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.
Kris talks about The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary that shows us how social media behaves as a way of indoctrination, serving a capitalistic model where everybody normalizes transactional relationships.
They also chat about colonial foundations that historically have given benefits to White supremacy, for generations. Schooling doesn’t teach us to seek alternative perspectives or to question the system itself, it teaches us to pursue ways of getting into the “right path”, of what the system needs in order to perpetuate it. The benefit of some is causing the harm of others, and is not until it reaches our reality that we get to understand that.
LIBERATION WALK
- Book Val for plant-care needs here, and check her out on Instagram for great content on how to nurture our plants!
- 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
- Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!
- Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!
