Unschooling for Black Liberation

By Abram de Bruyn

The following is a part of the interview that I conducted for the printed article which was left out.  It follows on from where Akilah S. Richards’ personal story leaves off and moves towards questions around her advocacy of Self-Directed Education.  Akilah has a podcast “Fare of the Free Child” that can be found here, and the Steve Harvey interview which I am referring to can be seen here. 

On the Steve Harvey Interview… I thought was a really interesting and approachable format, to be able to introduce this education philosophy to people.  How did that come about? 

The producers called me, I think they were talking with a friend of mine who had done work for Steve Harvey before and they were asking her about ‘New Age parents’.  I actually didn’t like the dynamic: I didn’t like how they did the Old School vs New School, pitting one against the other.  I was very uncomfortable with that and gave me a bit of pause as to whether or not to do the show at all. There was a few more communications with the producers before I was like, ok: I’ll do it.

They thought I was essentially a purple unicorn: a Black Unschooler? Because unschooling’s a white thing.  So I was invited on to the show.  Myself and one other woman, we were the only two actual Unschoolers. So really they had never heard of the term, the producers that we spoke to. So they really just wanted to know about it and were really excited by how ‘extreme’ it sounded in comparison to the traditional “you need to go to school to learn” mindset.

Obviously it had its own biases, it was there for sensational reasons, but I think you did a fantastic job.  And Steve Harvey, too, even though it was set up as a kind of power struggle, I think he did a fair job.

 I think he did as well, and I was surprised because I didn’t know what it was going to be like. And I’d gotten all of these perspectives, because you know, I’m opinionated and Steve Harvey is as well.  So there was all of this conjecture about how that would go down. So I was really happy to see that kept it open so that maybe his viewers could understand, to leave the show with a sense of understanding.

I’d like to give you further chance to respond to a couple of things he said: “If you’re just a working person, I don’t know if you can DO unschooling, because you’ve got to go to work.”  What do you say to that?

I’d say that’s just a lack of knowledge and exposure to the spaces, because cooperative learning spaces, and we definitely need far more, obviously, than we have now.  I’ve been saying that I think that libraries, we need to rethink the idea of needing libraries and maybe transform some of those into cooperative learning spaces that happen to have a lot of books.  

There are a lot of places like Agile Learning Centers, for example, and the Anna Julia Cooper Center in Atlanta, spaces where people are looking at cooperative learning options for people who are either going to work or have other projects that they’re doing that make it difficult for them to do it the way that Chris and I are doing it.  

The idea is that it doesn’t need to look a specific way, it needs to be applicable to whoever is looking to foster self-directed learning spaces with the people they live with: you know, children or adults.  So I would say that it is something that is available to working people, but we obviously need to do a lot more work: to create more ALCs and Anna Julia Cooper Centers that support more people.

The other thing I’d like to get your take on was the Audience Poll, 26% said they would Unschool, and 74% said they wouldn’t.  I actually thought that was a ‘good win’.  You obviously succeeded to convey your message to some degree. Not forgetting the old Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Exactly, right.

The last comment from Harvey that I want to pitch you: he said that maybe Unschooling has a branding issue.  The concept of John Holt’s ‘Un-School’.  This is a comment that never seems to go away, have you given the branding much thought?

I have.  Self-directed learning; self-directed education. But really it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It’s not something I think that much time should be spent on, because obviously it’s not helpful to qualify something on what it isn’t. But, it IS about deviating from the idea of school, and all of the ways that we understand the context of school.  Unschool? Maybe that’s it, because school is a crazy idea…

I don’t think that it’s such a big deal.  But I do like the idea of “self-directed learning”, because of the autonomous part – instead of starting with school.

I understand that you are getting involved in Peter Gray’s new ‘Alliance for Self-Directed Education’.  What’s your involvement there? Where would you like to see things in five to ten years?

Well, one, I would like to see it more mainstream, though that’s probably not the right word.  Certainly more accessible. Having more Agile Learning Centers, having more co-ops that are just focused on learning space – intergenerational learning spaces.  The way that new parks pop up in an area.

When my daughters and I first started, I introduced them to the idea of Free Schools – you know, just looking at options.  My eldest daughter Sage said it was like a “Learning-Con”, you know – which is a term that comes from Comic-Con, it’s short for convention.  Anime Convention, so they have AnimeCon, ComicCon. So she was like: oh, it’s like LearningCon. ‘There should be pop-up LearningCons’.  I think that would be great, where there’s this weekend of immersive learning of a particular project type or interest groups. Where there’s more ownership of what learning looks like and it’s more fluid. That can be applicable anywhere, by PEOPLE, not structures and not Geography.  That’s what I want to see it look like 5 years from now. 

Everyone should have a learning space that they can walk to or take an Uber to in a few minutes, and just start learning stuff without all of the processes and testing and busywork.