Notes on Unschooling as Liberation Work

Note: I am currently hashing out my thoughts about our Unschooling life as it pertains to Love + Liberation. And I hope to post bits and pieces of my thoughts around this as part of my own process in working through with what I believe and how to move forward in our Unschooling journey centered on Love and Liberation for all.

Our life as unschoolers is a big part of my liberation work.

What I mean by liberation work is twofold.

First, I mean liberation from institutions that are oppressive at its core (like forced education) + from the conditioning we all have received about learning, agency and childhood.

And second: liberation as having the freedom to create and materialize the visions we have for our life and a more just and fair world.

The truth is, we can only create more of the same if the tools and training we receive come from the same oppressive shit.

Our children deserve better.

These systems, frankly, need to die.

::Pause::

So some questions I am often thinking of:

What would it mean to be real partners with our children in their own development? What does it look like to honor our children’s autonomy and agency in choosing how to spend their days based on what calls to them? What does it mean to trust our children to lead their lives, to trust in their wisdom, their innate curiosity and drive to learn what interests them? What would it look like if we truly deeply honored all kinds of intelligences and gifts and abilities and bodies and skin color? What would it take to make this truly accessible for all?

::Pause::

When I first started this Unschooling journey many years ago, I mostly asked the personal equivalent of these questions. As in, how do I practice this and live these questions as it pertains to our own family.

But as I have gained deeper awareness of systemic injustices all around me, the scope of these questions naturally expanded beyond the personal.

Because our personal liberation is always connected to the collective. My child can’t truly be free unless all children are free.

But we can’t get to the collective without first working through the personal.

So if we are going to fight for all of our children’s future, let’s start there.