Fare of the Free Child (Akilah S. Richards)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Fare of the Free Child
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jul 2017 | Ep. 46: Kickin' It, SDE Style | 00:36:02 | |
We're talking parenting patois, patronage, unschooling progress, in-person meetups, and plenty more today. This is a mash-up episode, where I'm sharing a little bit of a lot. Enjoy! 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! | |||
| 21 Jun 2017 | Ep. 42: Starting Your Own School in Nashville | 01:04:15 | |
In this episode, Tennessee-based edupreneur, Sonia LeBlanc, brings us personal insights along with solid statistics about the southern United State’s school classifications and exemptions. She talks about how to Start a School in Nashville, Tennessee, specifically a Sudbury Valley School (a democracy-focused Self-Directed Education center) in Nashville. We learn how in Maryland, for example, people looking to start their own schools begin by forming their own church, then opening up a school under that church’s legal umbrella. In Tennessee, it’s much more than that. Sonia explains the process and how it differs from other states. Sonia, a White woman who was born and raised in Dominican Republic, and her husband—a Black man from Puerto Rico (who was raised in St. Croix and in Dominica where his family is from) are raising two brown girls in the American South, and wants to be part of the change in relationships among people in the world by raising more self-aware, socially just, liberation-minded children. #POCinSDE 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! | |||
| 10 May 2018 | Ep. 78: Surviving Survival Mode (Ep. 1) | 00:31:46 | |
In Part One, Emerging Out of Survival Mode, single mother, entrepreneur, and Self-Directed Education advocate, Monique Allison, talks about pain, shame, adulting, and learning that surviving just isn't enough. She'll introduce her listeners to the change-up process, an agile learning tool used in many self-directed learning collaborative spaces. Plus, she'll talk about taking change-up hella personal, by applying it to her own life. 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! | |||
| 06 Apr 2017 | Ep. 30: Questions from Patrons (Supporting POC in SDE) | 00:10:10 | |
New Patron, Amy Carpenter asks: How can white unschooling families best support and make space for Black unschooling families without being intrusive? She is a white unschooler who has been in communities where she wanted to do more for people of color in Self-Directed Education, but wasn't sure how to go about doing that. I address that issue with responses and recommendations. 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! | |||
| 22 Mar 2018 | Ep 71: Raising Free People Network Vibes | 00:29:55 | |
This week I'm sharing my plans to expand the Fare of the Free Child unschooling podcast community! I'll be producing a set of short-run series (podcasts that have a small, set number of episodes), and co-facilitating some Self-Directed Education training, and you should be part of that mix. I'll tell you how to get involved in those projects, and you'll meet Anjel Berry, a mother of five daughters, and a co-organizer for Imagimatics, a maker-space project for outside the city limits of Atlanta. So much goodness in this episode; the show notes page is lit!! 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! | |||
| 08 Mar 2017 | Ep. 23: Wise African Women | 00:40:00 | |
Moji Katu, a birthworker/doula and new unschooling parent, talks about decolonizing the mind, mothering ourselves, and reaching back, Sankofa-style, to access the old wisdom and honor the old traditions that have served women for centuries. Her initiative, Wise African Women, will begin in her come country of Benin, and will be shared via social media, in efforts to reconnect women of color to wellness rituals and knowledge that counter the damaging practices that separate women from culturally-relevant and highly-effective wellness practices. Her work as a doula and liberation-seeker have led her to the decision to keep her daughter free from the confines of public education. Listen in as we talk about getting free, remembering our magic, and mothering in various forms. 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! | |||
| 26 Jul 2018 | Ep. 92: Deschooling DC with Najai Knox | 00:29:21 | |
Support letter #2 is here! Plus, a beautiful sentiment from a new mother, based in PG County with roots in DC. She (Najai Knox) started Deschooling DC as a means to resolve the issues that school causes and perpetuates, particularly for Black children. Listen to Najai's story--her why and what--and email her to encourage our support the movement toward liberated living and learning for DC's most underserved families. Najai is imagining life beyond her city's circumstances, and she isn't waiting for the government, or anyone, to do for her, what she knows that we, as Black folks, know how to do for ourselves. We just need to go back and remember, then come forward and put it into practice. Sankofa! 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! | |||
| 25 Aug 2018 | Ep. 96: Decolonizing (Gender) Activism | 00:36:59 | |
As an American African, part of Moji's deschooling journey has been unlearning and pointing out white supremacy in all it's hidden forms. In this episode Moji uses bits of the book "The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses" to emphasize the need to disrupt supremacy and colonization in gender activism and activism in general. Moji asserts that American schools and culture are rooted in white supremacy and ignorance and western activism can lead to low-key colonization, and offers a space to unlearn habits of supremacy that lead to intellectual & ideological colonization and marginalization of cultures of color.
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! | |||
| 19 Apr 2017 | Ep. 33: Motherhood and Mental Shifts | 00:43:06 | |
Atlanta and DC-based travel industry professional and Self-Directed Education loving Mama, Kenya Scott joins us once again. Her son has been benefiting from SDE as a learner over at Heartwood ALC, and in this episode, we chop it up about socio-economic misconceptions, respectability politics, some pretty important shifts in perspective, and so much more. It’s always a pleasure to vibe with Kenya; you’re gonna enjoy this episode. We also mentioned a few other episodes: Kid Cultivators’ co-founder, Leslie Bray; Heartwood ALC co-founder, Anthony Galloway, Jr; Dida Academy co-founder, Danielle A. Levine; Kenya’s first time on the podcast. #POCinSDE 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! | |||
| 04 Oct 2017 | Ep. 50: Standing In Our Self-Directed Truths | 01:02:39 | |
Unschooling is really not about education. It’s about what Rastafarians like to call a LIVITY—a conscious way of approaching your day, your choices, your body, your relationships, your life—and of course, your approach to learning can’t NOT be affected by that. This conversation with edupreneur, Scott Speed, is gonna dive into the inner workings of starting a school, but we’re also gonna talk about shedding old skin, facing new truths, or realizing old truths that were just covered up in schoolishness, and walking that liberation walk even when the people around you ain’t feelin’ it. 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! | |||
| 11 Aug 2016 | Ep. 3: The LIFE School - Atlanta | 00:40:58 | |
"Our school is really to empower students to have more ownership over their education. High school is usually this mad dash of checking off boxes to create a great portfolio. Because of that they lack of sense of who they are and how they can add value to the world. To identify needs in the community, and know how to problem-solve, to organize, and to bring about sustainable change inside their communities." Mikala Streeter, MIT and Stanford graduate who founded The LIFE School in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 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! | |||
| 06 Jul 2018 | Ep. 88: Unschooling Community Voices | 00:14:59 | |
This episode includes some of the experiences of other families exploring Self-Directed Education. From a veteran teacher turned Self-Directed Education advocate, to frustrations with ageism, to fundraisers for love-centered t-shirts, we're talking about the ways people are raising free people. 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! | |||
| 24 May 2017 | Ep. 38: Unschooling in Joburg | 00:35:46 | |
13-year-old unschooler, Marley Richards, talks about her experiences with facing fears, navigating new territories, and making new friends across South Africa. 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! | |||
| 13 Apr 2017 | Ep. 32: Kicking Cancer's Ass While Unschooling | 01:06:28 | |
My initial motivation for inviting Tia Cunningham to the show was that she is an unschooler based in Charlotte NC who connected locally with another unschooler from the show, Yanira Castro from episode 5 titled SDE Communities. They posted a picture on Facebook of their newly formed unschooling group for Black and Brown folks, and they were connected with some other folks, shout out to Zuli who hipped Tia to Yanira! Anyway, that was my initial excitement. Then I found out that Tia has a form of blood cancer and that she doesn’t let that and all the work that comes with that, stop her from raising free people. Her way of managing her household and her self, including her cancer, are part of how Tia lives out the liberation she believes in. She is my tribe for sure, and I couldn’t be more pleased to bring you this episode. Let me tell you, too, we goin’ IN on dis thang… Part of how Tia manages her pain is through cannabis, so we talk about that. We also talk about how many doctors and other medical professional don’t know much besides what they learned in school, and how that severely limits their actual knowledge on whats’ good and what aint—i.e. how so many doctors don’t know shit about nutrition but try to judge you if you don’t eat meat, coming with that how-do-you-get-your-protein b.s. We also talk about how unschooling gives us plenty opportunities to face our own shit! 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! | |||
| 15 Nov 2017 | Ep. 53: Single Mama Unschooling | 00:16:56 | |
One year later, Monique is back on the podcast telling us what's happening for her and Pharaoh as they tackle Sickle Cell, Hypertension, and other related illnesses. These roadblocks make life harder, but Monique still finds ways to practice liberated living. This is inspiring; come listen! 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! | |||
| 22 Sep 2016 | Ep. 9: BONUS: Unschooling Away the Plantation | 00:10:45 | |
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! | |||
| 22 Feb 2017 | Ep. 21: What's Good? Season Two! | 00:16:33 | |
It's the first episode of Season Two, and Akilah's offering up an overview of the deschooling, unschooling, personal leadership mojo that will anchor this season's episodes. The podcast is expanding to include non-parents and you'll hear why. It's parenting, Self-Directed Education, and Radical Self-Expression all wrapped into one multi-layered format; you'll love it! 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! | |||
| 06 Jun 2017 | Ep 40: Woke AF Parenting 101 | 00:56:48 | |
Yolonda Jones: creative spirit. writer. professional photog.professional natural hair stylist. professional singer. professional black girl as Dr. Yaba Blay would say. Yolonda’s crown rises high like her ambitions and her intentions. She and her partner, her husband, Will, are raising 4 free people, two daughters and twin sons, while simultaneously raising themselves as creatives, as business owners, as people with flaws and fire. Yolonda and Will have a blog called The Real Life Joneses where they risk expression about life in and beyond the brokenness. They talk about PTSD, depression, liberatory approaches to education and living with children, infidelity, creative brilliance, all of it. 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! | |||
| 07 Feb 2019 | Spirituality in Parenting | 00:32:09 | |
Let’s have a conversation about spirituality in parenting. So much of what we do and affirm and get validated by is schoolish in nature, and toxic for us. It’s a prove it, show your work, impress someone in authority, push past this, show up like this, be normal in this way, and be exceptional in this way—lot’s of external stimuli motivated by outside ideas of what one should be, how to perform, how to be labeled as worthy, whether people agree with our dreams and goals, etc. On this episode, Nuola, Moji, Shauntae, Diauni, and I talk about a few of the ways we approach spirituality and connectedness, and I want you to listen good. Don’t just listen; listen good. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 08 May 2019 | Ep 117: The Do Better Series Premiere | 00:15:34 | |
Gonna hone in on that mothering energy that's swirling around this month--they assigned a Mother's Day, I don't care about any of those days they assign, but I damn sure love to hop onto the waves of any good, gratitude-centered energies, and this is my contribution to that. It's also a great way to ease on into this month's focus, doing better! the Do Better Series. This week I’m reading a Self-Mothering essay to remind you why and how this do-better gotta start with you first. I wrote it in 2016, and published it on everydayfeminism.com a couple months after I published the very first episode of Fare of the Free Child podcast.
Photographer credit - Instagram: @astro.nic.visuals
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! | |||
| 28 Mar 2018 | Ep 72: Series Trailers and Trust Issues | 00:33:05 | |
Listen to clips from three upcoming Raising Free People Network podcast series, and then let's talk about trust issues in our relationships with children and ourselves. All of this is part of an ongoing movement toward normalized liberation for black people and for people of color the world over, who commit to forming community around raising free people. The series will be hosted by Daritcia in Puerto Rico, Monique Allison in Atlanta (Surviving Survival Mode), and Val Dee in Atlanta (The Other Side of MidLife). All details are on the show notes page: www.akilahsrichards.com/72 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! | |||
| 06 Dec 2017 | Ep. 56: Managing Unschoolers' Holiday Anxiety | 00:20:37 | |
This episode, I offer some tips for managing the types of family members who insist on you or your child explaining this homeschooling or self-directed education route. A few gentle reminders and a couple brilliant resources, that's what this episode is for. Plus, I talk about my NPR debut, and tell you how to join my webinar tribe. Enjoy! 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! | |||
| 08 Mar 2019 | Ep. 108: Sonia Starts a Sudbury | 00:33:28 | |
This week, as part of a series on parent founders of Self-Directed Education spaces, you’ll share in one woman’s journey. Sonia Fernandez Leblanc, a White woman who was born and raised in Dominican Republic, and her husband—a Black man from Puerto Rico (who was raised in St. Croix and in Dominica where his family is from)—are raising two brown girls in the American South, and wants to be part of the change in relationships among people in the world by raising more self-aware, socially just, liberation-minded children. Sonia will tell you how she ended up creating community, joining efforts with her community, and finding, then founding, the Sudbury approach that met her community’s needs. Her Baltimore beginnings, her dismay around education, moments of jealousy and plenty of joy, all of it, straight from Sonia, founder of Nashville Sudbury School in Tennessee, US. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 08 Nov 2017 | Ep. 52: Managing Anxiety & Parent Push-back | 00:40:25 | |
If you are a parent testing out Self-Directed Education (SDE) spaces, or you’re in one such space, but struggling with feelings that the facilitators should do MORE with your child—or that they should INTERVENE if your child isn’t doing ENOUGH of something constructive—this segment is for you! Also, if you’re a facilitator or volunteer in a natural learning space and you need some not-quite gentle reminders to steer us parents toward, this episode is a great place to start. 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! | |||
| 22 Mar 2017 | Ep. 25: Disruption with Dr. Scott Speed | 01:07:46 | |
In this episode, Atlanta based Edupreneur, Dr. Scott Speed, and I speak on systems thinking, why there is no such thing as a “good public school,” shifting our focus from institutions to individuals and communities, social constructs, global indoctrination, capitalism as a barrier to seeking change, reclaiming intuition, eradicating white supremacy, and actively moving toward change. 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! | |||
| 01 Mar 2018 | Ep. 67: The Liberation & Education Summit | 00:28:59 | |
Atlanta parents, educators, and caregivers gathered in Clarkston for the first Liberation and Education Summit on February 3 of this year. Unschoolers, homeschoolers, and various families and individuals in self-directed and alternative education convened to discuss the ways social justice is, and can be even more deliberately, part of our movement toward raising happy, conscious, well-quipped people. Here's a recap that's comprised mostly of clips from the panel discussion portion of the summit. The break-out sessions weren't recorded in full (partially to protect sensitive topics that often come out in smaller groups), but you'll get a good feel for what was discussed during the event. Special thanks to Heartwood Agile Learning Center's directors, board, and family of volunteers for hosting an encouraging, inspiring space to build community around Self-Directed Education. 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! | |||
| 06 Jul 2017 | Ep. 44: Natural Learning in Philadephia | 00:59:58 | |
When Maleka Diggs moved to an affluent Philadelphia neighborhood so that she and her husband could get their daughters into the best school, she was shocked to face racism from the school's principal. Soon after, she set out to create the sort of academic and community-centered environment she wanted for her daughters, instead of trying to fit them into the school's culture. Eclectic Learning Network was born, and today, Philly-based families are benefiting from Maleka's commitment. 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! | |||
| 01 Nov 2016 | Ep. 15: Educating Our Black Boys | 00:53:51 | |
Kenya Scott is an entrepreneur living between DC and GA with her husband and 10-year-old son, Malcolm. I see her as a mother who saved her black son from being caught up in the medicated student money-making system that pays Big Pharma and justifies treating black boys like non-humans who need medication and harsh punishments. In Episode 15, Kenya and I talk about the trauma black children face in the school American school system, seeing the value in intentional learning communities, and why we should stop sleeping on Minecraft (yes, for real!). We also compare Sudbury Schools and ALCs (Agile Learning Centers) in terms of model (daily structure) and money (accessibility). 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! | |||
| 21 Mar 2019 | Ep. 110: Leslie talks Conscious Community Collectives | 00:40:51 | |
This week's episode in the Parent Founder series features the “wise old woman” voice of Leslie Bray. Leslie is the space-holder for Kid Cultivators, a homeschooling collective that makes space for other learning styles, such as unschooling. She'll speak about how to start a learning group that fulfills emotional and educational desires while still prioritizing partnership-centred and trust-based parenting. She also stresses the importance of centering oneself, allowing for grace in the face of transition, and other hella-necessary gems for folks looking to build what they need for their children and themselves. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 18 May 2018 | Ep. 80: Curing Colonized Imaginations | 00:25:08 | |
Unschooling is a way of life that is based on freedom, respect, and autonomy. In essence, unschooling is a child-trusting, anti-oppressive, liberatory, love-centered approach to parenting and care-giving, so not just for parents, but also for educators and other people who help to raise your child. Unschoolers like to say that learning is a byproduct of living, and not a separate thing from living. One way to distinguish unschooling from other parenting or education methods is to ask: 1. Did the child choose to do this activity? 2. Can they quit whatever they’re doing with no recourse or push-back from an adult? If the answers are yes, then it’s unschooling. 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! | |||
| 28 Jul 2016 | Ep. 1: Unschooling Explained - with Tamika Middleton | 00:46:18 | |
Welcome to Episode One of Fare of the Free Child! If you enjoy what you hear, please help more people find this podcast by rating it on iTunes. Thanks! This week, my co-facilitator is Atlanta based activist, community organizer, and unschooling Mama, Tamika Middleton, who you heard at the beginning of this episode. Tamika addressed the FEAR of children leading themselves, which is precisely what unschooling addresses and over time, resolves. So, as with every episode of FOFC, we start with a FEAR and then we address the FARE (the cost) of that fear, what it’s costing us and our children when we don’t push back against that fear, and then we talk about what we can do to minimize that fear. Tamika and her family (her husband, Demetrius, and their two children, Amani, their 9-year-old son and Asha, their nearly 3-year-old daughter) have been such an inspiration to me as a black unschooler, as a feminist, and as woman of color who prioritizes the liberation of her people. Tamika and I share the philosophy that self-directed, learner-centered education is one way to do something about the oppression and domination of people of color by the effects of systemic racism, particularly inside the school system. 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! | |||
| 21 Dec 2017 | Ep. 58: On Slowed Pace and Deepened Focus | 00:29:41 | |
As an unschooling adult (whether parent or facilitator) you are not just managing children, you are leading sometimes. And you are also following sometimes for sure. But, you are in a position of power by way of access to more resources, greater mobility, broader life context (which has its benefits in some instances). How will you lead? How will you lead you? What will that look like next year in your relationships? Go inward. Look back. Bring it forward. Sankofa tings. I'm taking a break, and coming back in January with a self-care series. Soon come... 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! | |||
| 19 May 2019 | Ep 119: Educating the World to Our Children (Soweto) | 00:37:21 | |
Inspired by her 9-year-old daughter, Leruo and determined not to let her 'shine' be dimmed, this mama decided to find a better way to educate her little light. Her do-better process affected how she worked, how she communicated, how she ended up at #LRC2018. Tebogo Modisane: Unschooler, Freelance Event Producer, Soweto born and raised.
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! | |||
| 15 Mar 2017 | Ep. 24: Patriarchy, Power, and Liberatory Parenting | 00:47:24 | |
Lane Santa Cruz: Eudeve-opata, revolutionary m/othering jotx, deschooler, bicis. In this episode, we're taking a deep dive into the idea of bodily autonomy and the skewed ideas we pass on to children. in other words, the ways we participate in the oppression of our own people; our children, our partners, all of it. This episode is really gonna give you some opportunities to feel through oppression with maybe a deeper sense of clarity now, or at least curiosity. I hope you use it to face some truths and to seek some support as you perhaps deschool yourself from these oppressive behaviors. I’m doing that myself and it’s a constant practice. I send you love and light as you dive into your practice as well. Let’s listen it to Lane and me talk about autonomy, oppression, and authentic expression. 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! | |||
| 21 Feb 2019 | Ep. 106 Racial Equity in SDE (Liberation and Education Summit Panel Chat) | 01:38:03 | |
This episode, we're recapping the Liberation and Education Summit that happened this month in metro Atlanta (Clarkston) Georgia. Maleka Diggs, Tamika Middleton, and Patty Zavala all discussed aspects of racial equity in Self-Directed Education. The panel was moderated by Kelly Henderson, Ph.D., and the related conversations during the conference were co-facilitated by the staff of the summit producers and hosts, Heartwood Agile Learning Center, whose founders spoke with us on FOFC about solutions to pervasive whiteness (aka white supremacy) in Self-Directed Education. You’ll hear the full panel discussion about race, equity, and personal realizations that stem from the decision to self-direct and to allow that each of their children. You will also hear from Dr. Ta-Tanisha Randall, an attendee of the summit, and a passionate SDE advocate in her own right. I’ll also tell you where in America you’ll find me hosting or inciting the types of conversations that happened at the summit, including Philly, New York, Charlotte, and a few other cities. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 16 Dec 2017 | Ep. 57: South Seattle Get Free | 00:53:47 | |
Self-Directed Education as a means of dismantling white supremacy and raising free people--that's the work of two Latinx women living in West Seattle. Listen to their story and see how you can be part of creating a learning space where equity and education are inseparable parts of daily growth. 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! | |||
| 21 Sep 2016 | Ep. 8: Unschooling & Entrepreneurship | 00:51:22 | |
On this episode, business-owner and 16-year unschooling mama, Itiel Mcvay, shares her many insights. Our conversation is really about the clear parallel between how learning happens for entrepreneurs and for children. We also talk about the dangers of traditional schooling and learning how to listen and watch while our children show us exactly who they are and what they need. 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! | |||
| 12 Jul 2017 | Ep. 45: Practicing Unschooling | 00:22:00 | |
In episode 45, I answer a question from someone who attended my unschooling webinar today. She asked about the process of going from homeschooling to unschooling, and I expound on a response from a longtime unschooler inside the webinar. Plus, I give an overview of unschooling, so don't miss those details. 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! | |||
| 30 May 2017 | Ep. 39: Mask-Free Relationships | 00:58:08 | |
In this episode, Los Angeles-based natural learning advocate, Genesis Ripley, talks about the myriad of ways the liberated parenting journey has changed her for the better. She shares some of the ways it helps to grow her and heal her relationships. The reality for Genesis is that this approach to parenting and living is helping her to better understand herself and the people she spend time. I can agree, as unschooling has an inevitable side-effect of shedding and strengthening friendships and even our own relationships with our parents at times. We talked about how our children get to be themselves, which frees us up to recognize the ways that we’ve been holding on to things that aren’t even about us, but we just didn’t recognize our own freedom to let that stuff go. 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! | |||
| 29 Nov 2017 | Ep. 55: A Vision for Self-Directed Communities | 00:34:04 | |
Earlier this year, someone asked me what I envisioned the world to look like if Self-Directed Education was a much more normal part of everyday life for all communities. This episode discusses three aspects of SDE in everyday life—funding, community, and confidence. In this episode, I talk about those aspects, including some of the people (Issa Rae and Auntie Oprah, for starters) who embody that, let me tell it. I also share a platform where families of color can come learn more about Self-Directed Education. 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! | |||
| 24 Mar 2017 | Ep. 26: Collectively Raising Free People | 00:22:13 | |
In this episode, I'm pushing you a bit. Maybe more than a bit. The invitation here is one of accountability and self-inquiry, something I think is vital for us to move from talking to changing. For sure, dialogue is a powerful and perhaps a necessary catalyst for change and movement. But we can't stop there. So as you listen and you feel moved and motivated by what you hear from the folks who make time to share with us on this podcast: ask yourself this question: How am I participating in my own oppression and in the oppression of children, and what can I do toward a different experience. 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! | |||
| 07 Dec 2016 | Ep. 20: Love and Unschooling | 00:48:48 | |
On the season finale, I bring my husband Kris into the mix to discuss the many ways unschooling helps us live out the liberation we've always wanted to experience. We talk about our relationship with each other, our parenting ideas, our mindset when it comes to raising free people, and much more. Show notes available at www.akilahsrichards.com/kris. 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! | |||
| 06 Oct 2016 | Ep. 11: Autism, Asperger's & Active Joy | 00:35:30 | |
Darcel White of themahagonyway.com joins us on this episode. She writes about her motherhood journey, and their unschooling lifestyle, including insights on Autism, Asthma, Food Allergies, and her knitting projects. We distill some concrete life lessons that Darcel is learning from raising children, one with autism and some other complications, one who recently decided to attend public school, another two who attend a homeschooling co-op. Multiple schedules, multiple learning challenges, multiple reasons to either parent from fear, or to do the harder work. 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! | |||
| 25 Apr 2019 | Ep 115: The Pleasure Series | 00:18:19 | |
As you are learning about privilege, is your practice being fortified by listening, engage, and changing? This is the question for white people in Self-Directed Education spaces that employ, offer volunteership, or otherwise work with BIPOC adults. In can feel really good to be informed, educated, “woke” and all, but what is happening in your actual SDE space? What would non-white adults who work with you say about your communication and actions when it comes to equity? We’re not just the visual of diversity, but the practice of equity. This week's episode is reminder (or wake-up call) that equity does not end at diversity. The pleasure you get from looking at the 1, 2, or even 20 BIPOC folks in your space doesn't mean your work is done. It is this little twinge of white savior complex that can easily wrap you up in a cocoon of comfort with earplugs on. Let’s change that. As important as you feel they are, they need to feel it too. Period. Equity (or Allyship) is not just listening. It's practice.
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! | |||
| 25 Jan 2018 | Ep. 62: Deschooling Through Deciding | 00:27:42 | |
Moji Yai—the Benin-born, Gainesville-based unschooling parent, doula, and budding herbalist—came up with her own title for this episode—Time, Progress, and White Supremacy—because those are at the center of her WHY around Self-Directed Education. She talks about how much the decision to prioritize deschooling offers her a sort of reclamation of self, time, and power, and there is so much goodness to gather from this particular wise African woman. Enjoy! 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! | |||
| 14 Jun 2018 | Ep. 84: Our Deschooling Circle in Tuscon | 00:11:35 | |
In Tuscon, Arizona, there are several families, many of whom are of Mexican descent, are seeing the ways Self-Directed Education supports a mindset of decolonizing education and returning to community and culture. This episode is a recap of an event for BIPOC using unschooling and other forms of self-directed studies to liberate themselves from oppressive systems. The event was organized by Lane Santa Cruz along with Traci, Yvonne, Jim, and other members of Tuscon's conscious parenting community. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 03 Aug 2018 | Ep 94: Intuition & Trust in Pregnancy and Birth | 00:40:16 | |
Episode 94 is the 3rd takeover of Wellness Spiral with Moji Yai plus support letter # 4. Wellness Spiral: This is Elena's second pregnancy, her first was 22 years ago when she gave birth to beautiful twins! Elena and I discuss the differences so far between her pregnancies, why she decided not to join childbirth education classes, how intuition and knowledge of her body helped her through stressful hospital miscommunication and much more. Elena has dedicated her personal and professional life to self-awareness and self-care, she is the founder and CEO of Bodeology, a health, fitness and beauty spa, and Wellness for Women, a non profit that empowers low income women and victims of violence with holistic therapy, care, and education. 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! | |||
| 23 Jan 2019 | Ep. 102: Raising Free People, Raising Aware People | 00:38:00 | |
"We need to have a conversation about developing a set of tools and a solidarity around raising free people who are also aware people. This is vital especially since we’re not using tools of oppression in attempts force our children into an awareness of our deeply unjust society. We need to normalize the conversation and safe space-making in takes to explore this, and this is one effort in that direction. We’re not raising children in a bubble, so the conversation and tools are an inevitably necessary part of the journey to raising free and aware people. Raising free aware people is how we work toward dismantling oppressive systems – systems that they will inevitably face and be oppressed by, or systems they will face and benefit from while oppressing others. It’s a cycle that we need to break, and it will not happen if we are not deliberate and clear about our intentions. Raising free, aware people isn’t a mere conversation topic, it is a responsibility we have in endeavoring to help transform our world." - Zakiyya Ismail, growingminds.co.za 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! | |||
| 12 May 2019 | Ep. 118: Let's Grow Podcast (Series Saturdays) | 00:14:45 | |
Join Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta for the first episode of Let's Grow Podcast as he explores the Selfish vs. Self-actualized concept. He'll explore concepts we talk about on Fare of the Free Child--agency, consent, and a removal of the power-over dynamic. Dr. Sundiata is inviting you to challenge your idea of being an individual, and shift it to include and embrace symbiotic relationships so that we can support each other's self-actualization. His goal is to inspire you to reject other people's ideas as a result of you pursuit of self-actualization. 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! | |||
| 28 Jul 2017 | Ep. 47: Deschooling Discipline | 00:39:30 | |
This week, Akilah talks about how Jamaican cultural icon and folklorist, Dr. Louise "Miss Lou" Bennett-Coverley influences her unschooling approach to parenting. She also discusses how discipline can be deschooled to embrace a whole-person, decolonized approach to making life changes. An announcement for an Atlanta open house is also in the mix, plus plenty more. Come sit with us. 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! | |||
| 23 Aug 2016 | Ep. 4: Black Queer Mothering | 00:48:27 | |
Trelani Michelle is a writer, wife, and mama of two. Her son, CJ, is 10, and her daughter, Kobe, is 6. She is a versed writer who has shed light and offered refreshing perspectives on everything from juvenile detention system to cursing when communicating with God. I’m also sharing space with Trelani Michelle this episode because Trelani is part of a group that is definitely underrepresented in parenting circles and discussions about how we choose to parent — that group is black queer mothers, so we’ll explore what that means specifically for Trelani, as a queer black woman married to a straight black man. Listen and enjoy as Trelani and I get all up in our feelings about motherhood, relationships, education, and radical self-expression. 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! | |||
| 09 Mar 2018 | Ep. 69: The Community Supported Education Model | 00:15:02 | |
Free SDE Tuition? Making Self-Directed Education more accessible? Yes! But don't let the word free fool you. There is a major investment and potentially huge payoff to this particular solution to making SDE more accessible. Atiba Nicholas and Dr. Scott Speed founded Grow, a self-directed community for families to partner with their children for life and learning opportunities. Based in East Point, Georgia, the two education activists aim to push back against the idea of the Education Industrial Complex by combining their learning center, parents, and businesses within the community. They support unschoolers and other self-directed learning models. 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! | |||
| 18 May 2017 | Ep. 37: Unschooling As Digital Nomads | 00:25:53 | |
This episode, Akilah's special guest is Kris Richards, her husband. Listen in as they talk about their experience at Re-Imagined Learning Center run by two young, Self-Directed Education advocates, CheVanni and Sebastian David. They'll also answer a patron's question about how the manage to live the digital nomad lifestyle. Great conversation with lots of takeaways to feel through. Enjoy! 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! | |||
| 10 Aug 2018 | Ep. 95: Support Letter #5 + Risking Discomfort | 00:23:55 | |
Sometimes, it's okay not to be okay. This week's letter of support for people raising free people offers that reminder, plus some tools for standing in that truth. Plus, an important story about pushing past discomfort so you can make participate in the type of change you want to see in the world. 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! | |||
| 07 Feb 2018 | Ep. 64: Deschooling Through Detoxing | 00:36:50 | |
New Jersey-based entrepreneur, Kim Hester and her husband Jamal, decided that Self-Directed Education is the best way for them to give their daughter, SaHura, a shot at confident autonomy. They're new to unschooling, but not to deschooling, because they've been helping their community deschool their relationships with food and their bodies. 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! | |||
| 18 Jul 2018 | Ep. 90: Letters of Support & Countdown to 100 | 00:12:20 | |
This episode tells you what to expect for the next 9 episodes of Fare of the Free Child podcast. Letters of support for various aspects of the raising free people journey, a celebration countdown to episode 100, space for me to finish our book (yes, our book!), and a long-awaiting break in preparation for season 4! 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! | |||
| 04 Sep 2018 | Ep. 97: Sudbury and Healing Work in Nashville | 01:00:17 | |
We're talking about healing work this week! Sonia Fernandez LeBlanc was already on Episode 42 talking about getting free and taking her daughters, and the families in her Nashville community, along for their own versions of freedom. Now, Nashville Sudbury School is open, and the work has evolved. In this episode, Sonia and I talk about the ways that liberation work (through unschooling) can be a portal to deeply personal, healing work. We talk about ways to integrate more mindfulness and self-inquiry in the process of raising free people, and the risk of losing ourselves to the overwhelm of progress. This week's Dear You letter is embedded in this conversation, all up and through--enjoy! 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! | |||
| 26 Apr 2017 | Ep. 34: Designing Liberation in Africa | 00:28:17 | |
In this episode, we connect with an African-American living in Africa. Kaylan’s story is very much about about directing her own path, going against the norm to design a liberatory practice that for her meant exploring life outside of corporate America and the standard American dream. She runs a blog titled African-American in Africa, which is where I first learned about Kaylan. She is now married and she and her husband have a young son. Kaylan is learning how to make space for her son to develop his own interests outside of the things Kaylan associates with a happy childhood. Plenty of life lessons in parenting, equity, history and politics, and so much more for this adventurous, conscious Mama. This is a great episode; enjoy! 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! | |||
| 02 May 2017 | Ep. 35: My Reflection Matters | 00:49:33 | |
Here’s the story about how a Nuyorican woman who worked atNew York University as a social justice coach for educators is now living a life that evolved from a great career nestled inside academia into now unschooling her two Afro-Latinx sons, Judah and Keanu, along with her Trinidadian husband, Shane. Unschooling, as you’ve heard me say since the very first episode of Fare of the Free Child, is a tool for liberation. And of course, liberation don’t fit in no box, so for Chemay, liberation isn’t just for her family, it’s a path she wants paved clear for all Black and Brown folks to have the resources to liberate themselves too. So, to do that work, Chemay is in the heat and heart of building an community-centered organization, a space called My Reflection Matters, that provides tools to support and nurture healthy racial and cultural identities of Black and Brown children and older youth. 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! | |||
| 20 Jun 2018 | Ep. 85: Surviving Survival Mode (Ep 2) | 00:09:41 | |
In Episode 2 of Monique's self-care, motherhood, and adulting podcast, Surviving Survival Mode, she talks about the feelings that kept her stuck in the very space she wanted to emerge out of. She also shares the "not enough" mindset that showed up, what helped her create a shift and how journaling played a major role in that process toward self-acceptance and learning to tap into that Now What? aspect of her work. 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! | |||
| 09 May 2017 | Ep. 36: Can Adults Be Unschoolers? | 01:08:39 | |
In episode 36, Atlanta-based military veteran and entrepreneur, Veronica Ashley, talks about being an unschooling adult. Veronica spent a few days with Marley and Sage (my daughters), and saw quite a few parallels between her own journey to a greater leadership role in her own life. In learning more about herself, freeing her mind from much of the training and trauma that cost her so much, Veronica is deschooling herself and embracing a life design of her own accord. Listen in as she talks about learning from Marley and Sage, nurturing healthy partnerships, and fostering autonomous growth. 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! | |||
| 01 Mar 2017 | Ep. 22: Black and Latino Homeschoolers | 01:02:44 | |
In this episode, author and homeschooling consultant, Zakkiyya Chase, talks about the inspiration and frustrations behind her debut book, No Dream Deferred: Why Black and Latino Families are Choosing Homeschool. We talk about the ways that Self-Directed Education differs from homeschooling, but how the latter can often lead to the former. You won't want to miss the level of detail in which Zakkiyya examines the history of public education in America, and what is has cost Black and Latino families then and now. 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! | |||
| 18 Jan 2018 | Ep 61: Deschooling Through Time for Self | 00:26:25 | |
In this episode, Atlanta-based SDE facilitator and education entrepreneur, ANTHONY GALLOWAY II, speaks on moving past the mental aspect of self-care over to the literal practice. You'll also learn about two Atlanta events in support of Self-Directed Education, both of which Anthony is playing a major role in bringing to the city. 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! | |||
| 04 Jul 2018 | Ep. 87: Vulnerability in Pregnancy | 00:16:58 | |
What do you know about black maternal mortality rates? Listen in to get insights on the issues black women face during pregnancy and the birthing process. In Episode 2 of Moji's Wellness Spiral series, her guest, Kimberly Staton, shares her pregnancy and birth experience as a black woman whose weight made her pregnancy high risk and how that experience led to see and shed some cultural ideas about pregnancy and birth, like the myth of "childbearing hips". Also discussed is the lack of quality prenatal health care for black women, the importance of childbirth education and bits of the history of black midwives and birth experience in the United States. 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! | |||
| 10 Jan 2018 | Ep. 60: Deschooling through Movement | 00:25:22 | |
In this episode, Atlanta-based ZAHRA ALABANZA talks about how her bike and her passport give afford her the messy divinity of mothering and activism. It's the second track on the Deschooling Release Party Mixtape. Enjoy! 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! | |||
| 24 May 2018 | Ep. 81: Ujima and Unschooling in New Jersey | 00:54:26 | |
Here's how a Newark-area (New Jersey) community that prioritizes Self-Directed Education, but wants to include families of color in all stages of their educational journey decided to word their invitation for unschoolers, homeschoolers, and people somewhere in between: “Homeschoolers Of Color Collective is a group of families seeking to embody the principles of Ujima (collective work and responsibility) by decolonizing ourselves, relationships and education. We emphasize community building, self-directed learning through accessible resources. Disrupting. Empowering. Liberating. Re-Imagining.” #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 26 Oct 2016 | Ep. 14: Self-Mothering While Parenting | 00:35:35 | |
Spiritual writing coach Trelani Michelle is an author, mother, and storyteller. In Episode 14, she talks with us about her bestselling book, Women Who Ain't Afraid to Curse When Communicating with God. Women Who Ain’t Afraid to Curse When Communicating with God is for free spirits and old souls who believe in the magic of:
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! | |||
| 09 Nov 2016 | Ep. 16: What To Tell Children Now | 00:13:19 | |
This is in response to folks' request for suggestions on how to talk to their children about Donald Trump being America's elected president. 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! | |||
| 17 Oct 2016 | Ep. 13: Why Liberated Parenting is Vital | 01:00:01 | |
I'm sitting with a dope sister named Tracy this week. She is a nurturer and an outspoken advocate of liberation and love for people of the African diaspora. Listen as she and I discuss mothering black people in a time when the available educational system targets, oppresses, and harms Black children disproportionately. We also talk about being stuck in a "plantation" mindset, and why alternative education options like unschooling and homeschooling are vital for Black and Brown folks to understand, and in many cases, embrace. 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! | |||
| 30 Sep 2018 | Ep. 100: Season 3 Finale Vibes | 01:17:41 | |
In this final episode of Season 3, Kris and I talk about the training and travels we've done in the past few months, and how they've helped us strengthen our practice of partnership-centered parenting. We talk about what it means to not have a master in the contemporary sense, and I share a more community-oriented approach to facilitating conversation and training around raising free people. I also announce The First 100, the project that will index all 100 episodes of the podcast, making it easier for people to search for specific resources! I also ask for a transcriptionist to send me a quote, or reach out about transcribing a one-hour conversation I recorded, but that can't be used because of the background noise. We also laughed a lot, and talked that real-shit talk (hehe!). So many important aspects of liberation and learning came up during our conversation; you will absolutely get something you can use! 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! | |||
| 04 Jan 2018 | Ep. 59: Deschooling through Rhythm | 00:25:09 | |
Yolonda Coles Jones on deschooling and self-care through the practice of noticing. 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! | |||
| 14 Feb 2019 | Ep. 105 Love, Trust, Identity | 00:31:06 | |
Love, Trust, Identity – that’s the flow of the conversation Kelly Henderson will guide us on for the duration of this episode. She is a college professor, and an unschooling mama of five children. She is brilliant and funny and hella focused on Black Love, and I’m talking beyond romantic love. I’m talking love that liberates individuals and communities. Love that reshapes classrooms and class structures. Love that creates worlds and relationships rooted in levels of trust and love that we cannot even begin to imagine. Well, let’s begin imagining today…Kelly will get us started. Here are some of the best bits from a lovely, liberation-minded conversation between she and I. Here’s to Black Love and liberation! #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 13 Mar 2019 | Ep. 109: Yolande on the Black, Queer, Feminist Approach to SDE | 00:31:08 | |
This week’s episode in the Parent Founders series features the voice and experiences of Yolande Tomlinson. She co-founded Anna Julia Cooper Learning and Liberation Center (AJC), “a cooperative, learner-centered, and self-directed community, rooted in a radical Black queer feminist politic, and a multi-generational, decolonized community of care, healing, and intellectual exploration where learning opportunities abound.” Yolande has two beautiful daughters who inspire a lot of her work and her shifting. She’s gonna share with us today the backstory and a bit of the logistics around co-founding this Self-Directed Education space in Atlanta. #BIPOCDig this show? Join our make-it-happen family at patreon.com/akilah to make sure we can keep this thang going strong. Thank you! | |||
| 14 Sep 2016 | Ep. 7: Unschooling Adults | Movement and Moxie | 01:09:49 | |
On episode 7 of Fare of the Free Child, I break bread with Curron Gajadhar- an artist and movement trainer who was based in Atlanta, but now goes wherever his process takes him. We address the fear of what might happen if we don’t control children through religion and rules and physical consequence. And we discuss the fare we pay, both as children and adults, when we use fear instead of self-discovery as our compass. 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! | |||
| 15 Jul 2018 | Ep. 89: Teen Input on Self-Directed Education Training for Adults | 00:18:19 | |
In our efforts to change our parenting and learning practices to reflect our opinions about equity and liberation, we need more than Aha moments. We need resources, training, a sense of community to grow into/with. The Agile Learning Facilitators summer training (#ALFSummer18) is one of the spaces where these resources and training and community-emerging can happen. Hear about this from Marley, our resident teen unschooler who spent a year at an Agile Learning Center (Heartwood ALC), and also got to participate in some of the #ALFSummer18 training. Listen and let us know what rings true for you. #BIPOCinSDE 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! | |||
| 07 Sep 2016 | Ep. 6: New to Unschooling | 00:38:42 | |
Monique Allison is a life coach and single parent. Her son, Pharaoh is a fun-loving, dancing machine and bona fide foodie navigating life while managing sickle cell and a few other chronic illnesses. Monique and Pharaoh have recently embraced school-free living and are both still exploring what life will look like without a focus on school. Monique is excited about this liberated form of living, and Pharaoh has been calling for this shift for a long time. With a focus on learning more about each other and their individual interests, this duo is committed to designing lives that include joy, fun, natural education, and plenty of time to understand and embrace lifelong learning. 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! | |||
| 22 Nov 2017 | Ep. 54: The Sudbury Model Solution | 00:54:08 | |
In this episode, I'm breaking bread with Atlanta-based wife, mother, and Sudbury School of Atlanta Board Chair, Patty Zavala. We talk about ways to build communication channels among people, so that we resort less to police intervention, and more toward humanized, liberatory ways of living in our communities. You'll hear why the Sudbury model is a great fit for her family, and why she moved from Mexico and quickly found out that conventional schooling would not work for her family. 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! | |||
| 11 Apr 2019 | EP 113: The Pleasure Series with Thea Monyeé | 00:46:46 | |
Why do we push back against children’s pleasure? Because safety, right? Because boundaries, right? Even in the cases where both of those are true, what’s also true in many cases is that we, as adults, resent pleasure. We resent children, in particular, when they engage in pleasure because they haven’t earned that right just yet. It goes even further beyond that, and Thea Monyeé takes us into this mindset, and the root of its imprint, systemic oppression. This is the second episode in The Pleasure Series here on FOFC Podcast, and we’re connecting pleasure and parenting in ways you might have thought of, but didn’t have the space or the company to explore it with. Well, let’s get into it--resentment and pain in parenting, and moving beyond pain over to pleasure. 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! | |||
| 21 Feb 2018 | Ep. 66: Black Panther Movie's Unschooling Gems | 00:28:13 | |
Wakanda--the country where a brilliant young girl runs the country's technology, a young, newly-made king decides that some aspects of his culture and tradition are ready for change, and gender equity is fully recognized; Wakanda is clearly the place to be! In this episode I'll share some of my favorite unschooling moments, and some of Atlanta's most excited Black Panther movie fans will tell you why they're all "Wakanda Forever" up in here! 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! | |||
| 01 Nov 2017 | Ep. 51: Black, Lesbian, Married & Unschooling | 00:54:25 | |
Listen in as one Black, queer family learns how to unlearn their ideas about the purpose of schooling, and shift over to an educational and life path that encourages self-love, cultural awareness, and social justice. She and her wife, Summer, are raising both a conventional schooler and an unschooler (who is only 4). Their family is learning and unlearning, schooling and deschooling, and you get to hear all about it. 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! | |||
| 24 Mar 2022 | Ep 244: There is Real Power in the Pause tho! | 00:29:28 | |
Season 8 is here and we are kickin’ it with the homie, Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting. She is our co-producer for the season, and we’re in alignment about the need to spend all season on the importance of slowing down, and pausing. We’ve got invitations, resources, and some songs too! We are so grateful to you all #fofcpod fam and Make it Happen family for your love and connection throughout this journey. Our team got some rest, and we’re back with this focus, so we hope y’all ready to get and do this PAUSEcast werk! If you want to get familiar (or re-familiar) with Domari’s dopeness, listen to Episode 185: Parenting Paradigm Shifts in Black Families. Here’s what to expect this season... We are working on being more mindful about the ways we show up for ourselves. So this season, we invite your consent to show up as you are, slow down, and feel into the ups and downs of this 70-day pause journey. Starting next week, each letter in PAUSE will get our full attention with two episodes each: - the first episode will bring you into the work with a story, a song, or a skit; the second episode will be live, and we’ll invite you to play and struggle through that aspect of pause. Acronym:
Then we’ll keep that going until we feel all the way through P-A-U-S-E. Through this game, Akilah and Domari will engage you beyond the moment to feel the PAUSE as an experience. So make some tea, pull out your dedicated pause pad, and join us for a 70-day journey of affirmations and reflections in the ecology of Raising Free People. Do you want to play with us? Season’s 8 flow - Raising Free People Card Deck Akilah pulled a card from the Raising Free People practice decks:
The set of Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it. Season Witnesses: We are working together to offer bridgework for folks in the philanthropic world. What is a witness? Our witne 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! | |||
| 31 Mar 2022 | Ep 245: P for Pain Points: What’s hurting you? What’s hurting them? | 00:29:54 | |
It’s storytime #fofcpod fam and we‘re so excited to continue with this 70-day PAUSE journey along with the amazing Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting. Ep 245 is live! We’re listening and taking a look at the skills that are happening in between the defined things. In this episode in particular, we are observing the ways we react to our pain points, so breathe in, breathe out, pull out your pause pad, take some notes, and let’s play together! Remember that we’re in the process of noticing what sometimes can’t be easily named nor understood, so try to feel into the experiences that you have with these questions, without expectations, without judgment, only your attention. **Use this link to join our live audience (no video, just chat, unless you ask to join us on air in the chat) on Monday, April 4th at 2PM Eastern.** These every-other-weekly listening parties are where Domari and Akilah invite you to play and struggle through specific aspects of pausewerk with them, real time. Listen to Episode 244:There is Real Power in the Pause tho! to hear details on the flow of this season’s 70-day pausewerk focus. Today is P day and we’ll work through all the pain points: What’s the matter? What took you here? What things feel like pain, discomfort, uncertainty? What is coming up for you and for the people that you’re closest to right now?” Domari pulled a card from the Raising Free People practice deck. Layers: If I could access grace in this moment, I may choose to offer it in honor of all the many layers that comprise this person I love. And if I do, might that be enough for me, for now? The Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it. “What would change in my life if I chose to pursue pleasure instead of perfection? - Domari Domari shares her experience with her children on how they respond when a conflict appears. Akilah talks about the struggles and worries that may show up for parents around how and whether learning is happening, and how pausing can offer the space we often need to learn how to recognize and trust learning. “I’ve now started to look at my children’s resistance as one of their gifts. One of the things that society—which I am part of—didn’t pry out of their hands.” - Akilah Akilah speaks about Marley and Sage’s approaches to resolving conflicts, and how much she is learning from their approaches. Both hosts also speak about the nuances of the term “readiness,” and the role of resistance as a powerful gift in our efforts to raise free people. Throughout Akilah and Domari’s convo there are 10 points of Madd Question Askin’ energy for you to get into:
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! | |||
| 07 Apr 2022 | Ep 246: Listening Party for “P. is for Pain Points” | 00:23:36 | |
This week on #fofcpod we're serving insightful thoughts, feedback, and resources based on our current PAUSEwerk flow. The letter of the week is P, for Pain Points: What’s the matter? What took you here? What things feel like pain, discomfort, uncertainty? What is coming up for you and for the people that you’re closest to right now? This episode is our first Listening Party, the space where we focus on your feedback about an aspect of pausing, as well as our own insights and struggles. Akilah and Domari continue unraveling the layers of perfection vs pleasure: they speak about Black Excellence and the pressure of feeling that all that you do is never enough. Can pause be a privilege? “The more success I feel, the harder it is for me to accept that I can pause.” - Akilah “I don’t like that. I’m not like that”. - Domari In this episode, you’ll notice that we’re just getting the hang of the tech for this new format—but you’ll still get a feel for what these listening parties are about! Every other Monday, we’ll be at it again, so join Domari and Akilah as live audience members (no video necessary)! The next Listening Party is Monday, April 18th at 1 PM Eastern. We LOVE feedback We listened to Zeba Savage from Savage Learning Environment who brought up the importance of pausing, and the pressure of being perfect. Then, our homie, Vanessa Molano, shared their thoughts from one of the cards that Domari pulled from the Raising Free People practice decks (the Layers card), and pointed out their experiences with boundaries and grace. Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it. These comments are gems in the work we do, so thank you for contributing to this ecology that moves us away from tools of oppression and towards our personal healing journeys. More Resources Dr. Sundiata teamed up with Maryella Marie and Tomis Parker, two other SDE-minded facilitators, to create an amazing offering: The live virtual training, “Co-creating a Thriving Family Culture.” This will take place on the weekend of April 23 to the 24. They’re offering tools that will help you on being intentional about learning new skills and processes to make decisions and resolve conflicts in peaceful and collaborative ways. Liberation WALK Here are a couple of gems to take your time and think about:
Give us some feedback about this episode, reflect inside 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! | |||
| 14 Apr 2022 | Ep. 247 A for Absent: What feels missing in your current relationships? | 00:15:16 | |
Here we go #fofcpod friends! Let’s continue with this 70-day PAUSE journey, along with the amazing Domari Dickinson of Positive and Purposeful Parenting.
Episode 247 is part one of the Listening Party around the letter A (for Absences) in PAUSE, so we’re offering you affirmations and snippets from conversations all in service of our current PAUSEwerk. What’s missing? What feels lost or otherwise missing from your relevant relationships? Akilah and Domari place their attention on some of the things that once, or even now, feel absent in their relationships or practices. The invitation is for you to slow down, discern, and align. Since healthy boundaries tend to be one of the more common missing elements, we touch on those in this episode, and will expand that exploration when we touch U for Understanding in two weeks. In the meantime, what’s your relationship to boundaries? Are you a confident boundary setter? Cautious but willing boundary setter? Do you suck at setting boundaries? SING ALONG Hush Little Parent Homie, sung by Val Sinclair: Hush little parent homie you ain’t gotta say a word, but some of your beliefs are pretty absurd, they came from your Mama and she got them from hers, but it’s time to stop and think ‘cause they ain’t gotta be yours. Hush little parent homie don’t perpetuate schoolish colonizer-minded traits, We took them in, in attempts to survive, but they don’t apply now; we tryna thrive. So, hush little parent homie don’t perpetuate schoolish colonizer-minded traits. AFFIRMATIONS 1. in fact, my boundaries are invitations for us to align, it’s ok not to love it, I ain’t askin’ for no shrine, just affirming what I need and honoring what’s mine. 2. I am safe, I am free, and when I choose to pause, that’s liberation work for me. I reject the option of performing a life and choose to authentically design mine. I am in partnership with this child I am not in partnership with people’s opinions about my child. I show up, I listen, I lean, I let. Download this episode so that you can record your version of the words that you connect with. And join us on Monday, April 18th at 1 PM Eastern for part two of this discussion about what’s missing. LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 21 Apr 2022 | Ep 248: Listening Party Replay for ‘A. is for Absences’ | 00:39:03 | |
Welcome #fofcpod fam! This episode is the continuation of our Listening Party Replay around the letter A (for Absences) in PAUSE. We’ll be inquiring more about what’s missing, understanding, compassion, and boundaries as we navigate through the ups and downs that may arise from this PAUSEwerk. Domari of Positive and Purposeful Parenting is in da house along with Ana Maria, Lou, Antoinette, and Joni who joined us in the Live Chat. Let's get into it! Domari named some of the things she has been noticing around her relationship with her children. The words that resonated the most for her were compassion and trust. She reflects on what compassion looks like for her and also questions the misconception around what productivity means, and how sometimes she had struggled by feeling bad and unproductive for resting, being “lazy”. Boundaries do not require understanding Our hosts chat about boundaries and the layers around them. Akilah mentions the struggles we might face with different parts of ourselves: the compassionate self (intuitive) vs the schoolish self, and mentioned the patois that needs to be created to hold our intentions, the other person’s intentions, and the thing we’re looking to create. Akilah also shares the importance of trustwork, seeing relationships not as transactional/productive but as connections, as in what we notice together and what our healing work looks like. This week’s pull from the Raising Free People practice deck revealed the Layer card (same card from the last pull):
Next week we’ll be having a deep conversation about U for understanding, but for now, Madd Question Askin’ time:
LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 28 Apr 2022 | Ep. 249: U for Understanding | 00:29:33 | |
This week we’re focused on the letter U for understanding in our P.A.U.S.E.werk. Listen as we talk about the language of conscious parenting, the difference between dialogue and discussion, and then some. Domari and Akilah take us through some of their noticings about how understanding and control impact their relationships, and not just as mothers. Also, be ready for an insightful convo about an Instagram post where Ieishah Clelland (our Season 7 Co-Producer) questioned gentle parenting as a privilege. Akilah cites Dr. Sundiata’s distinction between dialogue and discussion as we question our relationship with understanding, and with discomfort. So much goodness in here! Pull out your pause pad and join us. Madd Question Askin' Understanding Essay for people committed to Raising Free People There is a link between Understanding and control, and in our efforts to become more partner-centered parents and caregivers, we've got to look into that link. Control is not inherently a negative thing, but when control is our goal and we don't even realize it, we can demand things from children in the name of understanding, when really what we're after is a sense of control. Control is comforting. Control feels like certainty, yet comfort and certainty aren't always what's needed in a relationship. Is it a child's job to be controllable? Is it a child's job to give us a sense of certainty? How do we impact children when we don't understand something they do? And how much of our need to understand is tied to our desire to feel like we're in control and we're sure about what's going on? When are my efforts to control a child appropriate? and when are they more about my lack of understanding? Here’s a resource for working through the questions and feelings you will face as you let yourself ask better questions: Restorative Justice and Conscious Parenting workshop. Happening Sunday, May 1st. Be ready for interactive exercises and group discussions, where we’ll learn the roots of restorative justice work, the basics of the restorative process, and how this supports your conscious parenting process, harm caused by supremacy culture, and other oppressive systems. Discomfort is a significant part of understanding Shout out to Ieishah who put this on the table and made us inquire about our relationship to discomfort. Ieishah reflects on conscious parenting and gentle parenting. Is our capacity for gentle parenting or to treat 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! | |||
| 05 May 2022 | Ep 250 - Listening party for ‘U. for Understanding’ | 00:45:56 | |
Peace, #fofcpod fam! This week we’re still focused on the letter U for understanding as part of our P.A.U.S.E.werk. Domari (of Positive and Purposeful Parenting) and Akilah hosted the listening party, and Jonie, Reese, Ana Maria, and Erica joined live to share and hear feedback and touchpoints. Together, they reflected and inquired about our relationship with understanding, how autonomy and trust are intertwined, the many layers around discomfort, compassion, trust, and then some. Let’s agree to disagree Our two hosts reflect on what they’ve been noticing around their relationships and pause work, on the importance of taking the space to go through certain feelings, crying, for example, as a liberation practice. As our hosts speak and share their stories, pausing and understanding emerge as key components in the trust work that builds up community and healthy partnership. Check some of the offerings the listeners gave us during this Listening Party Live Chat “In my family, disagreement equals disrespect.” - Erica “For me, I’ve been working on shedding the belief that needing to be understood equals being loved. I think I've tried so hard to get the members of my family to understand me when I think what I was really looking for was compassion, and not actually needing to be understood.” - Ana Maria “I’m feeling into understanding so much more as a verb, it’s not a set destination, it’s movement, it shifts, morphs and transforms.” - Jonie Careese shares some thoughts about Ieishah’s reflection on gentle parenting as a privilege. If you missed the previous episode you can replay it here Episode. 249: U for Understanding and get more details. Then Akilah pulls a card from the Raising Free People practice deck: AUTONOMY: Take up space, let them take up space too, practice allowing yourself and them to take up space, work it until it invites boundaries that work. Remember that the Raising Free People Card Deck is available now, click here to order it. Next week we will be talking about the S in P.A.U.S.E. for sorting or shedding, we will reflect on what’s good for your family and what might need releasing or re-imagining? LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 11 May 2022 | Ep 251: S. for Sorting and Shedding - What’s good for YOUR family? | 00:14:10 | |
This week in Episode 251, we droppin’ gems around the S. in P.A.U.S.E. S. is for Sorting and Shedding. Domari (put her links here as usual) starts us off with a nursery rhyme remix to remind us about the side effects of neglecting to slow it on down sometimes! This week, Akilah offers us seven distinctions between process and practice. She reminds us about a convo with Tiersa McQueen Think about what feels present, the models of living and learning that you practice, and what you might need to pivot away from or at least, revisit. Be sure to join us next week for our Listening Party where we will be sharing some musings and goodness in our Live Chat. Discovery as part of designing Akilah points out the importance of questioning and deschooling our beliefs. Besides people’s consent, boundaries, and shared meanings as ways to invite understanding and trust, resistance feels like a key element in the mix, allowing us see (through our discomfort) what we might need to shift. “That pushback, that resistance—my children’s as well as my own—has been like a magnifying glass for all of us to examine (sometimes in painstaking motherf*kin’ detail) what might need shedding, what might need sorting and what might need shoring up.” - Ep 251 PROCESS and PRACTICE
Process is:
Check Tiersa McQueen’s insights around Practice Vs Process in Episode 211: A Feel Trip Recap about Process vs Practice. LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 18 May 2022 | Ep 252: Listening Party for ‘S. for Sorting and Shedding | 00:36:20 | |
Peace #fofcpod fam! This week, Domari is in the buildin’ for our Listening Party Live Chat,and she and Akilah share some experiences and examples of zoning in on the letter S. in P.A.U.S.E. We also continue speaking about the differences between practice and process. As we question what Sorting and Shedding look like, our hosts share some examples where pause work might be effective. What can we notice or re-imagine in our relationships, language, and self-care? DISCUSSION POINTS Domari talks about her relationship with pleasure (the card that continues to speak to her from our Practice Deck) and how pausing opened up comfort and awareness to think about the practices she has been sorting and shedding with her children and herself. Domari names aspects of decoloniality at home and points out the importance of honoring boundaries and consent. “I’ll be working on identifying the ways that my kids and I are disrupting on a daily basis, and being intentional about noticing these moments and P.A.U.S.E.ing in order to listen and lean in. I’ll also be spending more time intentionally designing pleasurable experiences for myself as a mom (with the kids), as a woman (with others), and as an individual (with myself).” - Domari Our two hosts talk about the importance of honesty and trust work by acknowledging our needs and honoring others as well. Just because I don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it isn't right or important. It’s about building a partnership where everyone can feel safe enough to speak up and say “I don’t want to do this” or “I want to change the way we are doing this” without feeling someone is disappointing or hurting others. If we can pause we can connect with certain situations, not necessarily figure them out. As they speak about the differences between practice and process, they name the importance of paying attention to what triggers us and practice a different response. Be more kind to yourself, forgive yourself, and understand that “we have the right to change our mind” as we are navigating through joy and pain. Then our hosts continue chatting about the distractions or systems that don't allow us to follow our intuition. They reflect on how practice invites more of the intuition, more of the specific needs, delights, and quirks. Live out the #pausewerk with My Reflection Matters co-learning for Liberation Membership. This is open through May 20, 2022, and is accepting 30 new members. The first 10 BIPOC members that get accepted get free access to our Fare of the Free Child course, “From Schoolish to Self-Directed.” Don’t forget to join us next week, we will be talking about the E. in P.A.U.S.E. a continuation of today’s convo. LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 28 May 2022 | Ep 253: E. for Exploration What are some resources you can tap into, based on where you are right now? | 00:29:22 | |
The second to last episode in season 8 is live, #fofcpod fam! This week’s inquiry is about the E (for Exploration) in our P.A.U.S.E. acronym. We’re also sharing some post-season offerings and spaces, so be sure to take notes on the things that perk your ears up! These spaces help us find community and connection and are tools to decolonize and revisit our relationships and practices while we navigate through this deschooling journey with our #pausewerk tools in hand and in heart. Madd Question Askin’
Spaces where inquiry and pausewerk are welcomed!
Join us for the FINAL EPISODE OF THE SEASON!! It’s a live recording on May 30th. Here’s the link (this link will add it to your calendar) LIBERATION WALK
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! | |||
| 04 Jun 2022 | Ep 254: Listening Party for ‘E. for Exploration | 00:55:19 | |
Grief. Avoidance. Funky energies. We’re wrapping up Season 8 with all kinds of feelings in the mix. How do we embrace or transform these feelings as they arise? That’s the pausewerk, and this week we arrive at E, for Exploration. “Noticing your behavior in that moment is about noticing that moment, which is really powerful. It grounds you in the now.” Akilah encourages us to trust the wisdom that emerges from a pause, and Domari shares a story speaking to this experience. Domari reminds us that pausewerk is deschooling work. It’s the little moments where we stop to notice ourselves in our environment. But in what ways might this be a privilege? In what ways might this be radically transformative? How can pausewerk shape the way that we treat ourselves and others in community? Why we pause We are pausing from colonial habituation. We are pausing from autopilot. We are pausing to give ourselves undivided attention and to identify our needs. “Definitely deep emotions this week…because I see myself sitting at this intersection where my liberation work is always about being in relationship with, not free from.” - Jonie Around this gem, Akilah reflects on how it might feel to gather yourself and be in relationship with that emotion, embrace it, and learn to be ok with it. Domari recalls a moment when she navigated an opportunity to pause and pivot: “I did [it], and I didn’t die.” Jonie (our wonderful Listening Party regular) validated how threatening a pause can feel: “this all can feel like negotiations with our survival sometimes.” Transformation ain’t easy! But we’re embracing the practice with open questions. Madd Question Askin’ …
In case you missed any episode here you can revisit our P.A.U.S.E acronym: Episode 244: There is Real Power in the Pause tho! Episode 245: P for Pain Points: What’s hurting you? What’s hurting them? Episode 246: Listening Party for “P. is for Pain Points” Episode 247: A for Absent: What feels missing in your current relationships? Episode 248: Listening Party Replay for ‘A. is for Absences’ 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! | |||
| 28 Sep 2022 | Ep 255: Season 9 Preview - Notes from the other side of the Pause | 00:22:12 | |
What's on the other side of a pause? Last season, we leaned into a focused pause, over and over, episode by episode. We also took that pause with us when the episode ended, and now we are ready to slow-walk our way into what arose for us, and for you. And here are the some of the topics we touched in this episode, and will explore all season long:
Stay tuned. More soon! 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! | |||
| 20 Oct 2022 | Ep 256: Season 9 Preview - Tuning In To The Themes | 00:06:52 | |
As we continue our preparation for Season 9, you are invited to listen as Naaz (also known as Fatima) Mookadam tell us what showed up for her as she listened to Akilah S. Richards’s conversation with Dr. Crystal Menzies. You’ll hear much of that conversation in Season 9, so for now, hear Fatima’s insights and Akilah’s invitation to you. If you missed our first teaser, listen to it here. We are so excited to be centering the voices of five women who are deep in their own deschooling journey! And here are the some of the topics we’ll be exploring all season long:
Stay tuned. More soon! 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! | |||
| 08 Nov 2022 | Ep 257: Spirituality and Intuition in This Self-directed Life | 00:33:04 | |
This is the first episode of Season 9 and we’re delighted to dive into the work of shifting our spiritual and intuitive work to include our raising free people practice. This feels important because while some of us might already see the connection between our commitment to raising free people and the cultivation of our spiritual and intuitive practices, not all of us do. For some of us, the weight, pressure, and pace of our daily responsibilities make that particularly difficult to name, let alone practice. For some of us, the fatigue and frustrations that come with lack of community, for example, can have spiritual work feeling like a luxury we just don’t have time to get into. Our intention is that this season will offer you pockets of education and examples for how to begin exploring what spirituality and its first cousin, intuition, in your specific life and relationship work. And then, through that exploration, it is our hope that you can begin to clear away the not-it shit that’s taking up way too much space in your thoughts and actions, so that you can plant or nurture new seeds, seeds that align with your right and your connection to liberation work. This work is not just for, or because of our children. It is for us first, and then for all the relationship circles we are in, that require our nurturing. Voices we’ll center this season:
With special guest conversations about Spiritual Technology by Jasai and Stori, the mother|daughter team behind Alaiyo Waistbeads MADD QUESTION ASKIN’ MOMENTS (MQA’S)
EP 257 JOURNAL PROMPT As you listen to this episode, let's think about the prompt that would help you think through your current imperfect conditions. What would you describe as your version of “$2 status?” What are some of the realities that you feel are stalling your 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! | |||
| 17 Nov 2022 | Ep 258: Origin Stories | Remembering Some, Releasing Others | 00:58:26 | |
What is your connection to your origin story? Do you feel tied to your origin in ways that feel good and grounding? Or do you feel tethered to something that doesn’t quite feel like you? What do you think about when you read or hear the words Origin Story, anyway?
On this episode, you’ll hear some of me (Akilah) and Naaz’s (aka Fatima’s) origin story—how we met, and where we were in our respective lives when we joined forces. It’s more of an origins-to-now story, with plenty examples about following the threads that led us to peace and release! Plus, Dr. Crystal Menzies of EmancipatED and I have a real-ass convo about releasing aspects of our origin stories as creators, as givers, as liberation workers, so that we can live in ways that align with our current needs, energies, and intentions. Related links: Dr. Menzies on Parenting Decolonized Podcast Sign up here for Expansive Journaling Workshop updates Rock Merch + Art to affirm your Raising Free People practice: 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! | |||
| 25 Nov 2022 | Ep 259: Tuning Into "Spiritual Tech" with Stori + Jasai of Alaiyo Waistbeads | 00:43:03 | |
In this episode, and through the season, we are inviting you to listen, to notice, and to feel through what these conversations evoke for you; within you. What new language is forming for you? Are you already using spiritual tech in your life? What does that look like? Are you aware of or recognizing ways that help you be more mindful? Are you trying to balance all the things in your life or are you going deeper and finding sustainability in harmony? What are you doing to face your freedom calling? LINKS Journaling Workshop List: Grab your RFP Card Deck https://schoolishness.com/store/ Alaiyo site https://www.alaiyo.net/alaiyotv 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! | |||
| 10 Dec 2022 | Ep 260: Vanessa Molano on Abundance as a We Thing, Not a Me Thing | 00:49:58 | |
What is abundance culture? And what does pausing have to do with sustained abundance? These are some of the questions Vanessa Molano (our resident party animal + book nerd) asks us to explore in this conversation.
Highlights from this convo: 30: 48 - 30:51 “authenticity is the most important thing we have” VM 31:08 - 31:17 “if you turn on the abundance lens, you’ll see that there’s a lot more support for the world that we want” - VM Links from this convo:
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! | |||
| 25 Dec 2022 | Ep 261: Communal Care Ain’t Separate from Business Here! | 00:45:58 | |
Ahhh….what an accomplishment! Our penultimate season reaches it’s finale… and ya’ll what a season it has been!! Manifestation, magic, bridges, money as a tool, and the community that is MRM Village! We talk about how networking is actually all about creating community and linking up with folks who are willing to support each other’s missions.
This conversation brings so much to the fore and it’s so important to bring these topics to the table and unpack things like: Intuitive work, embodiment, trusting the unknown, making space for what is to come, anti-hustling, and seeing that work is life and life is work. As we close, we honor the energy of entrepreneurship, and we commit to the continual deschooling of it as one way of supporting the next generation in shifting the hustle-hard-at-all-cost lens they learned from us. Now, we choose to build a bridge for them to walk out of those old models into ways and modes of being that are more aligned with abundance culture, devoid of shame or guilt around money, and filled with mindful intentional and trust for the process. 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! | |||
| 30 May 2019 | Ep. 121: More Reasons to Trust Our Intuition | 00:21:50 | |
Intuition is not exclusive to adulthood, and it can play a very helpful role in helping a child develop a healthy sense of bodily autonomy. At any age, we have feelings in our bellies or chests, for example, that are directly triggered by feelings of safety or lack thereof. Help children to name and acknowledge those feelings – and to trust them. How much do you trust yourself? Intuition, while hailed as something to trust in adulthood, is often discarded or even berated in childhood. Listen in as my Mama and my daughter talk about the importance of intuition in their own lives. I hope it sparks a strengthening of your own connection to intuitive knowings that help you thrive. 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! | |||
| 03 Jun 2019 | Ep. 122: Let's Grow Podcast (Don't Call Me King) | 00:09:13 | |
Join Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta for the second episode of Let’s Grow Podcast Series as he explores the popular greeting in Black culture that uses royal titles as greetings, i.e. What's good, King?" or "Hey, Queen!" In this episode, titled Don't Call Me King, continues his pattern of inviting us to deconstruct and rethink the ways we see power and community. Be sure to reach out to Dr. Sundiata with your perspectives on his topics, because he's all about dialogue and discussion that invites us to grow together wherever we can. 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! | |||