Fare of the Free Child

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Kids & Family
**Fare of the Free Child**

Fare of the Free Child podcast focuses on Black people, Native Indigenous people, and People of Color (BIPOC) families who practice unschooling and other forms of Self-directed, decolonized living and learning. Each weekly episode examines a particular way that we’ve accepted coercive, emotionally and physically damaging habits as a normal part of adult-child relationships. With a focus on deschooling one’s self, decolonizing education, and exploring radical self-expression, this podcast challenges and informs us to walk toward a model for living with children that believes in trusting and respecting children and ourselves. #fofcpod #raisingfreepeople

Latest Episodes:

EP 161: Updates + A Replay Mar 04, 2020

Show notes

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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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 160: The Practice of Reparenting Ourselves Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 159: A (Black) History of Knowing Feb 19, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 158: Ageism + racism in library culture Feb 11, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 157: Surmounting Support Issues Feb 05, 2020

Show notes

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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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 156: Resources for Liberation Work Jan 29, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 155: What Are School Wounds? Jan 23, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 154: Is An Unschooling Curriculum a Thing? Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 153: Can We Trust Children? Jan 08, 2020

Show notes

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.

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 152: Decolonizing Your Mind & Spirit Dec 31, 2019

Show notes

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.

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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