, more of the specific needs, delights, and quirks.

Live out the #pausewerk with My Reflection Matters co-learning for Liberation Membership. This is open through May 20, 2022, and is accepting 30 new members. The first 10 BIPOC members that get accepted get free access to our Fare of the Free Child course, “From Schoolish to Self-Directed.”

Don’t forget to join us next week, we will be talking about the E. in P.A.U.S.E. a continuation of today’s convo.

LIBERATION WALK

Share your thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah and speak about what does imagining feels like at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 251: S. for Sorting and Shedding - What’s good for YOUR family? May 11, 2022

This week in Episode 251, we droppin’ gems around the S. in P.A.U.S.E. S. is for Sorting and Shedding. Domari (put her links here as usual) starts us off with a nursery rhyme remix to remind us about the side effects of neglecting to slow it on down sometimes!

This week, Akilah offers us seven distinctions between process and practice. She reminds us about a convo with Tiersa McQueen Think about what feels present, the models of living and learning that you practice, and what you might need to pivot away from or at least, revisit.

Be sure to join us next week for our Listening Party where we will be sharing some musings and goodness in our Live Chat.

Discovery as part of designing

Akilah points out the importance of questioning and deschooling our beliefs. Besides people’s consent, boundaries, and shared meanings as ways to invite understanding and trust, resistance feels like a key element in the mix, allowing us see (through our discomfort) what we might need to shift.

“That pushback, that resistance—my children’s as well as my own—has been like a magnifying glass for all of us to examine (sometimes in painstaking motherf*kin’ detail) what might need shedding, what might need sorting and what might need shoring up.” - Ep 251

PROCESS and PRACTICE
Practice is:

Ongoing ritual
Wisdom-centered
Agile and varied
Done for acceptance and integration
Inner ecology-focused (it can include useful healthy external influence but it doesn’t rely on it)
Centering and now-y (even when unpleasant)
Does not always come as a result of a process

Process is:

Repetitive action
Seeking-centered (I don’t have what I need and I need to go find it somewhere else)
Rigid and particular
Done for discovery of how to do a thing “right”
Validation focused (often includes potentially toxic external influence)
Extractive and should-y (even when easy)
Can help inform a healthy practice

Check Tiersa McQueen’s insights around Practice Vs Process in Episode 211: A Feel Trip Recap about Process vs Practice.

LIBERATION WALK

While you are here, share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah and speak about what might need sorting or shedding for you at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 250 - Listening party for ‘U. for Understanding’ May 04, 2022

Peace, #fofcpod fam! This week we’re still focused on the letter U for understanding as part of our P.A.U.S.E.werk. Domari (of Positive and Purposeful Parenting) and Akilah hosted the listening party, and Jonie, Reese, Ana Maria, and Erica joined live to share and hear feedback and touchpoints. Together, they reflected and inquired about our relationship with understanding, how autonomy and trust are intertwined, the many layers around discomfort, compassion, trust, and then some.

Let’s agree to disagree

Our two hosts reflect on what they’ve been noticing around their relationships and pause work, on the importance of taking the space to go through certain feelings, crying, for example, as a liberation practice. As our hosts speak and share their stories, pausing and understanding emerge as key components in the trust work that builds up community and healthy partnership.

Check some of the offerings the listeners gave us during this Listening Party Live Chat

“In my family, disagreement equals disrespect.” - Erica

“For me, I’ve been working on shedding the belief that needing to be understood equals being loved. I think I've tried so hard to get the members of my family to understand me when I think what I was really looking for was compassion, and not actually needing to be understood.” - Ana Maria

“I’m feeling into understanding so much more as a verb, it’s not a set destination, it’s movement, it shifts, morphs and transforms.” - Jonie

Careese shares some thoughts about Ieishah’s reflection on gentle parenting as a privilege. If you missed the previous episode you can replay it here Episode. 249: U for Understanding and get more details.

Then Akilah pulls a card from the Raising Free People practice deck:

AUTONOMY:

Take up space, let them take up space too, practice allowing yourself and them to take up space, work it until it invites boundaries that work.

Remember that the Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it.

Next week we will be talking about the S in P.A.U.S.E. for sorting or shedding, we will reflect on what’s good for your family and what might need releasing or re-imagining?

LIBERATION WALK

We love feedback, so don’t be shy and share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah and speak up about today's revelations she@raisingfreepeople.com
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep. 249: U for Understanding Apr 28, 2022

This week we’re focused on the letter U for understanding in our P.A.U.S.E.werk. Listen as we talk about the language of conscious parenting, the difference between dialogue and discussion, and then some.

Domari and Akilah take us through some of their noticings about how understanding and control impact their relationships, and not just as mothers. Also, be ready for an insightful convo about an Instagram post where Ieishah Clelland (our Season 7 Co-Producer) questioned gentle parenting as a privilege. Akilah cites Dr. Sundiata’s distinction between dialogue and discussion as we question our relationship with understanding, and with discomfort. So much goodness in here! Pull out your pause pad and join us.

Madd Question Askin' Understanding Essay for people committed to Raising Free People

There is a link between Understanding and control, and in our efforts to become more partner-centered parents and caregivers,

we've got to look into that link.

Control is not inherently a negative thing,

but when control is our goal and we don't even realize it,

we can demand things from children

in the name of understanding,

when really what we're after is a sense of control.

Control is comforting.

Control feels like certainty,

yet comfort and certainty aren't always what's needed in a relationship.

Is it a child's job to be controllable?

Is it a child's job to give us a sense of certainty?

How do we impact children when we don't understand something they do?

And how much of our need to understand is tied to our desire to feel

like we're in control and we're sure about what's going on?

When are my efforts to control a child appropriate?

and when are they more about my lack of understanding?

Here’s a resource for working through the questions and feelings you will face as you let yourself ask better questions:

Restorative Justice and Conscious Parenting workshop. Happening Sunday, May 1st. Be ready for interactive exercises and group discussions, where we’ll learn the roots of restorative justice work, the basics of the restorative process, and how this supports your conscious parenting process, harm caused by supremacy culture, and other oppressive systems.

Discomfort is a significant part of understanding

Shout out to Ieishah who put this on the table and made us inquire about our relationship to discomfort. Ieishah reflects on conscious parenting and gentle parenting. Is our capacity for gentle parenting or to treat humans like humans impacted by our access to resources? Is gentle parenting a privilege?

“Wake me when we're done using terms like gentle/conscious/respectful parenting as descriptors for "doing our best to treat vulnerable humans like humans." - Ieishah Clelland

Check out the full Show Notes and the Liberation Walk for this episode at https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/249/

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 248: Listening Party Replay for ‘A. is for Absences’ Apr 21, 2022

Welcome #fofcpod fam! This episode is the continuation of our Listening Party Replay around the letter A (for Absences) in PAUSE. We’ll be inquiring more about what’s missing, understanding, compassion, and boundaries as we navigate through the ups and downs that may arise from this PAUSEwerk. Domari of Positive and Purposeful Parenting is in da house along with Ana Maria, Lou, Antoinette, and Joni who joined us in the Live Chat. Let's get into it!

Domari named some of the things she has been noticing around her relationship with her children. The words that resonated the most for her were compassion and trust. She reflects on what compassion looks like for her and also questions the misconception around what productivity means, and how sometimes she had struggled by feeling bad and unproductive for resting, being “lazy”.

Boundaries do not require understanding

Our hosts chat about boundaries and the layers around them. Akilah mentions the struggles we might face with different parts of ourselves: the compassionate self (intuitive) vs the schoolish self, and mentioned the patois that needs to be created to hold our intentions, the other person’s intentions, and the thing we’re looking to create.

Akilah also shares the importance of trustwork, seeing relationships not as transactional/productive but as connections, as in what we notice together and what our healing work looks like.

This week’s pull from the Raising Free People practice deck revealed the Layer card (same card from the last pull):

Layer: If I can access grace in this moment, I may choose to offer it in honor of all the many layers that comprise this person I love. And if I do, might that be enough for me, for now?

Next week we’ll be having a deep conversation about U for understanding, but for now, Madd Question Askin’ time:

How can I check in with children about what they feel they need from me?
What's being communicated in this moment?
Which layer am I focusing on right now?
Which layer feels present?

LIBERATION WALK

Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon
Share some thoughts and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah and think about what feels missing? at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep. 247 A for Absent: What feels missing in your current relationships? Apr 14, 2022

Here we go #fofcpod friends! Let’s continue with this 70-day PAUSE journey, along with the amazing Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting.

P is for Pain Points
A is for absences
U is for understanding
S for sorting or shedding
E for exploration

Episode 247 is part one of the Listening Party around the letter A (for Absences) in PAUSE, so we’re offering you affirmations and snippets from conversations all in service of our current PAUSEwerk. What’s missing? What feels lost or otherwise missing from your relevant relationships?

Akilah and Domari place their attention on some of the things that once, or even now, feel absent in their relationships or practices. The invitation is for you to slow down, discern, and align.

Since healthy boundaries tend to be one of the more common missing elements, we touch on those in this episode, and will expand that exploration when we touch U for Understanding in two weeks. In the meantime, what’s your relationship to boundaries?

Are you a confident boundary setter?

Cautious but willing boundary setter?

Do you suck at setting boundaries?

SING ALONG

Hush Little Parent Homie, sung by Val Sinclair:

Hush little parent homie you ain’t gotta say a word,

but some of your beliefs are pretty absurd,

they came from your Mama and she got them from hers,

but it’s time to stop and think ‘cause they ain’t gotta be yours.

Hush little parent homie don’t perpetuate

schoolish colonizer-minded traits,

We took them in, in attempts to survive,

but they don’t apply now; we tryna thrive.

So, hush little parent homie don’t perpetuate

schoolish colonizer-minded traits.

AFFIRMATIONS

1.
Boundaries are vital to my life’s design,

in fact, my boundaries are invitations for us to align,

it’s ok not to love it, I ain’t askin’ for no shrine,

just affirming what I need and honoring what’s mine.

2.
I am worthy, I am loved,

I am safe, I am free,

and when I choose to pause,

that’s liberation work for me.

I reject the option of performing a life

and choose to authentically design mine.

I am in partnership with this child

I am not in partnership with people’s opinions about my child.

I show up, I listen, I lean, I let.

Download this episode so that you can record your version of the words that you connect with. And join us on Monday, April 18th at 1 PM Eastern for part two of this discussion about what’s missing.

LIBERATION WALK

Shout out Akeem Music, who we hit up for custom beats for this season
Share some thoughts and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of raisingfreepeople.com, or email Akilah (at she@raisingfreepeople.com) about what feels lost or otherwise missing from your relevant relationships
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 246: Listening Party for “P. is for Pain Points” Apr 07, 2022

This week on #fofcpod we're serving insightful thoughts, feedback, and resources based on our current PAUSEwerk flow.

The letter of the week is P, for Pain Points: What’s the matter? What took you here? What things feel like pain, discomfort, uncertainty? What is coming up for you and for the people that you’re closest to right now?

This episode is our first Listening Party, the space where we focus on your feedback about an aspect of pausing, as well as our own insights and struggles.

Akilah and Domari continue unraveling the layers of perfection vs pleasure: they speak about Black Excellence and the pressure of feeling that all that you do is never enough.

Can pause be a privilege?

“The more success I feel, the harder it is for me to accept that I can pause.” - Akilah

“I don’t like that. I’m not like that”. - Domari

In this episode, you’ll notice that we’re just getting the hang of the tech for this new format—but you’ll still get a feel for what these listening parties are about!

Every other Monday, we’ll be at it again, so join Domari and Akilah as live audience members (no video necessary)!

The next Listening Party is Monday, April 18th at 1 PM Eastern.

We LOVE feedback

We listened to Zeba Savage from Savage Learning Environment who brought up the importance of pausing, and the pressure of being perfect. Then, our homie, Vanessa Molano, shared their thoughts from one of the cards that Domari pulled from the Raising Free People practice decks (the Layers card), and pointed out their experiences with boundaries and grace. Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it.

These comments are gems in the work we do, so thank you for contributing to this ecology that moves us away from tools of oppression and towards our personal healing journeys.

More Resources

Dr. Sundiata teamed up with Maryella Marie and Tomis Parker, two other SDE-minded facilitators, to create an amazing offering: The live virtual training, “Co-creating a Thriving Family Culture.” This will take place on the weekend of April 23 to the 24. They’re offering tools that will help you on being intentional about learning new skills and processes to make decisions and resolve conflicts in peaceful and collaborative ways.

Liberation WALK

Here are a couple of gems to take your time and think about:

“If I pause, who is going to fill the space left by all of the people who told us how to be in the world?”
“Can I afford to pause?”

Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside FOFC Village, or directly in our Make It Happen Family on Patreon.

Speak up and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email Akilah to share some thoughts about what pausework is bringing up for you and your family.

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 245: P for Pain Points: What’s hurting you? What’s hurting them? Mar 31, 2022

It’s storytime #fofcpod fam and we‘re so excited to continue with this 70-day PAUSE journey along with the amazing Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting.

Ep 245 is live! We’re listening and taking a look at the skills that are happening in between the defined things. In this episode in particular, we are observing the ways we react to our pain points, so breathe in, breathe out, pull out your pause pad, take some notes, and let’s play together! Remember that we’re in the process of noticing what sometimes can’t be easily named nor understood, so try to feel into the experiences that you have with these questions, without expectations, without judgment, only your attention.

**Use this link to join our live audience (no video, just chat, unless you ask to join us on air in the chat) on Monday, April 4th at 2PM Eastern.** These every-other-weekly listening parties are where Domari and Akilah invite you to play and struggle through specific aspects of pausewerk with them, real time. Listen to Episode 244:There is Real Power in the Pause tho! to hear details on the flow of this season’s 70-day pausewerk focus.

Today is P day and we’ll work through all the pain points: What’s the matter? What took you here? What things feel like pain, discomfort, uncertainty? What is coming up for you and for the people that you’re closest to right now?”

Domari pulled a card from the Raising Free People practice deck.

Layers: If I could access grace in this moment, I may choose to offer it in honor of all the many layers that comprise this person I love. And if I do, might that be enough for me, for now?

The Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it.

“What would change in my life if I chose to pursue pleasure instead of perfection? - Domari

Domari shares her experience with her children on how they respond when a conflict appears. Akilah talks about the struggles and worries that may show up for parents around how and whether learning is happening, and how pausing can offer the space we often need to learn how to recognize and trust learning.

“I’ve now started to look at my children’s resistance as one of their gifts. One of the things that society—which I am part of—didn’t pry out of their hands.” - Akilah

Akilah speaks about Marley and Sage’s approaches to resolving conflicts, and how much she is learning from their approaches. Both hosts also speak about the nuances of the term “readiness,” and the role of resistance as a powerful gift in our efforts to raise free people.

Throughout Akilah and Domari’s convo there are 10 points of Madd Question Askin’ energy for you to get into:

What brings you pleasure?
What does pleasure look and feel like to you?
How would you define pleasure for you right now? Is it fluid? Does it need to be static?
What is pleasure connected to in terms of how I feel I am viewed or perceived?
How does that impact my idea of pleasure?
What is pleasure connected to in terms of how I feel I am viewed or perceived or who’s looking at me or who I perform for?
What’s hurting me? What’s hurting them?”
How do I accept now that they are ready?
What does it mean for me to take the space to think about what readiness feels like? And how do I begin now to prepare myself?

Check out our full show notes at

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 244: There is Real Power in the Pause tho! Mar 24, 2022

Season 8 is here and we are kickin’ it with the homie, Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting. She is our co-producer for the season, and we’re in alignment about the need to spend all season on the importance of slowing down, and pausing.

We’ve got invitations, resources, and some songs too! We are so grateful to you all #fofcpod fam and Make it Happen family for your love and connection throughout this journey. Our team got some rest, and we’re back with this focus, so we hope y’all ready to get and do this PAUSEcast werk!

If you want to get familiar (or re-familiar) with Domari’s dopeness, listen to Episode 185: Parenting Paradigm Shifts in Black Families.

Here’s what to expect this season...

We are working on being more mindful about the ways we show up for ourselves. So this season, we invite your consent to show up as you are, slow down, and feel into the ups and downs of this 70-day pause journey.

Starting next week, each letter in PAUSE will get our full attention with two episodes each: - the first episode will bring you into the work with a story, a song, or a skit; the second episode will be live, and we’ll invite you to play and struggle through that aspect of pause.

Acronym:

P is for Pain Points: What’s the matter? What took you here? What's hurting them? What’s coming up for you and your relationship with yourself or your family?
A is for absences: What’s missing? What feels lost or otherwise missing from your relevant relationships?
U is for understanding: dialogue as a practice; conscious parenting; how have you been operating as a parent or educator? Under what premises?
S for sorting or shedding: What’s good for your family and what might need releasing or re-imagining?
E for exploration: what are some resources you can tap into, based on where you are right now?

Then we’ll keep that going until we feel all the way through P-A-U-S-E. Through this game, Akilah and Domari will engage you beyond the moment to feel the PAUSE as an experience. So make some tea, pull out your dedicated pause pad, and join us for a 70-day journey of affirmations and reflections in the ecology of Raising Free People. Do you want to play with us?

Season’s 8 flow - Raising Free People Card Deck

Akilah pulled a card from the Raising Free People practice decks:

AUTONOMY: Take up space, let them take up space too, practice allowing yourself and them to take up space. Work it until it invites boundaries that work.

The set of Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it.

Season Witnesses: We are working together to offer bridgework for folks in the philanthropic world.

What is a witness? Our witnesses want to be part of the Unschooling Liberation movement by investing dollars and time with Akilah. Some witnesses give general-use funds, while others want to take care of something specific for us. For them, dollars are not an issue. They want to support the work and be part of the movement and its impact. Akilah speaks about the 100-day project for witnesses that will begin in summer. Shout out to Hill Larson who is our witness this season. We’ll be speaking more about that in our Make it Happen family in the coming weeks.

Check out the full Show Notes page at

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 243: Seasonal Slow-downs and Shoutouts Dec 31, 2021

Ending season 7 with gratitude, reminders, and major writing mojo

Closing out season seven with major gratitude for you, #fofcpod fam! Your feedback and encouragement have been part of an active listening practice that opens up our mindset to different possibilities as we grow this village of/for people raising and being free people. This episode brings us some resources, reminders, and clues of what’s to come in season eight. See you in a few months!

Here are the Season 7 series in case you missed any episodes:

Fare of the Free (Man) Child series: Co-produced with Tony Galloway's series on manhood and masculinity.

Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway

Episode 232: Learning (and Unlearning) Masculinity

Episode 233: Deschooling Manhood and Masculinity

Episode 234: Kris joins Tony for the recap of #fofmanchild (Feel Trip)

Māori Mother Wisdom series: Co-produced with Ieishah Clelland-Lang liberation-centered parenting and living.

Episode 237: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The Language Episode)

Episode 238: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The ‘Old Knowings’ Episode)

Episode 239: Vibin’ off Māori Mother Wisdom (The ‘Feedback’ Episode)

Episode 240: Series Closing: Māori Mother Wisdom

Some announcements and reminders

Thanks to our Make It Happen Family. There are already 252 of you and we deeply appreciate it!
Raising Free People book was translated into Spanish version, shout out to Ruben, Citlali, Isabel, Abby, Kris, and Miguel!
Shout out #fofcpod core team: Juan Pablo, Daniela, Kris, Fatima, Vanessa, Romain, Marley, David and Vicki; Co-producers: Tony Galloway and Ieishah Clelland-Lang
Shawna Murray-Browne, a liberation-centered integrative psychotherapist will be part of SDE weekend. Akilah will be there with many other folks sharing great experiences and content around Self-Directed Education. Be sure to check in from 7th – 9th of January 2022

Audio by Raising Free People Network

In addition to Fare of the Free Child Podcast, Audio by Raising Free People Network produces other podcasts from which we hear some updates throughout this final episode of the season.

Check out the full show notes at raisingfreepeople.com/243/

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 242: Expansion and Feedback About Language Dec 24, 2021

We're continuing our language vibe this week on #fofcpod episode! First, you'll hear from Juan Pablo Pérez, audio manager of Fare of the Free Child, as he shares his thoughts on Episode 241: Freeing Your Approach to Language Studies (with Marley Richards). He talks about his experience as a Spanish native speaker who, like Marley, taps into language as a way of developing an identity that includes more than the culture he was born into. Juan's interests in music, for example, sit outside his cultural background, and those experiences help Juan Pablo to feel a strong sense of self that isn't limited by location or familiarity.

For the rest of the episode, Akilah gives us some gems about the importance of language and the many ways we can engage it as parts of our unschooling and deschooling practices. And of course, #maddquestionaskin is all up and through the episode.

Is there a difference between a definition of a word and an understanding of a word?

How have words evolved from having a definition to having a meaning?

Akilah refers to language as something that goes beyond the accent and vocabulary, and something we can see as being part of a whole culture and context, and not some isolated thing that we pluck from a culture.

Who is this language tied to?

What are some of the non-verbal cues of this culture? How can I learn more about body language, symbols, and other elements of communication and culture?

Akilah shared some of the conversation she had with Zakiyya Ismail (at the Summerhill Festival of Childhood) about the evolution of these particular words in their unschooling journeys:

Learning

Power

Trust

Community

Resistance

Akilah pulled a card from the Raising Free People practice decks and invited us this activity:

Think about these words (that comprise this deck),
Choose two or three of them and sit with the evolution of your understanding of that word.

Akilah explains through her experience with Spanish the insights and learning process of making associations. She also talks about words that are very specific to her practices and the understanding of them. She then reflects on the her experiences that came with recognizing herself as both oppressed to oppressor, and how that shows up in her motherwork.

LIBERATION WALK

Listen and jam along with Miss Lou - Long time Gal on Bajanbloom Bloom's Youtube channel
Akilah would love to receive some feedback about this episode. Think about the Card Deck words. Go on and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email her at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Join our Podcast Village so you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 241: Freeing Your Approach to Language Studies (with Marley Richards) Dec 16, 2021

Welcome #fofcpod fam! Today's vibe is insightful conversation about language acquisition, culture, and how to learn stuff, with seventeen year-old unschooler, Marley Richards. Japanese and Korean languages are integrated parts of Marley's daily practices, so she shares with us some of the ways these languages have influenced and impacted her identity as a Black girl. Marley also speaks about some of the tools she uses for language study.

What are some ways you can support your/a child in expanding their experience with a language they want to learn? #maddquestionaskin

Long story-short…

Many children are learning Japanese and Korean as a result of their appreciation for Anime and K-pop culture. Marley was among them; she started learning Japanese at around age 7 or 8, when she got passionate about Anime. Soon enough she started feeling the limitations of the translation that she was getting from English subtitles, and felt she was getting a diluted version of what the people who made the thing had intended. By learning Japanese, she felt a wider understanding of the world as language was connected to other elements of life, and of her interests, and of broader world culture. For Marley, studying a language went beyond grammar and accent, and transformed into a way of being and living.

Marley’s key elements for language study:

Being highly motivated and intentional
Full exposure to the foreign language - Immersive experience
Making associations from what you already know
Japanese tip: Anime series help in general with the nouns, verbs, and sentence construction BUT in terms of vocabulary and accent you should check for a different source

Akilah shares her own learning process and experience with Spanish (check below for some resources). Then, she and Marley chat about the expectations people might have based on language stereotypes and assumptions people may make about others.

If you integrate different elements from another culture, does that make you less Black, Korean, Latinx…? #maddquestionaskin

LIBERATION WALK

Check out these Spanish sources that Akilah has been nurturing from: Erica Ray and Mike Ben
Also, go and see Mike’s video: How to Find a Good Language Tutor/Language Exchange Partner - Things to Look Out For
https://howtospanishpodcast.com/ This is another dope Spanish language learning resource (podcast)
Akilah would love to receive some feedback about this episode. Do you have any language tips? Go on and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email her at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Join our Podcast Village so you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 240: Series closing: Māori Mother Wisdom Dec 09, 2021

This week on #fofcpod we are closing the Māori Mother Wisdom series about liberation-centered parenting and living. We've had the pleasure of connecting with Māori stories from Mea Rapata, Angella Smith, Moana Reihana, and Tina Talaić. These are select excerpts from our feel trip (live group meetups about our episodes), where Akilah and our series co-producer, Ieishah Clelland-Lang, vibed with Mea, Angella, and some of our Village family. We reflect on the importance of the trustworthiness of feelings, and the levels of connection that live inside active listening, and non-verbal language, as well as other kinds of human technology like collaboration, echolocation, identity and community-building.

Who we innately are - The Energy of Feelings

how aspects of Māori spaces have been compromised by colonialism
the significance of going back into a knowledge space that recognizes connection to land, ancestors and relationships
an intrinsic feeling and connection to their original epistemologies.

“We don't have to compress what we are in order to be together”. Akilah S Richards

Angella also points out the sacredness of their indigenous language Te Reo Māori (Māori language) and how important it is to speak up and take action to keep the integrity and the sacredness. We also chat about identity and the mindful work of looking at your indigeneity, and looking beyond the labels so it can open up spaces to regenerate, heal, and identify with authenticity.

In case you haven’t heard the previous conversations we’ve had on this topic, be sure to listen to Māori Mother Wisdom series from the start:

Episode 237: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The Language Episode)

Episode 238: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The ‘Old Knowings’ Episode)

Episode 239: Vibin’ off Māori Mother Wisdom (The ‘Feedback’ Episode)

Don’t miss next week’s episode! We will start another series of conversations with Marley, an unschooler and SDE advocate who will chat about language. See y’all soon!

LIBERATION WALK

Join our Podcast Village so you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations
Check on Lou Hollis of Grief, Growth and Goals Podcast for some great content
Akilah would love to receive some feedback about this episode. Go on and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email her at she@raisingfreepeople.com
Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 239: Vibin' off Māori Mother Wisdom (The 'Feedback' Episode) Dec 02, 2021

#Maddquestionaskin

What does it mean to own your sense of sovereignty?

Welcome to another #fofcpod episode. As you know we’re in the thick of the wonderful Māori Mother Wisdom series, and are vibrating with gratitude for your engagement with us, in all of this goodness. We kick off this episode with feedback from author, speaker, activist and educator Sonya Renee Taylor who has been listening to this series and loving it! We also share some feedback we’ve gotten from Jonie, Yolande, Got2BOshun, and Kateri (thank y'all!). Then Akilah and Ieishah Clelland-Lang revisit some gems from these previous conversations, and speak about migration, reparenting, echolocation (yes, chile!), unschooling, and then some.

Don’t miss our Feel Trip to close out the Māori Mother Wisdom series, where Akilah and Ieishah will kick it with the Village family, and a few of our series guests are slated to join the chat. It's happening Friday, December 3rd. Join our Podcast Village so you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations.

Akilah pulled a card from one of the Raising Free People practice decks:

Reparenting: “No way around it, so gather some resources around your pain and change and growth and self-trust so that you can move out of situation and into self.”

PAIN, SELF-TRUST, MOVE OUT…

Akilah reflects on what moving away means, centering migration as a keyword in this conversation. They speak about looking back and respecting the past versions of themselves, appreciating the wisdom each has brought to them. What does it mean to move away from the elements of parenting that we were raised with? What positives and difficulties are implicit in quitting the parts that don't resonate with us? What is the cost we pay to seek our authentic selves? What are we currently moving away from?

“Reparenting ourselves is not about what happened back then, but about what we have the right and the wisdom to do now.”

Location system - Migrating into our authentic self

Ieishah and Akilah talk about how the ability to "locate" ourselves in certain situations can be a form of good resistance, to how the knowledge of why we must observe, listen and question different mindsets and ideas, it’s a never-ending process that evolves and changes all the time.

“Trust, resistance, education, that’s how I can put my understanding into practice”. Akilah S. Richards

Reclaiming culture: Take and give back

Ieishah and Akilah speak to the relevance of culture and nature as key points in unschooling, and Ieishah brings more insights from her related experience at the unschooling camp in Aotearoa. They chat about the "intelligence energies" that come through the collective, as well as the importance of knowing when to be a witness, and how to "trust first."

Check our Liberation Walk and a picture with the card that Akilah pulled at raisingfreepeople.com/239

Support the show

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Ep 238: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The 'Old Knowings' Episode) Nov 26, 2021

Welcome #fofcpod fam! We’re getting into our second exploration on the Māori series co-produced with the incredible Ieishah Clelland-Lang. This 4-part series centers Māori unschooling mothers’ knowledge and narratives, to invite us to deepen our understandings of the layers within motherhood, childhood, community, and culture. Join us and listen to Ieishah’s conversations with Angella Smith and Tina Talaić, plus a a bit more from Akilah.

If you're feeling these episodes, don’t miss our Feel Trip about this Māori series! On Friday, December 3rd at 4pm EST, Ieishah and Akilah will join the other members of Fare of the Free Child Village to talk, to ask, and to listen, with this series in mind and in heart. It's free and it's part of the My Reflection Matters Community vibe, so put that in your calendar, bruh! Here's the direct link again (it'll prompt you to join My Reflection Matters for free).

As a reminder, last week, Moana Reihana and Mea Rapata shared some unschooling mothers’ wisdom and invitations; go and listen, in case you haven’t: Episode 237: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The Language Episode).

Notes from this week...

Children will show you the way.

Angella grew up in a dichotomous environment, on one side she was sharing Te Reo Māori (Māori language) as a living language at home in her Marae with her family, and on the other, her student life going to a convent school where Christianity was King. She speaks about her transition into unschooling and why she decided to go through that path when she gave birth to her children. Angella also talks about the importance of listening as a point of connection, to surrender and listen to our intuition. She explains that our intuition remembers, and that children already have their inner knowings and that these are important, innate qualities.

White privilege - what we were conditioned to be.

Angella and Ieishah speak about racism, colonialism, and white privilege. Angella explains that white privilege was something she couldn’t understand as a child, her people were conditioned to be compliant and very subservient. Then, as she grew up, she gathered some understanding and was able to make a rediscovery and question for herself what Māori is, what’s hers and what’s not, what has been taken away, and what can be transformed to thrive and survive. This level of madd question-askin is part of what continues to support what the people in her circle have been building as a community. As they build, they create their own definitions of success, and for Angella, part of that succession lives in the way new generations get to grow up to be free people.

Unschooling Camp Reflections.

Tina and Ieishah chat about their experiences in the Māori camp. Tina is a Māori unschooler, a mother who shares joy through kapa haka & songs (they call it waiata), she also works in a local library (Te Reo Māori room time), and helps families that are struggling with methamphetamine addiction. Tina shares her unschooling journey and how much she loves taking time to be with her children.

LIBERATION WALK

Akilah would love to know what you think about this episode. Go on and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side or email her at she@raisingfreepeople.com

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 237: On Māori Mother Wisdom (The Language Episode) Nov 18, 2021

Basically this:

We talk about reclaiming language, sovereignty, relationship with motherhood, community, culture, intergenerational relationships, childhood, ancestors, and unschooling among other key topics. In this episode you will hear about intentional living and parenting why's and what's in Te Reo Māori (Māori language) and also in English.

The whole story...

#fofcpod has teamed up with brilliant writer, nomad, and unschooling mama, Ieishah Clelland-Lang to co-produce this 4-part series centering fours Māori unschooling mothers' wisdom and invitation. They are all based in Aeotearoa (Māori name for what we know as New Zealand), in the South Pacific. You'll hear about these women's relationships with reclaiming (when necessary) and sustaining strong connections to their community and culture. Through these narratives we can all expand our perceptions of mothering and honor the different layers of motherwork.

This week, in Part 1, you'll hear from Moana Reihana and Mea Rapata, in addition to hearing from Ieishah and Akilah. Over the next two episodes, you'll also hear from Angella Smith and Tina Talaić, as well as the energies that all 6 of us bring into the space through meaningful inquiry and real commitment to keep much of our culture alive and thriving beyond us.

Three generations to regain a language - Unschooling and tradition

Moana shares her experience and the reason why she learned her native language by herself as an adult. None of her family members were able to speak the language at that time, so they also started to regain this ancestral knowledge years later. This helped Moana to reclaim traditional knowledge that she wanted to share with her children and future generations. They also speak about the importance of language as a liberation tool and as a choice that offers connection and more ways to listen. How do we deal with newer generations and balance our ideas with tradition?

Learning how to be a guest

Ieishah and Akilah talk about the importance of “witnessing” as a way of making space through observation, and being willing to stop and listen to others so that we can be the least intrusive when we are guests in someone else’s space. Moana and Mea allow us to listen to their stories from vulnerable and authentic spaces by sharing their connection with nature, their ancestors, and themselves. They speak to a sense of belonging and invite us to think about what we are being instead of focusing on what we are doing. Ieishah and Akilah also speak to how unschooling can help us with our observation skills so that we can develop trust in our partnership with our children.

More about Ieishah...

Ieishah is a writer, nomad and unschooling mama of two brown girls. She is a New Yorker of Caribbean descent. If you want to hear more from Ieishah you can listen to previous conversations on Episode 63: Deep Work + Dora Life (2018), and Episode 190: Nomad(ing) in Place with Ieishah ‘Nem (2019).
Another place to catch Ieishah on IG: Mater Mea

Check out our Liberation Walk at raisingfreepeople.com/237

Support the show

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Ep 236: Can we deschool our approach to holiday/family stress? Nov 11, 2021

This week on #fofcpod, we’re inquiring about the idea of an unbothered child. Is “unbothered” a status reserved for worthy adults? Or can children claim it too? We’re moving through some thoughts around liberation work and education perceptions that center the decolonization of intergenerational practices, so this also means Madd Question Askin’ time!

Listen in as Akilah acknowledges how our family members and friends might feel about unschooling during the holidays, and some of them may not understand what unschooling and other types of Self-Directed Education look like. Because of this, they sometimes openly question some of the ideas and practices around them. How might we learn from their reactions and begin to recognize our mindful responses as actual skill sets?

Here’s a 2017 episode where Akilah points out a few specific ideas, and recommendations of what we can do: Episode 56: Managing Unschoolers' Holiday Anxiety.

Excerpt source.

"Dis Long Time Gal Mi Neva See You"

"This is a song that tells of two people who have not seen each other for a long time. The singer invites the other party to allow him to hold her (gal/gyal) hand in a greeting as they wheel and turn and dance and jig.

https://youtu.be/_Fy39wPedmY

The first video is of the legendary Jamaican icon, Mrs Louise Bennett Coverly, singing the song. She was very instrumental in breaking cultural barriers that saw the local language (patois) being frowned upon by the "most affluent" in the Jamaican society who would have preferred to have everyone speaking the adopted "Queens language" or proper English. Miss Lou (as she is fondly called, got people to accept the fact that our language is our language no matter whatever other language we may adopt. She also played a very instrumental role in the Jamaican folk songs rising to prominence."

Madd Question Askin’ out loud!!

Do children get to be unbothered? If so, what does that look like for a child?
Is unbothered a skill reserved for grownups like trust or respect?
Are children not trustworthy?
Minding your business is community care and self-care
What unbothered might look like as a skill set?

LIBERATION WALK

Join our Podcast Village so you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations!
Share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to let Akilah know what do you think of this episode or email her at she@raisingfreepeople.com
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Ep 235: Building the Very Things We Need Nov 05, 2021

Welcome to another #fofcpod episode! We hope that you enjoyed Fare of the Free (Man) Child series as much as we did. Thanks to Tony for co-producing these insightful conversations around masculinity, identity, adulthood, diversity, childhood, gender, and other topics that resonated with us. We had the chance to question, name things, deschool and discuss—it was so good, and so necessary!

In case you haven’t heard, here are some previous episodes with Anthony:

Ep 12: How He's Using His Gifts

Episode 31: Solutions to Whitewashed Self-Directed Education

Episode 61: Deschooling Release Party: Time for Self

Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting)

Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway

Episode 232: Learning (and Unlearning) Masculinity

Episode 233: Deschooling Manhood and Masculinity

Episode 234: Kris joins Tony for the recap of #fofmanchild (Feel Trip)

Nowadays, we are feeling surrounded by the energy of migration away from schoolishness and into more sovereign, more human-centered relationships. As we move forward in Season 7 you’ll be hearing more from our earthwide community, others well on their migration journeys, who have useful tools and toys for our journey. We’re here to share and offer resources for more self-directed ways as we’re raising and being free people.

We’re gonna go back in time and listen to a snippet from a previous Feel Trip that we had with Domari Dickinson in a convo with Tony Galloway. You can find the full conversation for free at patreon.com/akilah.

You'll also hear from Tebogo Modisane to listen as she spoke with us about a current project she and part of Limpopo’s community are working on in Mabose, South Africa. She describes it as a natural building adventure and her vision of sharing knowledge on plant-based nutrition, vitamins, and herb information to consumers. Tebogo recently acquired a small property where she plans to establish an organic and indigenous herb plantation, tree producing, storing, and agro-processing homestead called Ha Se Lehola. In this space, they will be offering education around plant identification, growing, and preparation of plant remedies. The products that have been in production include avocado seed powder, herbal teas, spices, shampoos, and body butters.

If you want to know more be sure to contact Tebogo: use her e-mail tebogomodisane@icloud.com or WhatsApp/Text/Tele: +27834153739

See the rest of the show notes at raisingfreepeople.com/235

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Ep. 234: Kris joins Tony for the recap of #fofmanchild (Feel Trip) Oct 27, 2021

We're closing out Tony Galloway's series on manhood and masculinity this week, and the convo, as usual, is fyah! Kris Richards joins Tony to wrap up this season's Fare of the Free (Man) Child series with reflections from past episodes and current events. The two talk about identity, adulthood, diversity, childhood, gender, manhood, power dynamics, masculinity, and some of the different labels around those topics. Because definitions are always going to be biased to our experiences, they discuss some of the ways their environment has molded them as they grew up, and reflect upon what they were taught compared to what they currently understand and feel about those definitions.

People's commitment to labels - Category is… Manhood

Tony and Kris also chat about the interactions that take place when we speak about power dynamics in manhood. They share their experiences and the way people label others in partnership, how people put so much trust in the traditional definitions of manhood and womanhood, and the issues therein.

Then they talk about masculinity and its categories. They mention that this definition keeps changing based on varying ideas about manhood, including who men "should" want attention from, and the need to perform certain “male” characteristics to feel accepted or validated by the otherness.

Marketing and shadow figures

Patriarchy and sexism leave serious damages in society, Tony talks about shadow figures that profit from polarizing and normalizing hegemonic discourses that benefit only a few.

Tony's last four episodes:

Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting).

Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway

Episode 232: Learning (and Unlearning) Masculinity

Episode 233: Deschooling Manhood and Masculinity

LIBERATION WALK

The full conversation that includes 10 more minutes will be on patreon.com/akilah join us to have some more
Get to know more of Tony and check his artwork
Share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to let Tony know what do you think of this episode
Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

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Ep 233: Deschooling Manhood and Masculinity Oct 20, 2021

Welcome to another #fofcpod episode! As you know, October is Fare of the Free Man Child month, so get comfy and join our special host Tony Galloway Jr. in conversation with ten of his college fellas: Elijah Martin, Terry Lyles, Travis Amsterdam, Markyle Rondon, Kyle Moore, Sheps King, Fred Spite, Henri Battiste, Deshon Jones, and Curtis Webb.

Each shares their thoughts on gender roles, accountability, and the complexity in naming masculinity due to the many layers around its meaning. Tony and friends navigate and question some of the previous notions and narratives they had around manhood and identity, like what it means to be strong, to be the provider and other stereotypically masculine qualities. They also speak about their experiences growing up and the patterns they began to unlearn throughout that journey. They explore some of the ways their understanding of the relationships and interactions between the masculine and the feminine have changed over time. They pose questions like, what does deschooling manhood and masculinity look like?

This group also chat about the balance between intuition and rationality, which characteristics or qualities are part of that dichotomy, and how rich it is to find different shades within it. Deep and interesting convos up in here, so you don't want to miss them!

In case you haven’t heard previous episodes go ahead and check them all:

Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting).

Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway

Episode 232: Learning (and Unlearning) Masculinity

LIBERATION WALK

Follow Tony on Instagram!
Share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to let Tony know what do you think of this episode
Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 232: Learning (and Unlearning) Masculinity Oct 13, 2021

Welcome #fofcpod fam! We are so excited to share a new episode with our special host Anthony “Tony” Galloway Jr. This is Tony's third venture on the Fare of the Free Man Child series. If you missed the first two episodes go check them out:

Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting).

Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway

In this episode Tony and two of his college roommates, Anthony D. Janifer and Stanley D. Cochran Jr., explore their perspectives around masculinity and manhood. They question, among other topics, the way they perform their masculinity and the patterns and distinctions around it, they also speak about personal relationships, power relationships, dating, shadow work, gender, stereotypes, and sexuality.

Defining manhood can be a tricky task, even more so when you live exposed to dominant stereotypes of what masculine or feminine bodies and attitudes are supposed to be. Tony and his friends chat about their experiences and the way each of their environments and families modeled or influenced them to think masculinity in certain ways.

What we are supposed to be | We don’t want to be “weak”

Vulnerability is seen as a weakness and something more characteristic of the feminine, this makes us question toxic masculinity. Is the version that we got around masculinity so narrow that it starts devaluing femininity?

Men that embody certain mannerisms or sensitive attitudes tend to be mocked and categorized in a negative way as “less of a man.” Tony and friends discuss how these stereotypes make us more aware of the aspects within ourselves that we might shift just to fit in outdated “standards” that we must overcome.

They also speak about feminine and masculine seen as energy and the balance in knowing when to show up, because Identity cannot be limited, it’s a wide spectrum of definitions and nuances, defined by culture and context.

LIBERATION WALK

Get to know more of Tony and check his artwork here.
Share some thoughts by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to let Tony know what do you think of this episode
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 231: New Moon, New Wounds, Same Resistance Oct 06, 2021

This episode is so that we can bring some new moon energies as we understand them, to some of Akilah’s motherwork, to the ways that she is continuing to understand resistance from the perspective of her daughters resisting things, sometimes resisting her, but other times resisting things that she feels like they should not resist, things that they should accept, things that feel important or healthy for them to accept.

If you've been rocking with us here, you know we've talked about versions of this many times over in past episodes in terms of resistance as a roadmap. Also in terms of recognizing ourselves as oppressors (potentially and sometimes realized) in our relationships with children, particularly if we live with them.

This episode closes with #maddquestionaskin about resistance. Here are some of the questions that popped up for Akilah. Listen to the full episode for the full list.

Is resistance the problem? Or is it the map?
How might my excavation, exploration, invitations around this have helped me not to force my children to accept something I feel that they should accept? Or believe? Or know?
How have I resisted and how has my resistance saved me?
What has my resistance cost me?
What is my personal experience with resistance in children?
What am I willing to do with this experience of resistance?

(This particular question can be good for, at the moment, when you're in the middle of a space of resistance with a young person)

Do I recognize questioning as my right? As my responsibility?
Do I recognize questioning as a beautiful and necessary part of how my children evolve into themselves?

LIBERATION WALK

Speak up and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to share some insight with us
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Ep 230: Marley on Studies, Reflections, and Self-Inquiry Sep 29, 2021

Subject Sprint: a learning method for designing a mindful approach towards learning and structure in a sustainable way. - Marley

What does productivity look like and feel like when we get to choose topics that interest us? #maddquestionaskin

This week on #fofcpod, Marley Richards, 17-year-old unschooler and SDE advocate, brings a follow-up from Episode 193: Developing a Self-directed Mindset. She speaks about her learning struggles in 2020, and the ways she used Subject Sprints to re-center her passions.

Marley asks and invites questions about the progression of education, the differences between quantity and quality, the real meaning of productivity, managing feelings of perfectionism, self-care as a point of clarity, and more. This path has broadened her access to different opinions, and ways to communicate, showing up as a constant progression, a transformative and helpful structure that has boosted her sense of fulfillment and her confidence.

Thinking of a mentor session with Marley?

She’s open to a few of those.

Learn more here.

In addition to our new patreon supporters, we also beam our deep gratitude to all of the folks who helped us fund and actualize the translation of Raising Free People Book en Español. ¡Gracias!

LIBERATION WALK

Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations
Come through and press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side to share some thoughts with us
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 229: Flowing into Season 7 like… Sep 24, 2021

We’re back from our much-needed break and ready to rock with you for Season 7 to continue this journey together of healing, exploration, liberation and change. Thank you for being part of our #fofcpod fam! This season we’ll keep our three-part flow, with a few deviations from that structure wherever it feels right.

Here's what to expect during Season 7:

This season our contribution to the many ways we invest in our liberation from tools of oppression will include continued collaborating with some of the busiest folks in this moving for liberatory learning and living:

And...

Next week Marley will do a follow-up episode from Ep 193: Developing a Self-directed Mindset, so tune in next week. The week after that we’ll release a New Moon episode to bring the ways we care for ourselves inside this intergenerational liberation work
More great work from this season's core team: Juan, Fatima, Dani, Romain, Kris, Marley, and Vicki
Raising Free People book’s Spanish version is pretty much done! Watching, learning, and stretching with Ruben, Citlali, Isabel, Abby, Kris, and Miguel has been such a joyful experience. Thank you to every one of you who donated dollars, wished us well, or shared the fundraiser, we appreciate you!
Instead of sponsors we'll be doing season spotlights, and the first one is Tebogo Modisane. You’ll hear from her in next week’s episode. In the meantime, listen to Tebogo on Ep 119: Educating the World to Our Children (Soweto)
Raising Free People is being recorded as an audiobook and Akilah has been collabing with the energies of sound and voice to make it happen. All the production process will be done by mid-October
October is basically Fare of the Free Man Child month! Anthony “Tony” Galloway Jr. and some of his friends talk about manhood and masculinity in their 20's and 30's. If you haven’t heard from Tony here's his latest episode, Ep 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway
You'll hear from Ieishah Clelland-Lange from Ep 63: Deep Work + Dora Life, back in the day in 2018, and Ep 190: Nomad(ing) in Place with Ieishah 'Nem. She gathered some gems for us while she's in Aotearoa, also known as New Zealand

Join our

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Ep 228: Mobile Black reads, more feel trips, and two Open House invites Aug 02, 2021

Just dropping by with an in-between seasons episode filled with invitations and big announcements! #fofcpod

Sign up to the email list for Raising Free People Workshop 2021, this year we'll be focusing on Discomfort and Discovery, so join us for a virtual workshop divided in two segments, one on Family: Adult-child dynamics, parenting, the other (the Grown folks segment) will discuss Adult relationship dynamics, particularly in marriage/romantic involvement.

Be sure to visit Black Worldschoolers Bookstore, a wonderful project from our fellow liberation-minded mama, Natalie Pipkin. Listen to some of the previous conversations with Natalie on #fofcpod: Episode 171: Black Child You Are Seen and Episode 196: But Yo, the TRUST Comes After the Choice

A powerful duo will join us in our upcoming Summer Feel Trip, Domari Dickinson and Anthony “Tony” Galloway, Jr. Yay, Don't miss it!

Here you can find some of the convos that we have had with them before: Episode 185: Parenting Paradigm Shifts in Black Families, Episode 204: (REPLAY) Solutions to Whitewashed SDE, Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting) and Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway.

Chemay Morales invites us to My Reflection Matters August Open House, all membership events from the My Reflection Matters Village Network will be free. Listen to Episode 35: My Reflection Matters and Episode 125: 4 Conditions in Support of Raising Free People where we got the chance to share with Chemay in previous episodes

LIBERATION WALK

Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations
Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side and share some thoughts with us
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

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Ep 227: Feel Trip Replay | Deschooling Our Marriage Jul 10, 2021

We’re so excited to share our Feel Trip recap and final episode of Season Six. We will be playing some snippets from a live conversation that Akilah and Kris had with some of our listeners and Make It Happen Family members. They reflect on trust, language, destination peddling (nope, that ain’t a typo), and how all of those things affect our most important relationships. They also chat about the opportunities for facing and resolving our struggles with attachments. Watch the video of the entire convo on our Youtube Channel.

Raising Free People Está Disponible en Español!

Shout out to the 25 people who helped us reach our goal, because now Raising Free People will be available in Spanish too! As soon as we get more info we’ll let you know, for sure, but in the meantime, some members of the translation team put together a superdope Spotify playlist you can vibe to! Check it: Raising Free People en Español.

Thank you so much for joining us on this amazing journey so far! For Season 7, we will stay on our three-part flow, and include solo episodes like Fare of the Free Man Child and Plant It Up Podcast episodes. In the meantime, here’s what to expect in the coming months:

Stay tuned for inbetweenisodes (episodes in-between seasons)
Remember that in addition to Fare of the Free Child, more podcasts are produced in our Raising Free People Network mix: She Said We Shed with Aja; How She Got Free Podcast with Katrina, which will launch right when we are taking a little rest; Grief, Growth and Goals with Lou Hollis; Plant It Up with Val; and P.O.U.R. (Purposely Opening Up to Relationships) podcast with Leslie Bray. Subscribe to get all this goodness!

LIBERATION WALK

Don’t miss Raising Free People Workshop 2021!
In August Chemay Morales from My Reflection Matters will be offering open house events
Join our Podcast Village and don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 226: (Feedback) Deschooling Our Marriage Jul 07, 2021

It’s the second-to-last episode of Season Six, and today we’re going back in time to our Season One intro while we reminisce for a bit. Later this week, on July 10th we’ll play a clip from Episode 0 to celebrate our 5th anniversary! Today though, you’ll hear what some of our listeners had to say about last week’s episode Episode 225: Deschooling Our Marriage (Pt 1) and about Episode 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway. And one listener, Dani McClain has a great book you should check out titled We Live for the We.

4 things happening in-between seasons

Tweenisodes (episodes in-between seasons)
Card deck playdates
Newsletter “The Monthly Sevens”
Raising Free People Workshop 2021!!

Tune in this Saturday for our finale episode, 227, to hear clips from our feel trip with Kris and Akilah. and members of our Make it Happen Family. Make sure you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations by joining our podcast village.

LIBERATION WALK

We are so excited to share with you that we reached our goal! Thanks to all of the people that contributed to translate Raising Free People book to Spanish, we did it! / ¡Estamos súper emocionados y queremos compartir con ustedes que logramos nuestra meta!. Gracias a quienes nos ayudaron en la traducción del libro Raising Free People al idioma Español, ¡lo logramos!
Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side and speak up
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Ep. 225: Deschooling Our Marriage (Pt 1) Jun 30, 2021

This week on #fofcpod: We are now all up in Part 1 of this 3-part season finale flow! Listen to this insightful conversation between Akilah, her partner Kris, and their oldest daughter, Marley. They process their feelings out loud about how trust, language, and "destinations" help us move from performance and fake-assness over to practicing authenticity and partnership in our relationships. Stay tuned for our Feel Trip with Kris and Akilah on July 6, 8:30 pm EST. Make sure you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations by joining our podcast village. Here are some of the gem-drops you’ll hear:

Trust happens over time.

Akilah and Kris share their experiences with relationship-building and how many of the normalized processes and practices in marriage leave us with dynamics that have prefabricated structures around marriage role models that don’t fit actual people in real life. They also point out the ways that we replicate these roles and expectations without taking into account the quality of the relationship. Deschooling helps us question these structures and the way we live and face reality and relationships over time.

We can deschool our language.

You’ll hear the trio’s take on the importance of naming and speaking up about feelings and insecurities when we want to be held accountable and also be supportive. Communication and language are key components for a partnership, so consider the benefits of madd question askin’ like:

How is language useful? How do we nurture our feelings while trusting the process?

LIBERATION WALK

Thanks to all of the people that have contributed to translate Raising Free People book to Spanish, we’re just $230 away from our goal. Please donate! / Gracias a quienes han colaborado para traducir el libro Raising Free People al idioma Español, ¡estamos a 230 dólares de llegar a nuestra meta. ¡Por favor dona!
Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side and let us know what you think!
See clips from this episode on Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

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Ep 224: Deschooling Adulthood with Tony Galloway Jun 23, 2021

First, a special Thank You to all of the people that have contributed to translate Raising Free People book to Spanish, we’re almost there! / Gracias a quienes han colaborado para traducir el libro Raising Free People al idioma Español, ¡ya casi llegamos a la meta!

Welcome to Anthony “Tony” Galloway, Jr’s second Fare of the Free Man Child episode. Missed the first episode? We gotchu... Episode 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting). Tony is co-founder, director, and facilitator of The Heartwood School, a local (Atlanta) Agile Learning Center, and one of our Presence Counselors at Raising Free People Network.

On this episode, Tony covers the topic of childhood and adulthood from the perspectives of

how childhood and adulthood coexist
how adults tend to relate to children
how parent-child relationships change over time
the importance of nurturing emotional intelligence
honoring and cherishing childhood

He goes on to offer insights and reflections on how childhood and adult-child dynamics play out in a Self-Directed Education framework, and he speaks to some of the aspects of adulthood that sit within the confines and expectations of certain structures of power that center production and achievement over all else.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and tell us what you think about Fare of the Free Man Child
Learn more about The Heartwood School
Follow Tony on Instagram
Get podcast clips and replays of video events on our Youtube Channel!

Support the show

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Ep 223: Karema Akilah #ATL #Unschooling Jun 16, 2021

This week’s #fofcpod episode is a solo jawn, mainly because Akilah wanted to share the local community spotlight segment that will be part of Season 7. So, expect for the 3-part episode flow to be accented by single episodes like this one and Fare of the Free Man Child with another ATL local, Anthony “Tony” Galloway, Jr. who you’ll hear next week. Today’s guest is brilliant entre/edupreneur, Karema Akilah Greene from The Genius School. So much goodness in here!

Karema shares how she got interested in Self-Directed Education, and how, as a detail oriented person, she struggled with some habits from her schoolish mindset, and eventually arrived at some of the tools that helped her to support learning with her children and other ways of connection.

She also speaks with us on how her deschooling process evolved into the offering of a supportive community that focuses on education as something that we build up together, allowing for space where children can be themselves, and get to know their strengths and weaknesses in order to nurture their independence and confidence, giving the tools for them to excel with a trust-based foundation.

LIBERATION WALK

Don’t miss any of the Genius School events and check on The LOL Portfolio App details here
Join our co-learning for liberation village inside the My Reflection Matters Community
Thanks to all of the people that had contributed to translate Raising Free People book to Spanish, we’re halfway there! / Gracias a quienes han colaborado para traducir el libro Raising Free People al idioma Español, ¡ya recolectamos la mitad!
Share and question by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 222: Feel Trip | Untigering with Iris Chen (Pt. 3) Jun 12, 2021

Welcome again Fare of the Free Child community! In episode 222 you’ll hear excerpts from our feel trip with Iris Chen, author of Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent along with our fellow unschooler, Tiersa McQueen. Iris and Akilah talk about multigenerational learning and unlearning, the differences between respect and relationship with the elders, collective change, cultural distance, relationship skills and how we can feel honored and honor other people too, learning to coexist and grow together. Tiersa joined the discussion, and poured her usual awesomesauce all in the mix. If the excerpts just ain’t enough, you can watch the entire conversation here.
In case you haven’t listened to the previous elements of this three-part flow, here’s Episode 220: Iris Chen on Culture, Childhood, and Consent, and Episode 221: Untigering with Iris Chen (Pt. 2) where our listeners shared their feedback. Join our podcast village to make sure you don’t miss any feel trip invitations.
We are just a few episodes away from the end of this season, including two more episodes and a feel trip with Kris and Akilah to close out the season and celebrate the five year anniversary of Episode 0. So exciting!
Need to knows:

In an effort to bring all of you more deschooling resources and liberation tools Raising Free People Support Suite which includes the Card Decks has a Workbook material coming up in collaboration with Leslie Bray from P.O.U.R Podcast (Purposely Openly Up to Relationships)
Thanks to all of the people that had contributed to translate Raising Free People book to Spanish, we’re halfway there! / Gracias a quienes han colaborado para traducir el libro Raising Free People al idioma Español, ¡ya recolectamos la mitad!

LIBERATION WALK

Shout out to Val Sinclair from Plant it up podcast, who’ll join us once more at the end of the season!
Feel free to share and question by pressing that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site!
While you’re there, subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 221: Untigering with Iris Chen (Pt. 2) Jun 02, 2021

Sending love to all of the families and descendants of theTk’emlúps te Secwépemc community, who are dealing with the tragedy of discovering the bodies of 215 children who lived at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. We share the official statement from Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir. May their families find a way to be at peace.

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On this week’s #fofcpod you'll hear feedback from our community members. Regina, Sarah, and Ana Maria share their thoughts about previous episode 220: Iris Chen on Culture, Childhood, and Consent with Iris Chen from Untigering but also Ana Maria took the time to share her impressions on episode 219: All In My Feelings About Family Meetings. As we realize now, feedback won't always be about the most recent episode, people find episodes that talk specifically to them all the time (folks are still listening to season 1!).

Today, members of our listening community share some realizations based on conversations and experiences with their children. They share reflections on empowerment, boundaries, rewriting our narrative, and then some. You'll also hear from a local ATL unschooler wondering about tools of oppression in the context of parents who use them on their adult children.

Dr. Sundiata also shares some insights about The Theory of Indivisibility, Tools of Oppression in contrast with the Tools of Indivisibility. Head over to Sundiata's website to learn more.

And we are super-stoked and grateful that Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing work, will be translated into Spanish, and that the ALC Network has launched a fundraiser to match the $5000 needed to get us published in print and digitally! Will you donate and share? Here’s the link with details.

Our next Feel Trip is coming up with Iris, Akilah, and Tiersa on June 7, at 5:30 PM EST. Here’s the link to register. You'll hear a recap of that next week. Make sure you don't miss any of our Feel Trip invitations by joining our podcast village.

LIBERATION WALK

Got an insight or a question? Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and tell Akilah.
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 220: Iris Chen on Culture, Childhood, and Consent May 26, 2021

This week’s episode opens the first segment of our three-part flow from a mindful conversation with Iris Chen of Untigering. Iris is an unschooling mom and author of Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent, an authentic and vulnerable narrative about parenting as an Asian-American with cultural awareness, consent, love, and survival all blended in. Iris will also join us next week on a Feel Trip episode and we would love to hear some of your feedback prior to that! The week after that (on Saturday) we’ll bring you a recap of that Feel Trip. Make sure you don't miss any of our Feel Trip invitations by entering our podcast village.

Iris chats with Akilah about the process that led her into writing her book, a process that started two years ago as she was blogging about her family experiences. Akilah and Iris also speak about the expectations and the pressure that we sometimes create around our children by seeing them only as extensions of us and not also as individuals.

"We can be agents of change instead of victims to tradition" - Iris Chen

Iris challenges the idea that we are trapped by our culture and rules, because we can celebrate but also question. Iris asserts that we are more than our stereotypes, and Akilah agrees with that and invites us to embrace the elements that are aligned to who we are while we reject what doesn’t vibe with us as part of our evolution. Iris also talks about the importance of language and the influence that culture has to offer as a tool that enhances connection and more ways to expand understanding.

They also talk about consent and emotional intelligence skills and how important it is to re-parent our inner child to heal and understand the ways we can be influencing our children's behavior, because this can shape the practices that help us unravel our schoolish mindsets as we grow together.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and share some thoughts
Learn more about The Homeschool Association of California
Here you can read Parenting in a Climate of Anti-Asian Racism by Iris Chen
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 219: All In My Feelings About Family Meetings May 19, 2021

In this week’s #fofcpod episode, you’ll hear the first part of a conversation that sprunt up after a family meeting Akilah, Kris, Marley, and Sage had earlier this year. Akilah is calling this episode an “all in my” situation because she sees herself as being all up in her feelings (and fully accepting the presence of those feelings) while she’s unlearning the power-over dynamic. For sure, this conversation comes from a vulnerable and intimate space, and it felt important to Akilah and Kris to share the raw feelings without trying to offer “solutions” to resolving them.

Kris and Akilah point out the importance of healthy communication, change, boundaries, process, and practice. They also discuss the levels of involvement and the struggle that we might face when we want to be held accountable and supportive. What does support look like as you grow together?

They talk about the layers that come with a process and the practices around recognition and listening. It’s important to be able to think beyond our reaction and ask questions in order to move away from the schoolish mindset of punishing the reaction instead of exploring the cause. Asking for help to get a different perspective can guide us through a better solving process.

Stay tuned because we have nine more episodes in Season 6, including one of Fare of the Free Man Child with Anthony “Tony” Galloway, Jr. Also, get ready to listen to Iris Chen from Untigering who will be joining us on the next edition of our three-part flow.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and share some thoughts
Remember that SDE Weekend (Self-Directed Education Weekend) is coming soon! From 21st till 23rd of May 2021 “The SDE weekend is an “all you can (L)earn,” 3-day, international, online event in which you choose the sessions that match your intentions and participate as much as you want.”
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 218: (Pt 3) Black Folks in Montessori Education May 15, 2021

On Episode 218 we’re sharing snippets from our Feel Trip recap with Amelia Allen Sherwood (Montessori and Anti-bias | Anti-racism Educator at Elm City Montessori School and founder of Sankofa Learning Center) and fellow unschooling organizer, Tiersa McQueen. Amelia shares her perspective on the Montessori method and describes it as a tool in which we can decolonize processes and honor our children. We discuss the need to continue to question everything related to schooling, and to nurture ideas that improve autonomy-building, community care, partnership and trust-building. Listen and watch the full conversation here.

In case you haven’t listened to the previous components of this three-part flow, here’s Episode 216: Exploring Black Lived Montessori Experiences, and Episode 217: Black folks in Montessori (Pt 2) where our listeners shared their feedback. Make sure you don’t miss any of our feel trip invitations by joining our podcast village.

As you listen, you’ll hear Akilah notes the reality that most educational models focus only on the becoming (the eventual “success”) and forget about the human (the person experiencing life today, right now), and Amelia agrees with that, and notes that her center is called Sankofa because it was about a type of returning, in that it centers the learner, not the thing they’re supposed to do. Akilah sees that as a rehumanizing of learning, as does Amelia, and she (Amelia) talks about the ways that we can use Montessori tools to create environments that are supportive of our authentic selves, and how communal spaces can help us to understand how to trust learning and children.

We talk about the importance of naming our internalized racial oppression in order to heal both as an individual and as a collective, being aware of the commitment that involves community care. By being present we honor the connection within ourselves and our body, going back to our intuition.

Amelia talks about her vision of the African-centered Montessori program in New Haven, Connecticut, Sankofa Learning Center, and shares her gratitude for the community that has been showing up in different ways for this collective dream.

LIBERATION WALK

SDE Weekend (Self-Directed Education Weekend) is coming! From 21st till 23rd of May 2021 “The SDE weekend is an “all you can (L)earn,” 3-day, international, online event in which you choose the sessions that match your intentions and participate as much as you want.”
Listen to Itiel’s first episode, Ep 8: Lessons in Biz-Life Bliss and Ep 131: The Transition from Homeschooling to Unschooling. Also check Itiel’s memoir, Enterprise: A Holistic Anthology of Experiences Through a Black Woman’s Lens
Check out KINDEZI: The Kongo Art of Babysitting, by K.Kia Bu

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 217: Black folks in Montessori (Pt 2) May 07, 2021

Hey y'all! Thanks for staying tuned and welcome to another Fare of the Free Child podcast episode. In this conversation we are sharing some feedback from Episode 216: Exploring Black Lived Montessori Experiences with Montessori and Anti-bias | Anti-racism educator, Amelia Allen Sherwood. Join us to hear from our listener-fam, Regina, who has a couple of questions about the history of Montessori and whether Montessori programs serve teenagers. We also have some special invitations and liberation tools that will enrich and help us strengthen our raising free people muscles.

Need-to-knows:

Don't miss our next Feel Trip with Amelia Allen Sherwood. We will be questioning and sharing great content related to Montessori experiences. Sign up here to join us live on May 11 at 8pm eastern.
SDE Weekend (Self-Directed Education Weekend) is coming! From 21st till 23rd of May 2021 “The SDE weekend is an “all you can (L)earn,” 3-day, international, online event in which you choose the sessions that match your intentions and participate as much as you want.”
In an effort to bring all of you more deschooling resources and liberation tools Raising Free People Support Suite has a Workbook material coming up in collaboration with Leslie Bray from P.O.U.R Podcast (Purposely Openly Up to Relationships)
In addition to those resources we have two Card Decks: One is focused on parenting practice and the other one is an overall Raising Free People practice

LIBERATION WALK

Shout out to Britt Hawthorne, Montessori educator who currently works in a collective liberation work
Check out the Kulima Montessori program
Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and let us know what do you think
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 216: Exploring Black Lived Montessori Experiences Apr 28, 2021

This week’s #fofcpod is a sweet blend of liberation-focused invitations and an insightful conversation with Amelia Allen Sherwood, a Black Montessori educator who currently serves as the Anti-bias and Anti-racism Director at Elm City Montessori School. Amelia joins us to talk about how the Montessori method has impacted and inspired her to dream and develop communal spaces like Sankofa Learning Center. Stay tuned ‘cause Amelia will be also joining us in a couple of weeks on a Feel Trip episode. Make sure you don’t miss any of our Feel Trip invitations by joining our podcast village.

What brings Amelia joy:

Being outside and biking with her kids
Watching Carmeon Hamilton win Design Stars and following more Black interior designers on the gram
Spending time with her partner and finding moments to love each other
Visioning out Sankofa Learning Center with her incredible Advisory Collective

What has been growing Amelia:

Learning from people she loves and that continue to challenge her and hold her accountable
Reading anything by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (right now she is reading Dub and just finished M Archived)
Meet the Mother: Amelia Allen Sherwood
The Embracing Equity Leadership Cohort
Anything that Joy tells her to do, she listens!
And of course catching up with the episodes of Fare of the Free Child!

Amelia' recommendations of dope Black Montessori folks to follow on Instagram:

Check the Liberation Walk at https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/216/

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 215: Fare of the Free Man Child (A Tony Galloway Ting) Apr 21, 2021

In collaboration with Atlanta-based Self-Directed Education profession and facilitator, Anthony “Tony” Galloway, Jr, we are so hyped to broadcast the premiere episode of Fare of the Free Man Child!

Tony is one of our Presence Counselors here at Raising Free People Network and the founder, director and facilitator of The Heartwood School, a local Agile Learning Center. Throughout this series, Tony reflects on his own self-directed journey and his views on adulting and adulthood as he approaches his 30’s. Tune in to hear him riff on finances, politics, mental health, race, schooling, unschooling, manhood, and masculinity.

“I was raised as an academic and baptized in the way of the scientific method. There were many creative outlets I participated in as a kid but they were just fun things to do on the side. Things like music and art were extracurriculars and hobbies to make me a well-rounded applicant but they were never a priority”. - Anthony Galloway, Jr

In this episode, Tony talks about the struggles that we might face when trying to apply certain Self-Directed practices to our lives, about how exhausting it becomes to compare ourselves and our children's processes, the external pressure full of expectations, and preparations that pull us away from the present, missing the essentials. He also shares the importance of prioritizing the fulfillment of personal challenges while taking care of responsibilities.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and tell us what do you think about Fare of the Free Man Child
Follow Tony on Instagram!
You can listen to Tony on previous #fofcpod episodes: How He’s Using His Gifts and Time for Self
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 214: Food. Play. Mindfulness. (Pt. 3) Apr 17, 2021

This week, we’ve got important need-to-knows to share with you, plus a feel trip recap from our conversation with Karen M. Ricks from the last two episodes, and Tiersa McQueen, who always brings the real-real! We shared experiences and stories around food and learning, and you’ll hear about our connections between food and memories, food and relationship building, food-centric education, food habits, food joy, and the many ways that food is related to our consent-based practices with children.

In case you haven’t listened to the first part of this three-part flow, here’s Episode 212: Food, Play, & Mindfulness, and here’s Episode 213: Food, Play, & Mindfulness (Pt. 2) where our listeners shared their feedback. Make sure you don’t miss any of our feel trips invitations by joining our podcast village.

Resources and Invitations

Presence Counselor, founder, director and facilitator of an Agile Learning Center in Atlanta, Georgia Anthony Galloway, Jr. gives us a hint of his new project, Fare of the Free Man Child, in collaboration with Raising Free People Network. Anthony reflects about his own self-directed journey, and his views on adulting and adulthood as he approaches his 30’s. He’ll be speaking about finances, politics, mental health, race, schooling, unschooling, manhood, and masculinity. His first episode airs on April 21, so make sure you’re following our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, so you can hear it.
SDE Weekend (Self-Directed Education Weekend) is coming! From 21st till 23rd of May 2021 “The SDE weekend is an “all you can (L)earn,” 3-day, international, online event in which you choose the sessions that match your intentions and participate as much as you want.”
The Fix Yo Face Deschooling Parenting Challenge starts soon! Get details here and save your spot

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and tell us what do you think about Fare of the Free Man Child
Check out Our Kitchen Classroom on Youtube
While you’re there, subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 213: Food, Play, & Mindfulness (Pt. 2) Apr 07, 2021

INVITATIONS:

The Fix Yo Face Deschooling Parenting Challenge starts soon! Get details here.

Want to join our Feel Trip with Karen next week? Register here.

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Today we’re featuring listener community feedback from Episode 212: Food, Play, & Mindfulness with Karen M. Ricks. Join us to hear listeners share their love and experiences with food and how it all intertwines with the processes of natural learning and connecting with family and community. We’re also joined by Val from Plant It Up Podcast who tells us all about her relationship with nature and how the process of planting food can be a synergy between self-preservation and joy!

We also have a special invitation for all of you to attend our next Feel Trip. Through this communal space we get to question and share some insight with you guys, our listeners! The live group meet up will be held on April 13th, register and save your spot. In case you can’t make it that day, we still got you, we’ll replay parts of it on April 17th here in the podcast. If you want to make sure you never miss our Feel Trips invitations you can join our podcast village.

In addition to Fare of the Free Child, remember that we nurture Audio by Raising Free People Network with shows by Black women in podcasting, including: She Said We Shed with Aja Marie; How She Got Free with Katrina Monique; Grief, Growth and Goals with Lou Hollis; Plant It Up Podcast with Va Sinclair; and P.O.U.R. (Purposely Opening Up to Relationships) podcast with Leslie W. Bray.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and speak up!
Be sure to check out Ebony Janice’s content!
Shout-out to Thea Monyeé from Shaping The Shift Podcast
Check out Our Kitchen Classroom on Youtube
While you’re there, subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 212: Food, Play, & Mindfulness with Karen M. Ricks Mar 31, 2021

Season 6 of Fare of the Free Child Podcast begins today, and we are so excited!! This season we’ve slowed down our listening process so that every topic can get three full episodes of conversation and connection. The first part is an invitation to deepen our perspective on a relevant topic, the second part we’ll be listening to community feedback about that topic, and the third episode will be a recap or replay from a live, group meetup (we call those feel trips), to bring our knowledge and questions together real-time. Want to make sure you don’t miss feel trip invites? Join our podcast village. On today’s episode, Karen M. Ricks of Our Kitchen Classroom, world traveler, life learner, mother, wife, chef, entrepreneur will be joining us to talk about joy, food, travelling, languages, Montessori ways, and her special take on worldschooling.

Food Joy

We talk about boundaries, consent, relationship-building, and the importance of partnership between parents and children. Karen explains the way food can work as a medium through which we have a chance to connect through multi-sensory experiences, for example, the process of including the children in preparing meals. We talk about sense memory and how it is tied to a deeper personal involvement, and how this makes food a wonderful way to notice everyday learning.

Montessori Ways (The world is our classroom)

Karen speaks about her experience running a Montessori school in Japan, about how this process exposed some of the drastic pedagogical differences between cultures, and the level of resistance that can live within us when it comes to trying a less schoolish approach to learning anything, including a new language.

We chat about the cultivation of language as a tool that enhances communication, a tool to connect with the otherness, to share ideas and concepts, and to expand the possibilities for the richness of learning from every experience, person, and place.

Building upon the Curiosity

Karen shares the joy that food has given her by seeing culinary education as a cultural exchange, and a way of connecting with families and communities. With her project, Our Kitchen Classroom, Karen shares a different way of learning through the experience of food.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that “Leave a Voice Message” button on the right side of the site and speak up
Learn something new at every meal! join Karen at Our Kitchen Classroom
Join Karen at Our Kitchen Classroom on Youtube
While you’re there, subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 211: A Feel Trip Recap about Process vs Practice Mar 27, 2021

We are starting our feel trip replays this week, which is why this episode is first airing on a Saturday instead of our usual mid-week thing. We used our mid-week time to meet up with Tiersa McQueen, unschooling advocate, @tiersaj on Twitter, to chat about the difference between a process and a practice, especially in parenting, and specifically in Self-Directed Education. We talked about things like:

Using unschooling as a means of control
We answered a brilliant question from Nicole who asked what does it look like to do nothing
We talked about our experiences with the adult gaze
I introduced some language from my current work around destination peddling in parenting, and about passage, and giving way
Tiersa offered recent examples from her lessons with Phoenix, her 15 year old son.

Just soooooo goood!!

So, you'll hear a few segments from our March 24 2021 feel trip today, and we are having another one, this time with Karen M. Ricks of Our Kitchen Classroom, world traveler, life learner, mother, wife, chef, entrepreneur, etc!! She is co-hosting our next Feel Trip in a few weeks, and we'll talk about that next week for the premier of Season 6 where you'll hear my conversation with Karen, and get the invitation for our next live FOFC Feel Trip.

LIBERATION WALK

Press that "Leave a Voice Message" button on the right side of the site and speak up
Full replay is available here. Watch, Like, and Share.
Join Tiersa’s community on Twitter and also on Instagram

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 210: What to Expect in Season 6 (Invitations, Feedback, & Feel Trips) Mar 17, 2021

Welcome back! Today, As promised, you’ll get all the details on how we'll be flowing in this new season on Fare of the Free Child Podcast. Season 6 will be filled with practice tools and liberation content related to the ways we are building community. Our community is part of My Reflection Matters, come through and join us in Fare of the Free Child Village.

Put these important dates on your calendar:

March 24: A live session with unschooling mama and advocate, Tiersa McQueen, to talk about the difference between process and practice.

March 27: You’ll hear a replay (or a recap) of our live session with Tiersa here on the podcast!.

March 31: Launching of Season 6!

Three Part Flow

Every conversation will get three full episodes, Akilah is slowing it down to go deep in every topic.

Part I (INVITATIONS)

Here Akilah will be having a conversation about the main topic either with guests or solo.

Part II (FEEDBACK)

The following week we’ll be hearing community feedback, other people's opinions, questions, resources, so we can enrich the way we interact.

Part III (FEEL TRIPS)

Then we get together and make a live session inside #fofc village, to engage more with each other's opinions and gather soul conversation bits to share here on the podcast.

In April we’re collaborating with conscious parenting sister, Domari Dickinson, to co-host a parenting challenge, thinking primarily of people transitioning into Self-Directed Education, to offer some tools and resources. This collab is part of a larger effort to populate parenting and education spaces with the support to navigate the deschooling journey.

LIBERATION WALK

It’s easy to give us your feedback! Just press that little button on the right of our website that says “Leave a voicemail” on the right side of the site, or email she@akilahsrichards.com
Join Leslie of P.O.U.R. Podcast in the first Community P.O.U.R. Session
Connect with Tiersa on Twitter
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 209: Katrina of How She Got Free Podcast Feb 24, 2021

On the last stop of Akilah’s tour of introductions to all the hosts on our network, you’ll meet Katrina Monique and hear about her upcoming show, How She Got Free Podcast. Katrina Monique and Akilah have an insightful conversation about what liberation can mean in the process, the many layers that self awareness and healing have, the struggle and joy when Katrina completely embraced herself, what does it mean to live with depression and more.

Before that convo, Akilah gives a hint of what’s coming next month with Season 6, and tells you her plan for making sure, as her granny would say, “har eaz nyam grass!”

As we reach the end of this love fest, don’t forget to subscribe to all five podcasts! In addition to Fare Of The Free Child, we produce She Said We Shed with Aja; How She Got Free with Katrina; Grief, Growth and Goals with Lou Hollis; Plant It Up with Val; and the upcoming P.O.U.R. (Purposely Opening Up to Relationships) podcast with Leslie Bray.

Redefining liberation

How She Got Free Podcast is inspired by a book and retreat that Katrina and Akilah created and nurtured during 2012-2013. This podcast version is designed to show us ways we can generate healing for ourselves and invite others to acknowledge and name their own healing needs too.

Katrina shares her experience with her own mental health diagnoses, examining her relationships to concepts like strength and joy, and how something that looked scary ended up liberating her. They also speak about the impact that colonial society has in mental health, and all the things Black women and Black people in general have been impacted by and still struggle with.

Notables you might dig...

Akilah and Katrina point out how our ancestors developed mechanisms to survive and thrive without realizing they could suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses that harmed them and caused intergenerational trauma among communities. What arose during that discussion was

a) what wounds came from fighting for your freedom, and

b) how do we not turn our wounds into weapons against those we love?

Also, trauma shows up in our relationships with our bodies, with our children, with our community, and Katrina talks about building structure around trauma, embracing who we are, naming things by speaking up and accepting the trauma not only as an individual process but also in community.

LIBERATION WALK

Watch the video version from this episode on YouTube
Join Katrina’s community, How We Got Free on Facebook
Join Akilah's email list

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 208: Lou of Grief, Growth, & Goals Podcast Feb 18, 2021

Our featured host and guest during this week’s version of our month-long love fest is Lou Hollis of Grief, Growth and Goals podcast (#3GPod), a space for sharing insights about healing work while parenting after grief and depression.

Lou is a model and actress with more than 25 years of experience in the talent industry, both as talent, and as talent management and mentorship. Grief, Growth and Goals podcast (#3GPod) is a healing space where Lou chats with child talent, parents of talent, bookers, agents, agency owners, about business, but more so about managing life and staying grounded through it all.

On this week’s episode, Akilah and Lou speak about power dynamics in relationships and the importance of changing the narrative to advocate for their children from a partner-centered lens. Lou talks about how empowering it is for her to hear other people's stories, particularly how they’ve learned to raise their voices, and how that has inspired her to make sure she is showing up and sharing her spiritual transformation.

To meet all the hosts on our network, be sure to check out our main page: https://raisingfreepeople.com/network/

LIBERATION WALK

You can also watch the video version from this episode
You can listen to Lou on previous #fofcpod episodes: Episode 73: How Grief Unschooled Her and Episode 194: Language for Unschooling
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!
Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 207: Updates on Plant It Up + Introducing P.O.U.R. Feb 14, 2021

In this in-between episode on #fofcpod Akilah chats with Val Anderson, creator and host of Plant It Up podcast, and Leslie Bray of the upcoming podcast, P.O.U.R (Purposely Openly Up to Relationships).

Plant It Up podcast is part of a larger plant initiative, and focuses on Val's deep love for plants and how it relates to self-care and liberation work practices as well. Make sure you connect with Val and Our Plants and Juicecapades!

Leslie’s segment includes a few clips from her old episodes, as well as details about P.O.U.R. Podcast. Leslie is the founder of Kid Cultivators Homeschool Community, a homeschooling collective that makes space for alternative ways of learning. She talks about what P.O.U.R. has to offer as a community building approach, where she will explore what it means to show up and be open to new relationships, what it takes to build those relationships, and the rituals around these practices, both individually and as a collective. Follow Leslie for updates.

LIBERATION WALK

Kelly Limes Taylor shares with us the two upcoming courses from Ours First Series: Stories Of Our Pasts and Younger You. Be sure to register!
You can listen to Val on previous #fofcpod episodes: Episode 176: ‘Cause Ginger Root Brings Her Joy and Episode 180: Partnership Practice with Plants
You can listen to Leslie on previous #fofcpod episodes: Episode 18: Self-Care + Sacred Space and Episode 110: Leslie Talks Conscious Community Collectives
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 206: Aja of She Said We Shed Podcast Feb 10, 2021

Welcome back! We are still in-between seasons on #fofcpod and for the next month we’ll be sharing with our hosts from Raising Free People Network! This week we chat with Aja, single mom, freelancer/entrepreneur and unschooler who has lived outside of the United States - host of She Said We Shed Podcast.

“Created by Aja, and produced by Raising Free People Network, She Said We Shed is a reclamation project for defining a motherhood that acknowledges and helps us heal from the unresolved trauma-induced parenting practices among Black mothers. Aja is raising her Black son while healing from the trauma of being raised by a woman who didn’t heal from whatever harmed her. Black mama trauma is the topic, and honest, love-centered, reclamation and healing are the intentions. Join Aja as she and invited guests get vulnerable and deliberate about legacy shifting with support, back-up, and truth-tellers.”

Akilah and Aja speak on Black motherhood, intergenerational trauma, privilege in relationships, setting boundaries (even with our children), and healing work that includes more than praying and going to the “good doctors.”

She Said We Shed Podcast - Wanting to heal not wanting to hide

Aja talks with Akilah about what has happened with She Said We Shed and what she’s been noticing through her own liberation journey. They highlight the importance of the resources and decolonizing tools that She Said We Shed has to offer, and the value of speaking up about these topics in order to shift and heal intergenerational trauma.

Aja transports us into a living personal experience, a reclamation project, a space where women are willing to come and share their stories, having straight-up conversations that seek community around them learning how not to expose children to the same parenting behavior that wounded us. This podcast is an opportunity to build relationship tools that acknowledge the power of motherhood along with the responsibility that comes with it.

Slowing down

Aja talks about the struggle that she faced with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and how that forced her to stop and rest so she could heal and have deep realizations. She also talks about how this situation impacted her physical and emotional well being but also helped to pull her back. By trying alternative methods, she gave the chance to other ways of healing and made her see how vital it was to set boundaries for her and her child, as she says “we need to listen to ourselves to know what we need is a process”.

LIBERATION WALK

Kelly Limes Taylor shares with us the two upcoming courses from Ours First Series: Stories Of Our Pasts and Younger You. Be sure to register!
Check out Jenile Brooks children's media company MOXIE
You can listen to Aja on #fofcpod episodes: Ep 147: Deschooling Intergenerational Trauma as Daughter & as Mother, Ep 162: Healing Black Mama Trauma, Ep.160: The Practice of Reparenting Ourselves
Aja was also featured in Dem Black Mamas: Ep 37: Black Mama Beyond Borders w/ Aja Mari

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 205 - Woke AF Parenting 101 Jan 27, 2021

We are still in-between seasons on #fofcpod, so Akilah picked another amazing replay full of liberation talk and mad question askin’ -- episode 40 from season 2!

Special guest Yolonda Coles Jones, founder of Empowered Journey Company, creator of the Empowered People trademarked formula as applied within her Empowered Me/Us, Empowered Families and Empowered Teachers Programs & within her Empowered People Deliberate Love School. She is talking about her experience with her partner on raising four free people, two daughters and twin sons.

Akilah will also be reading a little excerpt from chapter 2 of Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work. Yolonda's story is in chapter two as well, so grab a copy of the book for the details!

We'll be back in the second week of February with more great content! Peace and love.

LIBERATION WALK

Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Here is another great conversation with Yolonda, Ep. 59: Deschooling through Rhythm!
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!
Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 204: (REPLAY) Solutions to Whitewashed SDE. From Season 2, Ep 31 with Anthony Galloway, Jr. and Julia Cordero Jan 20, 2021

We are in another in-between episode on #fofcpod, this time replaying episode 31 from season 2! On this reboot Anthony Galloway Jr, one of our Presence Counselors here on Raising Free People Network who also happens to be debuting with his first podcast series right here on #fofcpod, is joining us along with Julia Cordero, co-founder of Hearthwood Agile Learning Center, in an insightful conversation on Whitewashed Self-Directed Education. Let’s get into this replay!

LIBERATION WALK

Developing a disruptor’s ear, a workbook for learning how to listen (despite schoolishness and pervasive whiteness) and what to do with what you’re hearing
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!
Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 203 - Self-mothering + Parenting Jan 13, 2021

Welcome to another in-between episode on #fofcpod! This time we are sharing with Trelani Michelle, who we’ve already heard on episode 4 on Black Queer Mothering, episode 14 with Self-Mothering While Parenting and most recently on episode 197: A Deschooling Word About Boundaries, Babies and Business talking about parenting practices, dating life and all about her project Krak Teet: A Catalog of Savannah’s Black-in-the-Day (biographies that centers the life experiences of native Gullah Geechee elders from 1920 on through to 1970). Don’t miss this replay!

LIBERATION WALK

Don’t miss The Parenting Decolonized Conference. “The mission of the summit is to provide parents and caregivers with action plans, resources, and tips for conscious parenting during stressful times, reimagining education during the Coronavirus, and the radical shifts required to be more confident, conscious, intentional parents.”
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 202: New to Unschooling (Reboot Edition) Mo Allison (from Season 1) updates on single mamahood, chronic illness, and life design Jan 07, 2021

We’re in between seasons on #fofcpod, and as we promised, January will be filled with specially-chosen replays sprinkled with some new-new announcements and invitations.

This time we bring you an update from Monique Allison who we’ve already heard from on episode 6 back on Season 1. Listen to Monique giving us some insight on She Said We Shed Podcast

Monique talks about what she’s been learning through her deschooling journey with her son, Pharaoh, particularly how she’s becoming a better observer, and learning more about adaptability, flexibility, and trust.

Monique is a single Black mom that is raising her son who has sickle cell and other chronic illnesses. They shifted to unschooling, attended an Agile Learning Center, and are still happily unschooling nearly five years later. Listen to Episode 6, (Reclaiming and Learning) to hear their story.

Akilah reminds us not to miss The Parenting Decolonized Conference. “The mission of the summit is to provide parents and caregivers with action plans, resources, and tips for conscious parenting during stressful times, reimagining education during the Coronavirus, and the radical shifts required to be more confident, conscious, intentional parents.”

Akilah shares her testimonial on Iris Chen’s book, Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent. The ebook will be FREE for the next few days in early January so download early before the promotion ends!

"Iris's book felt like a familiar conversation with someone who insisted on telling the truth and letting it show up as potential healing space. But it was more than the sense of truthful reflections; there were so many powerful invitations to listen to my own nudges, as well as confront my own biases, too. It looks like a notebook the way I wrote and scribbled and hell-yea'd all through those pages! Untigering is a welcomed addition to the growing list of resources for people raising free people, and unlearning/reclaiming ourselves in the process." - Akilah

LIBERATION WALK

Check out Monique’s other previous episodes on #fofcpod: Surviving Survival Mode – Emerging Out… and Surviving Survival Mode – Getting Unstuck
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 201: Peace Signs to 2020 and Season 5 Talmbout love notes, side-eyes, gratitude, and need-to knows with Akilah Dec 30, 2020

Welcome to the fifth season finale of Fare of the Free Child Podcast where Akilah gives a State of the Podcast (and network!). She shares resources and invitations focused on the opportunities for rest and reparations and for the deepening of this movement. Thank you all for listening and supporting, this conversation is centered on some of the healing that we've done, the healing that we are looking to do in collaboration with others and the opportunities to invest in that healing work at variant levels.

Keep on sharing, shedding and questioning. In January we will be replaying some all-time favorite episodes with some new additions, so don’t miss it!

What we've been able to accomplish

Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is out! Akilah shares her gratitude to the listeners, for the feedback she had from everyone interested in continuing on this deschooling and liberation journey
Fare Of The Free Child had major coverage in the New York Times, Forbes and countless podcasts and local media
All the new equipment and resources to keep jamming with our dope content in Raising Free People Network is thanks to you!
Voice-Ups as a safe space to talk about specific issues
Disrupting academic and corporate spaces in partnership with Black unschoolers

Structure of Raising Free People Network: Three Initiatives and One Offering.

Raising Free People Unschool (RFP Unschool): Online unschool with courses and coaching
Audio by Raising Free People Network. Don’t forget to subscribe to all five podcasts! In addition to Fare Of The Free Child, we proudly produce She Said We Shed with Aja; How She Got Free with Katrina; Grief, Growth and Goals with Lou; Plant It Up with Val; Wait for an upcoming surprise from Leslie Bray about community care, soon!
Raising Free People Book and upcoming workbooks
Offering: Leadership consultations with schools or corporations looking to decolonize their environment / culture

Where we are looking to go

Mentorship and other types of support with emerging community change agents, helping them to develop ways to organize around Self-Directed Education (SDE) in their communities and families.

CHECK OUT COURSES, INVITATIONS AND THE FULL SHOW NOTES AT https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/201/

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 200: Being Busy, Black, and Unschooled in 2020 An end-of-year sistachat with Maleka Diggs of Eclectic Learning Network Dec 24, 2020

This week on #fofcpod, Maleka Diggs from Eclectic Network and Akilah are chopping it all up about this year. Get ready for an insightful conversation about what they’ve been noticing around deschooling, self care, pervasive whiteness, movement, decolonizing, and then some.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Self care practices

Maleka shares aspects of her decolonizing journey, the harmony between working and playing and defining priorities around self care practices. Akilah talks about deschooling her leadership practices.

They also talk about the power of stillness and silence, how necessary it is to be more aware of ourselves, our thoughts and our bodies. Akilah shares her experience of reconnecting with herself through dance and movement, the way she gets information about herself from her body and paying attention to what she is noticing.

Unravelings - The joy of failure

They chat about Maleka’s projects and what they have been noticing around pervasive whiteness. Akilah speaks about the sense of responsibility that comes as a Black woman who unschools and advocates for her community, also about her experience working in predominantly White spaces.

Maleka also talks about her love of cooking, and the real roots of curry. She tells how food can be a way of resistance and decolonization, and how every dish has its own journey and meaning.

Then they talk about failure and how it can be understood as an opportunity to pivot and learn, not seeing it as the end of the path but as a direction. That’s one of the skills that we root with self directedness, “the joy of failure”, this will show up differently and will evolve depending on each person’s processes.

Consumption and Schoolishness

They reject the notion of metrics, and connect most forms of measuring and data with consumption and standardization.

LIBERATION WALK

Get your tickets so you don’t miss The Parenting Decolonized Conference. “The mission of the summit is to provide parents and caregivers with action plans, resources, and tips for conscious parenting during stressful times, reimagining education during the Coronavirus, and the radical shifts required to be more confident, conscious, intentional parents.”
Check out Eclectic Learning Network’s merch!
Here are some dope music producers, check out their material!: Jamie a.k.a, Serotonin, Jared Akeem, Rhyan (Richie Flex) and Only Black Cosmonaut
Our growing community is part of the My Reflection Matters ecology, in our own Fare of the Free Child village! Come through if you're on that raising free people journey
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Yo

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 199: Tiny but Mighty Steps Towards Wellness Kim Hester of Life, Strength, and Health on Wellness as an Unschooling Entrepreneur Dec 16, 2020

This week on #fofcpod we are talking about prioritizing wellness amidst entrepreneurship and unschooling with one of our #fofcpod repeat guests, Kim Hester (with the big, beautiful smile!). Kim is co-owner of Life Strength & Health holistic center, and she co-hosts Akilah’s favorite wellness podcast too! In episode 195: Black Unschooling Dads, Kris Richards (Akilah's partner) and Jamal Hester (Kim's partner) had the chance to chat about Black fatherhood and unschooling. In this episode Akilah talks with Kim about the importance of awareness as part of a wellness process, and how all of that is connected to natural learning, deschooling and our capacity to thrive.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

When you feel good you move through life differently

Kim speaks about pivoting away from toxic environments and the changes that came with that shift. She also touches on the importance of being aware of her feelings and decisions, being consistent with the changes she applied in her routines, and how that all of that showed up in her relationship with her husband, her daughter (SaHura), and in her own mind and body.

Kim and Akilah also speak on decolonizing parenting styles and how they had to question themselves by identifying schoolish patterns in their parents and in themselves that were/are directly influenced by the colonial narrative. They give examples of that, and chat about their experiences with their children and how they felt at a certain point in their adult lives about not having developed the tools to overcome certain realities, like being afraid of making a mistake, that sometimes blocks them from seeing the whole spectrum of possibilities in a given situation.

Awareness and deschooling

Akilah talks about awareness and how it is intrinsically connected with deschooling behaviors that disrupt patterns in order to build up healthy, consent-based, autonomy-nurturing practices. Kim is caring for her partner’s elderly parents, and brings up the way that our awareness of the stressors can be helpful if we acknowledge them and do little things to manage those feelings in our bodies and in our minds.

Kim brings up the importance of movement and changes in environment when possible, especially at this time where we’re more sedentary at home. She talks about unschooling during COVID-19 with SaHura, and the things that give her joy like dancing, summer camp and sharing with her friends. She also describes the deschooling process of her and her family and the ways she and her husband work at being supportive and helpful.

LIBERATION WALK

Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Our growing community is part of the My Reflection Matters ecology, in our own Fare of the Free Child village! Come through if you're on that raising free people journey.
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube C

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 198: Painful Truths and Opportunities for Change from the Perspectives of “The Token” Crystal Byrd Farmer's new book + a gratitude session Dec 09, 2020

This week on #fofcpod we have an insightful conversation about relationships and diversity with educator, organizer and speaker Crystal Byrd Farmer, she focuses on cohousing, Black, and polyamorous communities. Crystal is a Black, queer, autistic woman whose opinions and ambitions find her in a variety of communities where she is the only one with a particular intersection of identities. This “token” status is one Crystal does not shy away from, but instead uses it to speak up and invite change in the communities she chooses.

Crystal shares some of her experiences, and tells us about her book, The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization. We'll also hear about Gastonia Freedom School, the Agile Learning Center (a type of Self-directed Education center, that Crystal founded to offer support in her North Carolina community.

“This is the book that is going to save you from theory and guilt trips disguised as training or solutions to issues of equity and diversity. Crystal has brilliantly highlighted her personal experiences as means of examining and learning how biases affect some Black women in particular, and many intentional communities across age and gender, among other differences. She then brings in the history and pattern of anti-Black racism in particular, and offers resources and conversation prompts to work through what she brings up in these pages. I found this book refreshing in its departure from scholarly research over real-life experiences, feelings that words often fail, and so much more in terms of nuance and layers. I loved this and I'm grateful to Crystal for adding her perspectives to the conversation about relationships and diversity without apology, and with no problem being dynamic and human in her approach. Read this book!”

- Akilah S. Richards’s review.

“The book touches key points like reality of bias, privilege and microaggressions, what marginalized people experience and what they might need to feel safe and comfortable in order to succeed. Crystal acts as the bridge between majority white organizations that are dedicated to social justice and "diverse" people in the community.”

Gastonia Freedom School is a self-directed learning center focused on children with disabilities, the support is one-to-one depending on their interests, they work on the development of social skills respecting their agency and independence. Crystal talks about how they’re managing this SDE space since COVID started, the challenges and also the perks of it.

Akilah also took some time to share her appreciation to the Fare Of The Free Child Community and invites to continue on this deschooling journey of healing and liberation work.

LIBERATION WALK

Here’s Crystal talking about Agile Learning Centers and how they help create equitable outcomes for students of all races and socioeconomic statuses
Have heard about our very own Fare of the Free Child village? Come discuss topics from the podcast with us!
Hosting or joining a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about your gathering. Akilah would love to come through!
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 197: A Deschooling Word About Boundaries, Babies, and Business Trelani Michelle (of Krak Teet) on dating, parenting, and professional pursuits Dec 03, 2020

This week on #fofcpod, we're talking about boundaries - ways to affirm them, and ways to honor the development of boundaries as they show up, shift us, and determine so many elements of how we show up in our bodies and in our relationships. Listen in as Trelani Michelle, our modern-day Zora Neale Hurston, offers some sweet and insightful storytelling about the recognition and re-affirming of her boundaries in her work, her parenting practice, and in her dating life. Trelani also shares the origins of her celebrated project, Krak Teet: A Catalog of Savannah’s Black-in-the-Day Biographiesthat centers the life experiences of native Gullah Geechee elders from 1920 on through to 1970.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

How shedding/deschooling ain’t just about habits, but can also include relationships.

Trelani and Akilah talk about the shedding elements of deschooling. Shedding, in essence, is about stopping certain established patterns or norms that are out of alignment with what you’re learning about your authentic self -- your thoughts, your body, your actions, and what best suits your healing and liberation process. Trelani’s deschooling process led to many shifts, including divorce. It also aligned her with many things, including the 10-fold rewards that came with her decision NOT to conform, but instead to affirm her boundaries.

Teaching with Consent

They also talk about some of the dynamics around teaching and learning and how those dynamics support a deeper layer of understanding and acceptance that doesn’t compromise each other’s boundaries. Trelani shares her experience with Kobe, her 11-year-old daughter, and how they are getting acquainted with each other’s boundaries, and developing what Akilah describes as a set of vital life skills that are developed, in practice, over time.

LIBERATION WALK

Not feeling all the positive, uplifting energies right now? Akilah wrote a short book for you about it. Check it: Perfectly Rational Reasons To Be Okay With Not Being Okay: A Self-Care Guide For Embracing Your Feelings Even When They Are Negative (The Radical Self-Expression eBook Series 1)
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Hosting, or are part of, a Raising Free People Book Club? Tell us by emailing Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club. Akilah would love to come through, right quick!
Subscribe to our Youtube Channel!
Join patreon.com/akilah and help make sure we can do this again and again

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 196: But, Yo, the Trust Comes AFTER the Choice Spiritual self-care, mobile (freedom) libraries, and drum circles with Natalie “Black WorldSchoolers” Pipkin Nov 26, 2020

Reframing Trust and Proof

Proof and trust have become very schoolish. The way I see it, trust is often a thing to choose, not a thing to be earned. In deschooling, the proof of trustworthiness often comes after the decision to trust a process. There’s no need for proof, the proof is part of a bond of trust we build up in our daily lives, it's about the people, the processes, and the way we forge our relationships--trust emerges from that.

- Akilah #raisingfreepeople

We've got a birthday episode on deck! FOFC family member, Natalie Pipkin, turned 35 today (Nov 26, Baby!), and we get to celebrate with her AND with her city as Natalie and family launched their mobile book store on this special day!

You'll hear all about it today, and you'll also hear how Natalie offers us detailed, really specific examples of how unschooling shows up in her life. She goes on to share how she's understanding it as liberation work, and how she facilitates it in community by embodying the skills of it and bringing it to spaces where we can practice it, and see the benefits of it and then want to do it more and more. This opens us up to a lot of the deschooling that comes with the desire to get more of the type of experiences you have when you start facilitating learning, instead of trying to simulate it, or force it.

Natalie and Akilah talk about a lot of the highs that came from that, along with the concerns that caused Natalie and her husband to pull their boys from school right before CO-VID 19 hit. They had fears and concerns like anyone else, but since that decision, they've deepened and grown in ways that bring her family so much comfort about their choice to empower their sons in their educational journey by removing the lies, confines, and willful omissions that constantly show up in classrooms.

You'll hear about that, in this episode, and it is so important for these experiences to be shared, for you to get that all through your ears, your mind, and all through your body. I know that so many among us are trying to figure out what it means now to nurture learning, outside of both the confines of conventional education. And also dealing with feelings of loss from the sense of framework and other adult support that made conventional education really useful for some families in many ways, even with its deeply problematic elements.

LIBERATION WALK

Check out Natalie’s previous episode: Ep 171: Black Child, You Are Seen
Here she is again on Parenting for Liberation podcast
Here’s that book Natalie mentioned on Spiritual Self-care
If you are hosting or are part of a Raising Free People Book Club, message Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com to invite Akilah to pop in on one of your sessions
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Remember to check on TRUE: Towards Radical Social Change Unschooling and Parental Education, an earthwide gathering towards radical social change. It will be on December 2 - 6 - 2020.

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 195: Black Unschooling Dads Jamal and Kris discuss the tools they gather while raising free people Nov 19, 2020

Today we’ll be joined by two unschooling dads, Jamal Hester and Kris Richards. They will be pointing out some insights on Black fatherhood, re-parenting and unschooling!

Jamal is the co-owner of Life Strength & Health holistic center. They also have a podcast where we can find great resources on healing work. Kris Richards is a graphic designer, artist, and creative brander. He’s also Akilah’s partner and Marley and Sage’s dad.

What We Discussed:

Colonial Narrative

Jamal and Kris talk about how their labels of “who they are” as parents, sons, partners, are under certain expectations and are mostly validated by someone else's perspectives. They also chat about the importance of re-configuring parenting styles to have a different approach to the way we are raising our children, and the kind of relationships that we want to nurture.

Intergenerational relationships

They also discuss seeing some patterns from their behavior reflected in the ways that their own parents and other elders beliefs and parenting styles were directly influenced by the colonial narrative. They give examples of that, and speak to their struggle to change that, so their children can see things from a different perspective, and can understand that it's okay to make mistakes, to speak up, and to question things, in order to grow and to thrive.

“Domesticated” parents raising “wild” children

Kris shares how his relationships with his daughters shifted when he realized that he was imposing ideas about what he believed was best for them. He had to step back from his thoughts on things like screen time, but at the same time consider the importance of giving them context so they could navigate through and question what they were watching on that screen. The skill he began to learn was how to start showing up from a space of listening, and of trust in order to get in sync.

Jamal speaks about his relationship with his daughter, SaHura, and how he and his wife, Kim, use essential oils as part of a supportive environment for their daughter to manage and understand her emotions.

Quote from Jamal about his daughter: When SaHura understands, there is no resistance. When she’s just told, and she gets no context, it never goes well.

Deschooling is like an onion

Jamal uses the metaphor of the onion, peeling back the layers of an onion is like letting go of the things that we believed, and in doing so, there are certain conditions we have to change and others we decide to keep. It’s a process of learning what works and what doesn’t, and it is affected by everything, including the food we eat, our fitness and the overall ways we take care of ourselves.

LIBERATION WALK

Don’t miss TRUE: Towards Radical Social Change Unschooling and Parental Education, an earthwide virtual gathering towards radical social change. December 2 - 6 - 2020. Register here
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
If you are hosting or are part of a Raising Free People Book Club please be sure to message Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club
S

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 194: Unschooling is a Whole Language 11 invitations to share meaning among our growing Self-directed Education communities Nov 11, 2020

Want to learn some unschooling vocabulary? If so, listen good because this episode brings a big opportunity to decide upon, and to question your own definitions and understandings, and pivot wherever the need arises. Add your own vocab to this. What words need to be on the next-next episode?
See the full definitions at raisingfreepeople.com/194

Unschooling
Self-Directed Education
Re-parenting
Shadow Work: If you missed it, listen to Genesis Ripley on episode 182: Genesis Ripley on Partnering with Our Pain, she shares the importance of Shadow Work and why we can’t continue to contemplate the world in a binary spectrum, ignoring the shadows, the nuances that are also part of it. We visit the unconscious, that is where Shadow Work happens.
Change-up: A process of creating and iterating agreements based on underlying needs, values or desires. The agreements are worked on through various levels of practice, until they become fully integrated as a norm or new way of being. To learn more listen to Monique Allison and Thomas Parker in Episode 78: Surviving Survival Mode – Emerging Out.
Schoolishness: As it is defined at schoolishness.com/: “Conventional practices that are rooted in binaries, and generally accepted by adults, but rejected by children and teenagers, either overtly or covertly. A living out of someone else’s goals or narratives of how and what we should be. Schoolishness models an authoritarian approach to adult-child interaction as well as respectability ideas rooted in the notion of adults’ innate superiority in knowledge.”
Confident Autonomy
Deschooling
Pervasive Whiteness
Subject Sprint
Points of Access (PoFAS): Awareness, disruption, deschooling, unschooling

LIBERATION WALK

Don’t forget that Kelly Limes Taylor’s second course Stories of Our Pasts is now open for enrollment
Download 100 Ways To Be Cosmic! Howard Cosmonaut Palmer's guide for becoming cosmic and learning the path to a Higher Self
Grief, Growth and Goals podcast, hosted by Lou Hollis, is a healing space where we will chat with child talent, parents of talent, bookers, agents, agency owners, industry folk from the business aspect, to life, management and how one stays focused and grounded.
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
If you are hosting or are part of a Raising Free People Book Club please be sure to message Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 193: Developing a Self-directed Mindset Marley Richards on the Emotions and Logistics in Self-directed Teen Life Nov 04, 2020

On this week’s episode you will be privy to an intergenerational conversation between mother and daughter, as our special guest is Marley @mrlamai, unschooler and SDE advocate.

Marley and Akilah talk about some of the ways that the skills that come with self-directedness are translatable in our current context of being at home, as we figure out how to pivot away from scholishness. Marley talks about some of the experiences and differences that she had with friends that have been raised with a conventional schooling mindset in comparison to her unschooling peers.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Emotional skills management

Marley shares what she perceived as a lack of emotional skills management that schoolish people tend to have, the difficulties in communicating emotions, expressing their needs and taking action on those needs. If people come from a place where they have the tools to communicate their emotions, identify boundaries and develop emotional skills management, they’ll be able to nurture healthy and trustworthy relationships with others and themselves.

The skills that are honed in a self-directed practice show up quite usefully in moments of conflict. It’s key to be able to think beyond the reaction and be able to ask questions, and move away from the schoolish mindset of punishing the reaction instead of exploring the cause.

Efficiency vs Long-term relationships

Akilah talks about cooperative leadership, the importance of focusing more on the people that are involved in the processes rather than just thinking about the efficiency factor. They chat about how in SDE you can find ways to have efficiency from a human approach in a long term process. Unschooling needs to be seen not only from an educational framework, but also in how we want things to be developed in our own lives.

Marley also talks about her experience on how to be financially responsible and how she still struggles with the fear of not being capable of managing her money: Scholishness shows up when you are not equipped with the skills that you need to act upon it, by being really hard on yourself.

Think, Ask and Listen

They conclude that self-directedness is developed over time, and is a mindset that is applicable to everyone, though it can look vastly different for each person. A consistent deschooling practice will give you the tools to develop a connection with your emotions, needs, and boundaries, and those of others.

LIBERATION WALK

Connect with Marley on Instagram
Want great content on plants and self care? Come get details from Val and Our Plants of Plant It Up Podcast!
Shout out to Natasha Bazile, of our make-it-happen family! Check her podcast if you want to know more about education & guidance through your real estate transactions
If you are hosting or are part of a Raising Free People Book Club please be sure to message Fatima@raisingfreepeople.com with the details about that book club
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 192: The Other Side of Being the Good Student Makeba Celeste on schoolishness as contrary to authentic self-exploration and healthy intergenerational relationships Oct 28, 2020

Today's liberation talk will be with the amazing Makeba Celeste (@makeba_celeste) as she speaks to how schoolishness, and her life in medicine, limited her capacity for authentic self-exploration and healthy intergenerational relationships.

Makeba is a former medical doctor who turned into an unschooling mother, writer, tap dancer and artist. The former South Londoner and her partner, Soliheen, are raising free people on Ohlone land in what is now called the Bay Area in California.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Scholishness vs Confidence: How parents' expectations can sometimes negatively affect children’s confidence. Young people worry too much about trying to be “perfect” and getting their parents’ approval, later on this can show up as trust issues within one’s self, and one’s capacity to do anything other than what others have deemed you “good at” and “good for”.

Belonging is human: The pressure that a child can have by being put on a pedestal. They feel that they can never fail because they will disappoint everyone. And when they inevitably fail at something, it can feel like their reputation among the people that put them on that pedestal is being tested all the time, which can drive a deeply effective wedge between young people and their adults.. Why? Because these human beings are not being nurtured and respected, but instead left to take care of the other people’s expectations so much that they do not learn how to take care of their (emotional) selves.

Makeba talks about her experience on homeschooling her children, and how they decided to unschool with their first child, he was 1 year old. Years later he was diagnosed with autism and unschooling has really proven to be a great approach for supporting his learning process. They also unschool with their daughter, and Makeba describes the unschooling process as not having to struggle to humanize or limit their learning, for them it has been a liberation-centered approach.

Liberation-centered approach: Scholishness was getting in the way of Makeba’s capacity to thrive, and she talks about which tools helped her in her deschooling processes. She navigated a lot of unsolicited opinions about everything from going vegan while she was pregnant, to who she should date or marry before that. Makeba shares that when she decided to marry a man who was Muslim, she (at the time Christian) was told by her father that it wouldn’t work out because they were “opposed”. Still, Makeba followed her gut and started deciding for herself. That felt liberatory! She could make her own decisions and have her own opinions on things she hadn’t even considered before. She began to see that her life was more than just being a doctor, her identity was far beyond her profession, and so she started self-exploration through the Arts, and empowered herself through different activities including writing, painting, tap dance, and most importantly, authentic joy.

LIBERATION WALK

Check Makeba’s instagram
Shout out to CéShaun and Robyn from Joy and Justice Collaborative. Their community is rooted around anti-oppression efforts in joy and joy-centered action
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes
Get Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 191: Why & How We Unschool Tiersa McQueen on the Importance of the FREE Part in Raising Free People Oct 21, 2020

Episode 191 is all about the deeper work after we accept self-directedness, and get into the layers of transitions, consent, emergent structure, children and trust.

We'll be chatting with Tiersa McQueen, and SDE advocate, wife and working mom of 4 children (including twins), who is serious on how to develop new tools for liberation-centered relationships. We’ll be making mad question’ askin on power, boundaries and decolonization.

“I tweet for the Black married moms who homeschool. We outchea. Unschooler. Gentle parenting.” - Tiersa McQueen

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Digital community and liberation tools: Tiersa talks about how Twitter has given her the opportunity to discuss unschooling as a liberation tool towards she and her husband’s commitment to raising free people.

Intergenerational trauma / intergenerational healing and unschooling: We move forward to Tiersa’s experiences with her four children. She describes her unlearning process as something that happened in a very organic way, by observing her children, checking the way they spent more time in things they were interested in, as opposed to the things she told them to do. It became an ongoing evolution of emerging structure. She also points out the importance of listening, returning to what learning already is, and to relationships with trustworthiness in ourselves and towards children.

Let it be. Intuition, trust and relationships: Akilah and Tiersa talk about the importance of letting things just be, and how something apparently passive can open up so many possibilities. When we don't force any of the learning processes of our children, we can learn from what’s already happening, and develop partnership practices from that space.

Relationships based on power vs trustworthy relationships: They also chat about how conditioned we are under certain structures that are supposed to work out as ideal to educate our children, Tiersa shares how good it’s been for her to unschool her children.

Community and Self-Directed Education - Boundaries and responsibility: Akilah and Tiersa conclude by discussing how freedom includes responsibility, along with intention, therefore we need practice in our home environment to ready our children to be responsible in communal spaces. They talk about unschooling as a series of transitions to get to a deeper relationship, and a means of learning some ways to be supportive while also honoring our and other people’s boundaries.

LIBERATION WALK

Check out Tiersa’s Twitter for great content and more insights on unschooling and self-directed education. Here’s also Tiersa McQueen’s Youtube Channel as another resource!
Unschooling was in the New York Times! In case you missed it, it’s called ‘When You Get Into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion’ by Molly Worthen
Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is available! Get it at rfp.com/book
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 190: Nomad(ing) in Place with Ieishah ‘Nem on travel, observing our daughters, and redefining power Oct 14, 2020

This week on Fare Of The Free Child Podcast we’ll have a mix of resources and liberation talk!

Ieishah Clelland-Lange, writer, nomad and mother of Freeda (7 years old) and Toni (4 years old), will be talking with us about how to redefine power in our parent-child relationships. Thea @theamonyee of Shaping the Shift Podcast talks to us about The Blacker the Brain, the Free Joy Experience, and more opportunities to decolonize, reimagine, and heal. And we close out with a reminder to come see and share with us at RaisingFreePeople.com/book.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Akilah and Ieishah chat about movement, location independence and community. Ieishah shares her traveling experience and how she sees it as a vehicle to learn how to be more engaged with earth and places in a different way. She also talks about how this dynamic changed in our current context and became an opportunity for her to settle into more fluid and meditative ways.

Then they shift the conversation into partnership skills, observation and learning. Ieishah shares her experience before unschooling with Freeda and Toni. They talk about the burdens that we put on children, the expectations on how they’re supposed to manage boundaries and express themselves, and that when this happens, we are using tools of oppression (scholishness and colonization), trying to control their processes. By being aware of our limited knowledge of their process we can open our gaze towards a more observative attitude to look for alternatives. Ieishah experienced this with her daughters and started paying more attention to how they learn and the elements that facilitate the development of that knowledge, the space they needed. By doing so, Toni and Freeda started a process of self-awareness on how to manage their boundaries and understanding that they are allowed to make their own choices. Then they go deep and talk about redefining power in our relationships, what do you do with that power.

They conclude by putting earth and childhood at the center of the discussion recognizing the importance of those two key things, parenting and protecting our children and the earth. What change can we be part of?

LIBERATION WALK

Check on Ieishah Clelland-Lange travel blog, TRAVELKIN. She also wrote an insightful piece: Dying to be seen: The only time white mom groups care about Black lives. Why does it take a Black person’s death to acknowledge Black lives?
Ieishah also wrote a piece for Tipping Points, the online magazine from the Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE)
Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is available! Go to rfp.com/book to get it, and tell Akilah what you were feelin’ or what you discovered or what got you hyped... all of it. She’d love to know!
Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 189: Let’s Talk About Colonized Unschooling Kris Richards & Moji Yai on decolonization in parenting and society Oct 07, 2020

Another Mad Question Askin’ episode! Episode 189 addresses this question from our Make-it-Happen family:

“Hi Akilah and community! Episode 182 with Genesis Ripley (Partnering with Our Pain) was so amazing! I need to listen again so I can absorb all the thought provoking things you both brought up. Akilah, you and Genesis mentioned Colonized Unschooling. I had this idea that if you do Unschooling with your family, especially Radical Unschooling you are automatically on the path to Decolonization. I definitely don’t want to do Colonized Unschooling! What does that mean? I think you and Genesis said something about how Colonized Unschooling is letting your kids do whatever they want and then supporting them. And this is related to the Colonial idea that white people think they own the world and can rape and pillage and dominate without caring how they are harming and impacting the community. So is Colonized Unschooling basically narcissism? What does Decolonized Unschooling look like? We give our kids a lot of freedom and support them in doing pretty much anything they want as long as they aren’t harming themselves, other people or the environment.”

Moji Yai and Kris Richards share their responses as unschooling parents and social justice oriented people. Moji, who we've heard on Episode 168: Resistance + Returning, Episode 62: Deschooling Through Deciding is an unschooling mother and entrepreneur from Benin, West Africa. She recently moved back to Benin after spending much of her youth and adulthood in the U.S. South, and offers women and families space to study, an environment to explore, and a community to gather with, learn, play, and expand knowledge. See Moji’s invitations online at Wise African Woman (WAW). Kris has chatted with us on episodes 186 and 187 on the topic of community and capitalism, if you haven't heard don’t miss them! We’ve also heard Kris talk this season about Deschooling Corporate and Community Relationships and about the Ways Capitalism Invites Indoctrination.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Moji and Kris chat about their perspectives on decolonization and privilege as they relate to unschooling. Moji talks about privilege as ignorance, pointing out the importance of paying attention to pervasive whiteness and how disruptive it is to acknowledge, unlearn and shift away from it, by recognizing it and questioning how the things that gave you that sense of privilege are the things you need to let go of, so that your “privilege” becomes a useful tool for change.

Kris sees privilege as something that the system sets and that we need to be aware of, but also take action upon, starting with introspection. Decolonization is not automatic, it’s intentional mindful work, therefore unschooling could not be “automatic anything-liberation-centered; it must be actionized and acknowledged, and practiced.

They also talk about the connection between scholishness and narcissism. Moji sees schooling as a haven for turning parenting into narcissists, and gives us examples about how this shows up. Decolonized unschooling is not only about the children, it is about the parents too.

Check the full show

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EP 188: Abuse Prevention & Consent Culture with Rosalia Rivera of Consent Parenting Sep 30, 2020

Today’s episode features consent educator, sexual literacy advocate, speaker, founder of Consent Parenting, host of the About Consent Podcast and change agent, Rosalia Rivera. Rosalia works with parents who are survivors of sexual abuse to help them learn and teach proper abuse prevention and consent to their children.

“I'm a mom of 3 little lovely consent-empowered humans between the ages of 4 and 8. It wasn't always like this. They didn't know about consent, boundaries or body safety. They were little chicks and I was the hen that hid them under my wings.⁠ I'm proud of how far they've come and how much more confident I am in their ability to speak up for themselves.⁠” Rosalia Rivera.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Akilah and Rosalia chat about the implications that a lack of bodily autonomy can lead to, as well as the importance of strong foundations in children in terms of mental and body boundaries. Rosalia speaks to the immense value of acknowledging children’s rights to speak up in situations that could make them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, and giving children the tools to speak up about their needs and experiences.

Rosalia also talks about consent culture vs rape culture and how childism indoctrinates children into a notion of following authority without questioning said authority, and how that sets them up for being more easily victimized.

They conclude by noting that effective communication and partnership are what facilitate emergent structure, deep listening, and the capacity to develop and offer tools in support and education around consent culture. The intention is to make sure more adults know how to identify potential predators and help children set boundaries that can lead them into healthy, respecting relationships with others.

LIBERATION WALK

Nervous about screen time? Moji is offering a 3-month course for that! She is offering support to families who are deschooling and raising free people. Tap into some of the insights that Moji gave us back in Episode 168: Resistance + Returning
Unschooling was in the New York Times! Did you see it? It’s called ‘When You Get Into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion’ by Molly Worthen
Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is available! Go to rfp.com/book to get it, and tell Akilah what you were feelin’ or what you discovered or what got you hyped... all of it. She’d love to know!
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Head over to patreon.com/akilah to join our make-it-happen-family and support the show!

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 187: Ways Capitalism Invites Indoctrination Transactions vs Relationships with Kris and Romain Sep 23, 2020

Here is Part 2 of an insightful, intergenerational conversation between Kris @iandidea and Romain (Rom) @pharo___ on the topic of capitalism and community. Both are college graduates with Marketing degrees, so their perspectives on capitalism in particular are nuanced as they work both as people affected by and carrying out some of the notions of capitalism. And they are not alone, as it is virtually impossible to untether from capitalism altogether. Still, we can critique it and we can imagine and build and practice beyond it, and this part of the conversation wants to usher in that type of energy.

This week, they touch on some of the ways capitalism conflicts with our commitment to being in community with each other, and how we can shift and deschool by being more aware of the differences and implications between transactional vs human-centered relationships.

Core question for you: How is capitalism showing up and influencing your relationships with young folks in your life?

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Kris and Rom talk about the importance of recognizing a business entity for what it actually is, which means we must see them as entities, not human beings. By knowing this we can build more human-centered skills, make genuine human connections, begin to deschool our mindsets, and turn community-building into a familiar, effective practice.

They also chat about the differences between communal spaces and businesses. Celebrities and companies have capitalistic based relationships, it’s transactional in that we can’t have two-way conversations, they’re only giving us information, a type of product propaganda, unlike community-based relationships where there is reciprocity and actual listening.

They go on mad question-askin’ on capitalism and how it shows up as indoctrination in that we are led to believe that as long as we stay with the system, we can achieve certain life goals. This directly influences our expectations about what a person should be doing at a certain age: graduating from college, buying a house, owning a car, being busy. How then can we learn how to be in community/partnership and not in a constant transactional dynamic? How does capitalism affect childhood environments and our overall relationships?

LIBERATION WALK

Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work is available! Go to rfp.com/book to get it, and tell Akilah what you were feelin’ or what you discovered or what got you hyped... all of it. She’d love to know!
Get ready for some storytime on patreon.com/akilah, if you ain’t over there yet, come drop your coin in the river and join our make-it-happen-family!
Shout out to Maude and Javaughn and the whole Green Love kitchen crew, one of our fave, local community businesses!
Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors Leslie Bray and Anthony Galloway, Jr. are here to support unschooling and deschooling processes for families and organizations
T-shirts of Raising Free People are here, courtesy of Blue Niles Studios, brother Tovijah, partner of Iitel of @smellg

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 186: Deschooling Corporate and Community Relationships Kris & Romain discuss the effects of capitalism on a social justice mindset Sep 16, 2020

Welcome to another episode of Fare Of The Free Child Podcast. This week, our intention is to expand our understandings of deschooling and self-directedness beyond children and education. So, let’s listen to Part 1 of a conversation between a 20-something freelance marketing and social media consultant and a 40-something year old creative branding entrepreneur about discerning between capitalism and community.

What Kris Richards and Roman Sinclair began to explore in this conversation is that if we go deep and question further, we can begin the level of liberation and healing to redefine and revitalize our relationship dynamics across generations.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

We are so hyped because Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work book is finally here! Please support independent publishing and order Akilah’s book from PM Press.

If you’re hosting a book club around this or you’re hosting a convo around it, Akilah will love to be part of it, so reach out to our Operations Manager, Fatima Mookadam at fatima@raisingfreepeople.com

Kris and Romain talk out loud about their own deschooling around their perspectives on community. They talk about the importance of discernment in those moments when support becomes more of a leveraging that brands use to promote themselves.

Kris points out the importance of connecting with companies as businesses, not communities. If a company wants to help they should know the community, listen to them, understand their realities and see how they can make an impact in a different way, but capitalism doesn't come from a human approach, and we need to know that, and operate accordingly.

LIBERATION WALK

Sending special 101st would-have-been birthday love to my favorite poet, lecturer, performance artist, and activist Dr. Louise Bennett - Coverley, you can read one of her piece, Colonization in Reverse, here
Register for the second course, Stories Of Our Past from the Ours First Series, offered by Kelly Limes-Taylor. Registration begins on October 25. Classes begin on the week of November 8th and ends on the week of December 6th!
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 185: Parenting Paradigm Shifts in Black Families Domari talks about positive and purposeful parenting Sep 09, 2020

Today’s episode is a deschooling conversation with the amazing Domari Dickinson. Domari chats with Akilah about how she became more aware of what it took for her to begin, moving away from a controlling approach and towards more positive and purposeful parenting.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Domari speaks from her own experience as a Black woman on how the resources and theory about homeschooling lacked diversity. She didn’t see herself or her family represented, in homeschooling communities online and in books and podcasts. Domari homeschooled her children for two years before sending them to public school. Her children immediately had conflicts because of the way that their teachers were managing their learning processes, so they asked to go back to homeschooling.

Domari and Akilah also talk about what positive parenting means and how moving from a schoolish setting to a more partner centered way of being allows trust to happen, supporting practices can create an environment where children can feel safe reaching out to their parents.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Deschooling work for adults: Remember that Intuition Work from the Ours First Series, offered by Kelly Limes-Taylor, is now open for registration. Classes begin the week of September 13th and ends the week of October 11th!

From October 2nd to October 4th the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) is hosting their Virtual Conference, Age of Youth! It's happening from the evening of Friday, October 2nd to the evening of Sunday, October 4th. Register at ageofyouth.eventbrite.com.

We are so excited to announce our second Presence Counselor Anthony Galloway, Jr. He focuses on unschooling and deschooling for families and organizations, as well as people looking to create or grow a Self-Directed Education school or center.

LIBERATION WALK

For our stress management is vital to sleep well and rest, shout out to Kim and Jamal Hester from Life Strength & Health holistic center for recommending Akilah Avocado Green Mattress, 100% organic latex, wool and cotton. You as a Fare Of The Free Child listener get a special discount of $215 dollars OFF when you use the code ‘fareofthefreechild’
Book a free consultation with Domari here
Follow Domari on Instagram and Facebook for more healing resources
Want to be part of the Parent Collective to start making the shift? Click here
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Join our Facebook group

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Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 184: Are You Qualified to Support Black Folks Though? Shawna Murray-Browne on decolonizing therapy as liberation work Sep 02, 2020

Today's episode features Shawna Murray-Browne, a community healer and the founder of Kindred Community Healing, licensed clinical social worker. Akilah and Shawna go deep and talk about the skill sets that allow a professional to see the whole person and how the quality of care is not taking into account the whole spectrum, the collective experience, because true healing happens in community. They also talk about collective trauma and what liberation looks like when we decolonize practices that have been rooted from a settler-colonial framework.

Shawna points out the importance of relationship skills and collective healing by remembering our roots, how do we heal collective trauma? It's about thriving, taking therapy out of these containers, these concepts that have been naturalized as an only truth. She started a virtual space for mental health professionals who are looking to liberate themselves and their practices. You can find it on her webinar replay, 6 Crucial Steps to Decolonize Your Therapy Practice. Support and receive more quality content from Shawna, full of black healing, resistance and African psychology on patreon.com/shawnamurraybrowne. You can also find her on Instagram.

We are also sending so much love to the people that have been affected by the multiple troubled and heightened realities happening right now. We are handling so many emotions at once, and it can be exhausting. Deschooling and self-awareness work can keep ourselves at the center of a collective liberation, and being in community can help us thrive in spite of the circumstances that we may be living in our daily context.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

We are so excited because Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work book is almost here, click here to Pre-order.

Don't forget that Kelly Limes-Taylor is offering an opportunity to get closer to self-directed practices through a process (in the form of a course) called Intuition Work.

Another fantastic course, offered by Bayo Akomolafe, is called We Will Dance With Mountains, Let Us Make Sanctuary. Bayo has authored two books, We Will Tell Our Own Story! and These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home. He Also happens to be the Foreword author of Raising Free People's book, and Akilah will be joining Bayo for a session of his course.

Shout out to our Make it Happen Family members! Thanks for all your support and love. If you want to become a member and get more quality content click here.

Akilah was invited by Dr. Shefali Tsabary from Superpowered Summit to a summit event in September, Raising Resilient Kids in the Pandemic and Beyond, where 15 World-renowned Experts teach Resilience skills and mindfulness insights. You can register here!

LIBERATION WALK

Another great resource from Shawna: Dec

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Ep 183: Choosing Learning Over Schooling. Dommie talks about listening to her children and discovering real learning Aug 26, 2020

Today's episode is full of liberation and healing talk with life learner Dominique of DommiesBlessed. She shares some insights on natural learning, which we’re hoping will usher in changes around learning and relationship-building. Check out Dommie’s blog on natural learning.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Before we talk to Dommie, Akilah gives a shout out to entrepreneurs, Kim and Jamal Hester, creators and developers of Life Strength & Health holistic center. Listen to their podcast for more healing work!

Also, as we are raising free people and nurturing self-care habits, check out the latest episode of the She Said We Shed Podcast, hosted by Aja Marie. Click here to subscribe to all five podcasts on Raising Free People Network.

Today, as we deschool with Dominique on the topic of natural learning, we are mad question askin’ about how learning looks and feels. The intention inside this episode is discover, or perhaps explore, a more intuitive and self-directed way of imagining and practicing self-care. Self-care is a key aspect that needs to be nurtured if willing to raise a free person, it’s fundamental for healing and liberation work.

Dominique shares the experience that she had with a more schoolish setting for her children and how she ended up homeschooling them for the best. She also talks about how natural learning shows up for families as healing work and the importance of focusing on practical life skills, paying attention to what your children are passionate about and what their strengths are, so that we can learn how to support learning in a holistic way. Natural learning as the enhancement of our human skills and love centered guidance from family and from lots of different places.

In parent-children relationships we see a partnership. Learning is something that’s done together and the practices and skills that both develop also need to be mindful on how to take care of each other, the process of taking care of our children as we take care of ourselves. Co-learning with our children as a collaborative approach based on trust.

Click here to get 40% off the signed, special edition hardcover of Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work! First, go to "Format," then you'll see the arrow for the drop-down menu. Then, click that drop-down menu arrow and then select the "Signed hardcover" format. Type "unschooling" (no quotation marks) in the coupon code section to activate the discount. You will get 40% off the signed, special edition hardcover.

LIBERATION WALK

In episode 182 Chemay Morales-James from My Reflection Matters community, shared My Reflection Matters Village, a virtual co-learning community for primarily BIPOC families that can be looking for support in raising and educating free people
Don't forget that the amazing Kelly Limes-Taylor is offering a course series called The Ours First Series
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate
Subscribe to Akilah’s

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 182: Genesis Ripley on Partnering with Our Pain. Modern Shadow Work in Conscious Parenting Aug 19, 2020

Episode 182 is a mix of communal spaces, tools, resources and of course liberation talk. Genesis Ripley will be joining us to chat about shadow work and the importance of being more aware of our unconscious as we are moving into a more self-directed way of being. Genesis is an LA-based mother, natural learning advocate, decolonizer by design and unschooler momma.

We’ll also be sharing some great resources and invitations to continue through this healing and self awareness process, and you’ll hear from Kelly Limes-Taylor and Chemay Morales-James about ways to do that work.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Kelly Limes-Taylor, is a former college professor and unschooler mother of five. Kelly speaks about the relevance in naming our failed structures and how these structures, built on a settler-colonial framework, are reinforced through conventional schooling. Kelly points out the importance of trusting our intuition and brings us a valuable resource: she is offering a course series called The Ours First Series in order to help adults to settle into the practice of listening to their intuition and themselves for their own answers.

Another communal space shared by Chemay Morales-James from My Reflection Matters community, is a virtual co-learning community for primarily BIPOC families that can be looking for support in raising and educating free people. My Reflection Matters Village seeks to create a virtual space that supports caregivers that may be wanting or are already on the path of self-directed education with their children, offering access to resources that can help them in their deschooling processes.

Akilah and Genesis have a conversation full of layers on the topic of liberation and healing work as it relates to the unconscious. Self-directed skills to embody the level of confident autonomy in partnership with children.

Genesis shares the importance of Shadow Work and why we can't continue to contemplate the world in a binary spectrum, ignoring the nuances, ignoring the shadows that are also part of it. She also points out the importance of diversity as sacred, intellectualizing the plights and issues without the people involved is to dehumanize and undermine the voices that need to be heard.

LIBERATION WALK

Genesis wrote an insightful piece emphasizing anti-Blackness called Essay: Shadow Work as Embodied Anti-Racism Work
Check out Genesis’ previous episode: Episode 39: Mask-Free Relationships
Pre-order Akilah’s Raising Free People book here
Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Join our Facebook group

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 181: Defining Liberation & Keeping It Intact. Aug 12, 2020

Welcome back, homies (and new homies, too)! Y’all ready for season 5? In today’s episode Akilah shares ideas and invitations for what’s to come in the new season of Fare Of The Free Child.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Akilah talks about deschooling and unschooling, not as something we learn from a curriculum nor a thing we perform, but as a way of being. It’s through the experiences and different points of view that we get to understand the otherness, question our own truths as part of a liberation work, and work at understanding more than being understood. She touches on the naming and shrinking the ways that we've been forced to separate things in a schoolish way, and how that needs to be decolonized, not only in our learning process but in our relationships overall. We have the capacity and resources to thrive and heal through these embodiment practices, so this season will be all about the ways we have done that, and can do it more, and in community.

We’ve also got more goodness in store through Raising Free People Network’s Presence Counselors. Besides Leslie Bray who will be doing one-on-one support for the people transitioning from schoolish to self-directed ways of living and learning, there are a couple of new folks in the mix, including more collaborations with Maleka Diggs and some incredible offerings by Kelly Limes-Taylor.

Lastly, here’s the big invitation: We need your help to share more local stories, experiences, conversations to know what is happening with self-directedness in different places. If you're willing to send voice messages to Akilah's team so that your local raising free people work can be shared with the Fare of the Free Child community, click here.

LIBERATION WALK

Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Join our Facebook group

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 180: Partnership Practice with Plants Indoor Plant Tips from Plant It Up Podcast Jul 29, 2020

We are so ready for some indoor plant tips from Plant It Up Podcast. As a close-out for the fourth season we decided to do one more episode with @valandourplants - you’re welcome :) And remember, Akilah will be back on August 12th with Season 5! In the meantime, listen as Val (Akilah’s resident plant lady who also happens to be her Mama!) talks about the importance of having plants at home and shares some of her favorites, along with the many benefits of each one. There’s a special appearance by Marley Richards too, ‘cause we ‘bout that intergenerational life! Enjoy!

LIST OF PLANTS MENTIONED:

Peace Lily, Rubber Tree Plant, Bamboo Plant: purify the air in the home and remove toxins from paint

Lavender: improves sleep quality

Mint (Spearmint and peppermint): great for teas and drinks

Rosemary: great scent and helps with memory

Spider Plant, English Ivy, Philodendrons: remove formaldehyde from the air at home

Aloe Vera, Pothos Plant: maintain the quality of the air in the home

Snake Plant: absorbs carbon dioxide inside the home

Palm plant: provides more oxygen and reduces dust levels at home

Orchids: beautifies the look and feel of the home

LIBERATION WALK

Subscribe to Val’s Youtube Channel and Pinterest page
Listen to the first episode of Plant it Up Podcast: 'Cause Ginger Roots Brings Her Joy
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Join our Facebook group

Support the show

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Ep 179: Season 5 Appetizers with Kris & Akilah. Celebrating 4 years by resting... and recording Jul 22, 2020

Welcome to the fourth season finale of Fare of the Free Child! Today’s episode features Kris Richards, he and Akilah will be talking about some upcoming surprises and topics for the fifth season.

We also shout out the members of our Make It Happen Family; thank you all for your comments and support! Akilah just saw more than a hundred comments on her Youtube Channel, particularly from the How Good Morning America Got Unschooling Wrong video, some of them from you, dear family! Thanks for that, and be sure to subscribe for more information and conversations about love and liberation work.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Akilah will be taking a little break but the podcast will be back on August 12th with more amazing content.

We wanted to thank all the listeners for the messages and support we got for our zeroversary. We are excited to have new people coming in for season 5 as well as some of our previous guests like Moji Yai, Maleka Diggs, and Kelly Henderson.

Kris and Akilah give us a sneak peak of some of the topics that will be part of next season. They go deep and chat about how unschooling can’t be seen just as an alternative for education but as part of a healing and liberation process that is not only up for children but also for parents in order to connect with different perspectives and create opportunities for communal growth and self discovery. They want to offer tools and resources for both people that may be in a phase of discovery and people that have lived this as an everyday struggle throughout their lives.

Akilah talks about the importance of intergenerational connection, looking back at our ancestors and the self. We can learn how to be in community, young and elder, with an exchange of knowledge and not as a controlling approach. Discerning between the moments when support becomes more sort of a leveraging way brands use to promote themselves, capitalism and community... these and many more topics will be discussed in the new season.

The Homeschool Association of California is having their 30th annual Conference, this will be celebrated from August 6 to 9 through a virtual platform. For the past three years Akilah and her family have been involved and invited. This time Akilah will be doing two workshops, one called ”Shifting from schooling to Self-Directed”, and another one called ”Deschooling our Communications, practical practices for being a better listener to children and teens”. Check it out here.

Check out our Liberation Walk in the full show notes page.

Support the show

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Ep 178: From Schoolish to Self-directed. Transitioning away from colonized life skills Jul 10, 2020

We are so hyped about today's episode because the day of publishing, July 10th, marks our zeroversary, the 4-year anniversary of Episode 0! It's been quite a journey since Akilah started Fare of the Free Child podcast back in the summer of 2016. Even though it started from a painful place, we feel so very thankful to the community that has come from this podcast—our listeners and members of our Make it Happen Family—for the support and love through all these years. Here you can listen to Episode 0, Welcome and Why This Show, where it all began. Today, in the middle of some painful realities, we hold on to ways to move outside these injustices. We stay resilient through happiness, not afraid to speak up, from a space of awareness and love. We invite you to celebrate that with us today, doing whatever feels good for you.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Akilah recently launched From Schoolish to Self-directed, an audio course in support of the transition that many are experiencing as this pandemic ushers in a swift shift from conventional learning ideas over to innovative ones that center people and learning in various ways, using technology and creativity more than memorization and predefined curriculum.

To celebrate four years of Fare Of The Free Child, Akilah announces Raising Free People Network's first Presence Counselor, Leslie Bray, who you already have heard from and will be joining us on today’s episode. Leslie is a community organizer and will be doing one-on-one support for the people transitioning from schoolish to self-directed ways of living and learning. Here you can listen to previous episodes with Leslie giving us some insights: Self-Care + Sacred Space and Leslie Talks Conscious Community Collectives.

Akilah and Leslie chat about boundaries and self-care as we are constantly deschooling, not necessarily transitioning.

Part of the conditioning that we carry based on a schoolish mindset is the comparison. We’ve all been indoctrinated at different levels, and much of this conditioning comes from a colonized space. Comparing yourself and your children with others and their processes will duplicate a schoolish setting at home. Leslie invites us to put self-care (ours and our children’s) above all of these insecurities.

Observe, ask, and listen, that is how you get to support, facilitate and advocate for your children. It is not true that being self-directed means that children have to figure out everything by themselves. The key is to figure out when is enough for you as a parent to help and advocate for them, by establishing boundaries in order to nurture self-care skills. Leslie also points out that we need different things at different times, as we are dynamic also our behaviors and practices at home will depend on each person and circumstances. Everyone is different but we all need communal support. You have to want to be free, you have to want to learn, and be willing to question everything you thought as part of your liberation work.

LIBERATION WALK

Book a free consult for Presence Counseling with Leslie Bray.
Shoutout to Shawna Murray-Browne, community healer and founder of Kindred Community Healing. Here you ca

Support the show

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Ep 177: Control Issues & Learning to Let Go Jul 01, 2020

Episode 177 features podcaster Howard Cosmonaut Palmer. His podcast explores inner universes through mindful guided meditation. Today Cosmo gives us some tools to center both harmony and joy, important aspects of our liberation work. Find his podcast: Only Black Cosmonaut

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Our lives are under a constant saturation of feelings and thoughts as a result of a subconscious conditioning from a schollish framework and due to the exhaustion in our daily context. Cosmo talks about learning how to be in control has been the biggest part of our conditioning, it’s in the acceptance and letting go that we can find peace within ourselves.

The hardest part of this conditioning are the expectations that we put on people and situations in life. Cosmo uses the juggler as an analogy in life, we are the jugglers that happen to be managing multiple realities and pains at the same time. In order to handle this, we can learn to trust our inner selves, relying on intuition and letting go the fear of not being able to handle all at once.

LIBERATION WALK

Shoutout to Shawna Murray-Browne, community healer and founder of Kindred Community Healing. Here you can find her webinar replay, 6 Crucial Steps to Decolonize Your Therapy Practice.
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp.com. In our Black and in broader BIPOC communities, self-care, community care, mental health care—the need and means to prioritizing these—are encouragingly increasing in conversation. In Akilah’s search for that, she has found that s Betterhelp.com has been a great resource for her mental health. She was able to center her preferences and only choose from mental health professionals who, at base, wouldn’t seem to be in conflict or out of context for my particular beliefs and preferences. Explore for yourself, and use this link Betterhelp.com because Fare of the Free Child Podcast subscribers have 10% off in their first month. #sponsored #verified
Join our Facebook group.
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 176: ‘Cause Ginger Root Brings Her Joy Jun 24, 2020

Last episode Akilah talked about the importance of our capacity of resistance and the relevance of trusting our dynamic selves in order to find balance to center our joy. Today’s episode is about Black Joy, and how happiness can be understood as a way of liberation and activism.

Can joy be a radical way of resistance?

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Marley, Akilah’s daughter, shares some thoughts on Black Joy and how she perceives happiness as a way of resistance. The way Black people live their lives doesn’t have to be a constant struggle, people are capable of having multiple feelings. Joy and happiness can be a conduit through liberation.

We then listen to the first episode from Plant It Up, a podcast hosted by Val Sinclair, Akilah’s mom, where she celebrates the power and pleasure of plants.

Beyond the health benefits and plant-care advice, these stories are related to self-care and liberation work practices that lead us towards a better understanding of human relationships and our connection with nature. In this episode, Akilah and Val chat about their experiences with ginger as a nutritional and medicinal source.

This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp.com. In our Black and in broader BIPOC communities, self-care, community care, mental health care—the need and means to prioritizing these—are encouragingly increasing in conversation. Maybe you, yourself, have been thinking about what’s interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals. In Akilah’s search for that, she has found that s Betterhelp.com has been a great resource for her mental health. She was able to center her preferences and only choose from mental health professionals who, at base, wouldn’t seem to be in conflict or out of context for my particular beliefs and preferences. Explore for yourself, and use this link Betterhelp.com because Fare of the Free Child Podcast subscribers have 10% off in their first month. #sponsored #verified

LIBERATION WALK

Be sure to follow Shawna Murray-Browne, community healer and founder of Kindred Community Healing. Here you can find her webinar replay, 6 Crucial Steps to Decolonize Your Therapy Practice.
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
Join our Facebook group.
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 175: Resources for the Real Feels Jun 17, 2020

Ways we’re sharing our feelings and experiences
Last week we took a pause in our Deschooling Release Party to address everything that was happening with the protests and related feelings. That same week another life, that of Rayshard Brooks, was taken by violent police officers. It feels necessary to take some space and talk about it, and we’re gonna take however long we feel is needed. As we talked about in the last episode, these disruptive times make us more reflective, but also can fill us with emotions that can turn/become overwhelming. In order to provide more communal spaces and healing resources, Akilah is offering more invitations and tools that can help with breaking the patterns of oppression, in resistance, from a space of love, education and self-care. The main message in this episode is this: discussing and sharing is important, but action is vital to our capacity to thrive.
Find the complete show notes page with useful resources at https://www.raisingfreepeople.com/175/

LIBERATION WALK

Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
Join our Facebook group.
Akilah’s book Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work signed hardcover edition is now available. Publishers said since we’re out here selling pre-orders, let’s offer something special. Enter the coupon code unschooling for a 40% discount. When you go to the webpage to pre-order, you'll see the "format" dropdown menu where the default item is the paperback. Click that dropdown menu and then select the "Signed hardcover" format.
This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp.com. In our Black and in broader BIPOC communities, self-care, community care, mental health care—the need and means to prioritizing these—are encouragingly increasing in conversation. Maybe you, yourself, have been thinking about what’s interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals. In Akilah’s search for that, she has found that s Betterhelp.com has been a great resource for her mental health. She was able to center her preferences and only choose from mental health professionals who, at base, wouldn’t seem to be in conflict or out of context for my particular beliefs and preferences. Explore for yourself, and use this link Betterhelp.com because Fare of the Free Child Podcast subscribers have 10% off in their first month. #sponsored #verified

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 174: Not That Kind of Tired. These Racist Patterns Ain’t Pullin’ Me Down Jun 10, 2020

In today's episode we are making a pause from our Deschooling Release Party Vol. 2. Akilah addresses anti-blackness and its consequences. These disruptive times are making us more aware and reflective, and we have so many reminders and invitations to be more present.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

In the summer of 2016 Akilah was starting Fare Of The Free Child, a podcast with the purpose of amplifying the underrepresented voices and unique concerns of Black people and other people of color, looking for viable alternatives to oppressive systems, ways to practice more self-directed ways. This was also a result of the communications that were happening when Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were lynched by the police.

Akilah shares her story about the first direct physical encounter with a violent police officer in her early teen years. This shows as a continuous pattern, Philando and Alton back in 2016, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, history repeats itself. Akilah talks about how this gets her tired.

It’s in the collective, in the stories of the unheard, of the ancestral knowledge, that we can hold on and speak out, inspire change and demand that shit, too. Live into it despite attempts to dehumanize and colonize.

Mad Question-Askin’

What are some ways that you are being supported right now?

Where are some spaces or relationships that you are being supportive right now?

Akilah shares some episodes that she believes can be supportive right now.

LIBERATION WALK

Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
Here's Maleka, Melissa and Bria’s Deschooling Group.
Deschooling: It’s A Thing!, an Eclectic Learning Network project, a global, monthly, virtual meetup for caregivers who are committed to explore ways to shift their parenting practices.
Check out Akilah’s article, Fear of the Free Black Child – Alternatives to Fear-Based Parenting Amid Police Violence.
Join our Facebook group.
Pre-order Akilah’s book.
This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp.com. In our Black and in broader BIPOC communities, self-care, community care, mental health care—the need and means to prioritizing these—are encouragingly increasing in conversation. Maybe you, yourself, have been thinking about what’s interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals. BIPOC people are so interested in healing, that we are discerning the ways that therapy and mental health support needs decolonization so that it isn’t harmful and IS in fact effective for us. In Akilah’s search for that, she has found that Betterhelp has been a great resource for her mental health. She was able to center her preferences and only choose from mental health professionals who, at base, wouldn’t seem to be in conflict or out of context for my particular beliefs and preferences. There is a broad range of expertise in the Betterhelp Counselor Network. Explore for yourself, an

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP:173 - To Pause or To Pivot? Danii Oliver on the power of intuitive pause Jun 03, 2020

Message from Akilah

“I felt compelled to bring the sounds of my current city into this episode. I literally missed my deadline to submit the raw audio, because Spirit said Don’t record that intro in the corner of your closet, Sis. Instead, open your window, let the city sound off while you try to speak to some of what you’re feeling. I obeyed. And later that evening, the voices and emotions of the people of Atlanta sounded off too, in the form of peaceful protest. I was able to see some of it from our apartment, and I watched with Kris, Marley, and Sage, swaying in between a stream of emotions ranging from anger to exhaustion. I didn’t know that the audio I was called to document, to hold, would be the calm before yet another storm here in the American South. Peaceful protests were interrupted by police; humans raged; the government retaliated; helicopters and curfews circled the city; more rage, more fear, more resistance.

Anti-Black racism and the myth of white supremacy are present and prevalent now, as has always been the case in this country. And while some shit stays the same--violent, horrific, hateful--some things are changing, too. Where are you finding positive change around you? Seek it out, amplify it, fixate if you need to. Do what you can to remind yourself that storms come and go, but we have, and will always, find ways to weather them, and eventually to thrive despite them. I believe that. I believe in Black people. I believe that we can organize and plan and divest and dismantle and learn and lead and listen and love our way to liberation.” #blacklivesmatter

In this fifth deschooling release party session we talk with Danii Oliver, mother of two children, unschooler and owner of the Natural Beverage Brands: Island to Island Brewery, House of Juice and Brooklyn Jun Brew. Until now we had been focusing on the pivot and what is deschooling causing to pivot away from. This time Danii tells us about how she gave it a different approach, she realized that for her, pivoting wasn’t liberation, she decided to do something else instead.

Akilah talks about the importance of communal spaces and shares Deschooling: It’s A Thing!, an Eclectic Learning Network project, a global, monthly, virtual meetup for caregivers who are committed to explore ways to shift their parenting practices. This was made in joint effort with the Alliance for Self-Directed Education.

Community bonds us and makes us aware of the importance to pause and nurture ourselves. Akilah shares her experience joining in one of the community sessions with Nikolai and Takiema from Raising Readers, they give us great resources on Self-Directed Education and self care.

This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp.com. Akilah shares Betterhelp.com/fareofthefreechild as a resource for mental health. FOFC subscribers have 10% off in their first month.
Here's Danii on episode 149, Self-Reclamation and Self-Directed Education.
Here's Danii’s Instagram.
Pre-order Akilah’s book.

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

Ep 172: Raider As Ritual. Melinda Alexander on mothers, sons & sovereignty May 27, 2020

Welcome to the fourth Deschooling Release Party (DRP) session, a celebration of our commitment to unlearning oppression in our relationships with children and Self. Volume I was about self-care and this one (Volume II) is about pivoting from fear and panic over into what we're being guided to do.

Melinda Alexander will be joining us to talk about the role in ritual in her mothering. More recently, she and her son Raider, started transitioning from schoolishness to unschooling.

“If you travel down a long ass road and find the intersection— of art, feminism, fashion, Buddhism, social justice and motherhood— you’ll find me standing there in a MuMu, having a yard sale, raising money for Black Lives Matter.” - Melinda Alexander

Melinda is an LA-based mother, activist, and entrepreneur. Influenced by her parents work as longtime anti-racist, civil rights organizers, both art and social justice kept at her center.

After having her baby in a tumultuous transition/divorce, her life changed. The work she does now, which she calls Women’s Work, helps other women find their voice as part of a liberation and unlearning process, “Getting Free”.

Melinda is raising Raider, her Black son in an anti-Black power structure, with a feminist, social justice-oriented focus.

WHAT WE DISCUSS

Akilah and Melinda talk about the questions that are driving us in the direction of commiting to raising free people and how deschooling and unlearning show up in that experience.

Raider was depressed and did not get used to the school structure. Melinda saw this and advocated for her son by emailing the teachers, it ultimately ended up in them transitioning to unschooling.

In her own experience as a former school teacher, Melinda shares some insights on how a scoolish structure can limit the children in certain contexts. Intrinsic value is not possible in a school setting, unless you are completely self-directed. Based on the pursuit of validation (did I do well?), the children have never been given a choice and always have been told what to do, and how to do it. By the time they finish school, they don’t know anything about themselves.

They conclude that partnership and listening are what facilitate an emergent structure. The child is the curriculum and the parents are the facilitators, both are students and teachers.

Thank you for your feedback on episode 170, we are always happy to hear from all of you! We were honoring mothering in its various forms and also launching our family of podcasts.

LIBERATION WALK

In order to continue through this journey of healing and self awareness process we invite you to subscribe to all five podcasts on Raising Free People Network, our liberation work platform.

Join our Facebook group.
Head over to Melinda’s website and instagram for more musings on love and liberation.
Pre-order Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work!
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 171: Black Child, You Are Seen May 20, 2020

If you enjoy this podcast, this is your kind of reading! Pre-order Akilah’s book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work!

We are back with our Deschooling Release Party sessions, Volume II. In today’s episode Akilah talks with Natalie Pipkin, founder of Black World Schoolers and Pulse Project Indy, a drumming community that promotes social, cultural and emotional development in vulnerable spaces. Her project seeks to disrupt dominant oppressive narratives, providing an environment of psychological empowerment through cultural awareness.

WHAT WE DISCUSS:

Natalie, like Kelly did in episode 169, tells us very early on what she’s noticing is actually stuff she has always felt, but feels uniquely compelled during this time, to pivot away from just noticing, over to acting upon.

Natalie talks about problematic elements of the focus on Black Excellence and the dynamics that are involved when that excellence is rooted in white supremacy.

Akilah and Natalie then go further and chat about the realities of unschooling as a privileged space, in some regards. They talk about how unschooling is not an option for all families, not every home is a safe environment, and if oppression at home exists, schools can become an escape from a tougher reality, there’s a certain privilege in choosing to homeschool.

LIBERATION WALK

Check out Black Worldschoolers and their Storytime Hotline: 1-844-950-1811.

Here you can find Natalie’s drumming community Pulse Project Indy and their blog.

Make sure you head over to Maleka’s Patreon to see some webinar series that she’s been working on as a support for parents during these unusual times.

Chill out and jam along with the rhythm of Buju Banton “Mr Nine”.

Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.

Support the show at patreon.com/akilah

Join our Facebook group.

Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

EP 170: Audio Liberation Introductions May 10, 2020

We’re interrupting our Deschooling Release Party flow to focus on the energy of Mother’s Day. In this episode, Akilah and Aja will talk about the four mothers whose new are coming to join Fare of the Free Child on Raising Free People Network: Val Sinclair, Katrina Monique, Lou Hollis, and Aja herself.

Aja chats with us about her relationship with motherhood and how it can impact our leadership and relationships. Her podcast, She Said, We Shed is a journey of discovery throughout the dynamics of what mothering can mean, and how types of mothering vary drastically, including the reality of Black Mama Trauma. We also introduce Plant It Up, a podcast where Val, Akilah’s mom, shares how the practices and dynamics of taking care of plants can be related to our own ways of interacting and connecting with the people around us. These stories are related to self-care and liberation work, a set of topics that lead us toward better understandings of human relationships.

One of the other mamas is Katrina, whose podcast, How She Got Free, is inspired by a book that she and Akilah wrote together. Her podcast is designed to show us the benefits of sometimes speaking out from wounded spaces, it can be part of how we generate healing for ourselves and invite others to acknowledge and name their own healing needs too.

How to be empowered when you don’t feel like yourself, to make a pause in your life and manage it after an altering shift? With “Grief, Growth, and Goals” the fifth podcast on the Raising Free People Network, Lou shares her experience after making massive changes in her life, the process of healing through self talk and embracing her vulnerability.

Liberation and deschooling are inextricably linked, as the result of a joint work, based on experiences that had shaped ourselves and others in order to contribute on a healing and self awareness process and to continue on this journey we invite you to subscribe to all five podcasts on Raising Free People Network.

LIBERATION WALK

Listen to Aja’s Podcast She Said, We Shed and subscribe to her email list at shesaidweshed.
Join Katrina’s community, How She Got Free.
Here you can preorder my new book Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work.
Some insights from Aja on previous episodes, Healing Black Mama Trauma, The Practice of Reparenting Ourselves, Deschooling Intergenerational Trauma as Daughter & as Mother.
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Join our Facebook group

Support the show

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EP 169: The Chance to Go Further May 06, 2020

At the top of this episode, I share the pre-order status for my book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work! If you enjoy this podcast, this is your kinda reading party right here. Pre-order your copy today.

In this second deschooling release party session, we will be sharing thoughts with college professor and unschooler mother of five, Kelly Limes Taylor about the effects of our current times on all institutions, schooling and leadership issues being among the plights that we are urgently being called, as a society to face.

Kelly invites us to consider the ways that our own patterns in life are often conduits for deeply valuable lessons. She shares her experience as a single mom, moving from a metropolitan area to a small town, moving on from divorce, and holding space, as an educator, for students who are feeling overwhelmed by the sudden shift in how education, outside of conventional school context, is being handled today.

Kelly also speaks to the relevance of naming our failed structures, and how these structures, built on a settler-colonial framework, were not sustainable to begin with, and yet are reinforced through conventional schooling. Indeed, what learning actually is, and how it happens is not seen as a human approach, does not work in a reciprocal way, and we can’t limit that to academics, we are talking about connection of the whole self, not just the information-gathering self.

Here’s an opportunity to relearn and reinventate; to observe all the ways the structures we’ve held on to are crumbling; here’s an invitation to notice a space to pivot and to heal.

Image Credit:

Photos of Kelly by I. and C. Tiller (her daughters)

LIBERATION WALK

Listen to Kelly on Episode 105 (Love, Trust & Identity).
Call Kelly by phone 706.314.9225; here’s her blog.
Check on Kelly’s 2020 Voyage ATL Interview.
Latinx Parenting supports parents in raising children with compassion & connection, while honoring ancestral roots, values, and strengths. Leslie Priscilla (Leslie Arreola Hillenbrand), wrote this epic piece with mad resources and zero sugar coating. Give Leslie her flowers.
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate.
Support the show at patreon.com/akilah
Join our Facebook group

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EP 168: Resistance & Returning Apr 29, 2020

This is the first episode of the Deschooling Release Party, Volume II for 2020. Today we will focus on the pivot, what is deschooling causing to pivot away from, especially during these particularly disruptive times. We’ll hear from Moji Yai, my sisterfriend from Benin, West Africa, who was raised in north Florida, and is now raising herself and her 10 year old daughter, Sena, in between the US and her home land, Benin.

Moji opens our dialogue with a bit of her story on how she was led to turpentine, tapped from sap trees, and used to be part of the labor of enslaved Africans. Turpentine gum or gum spirits of turpentine, has been among the healing arsenal of brilliant black folks who have nurtured their relationships with plants and soil. They knew what plants to use and combine for many of the effects of their constant overexposure to the elements.

The relationship that carries upon going back, returning to the origins to understand what might be forgotten or buried makes us pivot away from established systems, rooting through an intuitive-self that works in a collective way. Deschooling is about creating, creating new relationships and rethinking everything. Moji’s experience of returning to Africa with her daughter gave her another perspective, by interacting with the people, creating communication channels, observing, asking and having conversations without assumptions about the behavior or character that africans are said to have, a look without judgment, from a more human approach.

As Moji describes, learning to live with your child is a beautiful thing, the way you talk to them and behave with them, among other things is going to be carried into adulthood, so, the way that you’re gonna gain the tools for communicating without control, violence, manipulation and so on are the key to sustain a healthy partnership.

Be sure to check out Moji’s Upcoming Webinar (May 13) about the history and use of Pure Gum Turpentine.

LIBERATION WALK

Here’s Moji’s Wellness Spiral Podcast Series produced by RFP Network back in the summer of 2018, June to August, beginning with a brilliant episode entitled Disrupting our Disturbing Eating Habits

Moji is working on reclaiming Indigenous healing practices that benefit communities in Benin and the diaspora; here her blog, and her Instagram.

If you wanna remember our first Deschooling Party, here is Moji giving us some insights

Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 – Please donate

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Join our Facebook group

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EP 167: They Said Schoolish Unschooling! Apr 21, 2020

This episode was supposed to be the first of the Deschooling Release Party, Volume II. However, today’s episode features Marley and Sage, in response to an article from Good Morning America, and how their unschooling coverage got it all wrong.

Earlier this month, the ABC Television produced a show and published a blog post about unschooling titled “I tried unschooling and here’s what happened.” I am cited in that article, and talked with the person that wrote this; I just didn’t know that it was for her to try out unschooling. In short, the article was problematic, so I wanted to address it in some kind of way, especially during this time at home with so many options for parents to put unschooling among their activities and as an opportunity for connection and growth.

The problem with that article wasn’t about showing her first experience or describe what she learned, it was about framing it, and put it in as the concept of what unschooling is, ignoring the nuances and processes that lead someone to unschool and the level of compromise and dedication that Self Directed Education has.

It wasn't taking into account several variables, the fact that it’s a self directed way of educational process guided upon the children’s natural interest, trust and some levels of access that are in their environment, the relationship that is forged with the people and life itself.

Unschooling can be described as a partnership that will offer ideas that the child can accept or refuse, it’s about a dialectical process. The questions that might pop up are placed from an empowered space where the unschooler will offer ways in support of that, as we cannot frame people neither their learning process, it’s a constant resignification.

Expertise is developed over time, observe, listen and ask.

The second part of the episode is the audio from a video response I did to the GMA article, you can watch it here.

Join our Facebook group for people committed to raising free people.

LIBERATION WALK

Share the response video about unschooling on your social media pages.
Organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help for Atlanta’s BIPOC families affected by COVID-19 - Please donate.

Support the show at patreon.com/akilah

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Ep 166: Resources for Connection & Confidence Apr 16, 2020

This episode is a combination of resources and links to invitations that will help you as we are raising free people:

My dear friend Trelani Michelle, writer, storyteller, and founder author of Krak Teet, shares her experience with her 10-year-old daughter, Kobe, in response to my question about some of the wonderful, deschoolish things we might be noticing nowadays.

If you pay attention, you’ll notice how Self Directed Education helps to build healthy self-governance skills for our children, like Trelani mentioned. It can also, as you’ll hear from Racquel in this episode, usher in changes in the experiences around the learning and relationship-building process among siblings, when connection is left to be more organic, less imposed, and more of a partnership.

These and other stories are the reflection of the opportunities that we can take advantage of, to see what is forming and being discovered among the families. Such insights make us aware and move us towards a more reflective attitude, because sometimes we do need a disruption in our harmony as a reminder for how to better our self care habits.

Another way of connecting during this time of social distancing is through some digital tools that can help you with self direction during these hard times. Here’s one such resource from Chemay Morales James and the My Reflection Matters fam; they are having upcoming zoom events that can guide you through.

Unfortunately the pandemic is affecting the most vulnerable people, don’t forget that organizations like Metro Atlanta Mutual Aid Fund are organizing collective help. Please donate.

Also, Tipping Points is an online magazine from the Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE), and are constantly sharing resources on their Facebook and Twitter pages, newsletter, and forums, so be sure to tap into those.

ASDE is also developing a page specifically devoted to resources to support parents at this time, and to specifically support parents who are struggling with conventional schooling-at-home and want to find connection and support in shifting how they view education. If that is something they are looking for, or if you have any ideas for resources to share on this page, please send them to ASDE through bria@self-directed.org

LIBERATION WALK

Go and listen up my audio course, where I talk about unschooling and self directedness for your family.
Check out this list of 16 online culturally responsive educational tools.
Look for our sisterfriend Maleka Diggs webinar series: Supporting Parents During Uncertain Times.
Don’t forget to leave me a voice memo right here on the site.
Email me: she@akilahsrichards.com
Message me in our

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Ep 165: Social Distancing, Community Style Apr 02, 2020

We’ve got three important invitations for you:

Deschooling Release Party :: This year's theme is The Pivot

Two Locations:

Right here on FOFC Podcast and inside FOFC FB Group for post-episode conversations.

I'll drop the dates on social media and share them with you here when I confirm them, but we're definitely starting this month, April, 2020, so stay tuned.

2. A Request for Your “Noticing “Stories

Join me in amplifying stories of the wonderful or insightful things you may be noticing now that your child is at home more often. I am curating a collection of stories about how, during these days of unexpected, and for some, undesired, school at home situations, some parents or caregivers are noticing little WONDERFUL WAYS that learning is happening, joy is happening, fear is subsiding, in relation to their child. I want to hear your moments:

- leave me a voice memo on raisingfreepeople.com

- email me: she@akilahsrichards.com

- message me in our Facebook group or on Instagram (@fareofthefreechild)

3. Y’all Alright? A Complimentary Check-In hosted by Maleka Diggs of ELN for ASDE

One of the communities I appreciate, and continually learn and grow with is The Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE). We recently decided to hold space for folks to share some of their feelings and experiences right now with this unexpected, and in some cases, undesired “being at home together all the time” situation. We’re checking in on how this is affecting young people and adults right now, and trying to get more clear about ways to be helpful. FOFC Family member, Maleka Diggs of ELN, will facilitate that discussion coming up this month, April, and I will be there listening and deepening, and would LOVE to have you sitting in that Zoom room right beside me! Be sure to follow Maleka online and keep listening to FOFC for the exact date and time, once that’s confirmed.

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Ep 164: SDE for a Socially Just World Mar 25, 2020

Dr. Sundiata is an Independent Educator, Anti-Oppression Activist, & Social Sustainability Facilitator. He is the co-creator of GROW, a network of people and initiatives designed to promote and create social, economic, and political systems centered on Liberation, Sustainability, and Unconditional Love. He is passionate about helping people discover the power of Authentic Dialogue, a communication framework that leverages complex issues in personal relationships and organizations to help them generate solutions that foster deeper understanding, cohesiveness, freedom, and trust. Dr. Sundiata is also the host of the Theory of Indivisibility Podcast which analyzes the evolutionary origins, current complexities, and future of our social, economic, and political systems, and serves on the board of Heartwood Agile Learning Center, a K-12 independent school that facilitates Self-Directed Education in the metro Atlanta region.
A few Mad Question Askin’ Moments:
What is the systems theory and how did it originate?
What is the symbiotic give-and-take relationship and what are some examples of it?
What is nature’s economy and how does it work?

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Ep 163: A Chance to Pivot, Not a Panic Mar 18, 2020

This is is an opportunity to raise up out of what we are used to doing and that the practice of unschooling can help with that. A chance to put a few self-directed practices in place because this is where we can get super schoolish and just react to things around us, tossing healthy personal leadership aside.

Times like these remind us of the importance of collectivism and community, to be able to check in with each other. That we can look at the ways we can ensure we’re not being a source of emotional weight on our children, family, selves.

In the middle of the potential chaos is an opportunity for community; an opportunity to contextualize what it means to be ourselves together.

For many parents their children will now be home for longer periods than expected. Start practicing your observation skills and pay attention to the feelings that are showing up for you and in your children, gauge how you respond to the anxiety children trigger, see what they do to occupy themselves when you back away.

These opportunities can enable parents to become better partners to their children and to become better leaders of themselves. Be in the space to look at the opportunities presented due to what’s happening. There are ways here that we can start to pay attention to what is happening around us instead of controlling it -- because we cannot.

Boundaries will be tested and assessed, defined and redefined as we reimagine and reconfigure what it means to be around each other as ourselves. Let that arrange you! Don’t run away from it. Be with what that might mean for you.

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Ep 162: Healing Black Mama Trauma Mar 12, 2020

A few weeks ago, on Episode 160 we talked with Aja about the pain of being raised with trauma through the vessel of Black mothers, and her new podcast She Said We Shed. In that episode, we talked about “why” she’s doing this podcast and “what” the problem was...in detail. Those of you who listened to that episode (if you didn’t, please go back and do so) because in this episode, we’re going to continue that conversation and touch on “how”. She Said We Shed will not only look at and discuss the impacts of toxic mothering but also how to move into and within practice mode. Aja will speak on learning how, what and why we need to begin shifting our awareness in order to heal ourselves and treat our selves and children with respect and love.

Aja has been focused on this work and we believe it would be useful for us to hear about the direction--the pivot.

Also In this episode, we share a clip of She Said We Shed’s first episode! In this clip, Aja takes us into her personal story and the impact her mother has had on her life. She shares where she is today in regards to her relationship with her mother and highlight’s steps she’s taken throughout the years to heal and improve their relationship. This shedding helps us to understand why she feels she needs to begin this podcast.

We welcome Aja back in this episode as she talks about the pivot and how it's possible to move through the pain and into healing.

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EP 161: Updates + A Replay Mar 04, 2020

SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED:

- What do we mean by “raising free people”?

- What does it mean when disabilities intersect with Self-Directed Education?

- How do students with disabilities thrive in this educational philosophy?

- In what ways are needs unmet?

- How do we define disability in a society where ability is the default? And, who gets to define this term?

- How might we be unconsciously perpetuating ableism in our SDE communities? How do we best respond?

- How can we be the best facilitators, parents, supporters and practitioners of Self-Directed Education for young people with all kinds of bodies and minds?

Calling it “raising free people work, or rfp work” is our way of acknowledging that this IS work, and that there ARE tools and people and books and events and public groups and private groups to support this type of conscious parenting, respectful parenting, liberation-mindedness that is inclusive of the ones who tend to bear the weight of our unhealed wounds, our not-yet-adults. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep 160: The Practice of Reparenting Ourselves Feb 26, 2020

We’re excited about Aja, whom you’ve heard on previous podcasts and one of the things she’s now doing is her own out-loud deschooling. This is work that is near and dear to us and is healing work, like all deschooling is.

It’s moving outside of all of the different ways that we have been steeped in and informed by trauma. Much of the work we talk about here on Fare of The Free Child is to try not to perpetuate it, to try to recognize the ways that it has us so that we don’t weaponize it.

Aja’s healing work is specifically related to her relationship with her mother and that’s what’s being discussed today. She’s going to go from just having a conversation about it to really having this massive movement around legacy shifting related to Black mama trauma.

Can adults and children deschool together? Aja and her son are in transition mode from homeschooling to deschooling because in addition to deschooling herself, she has decided that her son is going to as well. It felt contradictory not to do so, she felt like she couldn't do both. She needed her son to think differently, to think for himself and shared examples of this here in this podcast.
Aja has a podcast called “She Said We Shed” coming up that will be detailed regarding the effects of putting Black mothers on pedestals and the way we are so afraid to talk about the things that hurt us, how we continue to be hurt insomuch that we are not healing.

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Ep 159: A (Black) History of Knowing Feb 19, 2020

Akilah Richards: hosts this widely celebrated podcast, Fare of the Free Child, that features more than 150 episodes on Self-Directed Education among Black, Non-Black Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. She is the author of the forthcoming book Raising Free People, and she and her partner are raising two self-directed daughters.

What Was Discussed:

Last week’s episode is also inclusive of Black history when we discussed how Maleka and her daughter, Maddy, recognised how they were being treated and how they were able to connect to the unfortunate familiarity of all the “isms” (racism, ageism…) associated with that treatment, and take a stance towards their human right to exist without bias-driven, false accusations about their actions.

This week’s episode will bring attention to how we tend to think of history in terms of things we survived, aka the big hurdles. While we have indeed survived many things,also have a history of knowing, and of leaning into what we “know good,” am I right? And on this podcast, we aren’t afraid to examine, to critique with love, to decide that some shit needs to change; that’s part of our healing workright? But we not going to overdevelop one wing and atrophy the other, so while the next several episodes will be about things we are working to change, let’s use this one to talk a little bit about our history of enoughness, of abundance, of applying old knowings to our lives in ways that work beautifully for us some Black folks. We are not only what we survive, we are that and so much more. We are comprised of the things we’ve always known that we can’t always explain to people in words but can feel it live it in our actions.

This is a medley of episodes where past guests spoke from their own history of knowing something about themselves, knowing what was right for them, knowing that they needed to speak up even with the risk of what comes with doing so.I hope it helps you to tap into your own history of knowing what you know about yourself, this world, and your soul.

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Ep 158: Ageism + racism in library culture Feb 11, 2020

Libraries are learning centers too, so let’s make sure our deschooling aka decolonization work, includes our interactions in our local libraries. There is energy and effort, through The Alliance for Self-Directed Education (ASDE) to help make libraries all over the US havens for self-directed families. Unschooling mother, organizer, and equity trainer, Maleka Diggs has also been giving energy and effort to expanding her local library in Philly, to be more supportive of fostering learning and empowerment through self-directed environments. In this episode, Maleka and one of her daughters, Maddy, are sharing a recent example of how ageism and racism can convolute the purpose of impact of our community spaces such as libraries. You’ll hear about the level of shade they experienced, and you can stay in touch with Maleka through her newsletter and Patreon community to find out what is being done.

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Ep 157: Surmounting Support Issues Feb 05, 2020

Support is one of the biggest hurdles in developing the confidence needed in nurturing and raising free people.

Does your socioeconomic background affect your capacity to recognize and receive support?

What does support need to look like for you, specifically?

How can you find YOUR people, not just SOME people, as you seek out support and community?

How can you communicate your support needs to your family and friends?

What are some ways to invite more specific support in your life?

How do you show appreciation for support without overextending yourself?

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Ep 156: Resources for Liberation Work Jan 29, 2020

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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Ep 155: What Are School Wounds? Jan 23, 2020

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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Ep 154: Is An Unschooling Curriculum a Thing? Jan 16, 2020

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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EP 153: Can We Trust Children? Jan 08, 2020

Are children inherently untrustworthy? Where does the evidence point to children being untrustworthy? Do children need time to be taught trustworthiness? Does Freedom and trustworthiness come with being a human being? Are adults afraid of their children growing up untrustworthy ur unsuccessful? What is our approach in raising trustworthy children? How do we trust young people? What is the connection between children learning and trust?

What is unschooling? A form of self-directed education; phrase by author, educator in the 70s named John Holt. What is the difference between homeschooling and unschooling? Unschooling does not enforce any particular curricular nor does it have pre-determined ideas of what children should learn. Unschooling does not mean unparenting. Often means liberation work. It’s a child-trusting, anti-oppression, love-centered approach to living learning. Rooted in consent, respect and confident autonomy, Helping children to build self-confidence.

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EP 152: Decolonizing Your Mind & Spirit Dec 31, 2019

Dr. Rocio Rosales Meza is a Xicana intuitive, energy worker, healer, and coach. She has a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and is a Reiki Master. She comes from a long line of healers from both her maternal and paternal lineages. Dr. Rosales Meza’s mission is to facilitate mental, emotional, and spiritual healing for Black, Indigenous, women of color from an ancestral and decolonial perspective. She does this work through using her training in psychology, her ancestral wisdom and medicine, and her psychic, empath, and intuitive abilities. Through her work, she guides women of color to break the cycle of the colonial trauma that is holding them back, that is keeping them stuck, and that is harming them in ways they don’t even know.

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Ep 151: Conscious Parenting with Adult Children Dec 24, 2019

Val Anderson is in her sixties, yet she is practicing conscious parenting. Turns out that connection, respect, listening, and regard for boundaries are not just for toddlers and their doting parents. Parents who have raised their children into adults and are now developing language and norms that see that person as an adult, and not a perpetual child. In this episode, Val, who happens to be Akilah’s mother, is sharing some of her practices for being more present, more connected, and less tied to the oppressive adult-child dynamics she saw all around her. Listen close and share wide as Val talks about her deschooling journey from conventional Jamaican parent to raising free people, including herself.

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Ep 150: Deschooling Your Life’s Path Dec 19, 2019

In this final episode of the Deschooling Your Leadership Lens Series, our very own co-producer, South African born, self-directed mama, and student of life, Fatima Mookadam, talks about how her family’s decision to slow-travel through several countries with little money and plenty of trust in the process, turned out to be the most life-changing experience she has had so far. The plot twists and points of clarity still serve to remind Fatima of the power that comes from allowing oneself to push through (not around) old wounds and new pain points. Listen as Fatima shares some beautiful stories from her travels, and reminds us why we too can (and maybe should) live out our dreams, however we can, instead of settling into the status quo.

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Ep 149: Caribbean Mama Self-Reclamation + Self-Directed Education Dec 11, 2019

By trade, Danii Oliver manufacturers whole food based beverages having founded several brands including Island to Island Brewery, House of Juice and Brooklyn Jun Brew. Formally, Danii applied her Creative Technology skills in the digital spaces of the advertising and marketing industry. Danii now applies her skills to her businesses and the education of her family and customers constantly learning and growing to remain independent in a world that has become restricted by limited archetypes to live by.
In this episode, we talk about, how do we heal from our childhood wounds while we raise free people? Is it possible to stay the course in a relationship with a parent that feels verbally and emotionally toxic while you mother your own children?

Are Caribbean parents doomed to relive what they were taught, or can we recover relationships that aren’t based on whether di White people dem undanstan we?

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Ep 148: Deschooling Mindfulness and Meditation Dec 04, 2019

Howard Palmer is deschooling from old habits by intentionally being an example of peace (through meditation) and of creative action (through parkour and fitness) and in his relationships with people. He’s feeling out the particulars of his move to California right now and sharing a little about how he manages himself while this is happening. What does he do each day to stay aligned with what he wants? He’ll share some simple gems around that, inviting you to consider your own ways to stay attuned to where and how you want to be.

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Ep 147: Deschooling Intergenerational Trauma as Daughter & as Mother Nov 27, 2019

They say if you need to see just how well your healing is going, go be with your family for a week. The triggers, the baggage, the habits, all of it comes racing back, forcing us to reckon with the reality that healing work can be done, but most times, it’s never really done, it’s in progress. This week, repeat guest Aja Rutledge, joins us to speak with candor and unquieted assertion that Black folks need to stop saying our toxic mothering experiences are normal and okay. Not all of us are okay, and Aja is deeply committed to calling us to the spaces where we can acknowledge, name, and work toward healing the effects of what Aja calls Black Mama Trauma.

When Aja and her son moved back to the U.S. after their natural learning travels took them to Mexico, they ended up staying with her mother longer than anticipated. Aja has been realizing how much her mother’s baggage affected her own sense of worth and value.

Who am I? What do I like? What am I healing from? How is my relationship with my parent playing out in my relationship with my child?

Those are the questions that have been on the rise for Aja, and she is not willing to leave them unanswered. Listen and connect as Aja talks about what she’s feeling, observing, and moving toward as she deschools herself and makes room for her son and her to continue cultivating a holistic, authentic, trust and respect-based relationship.

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Ep 146: Deschooling Relationships & Regenerative Practices Nov 20, 2019

This week, Chevanni Davids takes us through a reasoning that connects regeneration to liberation and deschooling in brilliant, thought-provoking ways. If you are the type to geek out on the ways that personal leadership and community organizing collaborate and create a person’s drive and shifts their thinking, this is an episode just for you! Enjoy!

“This is an intention that is constructed on convergence of human creativity and working together towards a sustainable future. It's a meeting point for diverse amounts of knowledge, ability, intellect and spirituality. It's a holistic space . A place where sciences, art, self-exploration and development and spirituality are woven together.”

-- Chevanni Davids about Antiuniversity Ecoversity of South Afrika: Non-institutional Learning and Education

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Ep 145: From Hella Schooled to Self-Directed Nov 13, 2019

“Emancipated Learning: The interplay between psychological safety, learning and inquiry, and meaningfulness represents Emancipated Learning. Every individual has his or her own unique learning needs, capacities, and interests. When these learning dimensions are ignored or subjugated, learning turns into a chore that must be completed to appease or satisfy others.

Abrome Learners feel comfortable taking risks and diving deep in pursuit of knowledge in their fields of interests, rather than skimming them at the surface. Learners construct knowledge by leveraging resources that are directly available to them, to include their learning community, or by acquiring necessary resources in the process of exploration and discovery. This process is unique for every Learner as they link various resources, in pursuit of their own purposes, according to their own needs. Like any two distinct individuals, no two Learners or educational pathways are the same; only in retrospect will a learning pathway become fully defined. When an individual is able to marry such educational experiences with a life of meaning, the result is a remarkable life lived.” http://www.abrome.com/emancipated-learning

Antonio Buehler (he/him) founded Abrome to liberate children and fundamentally change the way people think about education. He wants Learners to have full autonomy over their bodies, minds, and time so they can lead meaningful and purposeful lives, positively impact society, and improve the human condition. Abrome is aligned with Antonio’s desire to challenge, undermine, and create alternatives to oppressive systems so we can move toward a freer, healthier world.

Prior to founding Abrome, Antonio worked as a middle school and high school teacher at a startup alternative school in Austin, TX. He also worked as an admission consultant to individuals applying to top colleges and MBA programs. Before he dedicated his career to education, Antonio spent time in private equity, investment banking, and the military. Outside of work, Antonio supports his local library through education related programming, founded the Peaceful Streets Project, served on the board of a child bereavement non-profit, volunteered at an orphanage in Bulgaria, volunteered for the West Point and Stanford admissions offices, coached high school football, and has personally mentored and tutored dozens of children. In his free time, Antonio likes to read, travel (37 countries and counting), ski, and volunteer for his favorite causes, preferably through direct action.

Antonio earned a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy, an M.B.A. from Stanford University, and an Ed.M. from Harvard University.

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Ep 144: Liberation in Latinx Parenting Nov 06, 2019

Learn how two women use brain science, a love for culture, and a recognition of parenting as social justice work to connect and uplift their communities in their commitment to nonviolent parenting and thriving-centered self-care.

“Latinx Parenting is a bilingual organization rooted in social justice and children’s rights, the ongoing practice of nonviolence towards ourselves and others, self-reflection and connection, and community wellness for every generation. We offer family education and support that is culturally responsive to and for the Latinx community and its allies, trauma-informed, and centered on strengths and advocacy. We are here to serve you, your children, their children, your parents, and the ripple of our ancestral mark on this earth.” - latinxparenting.org

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Ep 143: Teens in Self-Directed Education Oct 30, 2019

What do teenage unschoolers need in order for the Self-Directed Education movement to be even more effective for them? One common gripe among many of the SDE-minded folks in my circles is the lack of amplified youth voices in our gatherings, trainings, etc. Nahla, Marley, and Timo are three teenagers whose families embracing unschooling. They have each also facilitated trainings for adults and children who attend SDE spaces or are interested in the philosophies around SDE. In this episode, they share some of their experiences as teen facilitators, and offer insights on what adults can do to get deeper into partnership with young people.

There are young people who are willing to be vocal about what is and isn’t working for them as our communities reconnect with more trust-based models for living and learning together, and they should be heard consistently. When it comes to deschooling parents, hearing from a teenager who is willing to express themselves honestly, and to help us get clear on this thing called freedom, we need to be listening. Real freedom is a thing many of us have so little practice with, and so we must learn how to develop a trust in our children and ourselves so that we can design that freedom together.

What are some ideas can adults in the SDE movement do to get better at amplifying teen voices?

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Ep 142: Check the Unschooling Vocab Oct 23, 2019

This week, let’s talk about some unschooling vocabulary. There are terms I made up, and terms that our community took on and redefined for ourselves. This episode highlights some of those words. I imagine doing updates of this episode as we continue to develop language together. For now, these ten words offer a good opportunity for us to have shared meaning. It’s also an opportunity to question your own definitions and understandings, and pivot wherever the need arises.

Unschooling
Self-Directed Education
Deschooling
Schoolishness
Pervasive Whiteness
Othermothering (the brilliant Patricia Hill Collins wrote about this)
Reparenting
Life Design
Intersectionality
Labrish

Here’s a resource for further exploring language in relation to parenting, leadership, and of course, liberation: https://radicalselfie.teachable.com/p/ourpatois

This episode was recorded live at She Podcasts. Here’s an excerpt with a few snippets from this page about #Shepodcasts:

“She Podcasts began in 2014 as a small Facebook group, built so that our women podcaster friends could have a place online to get quick podcasting answers, tips and resources from one another. However, as soon as the group started, it grew enormously. Friends were adding friends and before long it had been built to over 11,000 women in some phase of building and PRODUCING a podcast. In the spirit of further support, a podcast was created to address issues and podcasting current events as they relate to women. Hosted by Elsie Escobar and Jessica Kupferman, the podcast entitled “She Podcasts” now boasts almost 10000 downloads per month. The vision for She Podcasts is to support and nurture as many female-lead podcasts as possible, and to encourage knowledge sharing without excessive promotion.”

Dawn J. Fraser was my absolute favorite workshop facilitator. She was present, brilliant, intuitive, and funny. Here’s her bio, straight from her website:

“Dawn J. Fraser is a storyteller, educator and and nationally acclaimed speaker based out of New York City. She is the Host of the live show and upcoming podcast ‘Barbershop Stories’, which features storytellers performing true tales in barbershops and salons. Dawn has created programs for college students, educators and entrepreneurs to develop leadership potential through storytelling, and is an Instructor with The Moth and The Story Studio. She was featured amongst some of the nation’s top innovators and change makers as a speaker at TED@NYC and has performed in shows including The Moth Mainstage, Story Collider, RISK and The Unchained Tour. She loves being a twin, a Trinidadian, and tweetable @dawnjfraser.”

Lisa Orkin was also amazingly giving during her workshop. Here’s her website, and here’s a blurb I took directly from her site:

I have over 25 years of experience in copywriting, scripting, audio production, voice acting, teaching and speaking in both traditional and digital media. And I have also worked in the world of indie filmmaking making as a writer, actor and producer. Making award-winning films with the likes of Adam Mckay, Shira Piven, and Dweezil Zappa. My current podcast is a wild mix of all my creative lives, Project Woo Woo. Where I have very real conversations with imaginary people. And all this in a tutu and checkered Vans.

All kindsa awesome from

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Ep 141: Let's Grow Podcast Series 4 Oct 16, 2019

In this episode, Dr. Sundiata asks questions about a common practice for many African American people. The practice of saying "us" or "we" that some people use when expressing how they feel about something. Does this practice impede our individual pursuits for agency and liberation?

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Ep 140: Self-Care Ain’t Just About Stillness Oct 12, 2019

Medley This week, let’s touch on the other side of self-care. Mostly, we tend to think about self-care as practices that help us to slow down, do less, be still. That is part of it, but there’s another side to it. Self-care is also about our daily life design, which includes our productivity work, our active times, the moments when we’re not slowing down, we’re building. We can and should learn how to take care of ourselves when we’re not on vacation, because otherwise the shit ain’t sustainable. Today I’m joined by the voices of some people in my circles who integrate self-care into their work. Come listen and then think about some ways you can move toward a more integrative approach to caring for yourself.

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Ep. 139: Teaching Consent & Bodily Autonomy Oct 03, 2019

In a world that constantly sends messages to women about connecting their value with their physicality and desirability, I need to help them operate with an awareness of their right to reject or accept physical touch, or any act that affects their personal space or feeling of safety, from any adult or child.

And that means I have to be honest about the ways that I, myself, might infringe on their personal boundaries, and I have to facilitate these conversations with the adults around me. And I don’t just mean conversations about what we can do to protect children, but what we must do to help children understand their options for protecting their physical and emotional selves.

One way we can approach this goal is to explore some of the common mistakes we adults make when it comes to helping children practice bodily autonomy, which is at the root of consent culture for children.

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EP. 138: On Black Fatherhood and Freedom Sep 26, 2019

“The most difficult thing in dealing with [raising ] young girls is that you have to come to grips with how you deal with women. You have to address your beliefs, what you’ve been taught, and what you’ve seen in society. If you’re not trying to be a dominating or oppressive figure in their life, you have to consider these things.” - Kris Richards

This week, Kris talks about his raising free people practice. This is part two, because last week’s episode with Marley talking about her experiences with my and Kris’s practice. Marley talked about respect, managing moods, and what it means to be ourselves together.

This week, Kris answers three questions about freedom, partnership, love, and a li’l bit mo’. We’re talking about these things in Raising Free People Workshop 2019 and registration closes October 1. Come join the conversation using the links to the left of this page.

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Ep. 137: Being Our Authentic Selves, Together Sep 19, 2019

This week Marley Richards is joining me to talk about the goodness and the grit of being in a mother-daughter relationship rooted in liberation. She is co-facilitating Raising Free People Workshop with me this year, and on this episode, we’ll share some details about the space we intend to hold. Raising Free People Workshop is a space for us to apply decolonization and deschooling to the way we raise and relate to children. And into the way we support children in owning themselves.This workshop, and this practice, helps adults focus on transitioning from master to partner; embracing collaboration instead of coercion; being willing to listen; embodying compassion as we raise and support confident, happy, community-minded, fully-equipped, liberated people. Listen in, then come join us (registration closes Oct. 1) if you want to be part of an intergenerational discussion on liberation, learning, and relationships.

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Ep 136: Finding Joy and Solutions amid the stress Sep 13, 2019

Last week we talked about barriers, and this week we’re talking about stress, which of course, can also be an effective barrier to our raising free people practice. So, what do we do with these potential barriers and existing stressors? We question and practice our way out of as much of it as we can. We seek and find community among whom we can share our pain and our joy. We remember our capacity to get free. We refuse to pretend to be okay when we are not. We see our children, and the children in our communities, as free people, and we do the emotional and spiritual work we need to do in order to not let our pain and stress become weapons against children. In this episode, I’m sharing what some other listeners said about their practices, in hopes that they nudge you toward your own.

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Ep. 135: 3 Barriers to Raising Free People Sep 06, 2019

This week, we’re talking about the things that get in the way of our raising free people practice. There are many, but today, I’m highlighting three primary ones, poor baggage handling, systemic racism, and partner problem. I’m explaining each of these as I understand them, and I’m encouraging you to comment on this show notes page, or on social media using the #raisingfreepeople tag to talk about how you navigate, intercept, or completely shed the effects of any of these three effective barriers. Whether you’re homeschooling, unschooling, or simply shifting your relationship to one that embodies more conscious parenting and living, let’s work through these together!

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Ep 134: Busting the Deschooling Myth Aug 30, 2019

This week, I’m sharing some of the insights that have come from my busy month in California. This month, I’ve done trainings, workshops, and gatherings, around this work of raising free people, and deschooling has been a central theme in all those spaces. I can see that we need more discussion about deschooling, here on Fare of the Free Child, and that starts today. There is a myth that it takes about a year of deschooling for every year of school a child attended--let me just label that bullshit right now. There is no time limit on deschooling because it is an ever-evolving process that grows as we grow, shows us more about ourselves and our environments. Let’s talk a bit about deschooling today. More to come, for sure.

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Ep 133: The Value of Hindsight & Shared Intention Aug 16, 2019

Kris & Akilah’s idea for sharing gems from live workshops

Molasses is slow and steady, full of rich useful properties that take time to come through. I'm taking time to process the experiences I host or co-facilitate at this year's Homeschooling Assn of California Conference (HSC), then I'll recap and deep-dive my live workshops to bring you Molasses Sessions. Whether you were in the room or not, gain insights and perspectives that didn't make it to the live session. Fill out the form below to buy these downloads as soon as they are produced.

https://pages.convertkit.com/8f75212590/32c16598a7

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Ep 132: The Real Reason Our Children Are “Not Enough” Aug 08, 2019

This week, a listener’s questions got me in mad question-askin’ mode about this unschooling life. What if my children just can’t, because of ...? Most of us have probably asked ourselves that question once or 50 times, yeh? Well, my answer today is way different that what it would’ve been during our first three or so years of unschooling. My answer is: Give yourself time to deschool so that you can begin to see your children from a more informed, less colonized lens. These feelings are about a scarcity mindset brought on and constantly fed by school, by testing centers, by organizations that thrive off the idea that we humans could never horde enough information. We are never enough, and so our children can only be enough if we over-extend ourselves financially and emotionally, and make sure our children learn whatever the smart people who tell us what our children need, say they need to learn. Force not feelings, coercion not confident self-exploration that leads to clarity and real learning. Let’s talk about the questions behind our most pressing questions this week, shall we?

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Ep 131: The Transition from Homeschooling to Unschooling Jul 31, 2019

We deh pon di replay this week! This is a rebroadcast of episode 45, where I answer a question from someone who attended my unschooling webinar. She asked about the process of the transition from home-schooling to unschooling, and I expound on a response from a long-time unschooler, Itiel McVay, inside the webinar.
Plus, I give an overview of unschooling, so don’t miss those details. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep 130: Let's Grow Podcast (Trust Issues) Jul 24, 2019

Join Dr. Sundiata for episode 3 of the Let's GROW Podcast series as he explores "Trust Issues" and the patterns of distrust that are so common in our lives. Why do so many people of African, Asian, & Indigenous descent distrust people of European descent? Why do so many women distrust men? Why do so many adults distrust children? Dr. Sundiata shares his best thinking as to why and also shares a personal story of distrust.

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EP 129: Appreciation or Appropriation? #KPop Tings Jul 17, 2019

The world loves Black culture, but not Black people, a statement that I feel is ringing true now more than ever.
Hey, y’all, it’s Marley (the editor). I often speak about K-Pop and the frustrations of witnessing and constantly having to battle cultural appropriation, so I figured at the Rooted Us Unconference in NYC this year, why not have the conversation again?

I hope that this overview paired with my thoughts and tips on how to combat such a subtle kind of racism/microaggression are helpful in getting you thinking about the topic, or taking a deeper dive, because there is no such thing as “enough work” being done around it.

“I’m working on a presentation and would like to speak with adults and children who have experienced domestic violence and are now using Self-directed education and/or conscious parenting. Interested parties can email me at fearless@iammelody.co (no “m”). They can remain anonymous.”

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Ep 128: Happy 3rd Anniversary to Fare of the Free Child Podcast Jul 10, 2019

On July 10 of 2016, following the brutal murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, I decided to publish a podcast about the ways that BIPOC families were handling the dichotomous life of constant fear amid a will to thrive, particularly as we endeavor to raise children who embody their liberation. It’s been three years as of today, and I am so grateful for the loving, vocal community that has formed as a result of me risking expression. So many brave, brilliant, and beautiful people have blessed our ears with their experiences, frustrations, wins, anger, and more. We’ve cried, laughed, envisioned, created, shared, loved, lost, and grown together, and I have no plans of stopping now; you probably don’t either, right? Then let’s keep this thang poppin’ with episode 128 where you’ll meet FOFC’s co-producer, Fatima Mookadam. She is a major part of how you’ve been able to listen and engage with the podcast over the past six months. Fatima is a South Africa based unschooling mama who has been using travel and deep self-exploration to fuel her deschooling journey. Listen as she and I celebrate together, talking about the ways this work is shifting and growing us, and why we’re so grateful for each other and the community that you help us to maintain through your listenership. Happy 3 Year Anniversary!!

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EP 127: Calling In (not Calling Out): Equity in SDE Jul 03, 2019

Maleka Diggs and Akilah S. Richards talk about the issues with inequitable SDE spaces in terms of race/culture.
They invite you to sign up for the live, virtual training on this topic:
https://radicalselfie.teachable.com/p/equityinsde
Taking this training will support your exploration and understanding of:

The characteristics of pervasive whiteness and schoolish tactics in intended self-directed environments, including SDE centers, homeschooling and/or unschooling co-ops, and at home

How those characteristics inform the content, the structure, the relationships, and often, the lack of success in SDE environments, and ways to work through the issues therein

Why BIPOC families can feel particularly isolated inside SDE spaces (and how to proactively address that)

What equity can look like in SDE spaces, and how to start creating those realities

How to proactively address issues of inequitable beliefs and practices with parents who want to be part of an SDE community, but don’t seem to have done the work to be part of the solution, not the problem

**
Delivered through two 90-minute trainings

(both will be recorded and accessible within 24 hours):

Tuesday, 3 September, 2:30pm ET

Tuesday, 10 September, 2:30pm ET

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Ep. 126: Recap of Rooted Us NYC Unconference On Anti-racism, Anti-oppression, and Self-Directed Education Jun 27, 2019

In episode 126 we’re sharing snippets from some of the conversations from Rooted Us NYC, a free unconference focusing on the practical application of anti-oppressive community building. You’ll hear from attendees who were wondering about things like parent education (deschooling), social justice as part of Self-Directed Education, how to raise free people when we (adults) don’t feel free, cooperative economics, and more. Listen in to hear sessions that were each facilitated by Akilah (Raising Free People Workshop), Dr. Sundiata (Cooperative Economics), and Maleka Diggs (Strewing: Confronting Your Fears).
#BIPOCinSDE

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Ep 125: 4 Conditions in Support of Raising Free People Jun 20, 2019

What can a home environment look like when the adults practice raising free people? This is the question of longtime member of the FOFC community, Chemay Morales-James. She founded the organization My Reflection Matters, a movement to provide personal and educational resources for young Black and Brown people to think critically about themselves and feel empowered to combat racial injustices wherever they are. She asked Akilah to speak to the home environmental conditions that are likely to nurture and support the development of free people, so Akilah does just that, talking about healthy ways to set boundaries, hold accountability, and otherwise practice emotional security and maturity. #BIPOCinSDE

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EP 124: What is Confident Autonomy Jun 12, 2019

Confident autonomy: this is the thing Kris and Akilah Richards intend to help nurture in their daughters, Marley and Sage-Niambi. There is no one definition of it’ it’s an ability to navigate the world with a strong sense of self, an awareness of the place in the world and their capacity to influence the people and situations within it, and the tools to life well, be good to people, and make a difference in their communities. Is that a tall order? Listen to a couple of excerpts from Akilah’s essays on unschooling and deschooling, and share your own definition of confident autonomy. #BIPOCinSDE

Mad Question’ Askin:

Is it safe to raise our children to be confident and self-aware, or will that invite more chances for them to be unfairly targeted and harmed by the social or legal arms of a racist dominant structure?

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Ep 123: Examining Our Respect Lens Jun 07, 2019

What does respect look like for Black folks when it comes to raising free people? Tebogo asked this question, and it took Kris and Akilah back to a recent experience with their daughters and disrespect. We’ll also hear from Maleka Diggs, Philly-based unschooling mama and equity organizer, on the perception of respect among communities, cultures, and intended safe spaces. This ended up being a Parenting Patois episode, because our topic is about respect, and the conversation led us to recognizing the value of shared meaning--co-created language and definitions--among children and adults. In this episode, Kris and Akilah dive into the particulars of emotions, boundaries, barriers, and expectations when it comes to identifying, understanding, and managing feelings of disrespect and authentic self-expression when it comes to parents and children, as well as among varying cultures in Self-Directed Education spaces.

Mad Question’ Askin:

How can we trust that freedom doesn’t mean disrespect?

What’s wrong with assuming that giving up fear and force means rebellion?

Is our demand for respect based on what we think we lack?

#BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 122: Let's Grow Podcast (Don't Call Me King) Jun 03, 2019

Join Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta for the second episode of Let’s Grow Podcast Series as he explores the popular greeting in Black culture that uses royal titles as greetings, i.e. What's good, King?" or "Hey, Queen!" In this episode, titled Don't Call Me King, continues his pattern of inviting us to deconstruct and rethink the ways we see power and community. Be sure to reach out to Dr. Sundiata with your perspectives on his topics, because he's all about dialogue and discussion that invites us to grow together wherever we can.

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Ep. 121: More Reasons to Trust Our Intuition May 30, 2019

Intuition is not exclusive to adulthood, and it can play a very helpful role in helping a child develop a healthy sense of bodily autonomy. At any age, we have feelings in our bellies or chests, for example, that are directly triggered by feelings of safety or lack thereof. Help children to name and acknowledge those feelings – and to trust them. How much do you trust yourself? Intuition, while hailed as something to trust in adulthood, is often discarded or even berated in childhood. Listen in as my Mama and my daughter talk about the importance of intuition in their own lives. I hope it sparks a strengthening of your own connection to intuitive knowings that help you thrive.

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EP. 120: Alternatives to Toxic Whiteness May 24, 2019

I got an email in response to episode 115 (On White Privilege and Pleasure) that left me disappointed and upset about another experience with white fragility targeted at this podcast. Rather than stewing and ranting with my family (best believe we did it already), I’m using the email I got from a concerned white person about episode 115 as a teachable moment.

It’s my first time having Kris, Marley, and Sage here on FOFC, and I believe this is the perfect topic to hear everyone’s opinion on. By using his emails as an avatar for white fragility and the sugar-coated racism so often felt in even the most “progressive” of SDE spaces, we’ll examine this kind of mentality, its in-depth issues, and how to do better.

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Ep 119: Educating the World to Our Children (Soweto) May 19, 2019

Inspired by her 9-year-old daughter, Leruo and determined not to let her 'shine' be dimmed, this mama decided to find a better way to educate her little light. Her do-better process affected how she worked, how she communicated, how she ended up at #LRC2018.

Tebogo Modisane: Unschooler, Freelance Event Producer, Soweto born and raised.

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Ep. 118: Let's Grow Podcast (Series Saturdays) May 12, 2019

Join Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta for the first episode of Let's Grow Podcast as he explores the Selfish vs. Self-actualized concept. He'll explore concepts we talk about on Fare of the Free Child--agency, consent, and a removal of the power-over dynamic. Dr. Sundiata is inviting you to challenge your idea of being an individual, and shift it to include and embrace symbiotic relationships so that we can support each other's self-actualization. His goal is to inspire you to reject other people's ideas as a result of you pursuit of self-actualization.

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Ep 117: The Do Better Series Premiere May 08, 2019

Gonna hone in on that mothering energy that's swirling around this month--they assigned a Mother's Day, I don't care about any of those days they assign, but I damn sure love to hop onto the waves of any good, gratitude-centered energies, and this is my contribution to that. It's also a great way to ease on into this month's focus, doing better! the Do Better Series. This week I’m reading a Self-Mothering essay to remind you why and how this do-better gotta start with you first. I wrote it in 2016, and published it on everydayfeminism.com a couple months after I published the very first episode of Fare of the Free Child podcast.

Photographer credit - Instagram: @astro.nic.visuals

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EP 116: The Pleasure Series with The Body Relationship Coach™ Apr 30, 2019

A fitting close-out to The Pleasure Series, Ivy Felicia talks about body relationships, especially as a Black woman of size and of color. Ivy talks about embracing pleasure and play, as well as finding the confidence to show up as herself, assert her worth, and express her full self. Is this something we get in the way of for young people in bigger bodies? If so, how can we do better? We also touch on doing the work of calling out external biases at home, and not perpetuating oppression and judgement to children. Have those conversations, and reinforce critical thinking, our progress as a society is depending on it/us..

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Ep 115: The Pleasure Series Apr 25, 2019

As you are learning about privilege, is your practice being fortified by listening, engage, and changing? This is the question for white people in Self-Directed Education spaces that employ, offer volunteership, or otherwise work with BIPOC adults. In can feel really good to be informed, educated, “woke” and all, but what is happening in your actual SDE space? What would non-white adults who work with you say about your communication and actions when it comes to equity? We’re not just the visual of diversity, but the practice of equity.

This week's episode is reminder (or wake-up call) that equity does not end at diversity. The pleasure you get from looking at the 1, 2, or even 20 BIPOC folks in your space doesn't mean your work is done. It is this little twinge of white savior complex that can easily wrap you up in a cocoon of comfort with earplugs on. Let’s change that. As important as you feel they are, they need to feel it too. Period. Equity (or Allyship) is not just listening. It's practice.

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EP 114: The Pleasure Series with Binah Joy Apr 18, 2019

"Our dance is so valid. So necessary and urgent."

Listen to this movement maker talk about connecting pleasure to parenting in life-affirming ways. "Mother Mother" and artist through various mediums. Binahkaye “Binah” Joy shares with us in this episode about the process of integrating creative movement into mothering, and the pleasure of dance. She has worked with women’s whose bodies have been sites of repeated violation, and she saw first-hand how a tiny bit of encouragement can help an incarcerated woman, for example, feel freedom, love, and possibility in her body.

With a background in community-centered dance, Binah dedicated her time to providing space for those around her to get in touch with the happiness and security moving their bodies can help them across manage life’s ebbs and flows, particularly with navigating the the schoolish, competition-based messages we hear surrounding dance. In addition to being mama to Bloom, Wonder, and Jubilee, Binah is a co-founder of The Family Dances, a DC-based group that facilitates dance programs that are family-centered and family-accessible. Her children are 5, 3, and 1, and have brought her movement practice to new, exciting spaces. Writer's Note: This one made me all teary-eyed. I use dance as something to explore my perception of myself and the world around me, so hearing someone taking this empowering "for you and no one else" mindset wherever they go is in turn empowering. I'm really honored to be in a space that gives a signal boost to voices like Binah's.

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EP 113: The Pleasure Series with Thea Monyeé Apr 11, 2019

Why do we push back against children’s pleasure? Because safety, right? Because boundaries, right? Even in the cases where both of those are true, what’s also true in many cases is that we, as adults, resent pleasure. We resent children, in particular, when they engage in pleasure because they haven’t earned that right just yet. It goes even further beyond that, and Thea Monyeé takes us into this mindset, and the root of its imprint, systemic oppression. This is the second episode in The Pleasure Series here on FOFC Podcast, and we’re connecting pleasure and parenting in ways you might have thought of, but didn’t have the space or the company to explore it with. Well, let’s get into it--resentment and pain in parenting, and moving beyond pain over to pleasure.

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Ep. 112: The Pleasure Series Prelude Apr 04, 2019

Pleasure is an adult thing. It's not for children to see, experience, or even be curious about. This is a notion that even the most liberated of unschooled parents can find themselves acting upon. As is the case with so much of we've yet to deschool from, we rarely stop and ask, "Is this a me problem?"
To start you on that journey, this is the Pleasure series, a collection of discussions about how pleasure affects our lives, and in turn, those of the children around us.
With the tools provided, you'll be able to critically examine your preconceived notions of topics that intersect with the idea of pleasure, such as bodily autonomy in children, perseverance, and even rage.

I’ll also talk a bit about Rooted US, the NYC-based unconference I’ll be engaged in this June. Listen in, share, and enjoy!

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Ep. 111: Parent Founders Medley Mar 28, 2019

In this final episode of the Parent Founder series, Nuola speaks about play, color, and self-expression via Jean-Michel Basquiat, also known as Radiant Child, and picking resources based on children's interests. Dr. Sundiata speaks about his journey to forming GROW, including college Aha moments, entrepreneurial trials and errors, and the gratitude he has toward supportive people and his organic learning process. You’ll also hear from Sara, an SDE-minded mama who attendee of the AEROx Virtual Conference. Sara was introduced to AERO and the Alliance for Self-Directed Education by the Fare of the Free Child community, and has been able to extend her knowledge of SDE, and see how it provides children with strength, autonomy, and purpose. We close out with Binah, who, along with her friend Noelle, speak on how being in a homeschooling group for young children who often aren't included in the tween/teen-centric spaces of D.C. has helped them be aware of the work it takes to learn as a family. So much goodness and specificity in this episode! #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 110: Leslie talks Conscious Community Collectives Mar 21, 2019

This week's episode in the Parent Founder series features the “wise old woman” voice of Leslie Bray. Leslie is the space-holder for Kid Cultivators, a homeschooling collective that makes space for other learning styles, such as unschooling. She'll speak about how to start a learning group that fulfills emotional and educational desires while still prioritizing partnership-centred and trust-based parenting. She also stresses the importance of centering oneself, allowing for grace in the face of transition, and other hella-necessary gems for folks looking to build what they need for their children and themselves. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 109: Yolande on the Black, Queer, Feminist Approach to SDE Mar 13, 2019

This week’s episode in the Parent Founders series features the voice and experiences of Yolande Tomlinson. She co-founded Anna Julia Cooper Learning and Liberation Center (AJC), “a cooperative, learner-centered, and self-directed community, rooted in a radical Black queer feminist politic, and a multi-generational, decolonized community of care, healing, and intellectual exploration where learning opportunities abound.” Yolande has two beautiful daughters who inspire a lot of her work and her shifting. She’s gonna share with us today the backstory and a bit of the logistics around co-founding this Self-Directed Education space in Atlanta. #BIPOC

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Ep. 108: Sonia Starts a Sudbury Mar 08, 2019

This week, as part of a series on parent founders of Self-Directed Education spaces, you’ll share in one woman’s journey. Sonia Fernandez Leblanc, a White woman who was born and raised in Dominican Republic, and her husband—a Black man from Puerto Rico (who was raised in St. Croix and in Dominica where his family is from)—are raising two brown girls in the American South, and wants to be part of the change in relationships among people in the world by raising more self-aware, socially just, liberation-minded children. Sonia will tell you how she ended up creating community, joining efforts with her community, and finding, then founding, the Sudbury approach that met her community’s needs. Her Baltimore beginnings, her dismay around education, moments of jealousy and plenty of joy, all of it, straight from Sonia, founder of Nashville Sudbury School in Tennessee, US. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 107 : Soweto, Abantu, Mothering & More Feb 28, 2019

This week, I feature the voice and sentiment of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the writer, storyteller, feminist mama who inspired our travels to Soweto from Johannesburg last December. We went for a Black authors’ book festival, but this isn’t a recap of Abantu. Thanks to Chimamanda, Soweto, and Abantu, I can share this example of partnership-centered parenting. This is an example of what the work of raising free people can look like in a moment, when we as adults get to choose trusting a child over controlling them. I have li'l snippets from just crowd sounds and good shit from Abantu, but mostly, this is just me telling you what happened with Marley and me that day. This is me telling you a bit about choosing to live in alignment with what you believe, and recognizing how that choice begins to arrange your entire freaking life in ways that offer you opportunities to move into deep work in the world and in our own self. In your household. In your relationships, in your politics, in your purpose. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 106 Racial Equity in SDE (Liberation and Education Summit Panel Chat) Feb 21, 2019

This episode, we're recapping the Liberation and Education Summit that happened this month in metro Atlanta (Clarkston) Georgia. Maleka Diggs, Tamika Middleton, and Patty Zavala all discussed aspects of racial equity in Self-Directed Education. The panel was moderated by Kelly Henderson, Ph.D., and the related conversations during the conference were co-facilitated by the staff of the summit producers and hosts, Heartwood Agile Learning Center, whose founders spoke with us on FOFC about solutions to pervasive whiteness (aka white supremacy) in Self-Directed Education. You’ll hear the full panel discussion about race, equity, and personal realizations that stem from the decision to self-direct and to allow that each of their children. You will also hear from Dr. Ta-Tanisha Randall, an attendee of the summit, and a passionate SDE advocate in her own right. I’ll also tell you where in America you’ll find me hosting or inciting the types of conversations that happened at the summit, including Philly, New York, Charlotte, and a few other cities.

#BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 105 Love, Trust, Identity Feb 14, 2019

Love, Trust, Identity – that’s the flow of the conversation Kelly Henderson will guide us on for the duration of this episode. She is a college professor, and an unschooling mama of five children. She is brilliant and funny and hella focused on Black Love, and I’m talking beyond romantic love. I’m talking love that liberates individuals and communities. Love that reshapes classrooms and class structures. Love that creates worlds and relationships rooted in levels of trust and love that we cannot even begin to imagine. Well, let’s begin imagining today…Kelly will get us started. Here are some of the best bits from a lovely, liberation-minded conversation between she and I. Here’s to Black Love and liberation! #BIPOCinSDE

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Spirituality in Parenting Feb 07, 2019

Let’s have a conversation about spirituality in parenting. So much of what we do and affirm and get validated by is schoolish in nature, and toxic for us. It’s a prove it, show your work, impress someone in authority, push past this, show up like this, be normal in this way, and be exceptional in this way—lot’s of external stimuli motivated by outside ideas of what one should be, how to perform, how to be labeled as worthy, whether people agree with our dreams and goals, etc. On this episode, Nuola, Moji, Shauntae, Diauni, and I talk about a few of the ways we approach spirituality and connectedness, and I want you to listen good. Don’t just listen; listen good. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 103 My Education, My Liberation (Johannesburg) Jan 31, 2019

'A conversation on the freedom of education through the lenses of Self-Directed Education, what freedom in education looks like, and how we can create liberatory practices in ourselves and our communities.”

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Ep. 102: Raising Free People, Raising Aware People Jan 23, 2019

"We need to have a conversation about developing a set of tools and a solidarity around raising free people who are also aware people. This is vital especially since we’re not using tools of oppression in attempts force our children into an awareness of our deeply unjust society. We need to normalize the conversation and safe space-making in takes to explore this, and this is one effort in that direction. We’re not raising children in a bubble, so the conversation and tools are an inevitably necessary part of the journey to raising free and aware people. Raising free aware people is how we work toward dismantling oppressive systems – systems that they will inevitably face and be oppressed by, or systems they will face and benefit from while oppressing others. It’s a cycle that we need to break, and it will not happen if we are not deliberate and clear about our intentions. Raising free, aware people isn’t a mere conversation topic, it is a responsibility we have in endeavoring to help transform our world." - Zakiyya Ismail, growingminds.co.za

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Ep. 101: Togethering the Othered Jan 16, 2019

Is mindful parenting sustainable? Can Caribbean people, for example, with all our deep familiarity in the art of loving yet intimidation-based parenting, actually learn how to consistently be in respect-based, partnership-centered relationships with our children? Can our children call us on our b.s. and still feel not only safe, but heard and respected for expressing their truths? Hell yes, and in this episode, we’re talking candidly about the beauty and the mess of how that goes down. We’re starting Season 4 with the perfect blend of discussions around personal and communal soulwork. We’re talking about the togethering of ourselves in terms of emotional stability and clarity inside the work of Raising Free People, and we’re talking about community gatherings in support of this work. Akilah talks with Maleka Diggs of Eclectic Learning Network about some of the stickier parts of conscious parenting, what she does to manage those moments, and what she plans on doing throughout the year to support her city and her fellow unschooling-minded parents as we deschool from broken ideas about parenting, education, and power. Maleka will be one of three featured panelists at this year’s Liberation and Education Summit in Clarkston, Georgia on February 2. If you can attend, you should. If you cannot attend, please consider making a donation in support of equitable Self-Directed Education spaces in metro Atlanta.

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How to Focus on Learning (An Introductory Dialogue) Oct 09, 2018

This is a supporting resource for adults to go through the rationale, the benefits, the urgency, and the solutions inside of, a life that gives a child the room to own their educational journey, and to understand themselves as lifelong learners, and not merely temporary students who need to impress adults in order to feel validated and purposeful.

In How to Focus on Learning (also called HFL the Webinar) you’ll learn 10 key terms that will put on you on path for discovery and deschooling around how to support a self-directed learner. We'll start with defining and giving examples of Self-Directed Education, and then branch out into the ten terms that will bring context, discussion, and smarter questions about transitioning from coercive education to liberated learning.

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Ep. 100: Season 3 Finale Vibes Sep 30, 2018

In this final episode of Season 3, Kris and I talk about the training and travels we've done in the past few months, and how they've helped us strengthen our practice of partnership-centered parenting. We talk about what it means to not have a master in the contemporary sense, and I share a more community-oriented approach to facilitating conversation and training around raising free people. I also announce The First 100, the project that will index all 100 episodes of the podcast, making it easier for people to search for specific resources! I also ask for a transcriptionist to send me a quote, or reach out about transcribing a one-hour conversation I recorded, but that can't be used because of the background noise. We also laughed a lot, and talked that real-shit talk (hehe!). So many important aspects of liberation and learning came up during our conversation; you will absolutely get something you can use!

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Another Braata Episode with Maleka Diggs Sep 21, 2018

“Transitioning to homeschooling was eye opening. This method uncovered how much my own conditioning about learning impacted my daughters. The system was a well-oiled and self-sustaining machine burnt into the recesses of my conscious and unconscious; marionette to the system. A natural learner myself, all that was left was to let go. But unschooling? Initially the term was off putting, but unschooling created a platform to acknowledge and work toward my own liberation. School is not synonymous with learning and when children are genuinely interested, the joys of learning unfold. Now, I am extending my experiences and knowledge with families as an unconventional education advocate with a focus on Black/Brown communities. My work is in providing support through resources and programs that empower, inspire, and create actions that impact families in positive, long-term ways.” Maleka Diggs, founder of Philadelphia’s annual Homeschool Conference and Explorer’s Day Camp

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Ep. 99: Fight, Flight and Trust in Unschooling Sep 12, 2018

Jennifer "Astarte Rising" Lane is the mother of two grown unschoolers. She, along with the wisdom of Itiel McVay, another long-time unschooling mama, are our guides for this episode. Itiel (purveyor of amazing self-care body-and-soul resources over at smellgoodspa.com) reads our second-to-last letter of support for the season, and it deals with fight or flight reactions in parenting. Astarte's interview is also rooted in the "fight" aspect of pushing past societal pressure to reduce our children to students inside a harmful system. She moved from Texas to California, began homeschooling, transitioned into unschooling, and has learned so much about courage, learning, and the power of a well-cared-for human spirit along the way. You will hear the realities of fear-based choices navigated with strength and self-trust. You will hear encouragement and reminders that can help you strengthen your own capacity to trust learning, to trust children, and to trust yourself.

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Ep. 98: Getting to Single Mama Thrive Mode (Interview) Sep 06, 2018

In this final episode of Surviving Survival Mode, Monique had the pleasure of talking to Darcel of The Mahogany Way Blog. They talked about what Survival Mode looked like for Darcel as a single mother unschooling with her kids. We get into what she did to maintain a sense of self, the reality of feeling hopeless and at the same time how having a glimpse of hope helped her emerged out of survival mode and set her plans to Bloom aka Thrive in 2018.

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Ep. 97: Sudbury and Healing Work in Nashville Sep 04, 2018

We're talking about healing work this week! Sonia Fernandez LeBlanc was already on Episode 42 talking about getting free and taking her daughters, and the families in her Nashville community, along for their own versions of freedom. Now, Nashville Sudbury School is open, and the work has evolved. In this episode, Sonia and I talk about the ways that liberation work (through unschooling) can be a portal to deeply personal, healing work. We talk about ways to integrate more mindfulness and self-inquiry in the process of raising free people, and the risk of losing ourselves to the overwhelm of progress. This week's Dear You letter is embedded in this conversation, all up and through--enjoy!

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Ep. 96: Decolonizing (Gender) Activism Aug 25, 2018

As an American African, part of Moji's deschooling journey has been unlearning and pointing out white supremacy in all it's hidden forms. In this episode Moji uses bits of the book "The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses" to emphasize the need to disrupt supremacy and colonization in gender activism and activism in general. Moji asserts that American schools and culture are rooted in white supremacy and ignorance and western activism can lead to low-key colonization, and offers a space to unlearn habits of supremacy that lead to intellectual & ideological colonization and marginalization of cultures of color.

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Ep. 95: Support Letter #5 + Risking Discomfort Aug 10, 2018

Sometimes, it's okay not to be okay. This week's letter of support for people raising free people offers that reminder, plus some tools for standing in that truth. Plus, an important story about pushing past discomfort so you can make participate in the type of change you want to see in the world.

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Ep 94: Intuition & Trust in Pregnancy and Birth Aug 03, 2018

Episode 94 is the 3rd takeover of Wellness Spiral with Moji Yai plus support letter # 4. Wellness Spiral: This is Elena's second pregnancy, her first was 22 years ago when she gave birth to beautiful twins! Elena and I discuss the differences so far between her pregnancies, why she decided not to join childbirth education classes, how intuition and knowledge of her body helped her through stressful hospital miscommunication and much more. Elena has dedicated her personal and professional life to self-awareness and self-care, she is the founder and CEO of Bodeology, a health, fitness and beauty spa, and Wellness for Women, a non profit that empowers low income women and victims of violence with holistic therapy, care, and education.

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Ep. 93: Letter #3 + Apprenticeship Benefits Jul 31, 2018

"It’s not on you to prove that homeschooling works." I agree with Julie Bogart for sure...BUT, as much as I would love for all of us to be able to be all, 'Aye, this what I’m doing for and with my family, and if you nuh like it you can gweh!' It’s not always that cut and dry. We can’t always do that, for one main and major reason; today’s letter of support is centered on the people whose reality reflects that one reason. After our letter, you’ll hear a short piece from Romain Sinclair, a brilliant young man who is in month 5 of Praxis, which is a 6-month training based on the premise that the college degree is DEAD, and what young folks need is life experience. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 92: Deschooling DC with Najai Knox Jul 26, 2018

Support letter #2 is here! Plus, a beautiful sentiment from a new mother, based in PG County with roots in DC. She (Najai Knox) started Deschooling DC as a means to resolve the issues that school causes and perpetuates, particularly for Black children. Listen to Najai's story--her why and what--and email her to encourage our support the movement toward liberated living and learning for DC's most underserved families. Najai is imagining life beyond her city's circumstances, and she isn't waiting for the government, or anyone, to do for her, what she knows that we, as Black folks, know how to do for ourselves. We just need to go back and remember, then come forward and put it into practice. Sankofa!

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Ep. 91: Support Letters, Ralph Angel, and Rhythm Jul 20, 2018

Letters of support for people raising free people, meaning unschoolers and other folks in Self-Directed Education. Also, we're share our first deschooling sighting courtesy of Moji Yai. Her keen observation of Ralph Angel from Queen Sugar is a simple reminder of the ways schooling can be toxic. Plus, we're bringing up the ways that rhythm plays a vital role in emergent structure.

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Ep. 90: Letters of Support & Countdown to 100 Jul 18, 2018

This episode tells you what to expect for the next 9 episodes of Fare of the Free Child podcast. Letters of support for various aspects of the raising free people journey, a celebration countdown to episode 100, space for me to finish our book (yes, our book!), and a long-awaiting break in preparation for season 4!

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Ep. 89: Teen Input on Self-Directed Education Training for Adults Jul 15, 2018

In our efforts to change our parenting and learning practices to reflect our opinions about equity and liberation, we need more than Aha moments. We need resources, training, a sense of community to grow into/with. The Agile Learning Facilitators summer training (#ALFSummer18) is one of the spaces where these resources and training and community-emerging can happen. Hear about this from Marley, our resident teen unschooler who spent a year at an Agile Learning Center (Heartwood ALC), and also got to participate in some of the #ALFSummer18 training. Listen and let us know what rings true for you. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 88: Unschooling Community Voices Jul 06, 2018

This episode includes some of the experiences of other families exploring Self-Directed Education. From a veteran teacher turned Self-Directed Education advocate, to frustrations with ageism, to fundraisers for love-centered t-shirts, we're talking about the ways people are raising free people.

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Ep. 87: Vulnerability in Pregnancy Jul 04, 2018

What do you know about black maternal mortality rates? Listen in to get insights on the issues black women face during pregnancy and the birthing process. In Episode 2 of Moji's Wellness Spiral series, her guest, Kimberly Staton, shares her pregnancy and birth experience as a black woman whose weight made her pregnancy high risk and how that experience led to see and shed some cultural ideas about pregnancy and birth, like the myth of "childbearing hips". Also discussed is the lack of quality prenatal health care for black women, the importance of childbirth education and bits of the history of black midwives and birth experience in the United States.

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Ep. 86: Raising the Queer, Black, and Free Jun 27, 2018

Alicia Lucas and her husband have five children. They used to say they have four daughters and one son, but they’re learning to practice a different narrative. Today, Alicia and her husband tell people they have three daughters, one son, and a child named Roxanne. Roxanne is their 8-year-old, gender-fluid child whose personal pronoun is “They.” Roxanne’s brother is 12 and identifies as bisexual. Together, their family is learning how to use terms and make space for every one of them to be comfortable and confident in being exactly who they are. As they learn how to do this, they’re shifting from conventional homeschooling and over into a more self-directed life. Self-Directed Education is helping them to deschool from ideas of gender roles and norms, and Alicia wants us to remember how this particular shift is tied to the greater issues of freedom, particularly for black families like hers.

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Ep. 85: Surviving Survival Mode (Ep 2) Jun 20, 2018

In Episode 2 of Monique's self-care, motherhood, and adulting podcast, Surviving Survival Mode, she talks about the feelings that kept her stuck in the very space she wanted to emerge out of. She also shares the "not enough" mindset that showed up, what helped her create a shift and how journaling played a major role in that process toward self-acceptance and learning to tap into that Now What? aspect of her work.

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Ep. 84: Our Deschooling Circle in Tuscon Jun 14, 2018

In Tuscon, Arizona, there are several families, many of whom are of Mexican descent, are seeing the ways Self-Directed Education supports a mindset of decolonizing education and returning to community and culture. This episode is a recap of an event for BIPOC using unschooling and other forms of self-directed studies to liberate themselves from oppressive systems. The event was organized by Lane Santa Cruz along with Traci, Yvonne, Jim, and other members of Tuscon's conscious parenting community. #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep: 83: Wellness Spiral - Disrupting Our Disturbing Diet Habits Jun 06, 2018

In episode 1 of Wellness Spiral with Moji Yai, we’re talking about disrupting eating habits and decolonizing food activism. Thanks to the candor of Moji’s guest, Christine Pierrelys, you’ll hear about one woman’s ongoing journey with cultivating a healthy personal and spiritual relationship with food. They’ll also touch on how routine work schedules can affect our sense of self-worth and our energy for self-care.

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Ep. 82: Moving Abroad to Design Your Liberation Jun 01, 2018

Ever wondered how the story of a single mom traveling abroad starts out? Here's one: Put your kid in public school, you fight through the fight, and you build your life around the best school district you can afford. And you find a good job to help you fund this life. But one day your son comes home and says, “Can you please put me in a school where they get me?” A year later, you’re on an unschooling path, living in Mexico with your son, and a growing community of other people who are learning how to live out their liberation and make room for their children to live out theirs too. That's Aja's story. Listen to hear the details and opportunities herein.

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Ep. 81: Ujima and Unschooling in New Jersey May 23, 2018

Here's how a Newark-area (New Jersey) community that prioritizes Self-Directed Education, but wants to include families of color in all stages of their educational journey decided to word their invitation for unschoolers, homeschoolers, and people somewhere in between: “Homeschoolers Of Color Collective is a group of families seeking to embody the principles of Ujima (collective work and responsibility) by decolonizing ourselves, relationships and education. We emphasize community building, self-directed learning through accessible resources. Disrupting. Empowering. Liberating. Re-Imagining.” #BIPOCinSDE

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Ep. 80: Curing Colonized Imaginations May 17, 2018

Unschooling is a way of life that is based on freedom, respect, and autonomy.

In essence, unschooling is a child-trusting, anti-oppressive, liberatory, love-centered approach to parenting and care-giving, so not just for parents, but also for educators and other people who help to raise your child.

Unschoolers like to say that learning is a byproduct of living, and not a separate thing from living.

One way to distinguish unschooling from other parenting or education methods is to ask:

1. Did the child choose to do this activity?

2. Can they quit whatever they’re doing with no recourse or push-back from an adult?

If the answers are yes, then it’s unschooling.

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Ep. 79: Deschooling Politics and Parenting May 12, 2018

Daritcia Rivera talks about living on her home island of Puerto Rico while navigating education, politics, and personal beliefs. She is deschooling from her old ideas, learning about the history of her island, and embracing being Black and self-directed. In this short segment, she talks about International Worker's Day (May Day) and its connection to our need to embrace deschooling.

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Ep. 78: Surviving Survival Mode (Ep. 1) May 10, 2018

In Part One, Emerging Out of Survival Mode, single mother, entrepreneur, and Self-Directed Education advocate, Monique Allison, talks about pain, shame, adulting, and learning that surviving just isn't enough. She'll introduce her listeners to the change-up process, an agile learning tool used in many self-directed learning collaborative spaces. Plus, she'll talk about taking change-up hella personal, by applying it to her own life.

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Ep. 77: Through, Not Around, Our Feelings May 04, 2018

Sometimes my daughters need to see me in my impatient space. Sometimes I can’t plead for their understanding — I have to inspire that shit through raw emotion and honest, unfiltered, non-violent expression. That’s my truth. The reality is that any person I love, including my daughters, can deeply hurt my feelings. Does this mean that I hold my daughters to the same level of emotional accountability as my husband or my best friend? Nope, but it for damn sure doesn’t mean that I morph into some feeling-less version of myself because I’m a mother, either. I refuse to hold myself accountable to some ridiculous standard of motherhood, and I refuse to see my daughters as people devoid of the capacity to use feelings and logic to decide how they want to be. They are not empty buckets made of impulses and giggles. As such, I hold them accountable, and I show them real-life responses to their real-life choices. As a matter of fact, I told three things to my dismissive daughter that day — not exactly in these words, but very much so in this energy.

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Ep. 76: Deepening and Discovery in This Work Apr 27, 2018

In this episode, we'll talk about the importance of recognizing the connection between unschooling and spirituality. When we see how the practice of raising free people is changing our perspectives and our habits, it might be time to revisit the personal leadership practices that were aligned with the not-true you. Mad question askin' along with simple spiritual practices can make your conscious parenting shift much easier and much more emotionally sustainable. Also, hear from Moji Yai about her upcoming Raising Free People Network series, and Atlanta Self-Directed Education enthusiast, Anjel Berry of Imagimatics, talks about the importance of maker spaces in every city.

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Ep. 75: To Be Young, Self-Directed and Black Apr 19, 2018

Don't let these skewed media images have you out here thinking Self-Directed Education is only for white people! It isn't; it's for any and everybody who wants it, and Chantrisse Parks, a black, self-directed young person, is one example of the varying faces of self-directed studies. Chantrisse is a brilliant example of that young, gifted, and Black energy that has been disrupting bullshit and actively working toward liberation since forever! Chantrisse is an Atlanta native with training in early childhood education.

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Ep. 74: What Does Raising Free People Mean? Apr 13, 2018

Basically, when we say we’re raising free people, we’ve decided that respect and love, not fear and control, will be how we raise and regard the youngest members of our homes and our society. Calling it “raising free people work, or rfp work” is our way of acknowledging that this IS work, and that there ARE tools and people and books and events and public groups and private groups to support this type of conscious parenting, respectful parenting, liberation-mindedness that is inclusive of the ones who tend to bear the weight of our unhealed wounds, our not-yet-adults.

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Ep. 73: How Grief Deschooled Her Apr 04, 2018

When Louvenia Wilkerson became a widow at 40 years old, grief and motherhood intersected in deeply difficult ways. The mother of three began a journey that caused her to question everything. Those questions led her to take her big pause from homeschooling, from entrepreneurship, and everything she identified with, including religion. Five years later, Lou and her children have happily transitioned into unschooling and taking a slow, steady approach to managing grief. With plans to own an RV and travel as an unschooling and road schooling family, life is looking good for Lou and her tribe.

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Ep 72: Series Trailers and Trust Issues Mar 28, 2018

Listen to clips from three upcoming Raising Free People Network podcast series, and then let's talk about trust issues in our relationships with children and ourselves. All of this is part of an ongoing movement toward normalized liberation for black people and for people of color the world over, who commit to forming community around raising free people. The series will be hosted by Daritcia in Puerto Rico, Monique Allison in Atlanta (Surviving Survival Mode), and Val Dee in Atlanta (The Other Side of MidLife). All details are on the show notes page: www.akilahsrichards.com/72

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Ep 71: Raising Free People Network Vibes Mar 22, 2018

This week I'm sharing my plans to expand the Fare of the Free Child unschooling podcast community! I'll be producing a set of short-run series (podcasts that have a small, set number of episodes), and co-facilitating some Self-Directed Education training, and you should be part of that mix. I'll tell you how to get involved in those projects, and you'll meet Anjel Berry, a mother of five daughters, and a co-organizer for Imagimatics, a maker-space project for outside the city limits of Atlanta. So much goodness in this episode; the show notes page is lit!!

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Ep. 70: Yoga For Healing While Mothering Mar 13, 2018

Self-care in Black motherhood looks different than it would for other mothers. Charlotte-based yogi, Kelley Carboni-Woods, aka Peace Filled Mama, is an entrepreneur, hair stylist, and yoga teacher who believes in using yoga as a means of claiming freedom and healing from trauma. Kelley is clear that the freedom of her two sons depends, in part, on her ability to heal. Referencing the daily systemic threats and triggers to Black life and Black joy, Kelley's work is fueled by the need for healing, so that she doesn't pass on what generations of trauma have already cost our people, to her sons.

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Ep. 69: The Community Supported Education Model Mar 08, 2018

Free SDE Tuition? Making Self-Directed Education more accessible? Yes! But don't let the word free fool you. There is a major investment and potentially huge payoff to this particular solution to making SDE more accessible. Atiba Nicholas and Dr. Scott Speed founded Grow, a self-directed community for families to partner with their children for life and learning opportunities. Based in East Point, Georgia, the two education activists aim to push back against the idea of the Education Industrial Complex by combining their learning center, parents, and businesses within the community. They support unschoolers and other self-directed learning models.

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Ep. 68: The Social Impact of Self-Directed Education Mar 07, 2018

Trudi Lebron is the first to tell you she's an excellent student. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. and that level of commitment didn't start in adulthood. In fact it started in her humble beginnings as a high-school dropout who had two sons by the time she was 17.Trudi felt that the world had given up on her, but she was sure that her sons deserved a mother who was happy and fulfilled, and she set out to be just that. Today she is a Connecticut-based business coach, social impact entrepreneur, and mother of three boys. She and her fiancé recently decided that Kennedy, their 9-year-old, no longer had to endure schooling. As a recent unschooler, Kennedy was asked how it felt to be out of school. He said it felt like "being free." Listen as Trudi talks about how community and courage helped her get free, and how she uses social impact leadership work to help others get free, too.

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Ep. 67: The Liberation & Education Summit Mar 01, 2018

Atlanta parents, educators, and caregivers gathered in Clarkston for the first Liberation and Education Summit on February 3 of this year. Unschoolers, homeschoolers, and various families and individuals in self-directed and alternative education convened to discuss the ways social justice is, and can be even more deliberately, part of our movement toward raising happy, conscious, well-quipped people. Here's a recap that's comprised mostly of clips from the panel discussion portion of the summit. The break-out sessions weren't recorded in full (partially to protect sensitive topics that often come out in smaller groups), but you'll get a good feel for what was discussed during the event. Special thanks to Heartwood Agile Learning Center's directors, board, and family of volunteers for hosting an encouraging, inspiring space to build community around Self-Directed Education.

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Ep. 66: Black Panther Movie's Unschooling Gems Feb 20, 2018

Wakanda--the country where a brilliant young girl runs the country's technology, a young, newly-made king decides that some aspects of his culture and tradition are ready for change, and gender equity is fully recognized; Wakanda is clearly the place to be! In this episode I'll share some of my favorite unschooling moments, and some of Atlanta's most excited Black Panther movie fans will tell you why they're all "Wakanda Forever" up in here!

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Ep. 65: Deschooling Through Black Minimalism Feb 13, 2018

Yolanda V. Acree is the founder of Black Minimalists and believer in Black liberation. She is part of a growing group of People of Color who choose to live simply, and to own their freedom by breaking out of standard, oppressive ideas and lifestyles. Yolanda is a digital nomad currently living in Mexico, and growing her tribe of liberation-minded people. The Black minimalism movement welcomes all People of Color living out their freedom through location independence, frugal or debt-free focused living, and other unconventional, freedom-centered practices.

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Ep. 64: Deschooling Through Detoxing Feb 07, 2018

New Jersey-based entrepreneur, Kim Hester and her husband Jamal, decided that Self-Directed Education is the best way for them to give their daughter, SaHura, a shot at confident autonomy. They're new to unschooling, but not to deschooling, because they've been helping their community deschool their relationships with food and their bodies.

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Ep. 63: Deep Work & Dora Life Jan 31, 2018

In this episode, Ieishah Clelland talks to us about transience, self-mothering, and the importance of forgiving ourselves. We explore healing work that happens through parenting as well, and you'll hear how Ieishah's intuition-driven travels were more than merely wanderlust, and actually how she made room for her husband and their daughters to manifest in her life. Oh, and we give major props to Dora--yes, the explorer, for her self-care sorcery.

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Ep. 62: Deschooling Through Deciding Jan 25, 2018

Moji Yai—the Benin-born, Gainesville-based unschooling parent, doula, and budding herbalist—came up with her own title for this episode—Time, Progress, and White Supremacy—because those are at the center of her WHY around Self-Directed Education. She talks about how much the decision to prioritize deschooling offers her a sort of reclamation of self, time, and power, and there is so much goodness to gather from this particular wise African woman. Enjoy!

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Ep 61: Deschooling Through Time for Self Jan 18, 2018

In this episode, Atlanta-based SDE facilitator and education entrepreneur, ANTHONY GALLOWAY II, speaks on moving past the mental aspect of self-care over to the literal practice. You'll also learn about two Atlanta events in support of Self-Directed Education, both of which Anthony is playing a major role in bringing to the city.

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Ep. 60: Deschooling through Movement Jan 10, 2018

In this episode, Atlanta-based ZAHRA ALABANZA talks about how her bike and her passport give afford her the messy divinity of mothering and activism. It's the second track on the Deschooling Release Party Mixtape. Enjoy!

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Ep. 59: Deschooling through Rhythm Jan 04, 2018

Yolonda Coles Jones on deschooling and self-care through the practice of noticing.

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Ep. 58: On Slowed Pace and Deepened Focus Dec 21, 2017

As an unschooling adult (whether parent or facilitator) you are not just managing children, you are leading sometimes. And you are also following sometimes for sure. But, you are in a position of power by way of access to more resources, greater mobility, broader life context (which has its benefits in some instances). How will you lead? How will you lead you? What will that look like next year in your relationships? Go inward. Look back. Bring it forward. Sankofa tings. I'm taking a break, and coming back in January with a self-care series. Soon come...Support the show

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Ep. 57: South Seattle Get Free Dec 16, 2017

Self-Directed Education as a means of dismantling white supremacy and raising free people--that's the work of two Latinx women living in West Seattle. Listen to their story and see how you can be part of creating a learning space where equity and education are inseparable parts of daily growth.

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Ep. 56: Managing Unschoolers' Holiday Anxiety Dec 06, 2017

This episode, I offer some tips for managing the types of family members who insist on you or your child explaining this homeschooling or self-directed education route. A few gentle reminders and a couple brilliant resources, that's what this episode is for. Plus, I talk about my NPR debut, and tell you how to join my webinar tribe. Enjoy!

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Ep. 55: A Vision for Self-Directed Communities Nov 29, 2017

Earlier this year, someone asked me what I envisioned the world to look like if Self-Directed Education was a much more normal part of everyday life for all communities. This episode discusses three aspects of SDE in everyday life—funding, community, and confidence. In this episode, I talk about those aspects, including some of the people (Issa Rae and Auntie Oprah, for starters) who embody that, let me tell it. I also share a platform where families of color can come learn more about Self-Directed Education.

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Ep. 54: The Sudbury Model Solution Nov 22, 2017

In this episode, I'm breaking bread with Atlanta-based wife, mother, and Sudbury School of Atlanta Board Chair, Patty Zavala. We talk about ways to build communication channels among people, so that we resort less to police intervention, and more toward humanized, liberatory ways of living in our communities. You'll hear why the Sudbury model is a great fit for her family, and why she moved from Mexico and quickly found out that conventional schooling would not work for her family.

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Ep. 53: Single Mama Unschooling Nov 15, 2017

One year later, Monique is back on the podcast telling us what's happening for her and Pharaoh as they tackle Sickle Cell, Hypertension, and other related illnesses. These roadblocks make life harder, but Monique still finds ways to practice liberated living. This is inspiring; come listen!

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Ep. 52: Managing Anxiety & Parent Push-back Nov 08, 2017

If you are a parent testing out Self-Directed Education (SDE) spaces, or you’re in one such space, but struggling with feelings that the facilitators should do MORE with your child—or that they should INTERVENE if your child isn’t doing ENOUGH of something constructive—this segment is for you! Also, if you’re a facilitator or volunteer in a natural learning space and you need some not-quite gentle reminders to steer us parents toward, this episode is a great place to start.

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Ep. 51: Black, Lesbian, Married & Unschooling Nov 01, 2017

Listen in as one Black, queer family learns how to unlearn their ideas about the purpose of schooling, and shift over to an educational and life path that encourages self-love, cultural awareness, and social justice. She and her wife, Summer, are raising both a conventional schooler and an unschooler (who is only 4). Their family is learning and unlearning, schooling and deschooling, and you get to hear all about it.

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Ep. 50: Standing In Our Self-Directed Truths Oct 04, 2017

Unschooling is really not about education. It’s about what Rastafarians like to call a LIVITY—a conscious way of approaching your day, your choices, your body, your relationships, your life—and of course, your approach to learning can’t NOT be affected by that. This conversation with edupreneur, Scott Speed, is gonna dive into the inner workings of starting a school, but we’re also gonna talk about shedding old skin, facing new truths, or realizing old truths that were just covered up in schoolishness, and walking that liberation walk even when the people around you ain’t feelin’ it.

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Ep. 49: AERO Conference, Miss Lou Style Aug 09, 2017

Speaking on resistance, patois, and Self-Directed Education at AERO Conference. Here's a bit of a recap from my first Alternative Education conference. Speakers like Dennis Littky, Peter Gray, Johnathon Kozol, and thought-leaders like Aaron Eden and German Doin really encouraged me to keep doing this work.

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Ep. 48: Transitioning to Unschooling Aug 01, 2017

This is about the work of fitting in versus figuring out. Atlanta-based flight attendant, wife, and mother of three—Katrina Morrison—discusses the choice of following a path you already envisioned and a process/relationship you’ve already invested in, versus starting anew. She tells us about her family structure and why the shift from charter school to unschooling felt like a major challenge.

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Ep. 47: Deschooling Discipline Jul 28, 2017

This week, Akilah talks about how Jamaican cultural icon and folklorist, Dr. Louise "Miss Lou" Bennett-Coverley influences her unschooling approach to parenting. She also discusses how discipline can be deschooled to embrace a whole-person, decolonized approach to making life changes. An announcement for an Atlanta open house is also in the mix, plus plenty more. Come sit with us.

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Ep. 46: Kickin' It, SDE Style Jul 19, 2017

We're talking parenting patois, patronage, unschooling progress, in-person meetups, and plenty more today. This is a mash-up episode, where I'm sharing a little bit of a lot. Enjoy!

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Ep. 45: Practicing Unschooling Jul 12, 2017

In episode 45, I answer a question from someone who attended my unschooling webinar today. She asked about the process of going from homeschooling to unschooling, and I expound on a response from a longtime unschooler inside the webinar. Plus, I give an overview of unschooling, so don't miss those details.

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Ep. 44: Natural Learning in Philadephia Jul 06, 2017

When Maleka Diggs moved to an affluent Philadelphia neighborhood so that she and her husband could get their daughters into the best school, she was shocked to face racism from the school's principal. Soon after, she set out to create the sort of academic and community-centered environment she wanted for her daughters, instead of trying to fit them into the school's culture. Eclectic Learning Network was born, and today, Philly-based families are benefiting from Maleka's commitment.

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Ep. 43: Unschooling Studies Jun 27, 2017

Do unschoolers study? Is there a curriculum in unschooling? In this episode, Marley, a 13-year-old unschooler who happens to be my daughter discusses her current curriculum. She is deeply immersed in dance/performance, writing/research, and game design. Find out how structure develops naturally, how we address personality conflicts, and of course, we offer laughter and good vibes all up and through. Here's what life looks like for an unschooling teenager.

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Ep. 42: Starting Your Own School in Nashville Jun 21, 2017

In this episode, Tennessee-based edupreneur, Sonia LeBlanc, brings us personal insights along with solid statistics about the southern United State’s school classifications and exemptions. She talks about how to Start a School in Nashville, Tennessee, specifically a Sudbury Valley School (a democracy-focused Self-Directed Education center) in Nashville.

We learn how in Maryland, for example, people looking to start their own schools begin by forming their own church, then opening up a school under that church’s legal umbrella. In Tennessee, it’s much more than that. Sonia explains the process and how it differs from other states.

Sonia, a White woman who was born and raised in Dominican Republic, and her husband—a Black man from Puerto Rico (who was raised in St. Croix and in Dominica where his family is from) are raising two brown girls in the American South, and wants to be part of the change in relationships among people in the world by raising more self-aware, socially just, liberation-minded children. #POCinSDE

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Ep. 41: Demilitarizing Myself Jun 13, 2017

In this episode, I talk with my sister-friend, Veronica, a retired servicewoman who now calls Atlanta home. “A majority of young adults, like me, spend their late teens and early 20’s grooming themselves into who they desire to be and stripping away the collected ways of everyone else. What I’ve heard it most referred to as is the time that most children rebel against their parents but it’s far from that. It’s actually the time that old children become young adults and began to shape who they want to be as much as they can. Sad to say, autonomous growth is not allowed in most institutions or households so it takes place later in life than it should if you ask me. I was no different this process took place way later at least that’s what it felt like but for some, it may be even later. So here I am, creating what feel right for me. Giving myself permission to do any and everything differently and autonomously, and creating space that allows women to transition into a self-guided spiritually grounded living and growing lifestyle post military.” – Veronica Ashley

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Ep 40: Woke AF Parenting 101 Jun 06, 2017

Yolonda Jones: creative spirit. writer. professional photog.professional natural hair stylist. professional singer. professional black girl as Dr. Yaba Blay would say. Yolonda’s crown rises high like her ambitions and her intentions. She and her partner, her husband, Will, are raising 4 free people, two daughters and twin sons, while simultaneously raising themselves as creatives, as business owners, as people with flaws and fire. Yolonda and Will have a blog called The Real Life Joneses where they risk expression about life in and beyond the brokenness. They talk about PTSD, depression, liberatory approaches to education and living with children, infidelity, creative brilliance, all of it.Support the show

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Ep. 39: Mask-Free Relationships May 30, 2017

In this episode, Los Angeles-based natural learning advocate, Genesis Ripley, talks about the myriad of ways the liberated parenting journey has changed her for the better. She shares some of the ways it helps to grow her and heal her relationships. The reality for Genesis is that this approach to parenting and living is helping her to better understand herself and the people she spend time. I can agree, as unschooling has an inevitable side-effect of shedding and strengthening friendships and even our own relationships with our parents at times. We talked about how our children get to be themselves, which frees us up to recognize the ways that we’ve been holding on to things that aren’t even about us, but we just didn’t recognize our own freedom to let that stuff go.

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Ep. 38: Unschooling in Joburg May 24, 2017

13-year-old unschooler, Marley Richards, talks about her experiences with facing fears, navigating new territories, and making new friends across South Africa.

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Ep. 37: Unschooling As Digital Nomads May 18, 2017

This episode, Akilah's special guest is Kris Richards, her husband. Listen in as they talk about their experience at Re-Imagined Learning Center run by two young, Self-Directed Education advocates, CheVanni and Sebastian David. They'll also answer a patron's question about how the manage to live the digital nomad lifestyle. Great conversation with lots of takeaways to feel through. Enjoy!

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Ep. 36: Can Adults Be Unschoolers? May 09, 2017

In episode 36, Atlanta-based military veteran and entrepreneur, Veronica Ashley, talks about being an unschooling adult. Veronica spent a few days with Marley and Sage (my daughters), and saw quite a few parallels between her own journey to a greater leadership role in her own life. In learning more about herself, freeing her mind from much of the training and trauma that cost her so much, Veronica is deschooling herself and embracing a life design of her own accord. Listen in as she talks about learning from Marley and Sage, nurturing healthy partnerships, and fostering autonomous growth.

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Ep. 35: My Reflection Matters May 02, 2017

Here’s the story about how a Nuyorican woman who worked atNew York University as a social justice coach for educators is now living a life that evolved from a great career nestled inside academia into now unschooling her two Afro-Latinx sons, Judah and Keanu, along with her Trinidadian husband, Shane. Unschooling, as you’ve heard me say since the very first episode of Fare of the Free Child, is a tool for liberation. And of course, liberation don’t fit in no box, so for Chemay, liberation isn’t just for her family, it’s a path she wants paved clear for all Black and Brown folks to have the resources to liberate themselves too. So, to do that work, Chemay is in the heat and heart of building an community-centered organization, a space called My Reflection Matters, that provides tools to support and nurture healthy racial and cultural identities of Black and Brown children and older youth.

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Ep. 34: Designing Liberation in Africa Apr 26, 2017

In this episode, we connect with an African-American living in Africa. Kaylan’s story is very much about about directing her own path, going against the norm to design a liberatory practice that for her meant exploring life outside of corporate America and the standard American dream. She runs a blog titled African-American in Africa, which is where I first learned about Kaylan. She is now married and she and her husband have a young son. Kaylan is learning how to make space for her son to develop his own interests outside of the things Kaylan associates with a happy childhood. Plenty of life lessons in parenting, equity, history and politics, and so much more for this adventurous, conscious Mama. This is a great episode; enjoy!

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Ep. 33: Motherhood and Mental Shifts Apr 19, 2017

Atlanta and DC-based travel industry professional and Self-Directed Education loving Mama, Kenya Scott joins us once again. Her son has been benefiting from SDE as a learner over at Heartwood ALC, and in this episode, we chop it up about socio-economic misconceptions, respectability politics, some pretty important shifts in perspective, and so much more. It’s always a pleasure to vibe with Kenya; you’re gonna enjoy this episode. We also mentioned a few other episodes: Kid Cultivators’ co-founder, Leslie Bray; Heartwood ALC co-founder, Anthony Galloway, Jr; Dida Academy co-founder, Danielle A. Levine; Kenya’s first time on the podcast. #POCinSDE

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Ep. 32: Kicking Cancer's Ass While Unschooling Apr 13, 2017

My initial motivation for inviting Tia Cunningham to the show was that she is an unschooler based in Charlotte NC who connected locally with another unschooler from the show, Yanira Castro from episode 5 titled SDE Communities. They posted a picture on Facebook of their newly formed unschooling group for Black and Brown folks, and they were connected with some other folks, shout out to Zuli who hipped Tia to Yanira! Anyway, that was my initial excitement. Then I found out that Tia has a form of blood cancer and that she doesn’t let that and all the work that comes with that, stop her from raising free people. Her way of managing her household and her self, including her cancer, are part of how Tia lives out the liberation she believes in. She is my tribe for sure, and I couldn’t be more pleased to bring you this episode. Let me tell you, too, we goin’ IN on dis thang… Part of how Tia manages her pain is through cannabis, so we talk about that. We also talk about how many doctors and other medical professional don’t know much besides what they learned in school, and how that severely limits their actual knowledge on whats’ good and what aint—i.e. how so many doctors don’t know shit about nutrition but try to judge you if you don’t eat meat, coming with that how-do-you-get-your-protein b.s. We also talk about how unschooling gives us plenty opportunities to face our own shit! Support the show

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Ep. 31: Solutions to Whitewashed Self-Directed Education Apr 09, 2017

In this episode, we come real plain with it. I’m happy to offer up this dialogue where one return guest and one new one are brave enough and human enough to nurture safe space with me. Anthony Galloway was on episode 19. He is one of the founders of Heartwood Agile Learning Center in Clarkston, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. He’s a graduate of Morehouse College, a believer in nurturing learning, and a longtime educator/facilitator.
Anthony is joined by one of the Heartwood ALC co-founders, Julia Cordero. Julia has been in education for more than 20 years, in private schools, at a public access TV station directing a youth program for teens, And in this episode, she is helping to nurture safe space by offering up some real candor around her own baggage and biases, and talking about her willingness to face them, and to do something about the lack of Black and Brown faces at Heartwood ALC, including on their board and on their staff. #POCinSDE

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Ep. 30: Questions from Patrons (Supporting POC in SDE) Apr 06, 2017

New Patron, Amy Carpenter asks: How can white unschooling families best support and make space for Black unschooling families without being intrusive? She is a white unschooler who has been in communities where she wanted to do more for people of color in Self-Directed Education, but wasn't sure how to go about doing that. I address that issue with responses and recommendations.

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Ep. 29: 20-something Mama Mojo Apr 04, 2017

25-year-old wife and mama, Moya Kelly, and I have this beautiful intergenerational conversation around mothering and deschooling ourselves, and giving our children room to guide us. Part I is about self-mothering, mostly, and part 2 goes into the focus on education and what real learning can look like for a younger child (her son, Jordan is 2), including the ways that daycare or preschool can hinder learning.

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Ep. 28: Homeschooling & Unschooling Together Mar 29, 2017

On this episode, Atlanta-based wellness entrepreneur, Chante’ Smith, talks about how she and her partner facilitate multiple learning paths within their household. Their children, Chloe (11), S'vaan (9), and Sekou (4) are teaching the adults in their home exactly what they need to thrive. We also talk about early diagnosis of Asperger’s, learning to trust ourselves and children, and practicing self-mothering.

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Ep. 27: Missing Girls, Major Fears Mar 27, 2017

Black parents know the confidence and strong sense of autonomy that we work toward as we raise our children can be difficult to impart when our race puts our children at risk. On this episode, I hold space for the parents and community members who grapple with the conflicting feelings of trying to raising free people while feeling afraid for the safety of our children. With the obvious disregard for the missing DC girls, and the myriad other proof points that Black Lives don't matter to white people, how do we allow ourselves to give our children space to explore and express themselves? Perspective and compassion are offered here; listen in.

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Ep. 26: Collectively Raising Free People Mar 24, 2017

In this episode, I'm pushing you a bit. Maybe more than a bit. The invitation here is one of accountability and self-inquiry, something I think is vital for us to move from talking to changing. For sure, dialogue is a powerful and perhaps a necessary catalyst for change and movement. But we can't stop there. So as you listen and you feel moved and motivated by what you hear from the folks who make time to share with us on this podcast: ask yourself this question:

How am I participating in my own oppression and in the oppression of children, and what can I do toward a different experience.

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Ep. 25: Disruption with Dr. Scott Speed Mar 22, 2017

In this episode, Atlanta based Edupreneur, Dr. Scott Speed, and I speak on systems thinking, why there is no such thing as a “good public school,” shifting our focus from institutions to individuals and communities, social constructs, global indoctrination, capitalism as a barrier to seeking change, reclaiming intuition, eradicating white supremacy, and actively moving toward change.

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Ep. 24: Patriarchy, Power, and Liberatory Parenting Mar 15, 2017

Lane Santa Cruz: Eudeve-opata, revolutionary m/othering jotx, deschooler, bicis. In this episode, we're taking a deep dive into the idea of bodily autonomy and the skewed ideas we pass on to children. in other words, the ways we participate in the oppression of our own people; our children, our partners, all of it. This episode is really gonna give you some opportunities to feel through oppression with maybe a deeper sense of clarity now, or at least curiosity. I hope you use it to face some truths and to seek some support as you perhaps deschool yourself from these oppressive behaviors. I’m doing that myself and it’s a constant practice. I send you love and light as you dive into your practice as well. Let’s listen it to Lane and me talk about autonomy, oppression, and authentic expression.

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Ep. 23: Wise African Women Mar 08, 2017

Moji Katu, a birthworker/doula and new unschooling parent, talks about decolonizing the mind, mothering ourselves, and reaching back, Sankofa-style, to access the old wisdom and honor the old traditions that have served women for centuries. Her initiative, Wise African Women, will begin in her come country of Benin, and will be shared via social media, in efforts to reconnect women of color to wellness rituals and knowledge that counter the damaging practices that separate women from culturally-relevant and highly-effective wellness practices. Her work as a doula and liberation-seeker have led her to the decision to keep her daughter free from the confines of public education. Listen in as we talk about getting free, remembering our magic, and mothering in various forms.

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Ep. 22: Black and Latino Homeschoolers Mar 01, 2017

In this episode, author and homeschooling consultant, Zakkiyya Chase, talks about the inspiration and frustrations behind her debut book, No Dream Deferred: Why Black and Latino Families are Choosing Homeschool. We talk about the ways that Self-Directed Education differs from homeschooling, but how the latter can often lead to the former. You won't want to miss the level of detail in which Zakkiyya examines the history of public education in America, and what is has cost Black and Latino families then and now.

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Ep. 21: What's Good? Season Two! Feb 22, 2017

It's the first episode of Season Two, and Akilah's offering up an overview of the deschooling, unschooling, personal leadership mojo that will anchor this season's episodes. The podcast is expanding to include non-parents and you'll hear why. It's parenting, Self-Directed Education, and Radical Self-Expression all wrapped into one multi-layered format; you'll love it!

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Ep. 20: Love and Unschooling Dec 06, 2016

On the season finale, I bring my husband Kris into the mix to discuss the many ways unschooling helps us live out the liberation we've always wanted to experience. We talk about our relationship with each other, our parenting ideas, our mindset when it comes to raising free people, and much more. Show notes available at www.akilahsrichards.com/kris.

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Ep. 19: Life, Legality & Love Dec 01, 2016

Danielle A. Levine'’s work has been and still is heavily directed by a complex set of realities that damage the lives of many children and families, and most often affect black and brown families more than white families. Danielle and her business partner, William Schmidt set up space (they call it Dida Academy) in Brooklyn, New York to address these complex realities with self-directed education. She is very interested in the legal rights of children and the policies that hinder those rights. Danielle is an eventual mama who is working really hard to create change and opportunity for children today and her own future children.

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Ep 18: Self-Care and Sacred Space Nov 25, 2016

Leslie Bray spent 10 years teaching in the public school system. She now homeschools her three children and co-leads a homeschooling collective with Tywane Owens in Atlanta. Her group includes homeschoolers, unschoolers, and a range of other families who are prioritizing learning on their own terms. Listen as Leslie speaks about our collective responsibility to care for ourselves while standing in support of families who are willing, but not able to take their children out of the school system and into shared learning spaces.

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Ep. 17: The ChicanX Deschooled Doctoral Student Nov 16, 2016

Navigating the space of being a Doctoral student and a deschooler. ChicanX m/other and social justice advocate, Lane Santa Cruz speaks about defining herself on her own terms and making space for her three children to do the same.

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Ep. 16: What To Tell Children Now Nov 09, 2016

This is in response to folks' request for suggestions on how to talk to their children about Donald Trump being America's elected president.

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Ep. 15: Educating Our Black Boys Nov 01, 2016

Kenya Scott is an entrepreneur living between DC and GA with her husband and 10-year-old son, Malcolm. I see her as a mother who saved her black son from being caught up in the medicated student money-making system that pays Big Pharma and justifies treating black boys like non-humans who need medication and harsh punishments. In Episode 15, Kenya and I talk about the trauma black children face in the school American school system, seeing the value in intentional learning communities, and why we should stop sleeping on Minecraft (yes, for real!). We also compare Sudbury Schools and ALCs (Agile Learning Centers) in terms of model (daily structure) and money (accessibility).Support the show

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Ep. 14: Self-Mothering While Parenting Oct 26, 2016

Spiritual writing coach Trelani Michelle is an author, mother, and storyteller. In Episode 14, she talks with us about her bestselling book, Women Who Ain't Afraid to Curse When Communicating with God.

Women Who Ain’t Afraid to Curse When Communicating with God is for free spirits and old souls who believe in the magic of:

me-time
ancestral guidance
visualization
mirror work
masturbation
chakra balancing
self-esteem
As you learn to recognize and trust that ever-present voice of Spirit, you’ll simultaneously tap into your power and potential. Included are 31 contemplative writing prompts, meditations, and personal stories, summoning you to start from where you are to deepen your connection with Spirit, language, and the world around you.

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Ep. 13: Why Liberated Parenting is Vital Oct 17, 2016

I'm sitting with a dope sister named Tracy this week. She is a nurturer and an outspoken advocate of liberation and love for people of the African diaspora. Listen as she and I discuss mothering black people in a time when the available educational system targets, oppresses, and harms Black children disproportionately.

We also talk about being stuck in a "plantation" mindset, and why alternative education options like unschooling and homeschooling are vital for Black and Brown folks to understand, and in many cases, embrace.

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Ep. 12: How He's Using His Gifts Oct 11, 2016

Anthony Galloway wasn’t willing to be another cog in the system.

He’s a smart, twenty-something year old African-American man who chose to go into the field of education. He came up through the system, and learned how to excel in it. He also knew that he wanted to be part of the change in public education that allowed children of color access to the same resources and opportunities as children in white schools or private ones.

Anthony co-founded an Agile Learning Center, now facilitated by both him and long-time educator, Julia Cordero. I think you’re gonna find this discussion interesting because Anthony’s an educator who saw the school system for what it was and is, and started his own school to create something better. Support the show

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Ep. 11: Autism, Asperger's & Active Joy Oct 06, 2016

Darcel White of themahagonyway.com joins us on this episode. She writes about her motherhood journey, and their unschooling lifestyle, including insights on Autism, Asthma, Food Allergies, and her knitting projects. We distill some concrete life lessons that Darcel is learning from raising children, one with autism and some other complications, one who recently decided to attend public school, another two who attend a homeschooling co-op. Multiple schedules, multiple learning challenges, multiple reasons to either parent from fear, or to do the harder work.

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Ep. 10: Cultural Storytelller Learning Sep 29, 2016

Kali Ferguson is a storyteller, culture keeper, and movement-inspired educator based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She believes in movement and storytelling and tools for decolonizing learning and creating space for personalized understanding. Through her in-person and upcoming web-based work, Kali taps into dance and storytelling as a means of self and cultural inquiry as well as a catalyst for social change.

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Ep. 9: BONUS: Unschooling Away the Plantation Sep 22, 2016

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Ep. 8: Unschooling & Entrepreneurship Sep 20, 2016

On this episode, business-owner and 16-year unschooling mama, Itiel Mcvay, shares her many insights. Our conversation is really about the clear parallel between how learning happens for entrepreneurs and for children. We also talk about the dangers of traditional schooling and learning how to listen and watch while our children show us exactly who they are and what they need.

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Ep. 7: Unschooling Adults | Movement and Moxie Sep 13, 2016

On episode 7 of Fare of the Free Child, I break bread with Curron Gajadhar- an artist and movement trainer who was based in Atlanta, but now goes wherever his process takes him. We address the fear of what might happen if we don’t control children through religion and rules and physical consequence. And we discuss the fare we pay, both as children and adults, when we use fear instead of self-discovery as our compass.

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Ep. 6: New to Unschooling Sep 07, 2016

Monique Allison is a life coach and single parent. Her son, Pharaoh is a fun-loving, dancing machine and bona fide foodie navigating life while managing sickle cell and a few other chronic illnesses.

Monique and Pharaoh have recently embraced school-free living and are both still exploring what life will look like without a focus on school. Monique is excited about this liberated form of living, and Pharaoh has been calling for this shift for a long time. With a focus on learning more about each other and their individual interests, this duo is committed to designing lives that include joy, fun, natural education, and plenty of time to understand and embrace lifelong learning.

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Ep. 5: Self-Directed Learning Communities Aug 31, 2016

Marketing specialist and Outdoor Afro leader, Yanira Castro, talks with Akilah about the benefits of a solid marriage, the importance of cultural appreciation as a LatinX mother, a career she loves, and being part of a self-directed learning community through the Agile Learning Center in her Charlotte, North Carolina community.

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Ep. 4: Black Queer Mothering Aug 22, 2016

Trelani Michelle is a writer, wife, and mama of two. Her son, CJ, is 10, and her daughter, Kobe, is 6. She is a versed writer who has shed light and offered refreshing perspectives on everything from juvenile detention system to cursing when communicating with God.

I’m also sharing space with Trelani Michelle this episode because Trelani is part of a group that is definitely underrepresented in parenting circles and discussions about how we choose to parent — that group is black queer mothers, so we’ll explore what that means specifically for Trelani, as a queer black woman married to a straight black man.

Listen and enjoy as Trelani and I get all up in our feelings about motherhood, relationships, education, and radical self-expression.

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Ep. 3: The LIFE School - Atlanta Aug 11, 2016

"Our school is really to empower students to have more ownership over their education. High school is usually this mad dash of checking off boxes to create a great portfolio. Because of that they lack of sense of who they are and how they can add value to the world. To identify needs in the community, and know how to problem-solve, to organize, and to bring about sustainable change inside their communities." Mikala Streeter, MIT and Stanford graduate who founded The LIFE School in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

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Ep. 2: South Africa & India Reimagined Aug 01, 2016

"That shift from beloved, all-black schools to white schools where black students were always seen as interlopers, as not really belonging, taught me the difference between education as the practice of freedom and education that merely strives to reinforce domination." -bell hooks In this episode, we’re breaking the stereotype that unschooling is a white, male, middle-class thing. I’m so excited to share a peek into Zakiyya Ismail’s life and work. She is a longtime self-directed education advocate and mother of two young adults and a 9-year old, all of whom are life-long unschoolers. Zakiyya and her husband wanted their children to have the space to define themselves outside of predominant ideologies, and they saw that school was not where that would happen. “Why should we restrict ourselves to our geographic location, when we can find people we can connect with anywhere in the world?” -Zakiyya Ismael, The Learning Reimagined Conference, South AfricaSupport the show

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Ep. 1: Unschooling Explained Jul 27, 2016

As unschoolers, we don’t see school as the primary place to learn and everywhere else as places to take breaks from learning. We don’t suffer from summer learning loss and those types of ideas. Unschoolers use all resources available to explore and build upon anything of interest to them, so plenty of my time and my husband Kris’s time, is spend observing what our girls are really into, and helping them find resources to go deeper into whatever their interests are. Unschooling is about relevant, highly-customized learning experiences that become a normal part of living. So much like we adults when we start a new project or even at our jobs, have to be resourceful and we have to understand what specific things each project will need and how we in particular will need to approach it to maximize the chances of getting the outcome we want, unschoolers take the same approach. Something feels relevant in their life, whether for personal reasons or to make money, or to be part of something, and they go down a path to get more versed about that thing. And children do that, just as adults do, because that’s not an adult thing, that’s a human thing. Children in particular are extremely curious beings, and they go after what they want to know. Babies do it—try to get a crawling baby to not go toward the shiny thing or the noisy thing—you’re gonna get a fight. Try to get a toddler to stop looking at something that piques their interest—you’re gonna get a fight. We, as humans, from infancy, are curious beings who want to engage in things around us, and who will inevitably, quite naturally, learn about the things we’re curious about, and in the process, learn about other things that we may not have even known existed, or that were connected to the original thing that caught our attention. Unschooling is learning-centered in that it focuses on how each child learns, instead of what to teach children, or instead of what adults believe children should be learning. It looks at a child’s approach to the world through her interactions with the people in her life, and also through her interactions with things-toys, animals, TV, radio, the computer, a phone — all of those things. So because unschooling is learning-centered, parents spend a lot of time observing their child and really getting to understand how they navigate the world around them, and how they tend to approach things. Which leads to the other thing that unschooling is, which is learner-centered. All these observations help unschooling parents to partner with their child, instead of decide for their child, what learning will look like for them. So, it’s learner-centered because all that observations help parents to faciSupport the show

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Ep. 0: Welcome and Why This Show Jul 10, 2016

This fall, I’m launching a podcast for Black and Brown parents who practice alternative parenting options to the traditional education model that is school. Options like unschooling, worldschooling, roadschooling, slowschooling, eclectic homeschooling, and the myriad other ways that we and our children embrace curiosity-driven, lifelong learning. The podcast is called Fare of the Free Child, and its purpose is to help me amplify the underrepresented voices and unique concerns of people of color looking for real viable options to the oppressive systems that our children are expected to live and learn within. I want to use this space to create community for adults engaged in unconventional black and brown parenting and caregiving to be heard, and to find and support each other. And since I’m an unschooling, location independent, non-christian, Caribbean, intersectional feminist, mermaid identifying, radical self-expression practicing, blackity-black woman and mother, raising two superdope black girls with my Kingman—I am just the one to invite you into this conversation. And to be clear, I have an agenda. I want us to start treating our children with more dignity and giving them more autonomy over their own futures. And I want us to shift out of the thinking that this work of freeing children from oppressive structures, is a white thing, as many black folks keep telling me about unschooling in particular. The format of the podcast is simple: we start with a fear (f-e-a-r), and then we explore the fare (f-a-r-e the cost). So, twice a month, I—sometimes accompanied by a special guest co-host—will talk about the layers of unconventional black parenthood, and how we can use that mindset as a way to get free. We’re aiming to solve things together, not just talk about them. Fare of the Free Child will not just be for folks already immersed in self-directed education, it will also be accessible and relatable to newbie unschoolers, undecided but curious parents, and eventual parents who want to start exploring ways to live and learn with their children now. Sign up for updates and the first few episodes at akilahsrichards.com/podcast. And while you’re doing that, tell a few friends to sign up too. That link again is akilahsrichards.com/podcast.Support the show

Dig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you!

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