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.
Many of us, as adults, are just starting to unlearn the notion that learning happens primarily in school. And sometimes that’s the actual experience we have. And sometimes school is safer than home for a child, whether emotionally or physically, so that is a loss that is being felt too. With all of those things to navigate, it can be powerful to hear real stories of thrive outside of school, so listen good and pull some resources from this conversation to help you approach these realities with clarity, with the benefits of others’ experiences, and your own children’s right to thrive to keep you rooted.
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. Register here
- Subscribe to Akilah’s Youtube Channel!
- Join patreon.com/akilah and support the show!
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