The Benefits of Leaving Oppressive Systems and Relationships

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Guest

Megan

IG @theunschoolfiles

www.theunschoolfiles.com

I’m a mama + unschooler from Austin Tx - kiddos are 10, 12 &15 i parent from the heart, and unschool just the same. the liberation of all people is the reason, for me - once I understood how oppressive school was, there was no stopping what came next. sometimes I podcast about it :)

Show Notes

Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Rogue Learner podcast, I’m Jenna Reich. Every other week, I interview researchers, educators, entrepreneurs and families about their experiences with self directed learning. The off-weeks, I co host my show with a listener and we focus our attention on the previous podcast episode and share our biggest takeaways from it. 

This week, I have a very special guest co host joining me on the show. Meghan is an unschooling mother of three and the podcast host of The Unschool Files. She has interviewed a number of amazing guests too and I’ve had the pleasure to get to know her and talk with her over Zoom. Go ahead and stop listening right now to subscribe to her show. I’ll wait right here!

We’ll be talking about our takeaways from last week’s episode with Summer, a grown unschooler who shared how her life without school was fulfilling and how her relationships were strong. If you subscribe to conventional thinking (which I’m guessing you don’t if you’re listening to this show), you’ll find yourself questioning everything! She challenges those ideas and provides us with some incredible ways to reflect and process our thoughts about life. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, it was number 25. FYI, I always share the links and resources mentioned during the episode in the show notes so no need to write anything down. 

Before we get started, I have a couple of announcements to share. Firstly, this podcast is being listened to in 17 countries at the time of recording and I just want to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to tune in. I value your time and I hope I am doing a good job of bringing you content that’s informative, relevant, and concise. Also, we had our first book winner this week! For every 5 reviews I get on Apple podcasts, I give away 1 free book. In order to enter the giveaway, all you  need to do is send me a quick email saying what screen name you left the review under. It was a great pleasure to send off a copy of Changing Our Minds by Naomi Fisher to a listener this week! 

Last thing before we begin today’s show, please subscribe to the Rogue Leaner YouTube channel. I’ll be uploading all of the episodes there and am preparing to add a variety of content there that will not be on the podcast. If you’re interested in getting a more in-depth look at our unschooling lifestyle, you’ll want to head over there! 

Okay, let’s get on with the show shall we. Enjoy!

Jenna asks Meghan to share a bit about her journey into unschooling and how she got into podcasting. Meghan says she’s a mama of three, 10, 12 and 15. Her 10 year old has never been to school but she pulled her oldest out of school when he was in 3rd grade. She describes their unschooling as an ever-evolving emergent practice. She dabbles in podcasting over at The Unschool Files as and when she has the time. 

Jenna says she knows the difficulty in balancing podcasting and unschooling because they both take up a lot of time. Meghan reminisces a bit on how unschooling can take up many days at a time as you’re living life with community - the days sort of blend together. Jenna explains how her and her family haven’t actually experienced that side of unschooling yet due to the constraints of lockdowns and the pandemic. She had initially wanted to take the kids on a trip around Europe, but they found themselves isolated instead. Meghan reassures her that the days will come and they aren’t too far away, at least she hopes. 

Jenna asks Meghan to kick off the show with her first take away from Episode 25 with Summer. Meghan says for her, what really stood out was that there are so many interpretations of unschooling and the idea that the word ‘unschooling’ is sort of on trial -  people want to scrap the word altogether. 

Jenna adds that unschooling is based on each family’s personal values, so there is no playbook. There is no guide to tell you exactly how it should look in your home. It’s going to vary wildly depending on the individuals in your home. You don’t choose unschooling if you want precise guidelines or something to follow. Jenna says she’s considered mentoring or coaching in the future, but she doesn’t really know how that would work because what works for her family may not work for another family. 

Meghan agrees, she sees many parents looking for that support. She knows not everyone gains enough confidence by just researching it on the internet. But she is curious to know how a mentor or coach could guide a family since you’d really have to have a deep understanding of the complexities of the relationships within the family. 

Jenna says she could see it being useful as an accountability check in or just overall support when you’ve had a lousy day or your confidence is waning. You could get ideas on ways to fix problems and have someone there to reassure you when you inevitably make mistakes. Meghan adds they could certainly encourage and cheer you on. She still wonders what is being taken away from those kinds of mentorships. Are parents being asked to examine the balance of power in their homes? Sharing power is so critical to unschooling and self-directed learning. Parents would need to have an intersectional look at what unschooling can do so we can get rid of some of these problems in our society that could go away by liberating everyone. 

Jenna adds that Summer talked about some questions parents can ask themselves which are helpful when you’re challenging your thoughts. She said, “What response was I trying to elicit? When fear comes up, where did I get the idea? Where did it come up? Why do I believe it? Is it true for me? Jenna says she uses these questions all day long, even though she admits that she isn’t perfect and there are still times where she makes mistakes and has to go back and apologize. 

She shares an example of when she really needed to ask herself whether she was operating from fear or power over when she noticed her son wasn’t leaving his room and getting any exercise. She thought about it for 24 hours before deciding that she truly does have a concern about his health and that she needed to approach him about her concerns. They are considering karate, but Jenna also had to stop herself from demanding a solution right away. Her son wants to take it slower and try one thing out at a time before making a decision. 

Meghan says the pandemic has brought on really special circumstances when it comes to health and safety. They’re finding it more challenging and are forced to occasionally play the parent power card when it comes to things that could be dangerous. The conversation has to be really honest. Meghan says you can tell your kids that you don’t want to have control over this and you want them to make these decisions for themself. You want them to be sovereign in their decision making, however if you’re noticing that there is a health or safety concern you can make suggestions. 

Power is rooted in colonialism, says Meghan. It’s rooted in systemic racism and spreading American Puritan beliefs. And we’ve been convinced that this is the only way to live. It’s a lie and there’s another way to live. Meghan adds that we’re all holding ourselves hostage within this paradigm and we can walk away. 

Jenna adds that Summer pointed out how all of our beliefs and societal norms are just made up. The curriculum, the American dream, the 9-5 is all just made up. We could have been following completely different norms and we just go along with it because we’ve always done it. We could have included anything in the curriculum and we would have just accepted it and learned it because that’s what we’re meant to do. 

Meghan says, yeah, we’d just be going along. It has so many angles. She says she knows that there are people who can’t walk away from the schooled path though, due to the fact that they have special needs they rely on from the school system. For example, students who are neurodiverse, deaf, blind, etc. Jenna points out that there are also people who don’t have any problems in the school system, and therefore they have a degree of privilege in being able to use public education without being negatively impacted.

Meghan shares that a listener she often talks with has a child with hearing and wants to be referred to a school for the deaf, but the local public school says she can manage just fine there (even though that isn’t the case) and won’t give her the referral - they are essentially acting as a gatekeeper. People then feel lost and unsupported. Meghan says she tries to be careful when talking about unschooling and all the things it can do for us because she knows there are people out there that just don’t have the access to it or can’t for whatever reason. 

Jenna points out that living a