Fare of the Free Child

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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!

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