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Summary

This episode with Sari and Becka from Radical Learning delves into the themes of unschooling, privilege, and the impact of colonialism on education. We discuss the importance of authenticity in learning, the necessity of unschooling for marginalized families, and the healing journey that comes with stepping away from conventional education. We also emphasize the need for empowerment, social justice, and redefining success in the context of education, while also acknowledging the complexities of privilege and accessibility.

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Read the Transcript:

Adrienne Miller (00:00)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. I have Becca and Sari here. They’re from radical learning on Instagram. Welcome. We’re so glad to have you.

Sari:

Thank you.

Becka:

It’s amazing being here. Thank you.

Adrienne:

I’m honored. We kind of wanted to work both in the unschooling industry, which is separate from just the homeschooling industry in the sense that I don’t know how you guys, why don’t you guys describe it? I’ll give you my definition when anyone asks me then we’ll see if you guys agree. I always just say that

It’s so different from replicating school at home in the sense that we are continually unpacking what it means to learn, what it means to be in this society and industry, what it means to parent, what it means to, what consent means for our children. And so it’s just unpacking. I would say that that takes up more of my work than looking for an ideal curriculum or setting up the perfect home school classroom or schedule. Like it’s so much more for me about my personal work around preconditioned beliefs and how that then translates into how I treat my kids.

Becka:

Yeah, exactly.

Adrienne:

She’s just nodding.

Becka:

Yeah, that’s it. We’re done now.

Adrienne:

OK, great.

Sari:

Yeah, I think you said it so beautifully. It’s interesting because we definitely consider ourselves Deschooling companions. there’s actually we’ve been moving a little bit further from that terminology because it can be a little scary for folks to think about the word Deschooling.

But in essence, what we mean by that is when we, when parents, the adults and young people’s lives decide to walk away from conventional education models and systems, usually what we see is at first, it’s like, this isn’t working for my kid or my family for X, Y, Z. And we could talk about all those reasons, right? But then it becomes, wow. I’m actually replicating the very thing that I’m walking away from with my kids at home. And that’s where the de-schooling comes in. That’s where the internal work that you’re talking about comes in because it really is about recognizing how those systems live within us in the ways we think about, speak to and relate to young people. yeah, I think the difference between homeschooling and unschooling is that piece, you know, when you recognize that it’s not just about saying no to school or living life without school, it’s really unpacking all of the ways that schoolishness, a term coined by our friend and mentor, Akilah Richards, that schoolishness lives in all of us because we’ve come from these systems that have told us how to be, how to think, how to behave what we should, all the shoulds.

And so unschooling becomes much more about returning to ourselves and reclaiming our authenticity and understanding how we stop our young people from doing that very thing. So it’s actually not about school at all.

Becka:

No, no. And I would add to that, that it’s really about reconnecting to our own essence that we have been disconnected from through our schooling experience, but also through society’s values and priorities and norms. And when we reconnect to ourselves, that’s when we can truly deeply connect with our kids and with other humans, obviously. That is what leads that, including what you were mentioning, Sari, is what leads to a huge mindset shift, I would say, where suddenly it’s not even really that interesting what the kids are learning. It’s more interesting what we’re doing together, what we’re building as we go through this experience called life.

Adrienne:

And it’s so fascinating to me that you know, we’re just living, but I have to call it unschooling. Like I still have to relate it to school because our society is so school centric that if I just said, I’m just living with my kids, people will be like, what do mean? I don’t, I don’t understand what that means. And I actually have to explain that we just live as a school doesn’t exist. And I have to term it, or we have to term it like de-schooling or unschooling. It’s still so related to school and

Yes. So yesterday was, truth and reconciliation day here in Canada. And I was reading, you know, accounts about how this came about. And Johnny McDonald, our prime minister, our first prime minister, he spoke of. So this was like his, account to the government saying, this is why we should create residential schools. But he said, we need to disconnect. And there’s a language I won’t use here, but we need to disconnect these children from their parents because they

are learning that mentality, those methods of learning, and we need to assimilate them, force assimilate them into any, says white man’s methods of learning and thinking and being and whatever. And while our children today are not experiencing the same levels of atrocities as what was taking place in residential schools, the principles of disconnecting people from

their families disconnecting people from their cultures and languages and arts, let’s say for black and brown kids, let’s say for people of different nationalities, races, and cultures, it very much still is a colonial system in which disconnection is such a powerful tool. Because as you said, if we can disconnect people from their own intuition,

from their own feelings, from listening to their own bodies about, hey, I need to move my body right now, or hey, I’m really dysregulated. I need to get my anger out. All these things that aren’t allowed in school. And if we are able to train people to disconnect from each other and their own essence, as you said, Becca, it’s so much easier to get them to think a certain way, behave a certain way, act a certain way. And it’s much easier to control a population.

So that’s what came up for me as you guys were speaking about that.

Becka:

Yeah, I totally agree.

Sari:

Yeah, I mean, it’s, and that kind of goes to what we were mentioning earlier, which is you can’t just isolate the intention of stepping away from the school system without really understanding what the school system, the conventional school system is all about and unearthing the history there, right? Schools, even though they’re only like 200 something years old, know, the idea of them, the, you know, introduction into society, there was a very intentional purpose in terms of what you’re saying of through colonial mindset of what is right, what is wrong, what should be, who should be doing what and when and who shouldn’t. you know, marginalizing many groups of humans. I think that it’s really important, especially if you’re showing up in the world with identities such as ours, as, you know, white skinned humans in this movement, that we reconcile that and that we understand the history there because you know, as we kind of chatted off screen, unschooling is not something that is accessible to everybody based on their identities. And so it’s important to reconcile that and to understand where we are in the landscape of humanity and education and all of that. I think also what I think about when I hear you speak is something that’s really important to us is, you know, unschooling, deschooling, living life without school, whatever you want to, folks want to call it, in essence is social justice work. You know, we are trying to step away from systems that are, you know, dominating one way or other and marginalizing folks in one way or another and really leading into different ways of relating to one another. And so it’s, it’s hard to separate those things when you begin to go down the rabbit hole of unschooling, because it is about relationship. And you begin to see your place in the world and kind of see, it’s like you pull the thread of schooling, but that’s tied to like all these other threads.

Becka:

Yeah, I think that I mean, I agree with everything you say, Sari, and you know that already, obviously. But there’s something with the systems that are based on having power over others, and school particularly having power over young people. And how, for me, unschooling is a way of yes, reconnecting to ourselves, but also to our inner power to become truly empowered. And when we are truly empowered, we also do everything we can to empower others. And that includes our young humans. And so for me, it’s like I, I know that there’s a lot of talk about oppression. And it’s a word that is used a lot and it’s true.

However, I think that when it comes to unschooling, I prefer to talk about empowerment. And that for me, it is a truth that true empowerment will only empower others, because it’s really about shared power. And so that’s what we’re doing these days with our kids.

just trying to become ourselves more and more and be empowered and support one another.

Adrienne:

Which is all, these are everything that we talk about. These are all aspects of decolonizing, right? We’re decolonizing how we think we are empowering children. That’s a very anti-colonial idea. We are resting. We are redefining success. We are re-framing our relationship with productivity. Like all of these things are anti-colonial, they’re resistance and that empowerment. So I love that you phrased it like that.I know we all receive this comment that homeschooling is a privilege. It’s not accessible to everyone. And so how almost, how dare we advocate for it when it’s not something that’s accessible to everyone. So

I’ll respond. But how do you guys respond to that when people bring that up?

Becka:

Well, first of all, just speaking from my own personal experience, I’m a single mama living in Mexico in a part of Mexico where there’s no, there’s like, no enterprises, there’s no industry, there’s nothing like you can’t get a job here. If you don’t want to be a fisherman or farmer or in the tourist industry. And so I have been doing this with my kid and I don’t have any other financial support. I have been working my ass off, to be honest, to make ends meet and to be able to have this lifestyle. And yes, in many ways, it is a privilege, but there’s also everything that I’ve had to say no to that I don’t have. A fixed salary, I don’t have an employment, I do not have vacation, like I haven’t had a paid vacation since my son was born. Like those are other privileges, you know, that I have had to say no to, in order to basically be the master of my time and my life. And so my agency and my empowerment and my freedom they do come with a price or so far at least. And so yes, there’s privilege and there’s also not privilege. And I think that privilege can look like a lot of different things. So that’s just my personal angle. just to start there.

Adrienne:

Yeah. So acknowledging the immense effort and sacrifice that homeschoolers often make. I don’t know of any homeschoolers that aren’t sacrificing to have the lifestyle that they have. Sari, did you want to add anything?

Sari:

Yeah, privilege is such an important thing to unpack and really interesting depending on who you ask in what context and what culture. I’ll say that my relationship to privilege has shifted, like the ideas around privilege has shifted a lot in talking to a friend of mine from South Africa when we were talking around privilege as it relates to race.

And they introduced this idea of thinking about you like oneself being privileged actually undermines the humanity of the person that you think is underprivileged. And I was like, wow, okay, that’s a really interesting perspective. And so, and I understand that culture, know, culture is context, like it all really influences perspective.

The reason why I’m bringing it up here is because I think also what I’m hearing you say, Becka, is it really depends on circumstance. It really depends on context. And so I think that, yes, we live in a capitalistic society, which makes it really hard to live without economic resources. And that means that there are many people that are running the rat race to try to just make ends meet and it might be harder for them to actually be home with their kids and step out of conventional schooling. And there are families where school is actually a respite for kids, where school actually serves like really important purpose in their life. And then there are folks that don’t have access to that either. Not everybody has access to schooling. And so it just, really depends on who you ask and what their life circumstances are.

I do believe that the notion and the concept that it’s not accessible to all is partially true based on what I just said and like based on the circumstances around society. And I also wish that as a society, we can begin to speak about it differently, that we can begin to imagine what access can look like for everybody, by changing the systems that make it harder for others to access. Like that conversation is what I’m particularly really interested in. It means recognizing the barriers for folks, but not staying there. know, like beginning to imagine what it can look like for all of us to access leaving something that is actually harmful for our families if that’s the case or harmful for society. So yeah.

It’s nuanced and it’s complex.

Adrienne:

Yeah, it’s incredibly nuanced. And that’s great. That’s why I love being able to have this conversation and holding these multiple truths at the same time. I was thinking in particular, when that question comes up for me, I think of all the families who are in circumstances where, let’s say, they have a child with a life or death allergy and school is just not an environment that they could put their kids in. And it’s not that they have all this money or it’s not that they just have all of this privilege and it’s just an elective choice of luxury. It literally could cost them a life. And so they are operating in this environment where it’s not a choice. And so they have to do whatever they have to do for their child to survive. Or if you look at it in a case of lots and lots of black and brown families are leaving because of the abuse, the racism, the horrible mistreatment that they are experiencing and their children are experiencing in schools. We talked about the school to prison pipeline, like all of that for those families. It’s not an option to put their kids in an environment where they’re going to be so dehumanized and mistreated. There was a Palestinian friend of mine who was talking about as she grew up in school, they told her that Palestine didn’t exist.

So what about all the families whose children are going into an environment where teachers are invalidating their very identity and who they are? So for those families, the choice to then have their kids not be in that environment, that’s not a privilege. That is just a right they’re trying to extend to their children to be able to like live and exist in a non-oppressive environment.

And then lastly, the demographic that really comes to mind for me is neurodivergent families whose children are having to mask for hours on end, or they are being forced to navigate a neurotypical environment that is extremely detrimental to their wellbeing, or trans families or queer families, all of these different demographics who are not in an environment that is healthy for them. And for everyone else, it might look like a privilege to take their kids out of school, but in all these demographics, it’s very much a necessity for these families. And so I also just want to acknowledge that in our conversation, there are so many demographics, all marginalized, right? That’s why we don’t think about them. That’s why they’re not at the forefront of the conversations, but they’re all the people who seem to be forgotten in these conversations and these discussions who are very much suffering in school and that having to come out of the school system is just something that they have to do to be able to live a life of, you know, self-determination, like basic human rights that I think so many others just take for granted as it’s just this luxurious lifestyle of homeschooling that people see, which absolutely that is an image that many portray and it’s really unfortunate. But let’s just, yeah, take a moment to just remember all of these different scenarios and circumstances where families cannot survive in the school system.

Sari:

Yeah, thank you for that. It’s so important to hold that awareness, continue to hold that awareness. Obviously I don’t resonate with all of those identities, but I can resonate with some. What brought me to unschooling was my neurodivergent son. I don’t wanna say he wouldn’t have survived the system, but the system was not made for him. And I really don’t think that the system is really made for humanity. humans, yeah, it’s not. And so it is important to recognize like that’s kind of part of that desire and that wish to talk about things differently as well. Because I do know that there is like a whole load of people that see homeschooling and unschooling as this like glorious thing where kids are running through the forest and you know, like the moms are like knitting while they’re, you know, and there’s

Adrienne:

That is the image very much that is the image that is portrayed.

Sari:

Yeah. And that’s true for some. But honestly, like the majority of folks that I know that are on schooling and homeschooling have left the system for many of the reasons you just mentioned. And so I think that the narrative there, yeah, it needs to be, it’s important to be inclusive when we talk about like why people are making the choices that they’re making.

Adrienne:

You guys did a post recently about why unschooling attracts queer families. Do you remember that? you want to just talk about that, for a second? I loved that post so much.

Becka:

Yeah, I think we both love it. Yeah, because it’s really about being able to be who we truly are. And that is regardless if we’re queer and trans or neurodivergent or whatever, like to be able to be who we are, not having to hide ourselves, not having to mask, but be accepted in our essence. And that doesn’t happen in the school system. It doesn’t. And I, yeah, I think a lot about that. How important that is, especially in these times where everything gets so polarized and I feel that people are, they’re speaking from a foundation of fear and prejudice instead of openness and curiosity and try to understand one another and how important it is to be able to just be ourselves. And I think that maybe that is hard for people to grasp, because they haven’t realized how much they have shrunk and how disempowered they truly are and how little agency they actually have. And I think that you can still sense it. And so then there’s like raging, you know, towards these people who are being able to be themselves fully. And that’s what we can do when unschooling. We can be who we are here. And just going back into that privilege piece.

I think the true privilege in unschooling is being able to live in a country where you can actually do it, you know? Yeah, go ahead. So yeah, so that makes me think about, for instance, my birth country, Sweden, where schooling is mandatory. And where all of these groups, doesn’t matter, we are neurodivergent, like they don’t have, they don’t have an outlet for being themselves fully. That is really hard to see. even though Sweden is a very like open country when it comes to specifically LGBTQ plus folks, I still think that it’s, it’s like, it’s still, it crushes so many. Restricted. Yeah.

Adrienne:

Yeah. What was so poignant to me about that and that post in particular was that I think most people who aren’t in this world look at homeschooling and they go, well, I wouldn’t homeschool because it’s traditional, it’s conservative, it’s right wing, it’s Christian, right? That is a pretty big majority of the homeschooling world. Whereas unschooling, I think we see quite separate from homeschooling in that way because often homeschoolers will pull their kids from school because they don’t want them to learn about accurate history. They don’t want them to learn about trans rights. They don’t want them to learn about the woke agenda, quote unquote. Whereas unschoolers in particular, I feel really attracts just people trying to be authentic and people just trying to live and just be themselves, right? And learning all of those things that I just mentioned, know, queer history or whatever, all these things. And so that’s what really stood out to me in the sense that when people hear homeschooling, I think so many are just turned off from the beginning, people that are in the public school system and would just go, my gosh, I would never do that. Because the entire community is a very granola Christian looking community. So many are not, we know that, but that is the image portrayed and it’s really hard to get people to unsee that.

That’s why I always try and advocate very specifically to unschooling because the whole point is that you’re unpacking from any notion of what it’s supposed to look like, quote unquote, and how it’s supposed to feel. As you said, not, we don’t all have to be knitting. We don’t all have to be, you know, digging up worms. We don’t all have to be hang those like all the same nature posters that everyone has in their Pinterest homeschooling board. So.

Becka:

Yeah, I think this is super interesting. And I think it’s so important as well. Because it all boils down to where we’re like, what is the foundation we’re standing on? Is it fear? Because if it is fear, that’s going to lead to control, that’s going to lead to power over, that’s going to lead to disempowerment of young humans. And I feel that what we’re talking about is standing on a foundation of love.

and acceptance for every single being and empowerment for all. And it’s just like a totally different paradigm. Yeah.

Sari:

Yeah. You took the words right out of my mouth, Becca. feel like I know that those versions of homeschooling and even unschooling, like I know folks that they consider themselves unschooling and there’s, you know, there are very strict curriculums and there’s, you know, I think for me it’s, and I’m not here to say like that’s right or wrong. Cause then we’re getting into like a dogmatic way of looking at what it should be, right? And what we’re back to where we were trying to walk away from. But I do think that what I’ve seen is like a pattern that folks that do tend to leave the system for reasons of wanting to control what their kids are learning, lead with any agenda. Like, if the purpose is that, to like ensure that your kids do or do not learn certain things, I think we need to stop and question that and think about like, where is the learner’s, the young person’s autonomy and agency. What is the relationship between the parent and child and where does consent play a role? Does it play a role? And for me, I can like boil it down to like what my experience of unschooling is. It’s really about relationships, shared power and consent.

And you can’t have a consensual relationship when one person is holding power, even the idea of what should be learned or what a young person should be doing with their time. And so I really do think that unschooling requires like a disentanglement of our ideas of who kids are, you know, and who we are as human beings and what our relationships are and should be. For me, it’s like really, our kids grow up so fast. They grow up so fast. And so it’s really like a pause button. It’s a pause button to actually just be with our kids and like empty out all of these notions of what they should be doing or what you should be doing as a parent or like what they should be learning. And that can only happen if we’re really listening, if we’re really, really listening. And that requires getting off of our literally high horses, right? Historically, there’s a reason why that’s said, that term has come about, but get off of our high horses and learn to be with our young people.

Well, I don’t know. kind of went off on a little tangent

Adrienne:

That’s okay. That’s okay. What was coming up for me there because I, all the examples that we used are, I’m not, don’t want to say extreme, but we talk about like, well, kids who are queer, kids who are trans kids who are, you know, marginalized in these situations. I was none of those things. I grew up cis straight white female, like quite privileged. However, if I look at my environments of a French Catholic school, of growing up Mormon, and then my household too, which was toxic and dysfunctional, all those three systems. Like I grew up in a constant state of fear. I grew up tying all of my self-worth to my performance and my obedience and productivity. grew up, so in none of those scenarios was I, there was nothing about my identity or about my intersectionality or whatever that made school, church and home oppressive. It was just all of those things were being violated at every turn. So my consent was never honored. My voice never mattered. I had no autonomy over my body whatsoever. And so I also want to bring up that these systems and these principles of oppression and the opposite of what Becka describes as empowerment and love and all of that.

That’s really also what I like to focus on. So marginalized or not, right, these identities are not, what are the principles at play? If you have these principles of oppression and power and dominance and fear, and you are lacking the principles of trust and respect and consent and autonomy. That’s really what I want the conversation to be about. it kind of frustrates me to no end that the conversation around homeschooling always tends to be, well, what am I supposed to teach my kids? And what is my classroom supposed to look like? And well, what about their friends and all of these things that are like common, common, common fears, but they’re so surface level that is so not the point of being a human and so not the point of how we live. And can we actually look at how are we helping our kids emotional regulation? How are we building strong family relationships? How are we…all these deeper things and at the risk of sounding morally superior. What are all these things that really matter? And so I love that you said it’s like pushing pause, which again, colonialism doesn’t like to let us do because they keep us in this system of rushing and working from day one that we learn in school, right? From preschool, you’re three now. You’re supposed to be learning this and that, and you’re supposed to be sitting quiet in circle time, and you’re supposed to be coming from nine to three. And then you’re supposed to do homework, and then you’re supposed to rush and have sports, and then you’re supposed to start this all over again the next day. And what unschooling for me has really allowed us to do is embrace like all the things that give us then that rest and that time to be present and that time to be an emotional capacity to be intentional about what we’re doing and leaving the church, leaving school and my husband both left our nine to fives. I was a teacher and he worked at the bank because we were strapped to our schedules and spending no time with our kids. So we left those three massive systems kind of all at the same time, which, you know, we pulled one thread and then the whole thing just kind of unraveled. But it just got us away from this roller coaster that we had been put on by, you know, our parents or whatever, where you’re just riding this thing and it’s going so fast and everyone else is on this thing. And so you don’t even, and people who are off of it look really weird and you don’t really get it. You don’t understand what’s going on or how they’re doing it or why they’re doing it. And it’s often right kids who are in their pajamas at the grocery store in the middle of the day. And it’s all these things that don’t conform. And so it feels really off and really uncomfortable, right? And so as you were saying such a big part of it is just that dethinking and that debunking and that debelieving, like undoing all of that, which takes an incredible amount of work and like wherewithal and capacity to be able to do that. So for us, the very first thing they think if people either are considering entering into the homeschooling world or they get into the homeschooling world, they are so wrapped up in either like consumerism, all these things that they haven’t unpacked yet to then be able to have unschooling make sense. And they’re trying to do all the things at the same time first and then are like, well, I don’t know how anyone does this. This is completely overwhelming and bringing me so much burnout because they’re trying to find the perfect curriculum and set up the perfect classroom and spend all this money on all these different things and, and they’re strapped financially and they’re all these balls in the air that colonialism and capitalism and consumerism want us to have so that we can’t think for a moment and be present for a moment. But that for us is where all the work came first to be able to then unschool in the way that was most authentic to our kids was getting our shit in line first.

Sorry, I just talked for really long time.

Becka:

No, I think this is so interesting. And I think that you’re really naming things that people don’t see in general and that they aren’t aware of. And again, it has to do with what is holding power over us, right?

Adrienne:

Yes.

Becka:

How this system is like, it’s, and it takes a lot of, I would say like understanding and insights to how the system was created and why and how it has affected us, how we have internalized it. And so we’re trying and we’ve been mentioning this a little bit everywhere in this podcast, like try to walk away from it. But when you don’t know what it is that you’re leaving behind, you’re gonna bring it with you. That’s just what you do, which is like, like, Sari and I, we’ve seen this now for such a long time, and it has become, I think, the most beautiful creation of ours is actually like how to support people in doing just that, like how to identify what it is that is keeping them in this loop, in this rat race. And once you see that, that’s when you can actually liberate yourself from all this weight of having to perform and the perfectionism and the sense of urgency and all of those very colonial like parts that make us comply to the system and just repeat, repeat, repeat. So supporting people in that process has become like the most pleasurable thing ever. It’s a marvelous thing to do.

Adrienne:

What are the things I’m so interested to know that in your three-year deschooling programs that you run for parents, what are the things that stand out the most to you would have been the most impactful, poignant things, either like the most common fears or the most insightful things that you’ve noticed you’ve been doing? You guys have been running this program for a while, right? And seeing lots and lots of parents.

Sari:

Yeah, that’s a great question. And if I can jump in, Becca, just because it’s kind of tied to this question, I just want to say something before we dive into that. I think this is healing work. Like this is, and this is, that’s something that is not talked about very often.

Adrienne:

Except for Akilah, I feel like she,

Sari:

yeah, yeah.

Adrienne:

The queen of all this.

Sari:

Yeah, thank you. Yes, Akilah talks about it. I mean, there’s a whole community, My Reflection Matters, that is all about healing and liberation work. But what I’m specifically referring to are like these kinds of communities that you’re bringing up, you know, or these kinds of profiles, let’s say, of folks that that the healing aspect is not talked about a lot. You know, it’s very much about like the academics and the future and what’s going to happen to our kids. And I think that it’s important to talk about the system that we’re walking away from or that we’re trying to dismantle or that we’re trying to recreate differently and the parts of that system, the tools of oppression that show up and how we internalize it. And I also think that it’s important to not just talk about the system, but talk about the people that make up the systems. And within that, happens, and going to your question, what we see a lot is that folks are very focused on the academic part. They’re very focused on like, how can I do this? How can I do this thing called unschooling? And they’re not tending to their grief around the identities that they are leaving behind. They’re not looking at this work as healing work to really reclaim parts of themselves that have been compartmentalized over times through these characteristics of colonialism and the systems that we’re talking about. And so I think what’s been most fascinating, like things that we see that people have struggled with a lot are that piece. Like it’s like, okay, I left and now how do I do this thing? And not really like looking at what is the healing that you need in order to be able to grow into the person that you want, that you are and want to become with and for your young people.

Adrienne:

Just rushing into the next system of, how do I do this part?

Sari:

Recreating it, recreating it. So the perfectionism comes in.

Adrienne:

Interesting.

Sari:

The urgency comes in.

Adrienne: Yeah.

Sari:

The binary thinking comes in, like all of that comes in, but now you’re unschooling. Yeah. And young people are still being oppressed and we parents are still oppressing ourselves because we’re just calling it something different. We see this a lot in the academic world because we do work also with facilitators and educators in alternative learning spaces and SDE, self-directed education spaces.

And if we don’t actually stop to think about what are we walking away from and why and how that has impacted us and what we need to heal from and what we are grieving before we move forward, we’re just gonna keep on repeating those cycles. And so that’s the work that we love to do. And it also requires moving away from just talking about it and thinking about it and being in a theoretical.

space to actually accessing parts of ourselves, our bodies, our intuition.

Adrienne:

Which we don’t know how to do. That’s right. We weren’t taught to do that. And so you have all these 40 year olds who are like, help me on school. And I’m like, well, we got to back up a long ways and I need to teach you how to listen to your own body. And I need it like it’s therapy really. Right. And I think it’s so easy, not easy, but it’s very obvious for people like me who came from a terrible experience and I’m like, yeah, I want nothing like that for my kids. But what about all the parents who say they had a positive experience at school, they, you know, were thrived in school or whatever. And so it’s hard to get them to look at that experience and go, well, you also experienced trauma, let’s unpack that. Cause I would assume most of them are like, no, I didn’t. I don’t have trauma surrounding school whatsoever until you like force them to dig, right?

Becka:

Yeah. Yeah. And that there’s like so many pleasurable ways of doing that. doesn’t, I mean, it can, it’s intense and it can be hard, but that it’s possible to kickstart that whole process that is healing. It’s a big healing work through, the exact tools that we are disconnected from, like play or contemplation and reflection and just being together, collaborating together, co-creating, like doing the things that we are not allowed to do in the system. That is by itself healing. Yeah, resting. That is by itself healing. I mean, we have had trainings with people where everyone is super tired. So we’re like, okay, for those who feel like a collective nap, here’s a space for a collective nap and people are napping together. And how healing that is. And it might sound ridiculous, but it’s not because it’s about giving ourselves permission to actually tune into what we truly need and to offer that to us, you know, instead of having to push through and, and be strong, know,

Adrienne:

all the colonial things.

That’s great. And your retreats, they’re in Mexico, where you are, like they’re in person.

Sari:

So we have an Adjunct Learning Community in Mexico, and we run an immersion program. We actually have one in September of 2025.

Yeah, there we have like a whole podcast on our podcast about how we de-schooled like our learning community as well. So now we’re just doing it when it brings us joy and when people actually want to come together. But yeah, so we have that, but our, have a few offerings. The training that Becca was referring to is called the shift and it’s a seventh day. We used to call it a de-schooling intensive. We’re trying to reword it a little bit. It’s not scare scare folks away, but it’s an opportunity for folks to come together and like live through these practices together so that we’re just not, we talk about power and systems and all of that, but we also practice tools and practice ways together collectively to help us move through.

Adrienne:

Okay. Yeah. That one’s virtual.

Sari:

No, that’s in person. And that happens. Yeah, that happens. Yeah. we’ve like, we’re at a point right now, I feel very blessed to that people are like calling us and being like, Hey, we can you bring the shift to our community? Can you bring the shift to our part of the world? And so yeah, we have some exciting announcements of where some exciting places that that’s going to take place. But yeah, so we go all over, we travel and we bring the shift to different communities. And then we do host the shift as part of our immersion program here in Mexico.

Adrienne:

Okay. Okay. Yeah. that’s fantastic. I will, I’ll put all of that in the show notes so that.

Sari:

Thank you.

Adrienne:

yeah. Of course. That’s amazing work.

Sari:

Yeah. It’s fun. It’s, I think that that’s like, I’ll speak for myself, although I know I’m speaking for you too, Becca, but like that is the offering that we have that brings the most joy.

because it’s in person and we co-create like a container in a community together and we have folks that are still connected to their cohorts and they have like you know meetups and stuff like that and yeah it’s it’s really beautiful because people bring their gifts and themselves to the process and so each one is really different we have people that have participated four times in it just because each one is so different

based on who’s there. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.

Adrienne:

Well, that’s yeah. The community and the healing. it’s not you both talk down teaching.

Sari:

Yeah. Exactly.

Adrienne:

That’s great. OK. Well, is there anything that you want to leave as we wrap up? Is there anything that you just wish parents understood? I would say most of my audience is either homeschooling already or at least homeschooling curious and progressive and liberal. I think I do a pretty good job of.

repelling people who are,

Sari:

was like, as before you said that I was like weeding out, what are the words that you’re going to

Adrienne:

that are traditional and conservative and just not my, not my community. So if, if you could think of a few things that you just feel like this is what you always preach and talk about, and this is your soapbox stuff and you just wish people could really

believe this? Like learning, children, childhood, school, unschooling, living life, any of it?

Sari:

That’s a really beautiful question. Thank you. I have something that just came to mind just through my own de-schooling process. And it is that truth minimizes separation. OK. So yeah.

Adrienne:

What do you mean? Yeah, go ahead.

Sari:

What I mean by that is as we parents do our inner work to connect to ourselves and find our own truths. We become more closer to ourselves and to our kids. And for me, that is really what unschooling and deschooling is about. It’s really not about school. It stops centering school and really think about this in terms of relationship. And when we make that shift, it changes everything.

Adrienne:

Yeah. Yeah. It really changes the whole atmosphere in your home and in your environment.

Sari:

Yeah. And so what I mean by truth is like your inner truth, you know, like who are you as a human? What lights you up? What brings you joy and pleasure? And, you know, this work is really about reconnecting to that, reconnecting to self and reconnecting to others through that truth. Yeah.

Becka:

That was so beautifully put Sari. What was coming to me was like that this is truly liberating, like on all levels, because we find our way back to ourselves, which is a liberation because we can get rid of all those layers that were imposed on us. And when that happens to us, we can do the same for others.

It’s not just like ego based. It’s not just for me. It’s for everyone. And I think that that is what has really stood out to me that this, this work is, it can be so pleasurable. Yeah, sure. We have to sit in discomfort many times and like confront, like ingrained, ingrained truths, ingrained belief systems. And that can be like, work. But on the other side, there is empowerment, there is agency, there is freedom to be who you are and to support your young people to be who they are. And for me, I know that this sounds like super naive, but it’s like, this is where peace begins. You know, I can stand on the barricades and like point the finger and be so angry with anyone who is like limiting other people’s freedom.

But what am I doing in my life to bring in consent, agency, empowerment, and freedom around me, like to myself and to others? And that makes it even more empowering.

Adrienne:

Yeah. Which again, mean, to me, it’s redefining that idea of success or that idea of luxury, right? And if we have, do most of us think of success for our children as being, they have peace of mind? No, most of us look at success and go, well, it means they’re going to have a good job. It means that they’re going to be financially stable. It means that they’re going to have diplomas or trophies or whatever good grades. And I think a lot of parents too say, well, I just want my kid to be happy. But then we don’t actually dig into, well, are they happy? What is making them happy? Do they know what makes them happy or do they know what makes you happy? And what makes teachers and coaches happy? Do we care about kids having peace of mind or adults having peace of mind? How often do we think of that as being a measure of success? so again, just that idea of redefining it all. And because none of that, none of what we just talked about in the last 10 minutes has anything to do with

grades or test scores or schedules or planners or academics. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Any of that, that is so heavily prioritized in school. And I think again, as you said, like it’s so fear-based of, well, if my kid doesn’t do well, like if they’re not

in preschool getting ready for K, then they’re gonna be behind and then they’re gonna get bad grades and then they’re not gonna get a job and then they’re gonna be unhoused and then they’re gonna be miserable and unhappy for their whole life. And so it’s just this fear-based path trajectory because we’ve also been conditioned to believe that good scores equals high school diploma, equals getting into university, equals having a high paying job, equals success and happiness.

Sari:

And if our kids are successful and they do all that stuff, then that means I’ve done a really good job as a parent then that means I’ve succeeded. And I think that would be another thing that I would like invite people to question, Is like, how much does our self worth as a parent? How much is that entangled with who our kids are and what they do and their success? And that’s kind of messed up. You know, like all of sudden we’re like, you know, it’s…

Yeah, we’re not ourselves as individuals.

Becka:

that is also what leads us to wanting to control our kids. Yes. Yeah.

Sari:

There’s There’s so much we can keep talking and talking. This is fun.

Adrienne:

Thank you both. Thank you both so much. I really appreciate and admire you and your work and your voice in this space. It’s really hard to find progressive voices in this space or like, you know, voices that care about marginalized issues and social justice, that aspect of it in the homeschooling world. So I am so eternally grateful for both of you.

Becka:

Thank you for having us.

Adrienne:

Anytime. I’m sure we will keep this going. Over the years, I’m sure you will be back on. anyway, so we will chat soon, but thank you so much for coming on.

Sari: Thank you.