Ep 263: Unschooling as Resistance: A Look Back at Season One

Ever wondered how unschooling and liberation work intersect? Join us for a nostalgic trip down memory lane as we delve into the first season of Fare of the Free Child podcast. We discuss my personal journey to unschooling and how moving away from a school-centric life connected to liberation work.

In this episode, we give a special shout out to Juan Perez, our beloved audio editor! We also celebrate the various topics, conversations, and stories from season one that have left a lasting impact on us as listeners.

Discover how resistance can serve as a roadmap to understanding the identity of unschooling and its potential for personal growth. I share my experience with revisiting the personal manifesto path - a transformative course I published in 2014.

We discuss the importance of taking full responsibility for our experiences, opening up new portals of exploration in the world of unschooling, liberation, and social justice. Find a cozy spot, tune in, and let's do some Sankofa work.

LINKS:

For any audio editing, you can reach out to Juan Pablo: juanpablooperez@gmail.com

krak teet: https://www.krakteet.org/

The Life School Atlanta: https://www.thelifeschool.co/

Humanity Communications Collective: https://humanitycom.com/about-our-ceo/

Smell Good Spa: https://smellgoodspa.com/

Heart of Business: https://www.heartofbusiness.com

Transcript

Akilah S. Richards: 0:06

I want to shout-out to Juan Perez, whose voice you heard last week at the top of the episode talking about Fare of the Free Child and Raising Free People Network. Juan has been our audio editor for many seasons, and many years. This season I'm closing out the same way. I started doing the bulk of the production of the podcast myself, with Naaz formerly Fatima supporting me along the way. So I really love that Juan was able to be involved in the sound in a different way. So any imperfections you hear this season in the audio, are all mine! and if you are looking for professional-level audio, I highly recommend Juan Perez. I will make sure a link to reach out to Juan is available. I have friends who podcast, who I've recommended Juan to, and everybody was like, oh my God, thank you, and I was like you're welcome.

Akilah S. Richards: 1:07

You can't keep using tools of oppression and expect to raise free people. It's good, it's Akilah here. Welcome back to Fare of the Free Child podcast. I'm making myself practice doing this introduction thing because I don't want to leave out new listeners, folks who are hearing this podcast, these stories, for the first time or just the second time and might not have some of the backstory. But I also know that it's such a sweet sentiment because the reason that I have a hard time feeling comfortable doing a formalish introduction is because I really feel so connected to so many of you who listen to the podcast, because we chat on social media or we've chatted at a live event somewhere in person, and so it just feels like almost like I'm going to come to your house And then when you open a door, i'm going to be like hi, i'm Akilah S Richards and I host Fare of the Free Child podcast, so I love that we've gotten to the point where it feels so comfortable. I also want to be like hey, new people, come on in, grab a spot, come on into the conversations. We dive deep into the world of unschooling, liberation and so many aspects of raising free people. I'm your host, akilah. Today I have something super, super special lined up. We're going to take a stroll down memory lane. This whole season will include a lot of memory lane in it, and for some of us it will be nostalgic because we were listening real time and talking real time back in 2016, 2017, the first couple years of this podcast. And for others, it might be nice to peek in on some folks going down memory lane because it's brand new for you. So, either way, my intention here is to just do this memory lane ting and explore some of the themes and intersections that showed up for us in each of the episodes of that first season.

Akilah S. Richards: 3:41

We kicked off season one with an episode I can't believe. I didn't put in front of me the title. It was like why I need to honor this feeling, and I know that in that episode I really was sharing my personal journey and just the experiences that led me to explore unschooling And that by that time in 2016, i had started to make or notice a really clear connection between unschooling and liberation work. The broader, outside of my experiences alone, my personal experiences, my inner world, like things outside of that, were significantly affected by our decision to move away from school-centric life. Initially, it felt like it was about giving our daughters the space that they needed and then the language switch to deserved, to just explore what their interests were and to learn in a way that wasn't so superscripted and super influenced and ruled by pervasive whiteness. So that's around the time that that started to happen.

Akilah S. Richards: 4:51

And so, seeing that connection and perhaps you've heard the story of how, after some more of the typical in the United States loss of black lives through agents of the system, in this case, the police that happened in 2016 and people were messaging me because by then, i was writing essays about unschooling and how it was a type of sovereignty and liberation just what I was noticing for the first time back then. So people were writing to me saying, yes, this is why we We can't get with unschooling or we want to, but it's not feasible because our kids aren't safe. We're not safe, and really that's what started, what became this podcast and this community. So I was sharing the experiences that led me to unschooling, and so that really set the tone for the entire season and just opened the door to other people's connection points between unschooling and liberation and what that looked like. That's how the podcast took shape, because I had no idea what I was gonna do besides say what I was upset about and why I thought that, even though I was so upset about those realities, they made me want more to understand life without a focus on school. It didn't feel safer to figure out how to get my kids to fit into the system. It was the fucking opposite, especially because of everything we were experiencing. So I didn't know that it would shape up the way that it did And really we just that first season.

Akilah S. Richards: 6:29

It was just a fantastic stretch of 20 episodes from July to December So many conversations, so much insight, so many eye-opening moments. We covered so many topics decolonization, social change, the foundational role of unschooling and social justice. Some of the people, the voices, the stories that were shared during that first season really left a significant mark on us as listeners, and I put myself in the category I identify as a listener, of fare of the free child podcast, and not just a host, because I'm listening to the stories and I'm also listening to your feedback, how the stories move you. If you're in my Make It Happen family and you comment on something or you're on Instagram, you comment on something, and I really want to take a moment to acknowledge the guests who joined during season one, specifically season one. I really enjoyed, at varying levels, every conversation but season one. You were rocking with me from jump And so there's a special place for folks like Zakiya lsmail, who has been an advocate for freedom in education for more than 20 years.

Akilah S. Richards: 7:51

Zakiya's reflections about the intersections of unschooling with social change and decolonization are profound and really allow my family to drop our shoulders away from our ear lobes just a little bit more and lean into what we're unlearning. So shout out to Zakia. We also spoke with Mikaela Streeter, the founder of the Life School in Atlanta. I really appreciate the way that Mikaela is moving with the needs of the community that she and that team is serving really well. They take such a fresh approach to education and really focus on creating a real world, personalized, exploration and discovery focused environment.

Akilah S. Richards: 8:42

Trelani Michelle of krak Teet If you don't know about the work there and you love a good story and history and connection and blackness, you definitely need to be checking out krakteet. I will make sure the link is on the page the show notes page for this episode. But Trelani Michelle came through and was sharing her journey. I've known her for many years before Fear of the Free Child came to be, and really love watching the evolution and ease with which she's moving really in her zone in ways that are truly serving communities around her in so many ways. Her work focuses on making history interesting and relatable by using storytelling as the tool for connecting and understanding, and when you couple that with s personality and her unique perspectives, it just flows beautifully and her being on the podcast really has really been special to me.

Akilah S. Richards: 9:46

Janita Castro, the CEO of Humanity Communications Collective, brought her expertise into the building. She is an Afro Latina and a Justice Warrior. Janita shares valuable insights on how communication can be a tool for social change and dismantling oppressive systems. I really really appreciate what Janita brought into the space here for me through this podcast and for us, because that's one of the earliest spaces where I realized that groups of people were listening to the podcast together and it was impacting like I got to learn some of the ways that it was impacting people outside of their own thoughts and their own homes, like how it affected how they showed up in community and how they even found community. So much of that education for me and awareness for me came through Janita and what she was sharing. So if you're listening and, sis, you already know I appreciate you.

Akilah S. Richards: 10:50

Monique Allison, Koran Kajadar, Ietiel McVeigh shout out to SmellGoodSpa. Kelly Ferguson, Darcelle White, Anthony Galloway, Tracy, who is the Grand Matriarch at Black Vibe Tribe, founded by Trinity Simone, who is, among many things, Tracy's daughter. We also had Kenya Skad. Shout out to you. Kenya, who also graced us with her wisdom and experiences, and Kenya and I just have a good time every time we talk.

Akilah S. Richards: 11:20

Each guest brought just a unique story, a unique perspective to the table and really enriched our conversations and shed some light on the intersections of unschooling, liberation and overall raising free people. Even though I didn't have the language for it back then, in November of 2016, towards the end of that season, we had a special episode where we talked about the importance of telling children the truth, particularly in relation to the political climate at the time. That's when Trump was first brought into Yal's office. Anyway, it was a heartfelt conversation that really emphasized the need for honest and age-appropriate discussions with our children about what was happening in the United States and how that was impacting the world, how it might back then, how it might impact the world, just really trying to have expansive conversation about what it means to clue our children in or to notice how much they already know and want and need and are ready for discussion around.

Akilah S. Richards: 12:31

And then we could not wrap up the season without talking about self-care and sacred space-making. So Leslie W Bray joined us for a powerful discussion on the importance of nurturing ourselves, creating space that honors our well-beings And Leslie was actually just here at the Korea a couple of days ago. Shout out to Leslie, and we were sitting in the backyard talking about this same thing that we were talking about back then in terms of creating spaces around us and within us that honor our well-being, what that looked like in our physical homes and what that looked like in our relationships. Every time we get together, some version of that conversation shows up, so I love being able to think back about how we were doing that back then too, and now we're doing it in person. And then, finally, we ended season one with our love and unschooling episode, where Chris and I delved into the intricacies of marriage and business partnership while trying to raise free people, and we shared our personal experiences, of course, and some of the challenges that come with navigating these relationships, and some of the joys, and it was really, it remains, a fan favorite. It's always in the top five episodes top five amount of downloaded episodes. Every time I remember to look at the stats And it really was a great way to wrap up an incredible season. So that my friend is a wrap on our trip down memory lane.

Akilah S. Richards: 14:08

Season one of Fair of the Free Child was really a journey of discovery and growth and collecting stories right Collective listening. We covered decolonization and social change, self-care, the importance of honest conversations, and I really just want to express my deepest gratitude to all of our guests and listeners who joined us on season one. I think that season closing out those 20 episodes is where I got a chance to I don't know, solidify might not be the right word, but just to say to name that unschooling is a mindset you know, like a way of life, a liberty, and not just like a thing that you do for your kid. So I want to know if you were listening back in a day in 2016,. I'd love to know what you got out of season one. Let me know, if you did listen to season one, how it moved you.

Akilah S. Richards: 15:29

In last week's episode I mentioned personal manifesto path, which initially was a course that I was going to offer, kind of like a cohort style real time live conversation over four months course. That is a revisiting of a course that I published back in 2014. Maybe some of you listening were one of the I don't know 30 people who took that course And, like everything that I share, it was very much from the reality of where I was, what I was noticing, what I was struggling with and uniquely because most of the time I'm just talking about what I'm struggling with But in that instance it was also sharing the results of the struggle, the other side of the struggle, what I learned from it and how I got to it and what I was doing to integrate slowly and become more practice in what I was learning, because unschooling was a portal for us. I keep saying that because it keeps me in. True, it was a portal And the early stages of it before I even had that language of it, of unschooling, was really just recognizing how tangled up I was in the identity of like mother of school aged children And I didn't call it that back then but my actions, my limitations, my perceptions of myself and what I should be doing and how things should be and what was wrong and what wasn't working.

Akilah S. Richards: 17:18

Those things were just all wrapped up in school culture, my own as a child and then my own as a mother. So when I had the space, because of the girl's resistance. That's why resistance is the roadmap. Check out the tangible tokens of that. Energy resistance is the roadmap. Check that out on schoolishnesscom. We have an offering to help you remember that. But that resistance really led to the space we needed to not just focus on their studenthood and our role in that, but ours and mine and Chris's, my partner but also just a little bit of my own unraveling, a little bit of my own noticing, which, if you remember from last week, the noticing is not just the one that you just let be, that's witnessing. The noticing is the one that you inch closer towards to be like hmm, what adjustment can happen here, because what I'm noticing something actually needs to shift.

Akilah S. Richards: 18:24

And that big noticing came in the form of the affirmations, and I remember Josiah Madden of Aliyah Waysbeads talking about that in a recent episode last season, when she said I was getting on here and I said when I talked to Akilah because we hadn't spoken in so long, i need to say to her that oh, my goodness, i, when I first sat down here, i thought I'm going to tell her it worked Like it worked, this thing that we and I'm looking at you and your radiance and you being on the other side of having very small children and navigating the earth with your partner what we did worked Like beautifully.

Akilah S. Richards: 19:12

And when she said that I just felt it all in my body because it did What I was doing worked. My life now is a direct result, like I could draw all kind of lines of correlation and causation, and all of that for how that transformation that I was experiencing allowed me to walk towards where I am now and how my life is designed now and how I'm not really in life design mode anymore. I'm more in this saver complex. The savoring of my life, the benefits of the integrated unschooling life And personal manifesto, is me revisiting what I did back then, which was to create this personal manifesto And this is almost like a vision board.

Akilah S. Richards: 20:04

On psilocybin I was going to say steroids, but now it's like a vision board on mushrooms, like micro dosing it over time, the best possible way so that it shifts you in ways that are both subtle and pretty overt and feeling pretty magical. It just really started with how I was talking to myself, what I noticed about my inner voice, my capacity to be fully responsible for the experience I'm having. That was one of my first mantras I take full responsibility for the experience I'm having And that was like I was pushing back against that mantra myself, like that'll make no sense. I can't take full responsibility because there's systemic things and there's this and that and that and that, and Spared kept saying I take full responsibility for the experience I'm having, and I was hearing it in my voice. So eventually, after much resistance and pushback and rebuttal, i said, okay, what if I fucking believed that? What if I just could let that live as true enough? Then what? And then it just opened another portal and another one and another one. So saying all of that to give a shout out to a member of our Make It Happen family whose work that I've been involved in on and off over the past few years and more recently this year, has really supported me in standing in how I want to serve, what my offerings look like, why I'm not the person who's going to do like the funnel and all the typical marketing things that I know are very effective for some but are just not aligned with how I flow and how I want to feel. Really is what it boils down to how I want to feel while I do the work I do, because I do this shit and not other shit, because I want to have a certain type of connection and alignment to how I spend my time each day And conventional marketing methods sit outside of that alignment. Maybe, unfortunately, maybe that's why I don't have the yacht and the whatever Okay, but personal manifesto path.

Akilah S. Richards: 22:21

I was going to have that be a public facing course that people can buy into. But as a result of my work with Mark Silver this year, the founder of Heart of Business, i realized even though he didn't give me this advice, it was just being in that community and my conversations with Mark directly helped me to realize that I didn't want to do it as something out there. I actually am just gonna offer it through Patreon or make it happen family to everybody in there, whether you came in at a $1 level or you came in at a $500 level, and I have patrons who do each of those things and things in between. So that's all I'm gonna say about the course for now. It is gonna be available fully through Patreon. It is still gonna be the live over the course of the month. Like I'm not making it any less. I'm not gonna give myself to it any less because I won't have it in a public space where I can make a ton from it, but I do hope that it invites more people into our Make It Happen family over on patreoncom Ford slash Akilah, because that's where I'm realizing that is a space that I want to serve more through and in. People are opting into that space at varying levels already And most of my patrons don't want nothing from me, Like there isn't like some big push to say, oh, since I'm a patron, can I get this or that, or you know like it just feels so aligned in terms of folks responding to things that I ask.

Akilah S. Richards: 23:52

You know, when I try to make big offerings, i don't get like a lot of feedback of yes, we need this from you. It seems to me, like most of the people there are there because they want to contribute to the ongoing health, to the sustainability and maybe even the thrive of raising free people network. And then we have a few others who do it through our fiscal sponsor because they need that tax deductible donation and they wanna give a large sum. So, like all of that is enough and I'm really learning about this enoughness. So Mark's work has been a huge part of that And I wanted to say that to you this week because next week I'm gonna be answering a specific question from Amanah, a member of our Make It Happen family also who wanted to know about this savorism that I've been talking with patrons about since December. Amanah said I would love to hear more about what embodying the savorist looks like, feels like, sounds like for you, because I talk about being in my savorist era. So next week episode 264, you will hear my entire story. We will do a full story time, snacks and all of that about the whole process of moving from schoolish to more sovereign to savorist. You will get those details.

Akilah S. Richards: 25:14

But I really wanted to thank Mark Silver for his significant role through Heart of Business in supporting me and realizing, like, how I wanna get down and not being afraid of that. I love the whole premise of Mark's work because it's that every act of business can be an act of love. Ooh, right Or right Or right. He's one of the pioneers in integrating real spirituality with the nitty gritty of small business And I really needed that. And I can always rely on Mark and just drop into what he's doing when I'm like, okay, what the hell? this is not working out for me. It's not like I can't even cover my basics with it, what is happening financially, and he just has offerings for me that bring me back to myself support my business needs in a way that does not diminish my spiritual side. He's a Sufi leader. He really lives it on all sides of the thing, like in a way that to me seems integrated, like the business not being separate from the spirituality, and he does like classes, seminars, retreats, all these things.

Akilah S. Richards: 26:19

So, heartofbusinesscom I recommend it because, like I do anything else on here, i don't ever tell you anything that isn't a part of my own experience. So shout out to Mark and all the other members of our Make It Happen family on patreoncom forward slash akila. Come back next week, y'all, because I will be telling you this story about my move from schoolish to savorist, and then we will continue after that doing more recaps, talking about some of the core themes, and you'll also be hearing from people who are just newly discovering this podcast, as well as folks who've been rocking with us. All of that is coming up over the next few weeks. So thank you for being here, much love and chat to you next week. Audio by Raising Free People Network.