Rethinking Self-Directed Education

We are talking about public funding, conventional school disruption, and coalition building. We are going to dig in on ways we can (or can not) work within the school system and public funding models to bring more SDE options, and equity in SDE options, to the movement. We will also talk about what is disruptive to the systems, and what is more harm reduction, and how far we can go in conventional school classrooms and systems. It’s a lot!

We have a cohesive thematic approach this season!

What’s our next phase for this movement, how can we fund SDE with public funding (can we even? Should we even?), and how and should we work on coalition and movement building with folks working in public school systems? 

What’s missing from the term Self-Directed Education? What could an alternative term be? Who holds the lines on the values in movements and communities, and why? Will Bria _finally_ accept that Vawisai is the way? And are all terms and movements destined to be co-opted?

Join us as we talk about terms, language, distinctions, dogma, and co-option,. We also throw in some comparisons between SDE movements and police abolition movements, because how could we not!

We talk to Raj about how he came to SDE (such an interesting story!) and his experience in building an SDE community centering BIPOC folks and collective liberation. We talk about SDE center struggles, corner store candy runs, tweens & tweens, social justice and anti-racism in SDE centers, and what it means to be a community that is really supporting one another in all the struggles centers go through.

You can support Liberated Kids’ mission to be financially accessible for all kids by becoming a monthly sustainer here: https://www.liberatedkids.org/support (https://www.liberatedkids.org/support)

Daveed and Bria introduce themselves, because they haven’t quite done that, chat about how they met and started working together, and share the (not short) stories of their paths into SDE and youth liberation work. Spoiler alert: Our paths were very different! We also talk briefly how some people latch on to the ideas of SDE, and others do not.

Join us as we chat with Crystal Byrd Farmer about her experience working with neurodivergent young people in SDE. We also chat about her book The Token, annnnd she reveals what her next book(s) will be about! You don’t want to miss this one.

Buy The Token here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-token-common-sense-ideas-for-increasing-diversity-in-your-organization-crystal-byrd-farmer/14178436?ean=9780865719514

Crystal’s ALC: https://gastoniafreedom.org

Join us as we chat with Brooklyn Wetzel about who and what holds the autonomy of the young people in an SDE space, how it gets messy, and the different aspects of SDE models and facilitators that find various ways to support young people’s autonomy and power, or ways to not support it.

We talk with Anthony Galloway about “requiring” social Justice work in an SDE center, what that actually looks like in practice, how to start to integrate this work into your own SDE center, and being willing to mess up.

It’s our second season! It’s been a year since we started doing THIS thing and we are excited to celebrate the start of our second season.

It’s also a season of life where we needed a bit of a pause, so it’s been a minute since we shared an episode. That’s always  OK, but also we missed this!

Listen in to our conversation with Kathy Crisp, who has worked at the Village Free School since 2010. We are talking about why people join SDE centers, the real work that is needed from young people AND their families when choosing to join a community like this, and the necessity (and reality) of conflict.

Bria and Daveed share their perspectives on your questions, and musings on the underlying anxiety that affects our roles as caregivers and facilitators.

Join us as we chat about what doing nothing means, the biggest misconceptions about SDE, the limits of using SDE as a way of making the world better for everyone, and more.

Join us as we talk with Meghan from The Unschool Files about cancel culture and its relevance to the SDE movement, ways we each approach differences in opinions and values, especially with other other unschooling and SDE folks, and when we do feel it’s important to call someone in and invite a conversation.

We also chat about redefining what “public education” means, and ways we can envision increased SDE accessibility.

As always, let us know what you think. This was a hard one to tease out, so expanding or conflicting idea on this one are absolutely invited and we would love to hear from you.

In this episode we chatted with Rocco, and his mom, Chestnut, about his decision to try out public conventional school, how they approached the decision, and how they have navigated conventional school as a family. Rocco also shared what drew him to this decision in the first place, and compares his experiences at conventional school with his experience at Village Free School, and SDE center in Portland, OR.

If you’re looking to learn more about how to navigate the conversation about conventional public school with your own kid(s), or you’re curious to hear an always-SDE family’s experience at a conventional school, this is the episode.

This month we were joined by our friend and co-conspirator Domari Dickinson (if you aren’t already following Domari on Instagram you’re missing out @domaridickinson)

This was a fun episode as the three of us shared what’s present for us and laughed a LOT.

We talked about moving and community, trauma of conventional schooling, surviving the system(s), building a sense of self, cheetos, and what motivates us (hint: it’s JOY). And Daveed sang a little.

The biggest part of SDE facilitation, and parenting, is knowing when and how to support the young people. But the lines between supportive nudging and coercing can be blurry, and is especially dependent on our relationship with the young person. In this episode, we explore what nudging can look like, when we would and wouldn’t nudge, and the complexities involved in figuring this out as adults in relationship with young people.

We also share a “spicy” situation and talk about the ways in which other adults often treat young people in the world, and how we stand up to them in defense of young people.

This shit is hard and complicated, and we are here just sharing how we do things and why. Please feel free to share with us how this looks for you — we are always up for feedback, ideas, expansions, or even (especially?) disagreements.

To deschool ourselves is to truly decolonize ourselves, schools are the first places where we learn untruths about ourselves. Where we question our abilities because we are being constantly graded and compared. Where we let someone else dictate our worth, where we learn untruths about our histories under the colonizer's lens. In this first episode, we explore questions and ideas related to this statement.