How some Black folks’ relationship to school is changing

At first, I was all, ‘Hell yeh, it’s about time!‘ and whatnot. I was (and, to an extent, still am) encouraged. But mostly, I’m not focused on the label of “unschooling” or the “discovery” of it by frustrated adults motivated to engage in absolutely fascinating dialogue about liberatory education until things get back to “normal.” What I am paying attention to is how Black families are questioning our way toward the type of change that may start with whether to homeschool, unschool, or find another school, but leads us to more critical questions around consent, generational healing, freedom in action, and urgent moves that are within our capacity to initiate and to sustain.

As parents of (so-called) school-aged young people, our relationship to change has, well…changed. COVID-19 rolled through and shoved us all into one giant panic room. We lost loved ones, jobs, insurance, regularly-scheduled everythings, and easy access to our support spaces (and, real-talk, our outside-the-home vices). Our collective composure as responsible parents and educators slipped off our bodies like silk robes and we were left looking at each other’s skin, exposing each other to the new-for-us realities of being in relationship with young people instead of wielding our sense of dominion over them.

Youth sought real answers, ones we adults didn’t have. We couldn’t front like we knew when some sense of alleged “normalcy” would return. We couldn’t peddle the same plan for the future, marketed to us by textbook sellers and college recruiters. The evidence of our fallible-ass nature was everywhere, and in a short time, the blessed assurance that the right school, the best attitude, and the most studying was the formula for coming on up got a little quieter and a lot more questionable.

When I started having these conversations with parents whose young people had previously been in school, they had a lot of reactions:

…Okay, but why can’t the teacher motivate my young person from this computer screen? Is that not their one job?

…No, but why won’t these young people complete their work as much as they did when they were in physical classrooms?

…I hear that this is hard for all of us, but how will my young person stay on task and remain a strong competitor for great jobs if they miss so much of the curriculum?

…Uh-huh, emotions, and stress, and alladat stuff, but won’t my young person be behind when things go back to normal?

The ever-present, wholly reliable, silky-soft familiarity of the constant nudge to enforce “learning” and therefore be a good, responsible adult has been interrupted by a global pandemic and by this era’s community uprisings in response to ongoing police and political tyranny over Black and Brown people. 

And now here we are, discovering our young people—and ourselves—due to the slightly lowered shrill of the sirens that are always blasting, telling us that we need to do more as citizens, as parents, and that our young people need to do more. To show the world that we are involved parents by way of our young people’s good grades. To stay on task. To speak and dress just so. To learn certain things by certain times. To show, to prove, to smile, to win.

The sirens tell us that when you have done these things, you will be confident in who you are, and therefore be happy and fulfilled. Oh, and make sure the young people in your care do even better than you do, so that they too can be confident, happy, fulfilled adults.

Just. Like. You.

And all those other confident, happy, fulfilled adults that you know, firsthand. In real life. Yeh?

Right.

So, these wailing sirens got turned down a few decibels, increasing our capacity to hear our young people. Sometimes it wasn’t even what they said, it was how they showed up: maybe you saw them more because they weren’t in school, and you learned something about them. Maybe you glimpsed them doing something with so much joy or focused attention that you discovered a part of them that was new for you. Maybe you are becoming more aware of the person within the student, and that might be something you didn’t even know you (and your young person!) were missing!

I know a few things about missing stuff myself. I’ve seen adults discover themselves as a result of having agency over their own time and space to think and feel through their own thoughts and experiences. As a Black-bodied woman raising women (with my partner, Kris), I am thoroughly aware of the sirens that deafen the ears of many Black folks as we navigate questions around school, societal norms, and the real and hidden drivers behind some of the choices we make.

#SirenShit #weeewaaah

These reactions might sound familiar: 

…Your young person does not have the luxury of finding themselves or falling behind; they must both fit in AND stand out in school so they have shelter from the myth of White Supremacy that carries very real weight and consequence.

…The best thing for you (and for damn sure for your Black young person) is to be impressive and comforting to the powers that be, so that you are not seen as a threat, but an asset.

…If you do homeschool it should be with BIPOC-centered curricula because that’s the only place they’re gonna get the truth, so trade in that White-washed curriculum for one that tells the truth, despite what your young people claim they actually want to do or learn.

…Mess around and think your young people can be free if you want to, but don’t forget that Black = bad in the eyes of the law, so you need to focus on fitting in, then standing out in the right ways (read: ways that make White people less uncomfortable with your presence).

…You are alive to make others comfortable, so be smart, be pretty, be composed and articulate, but do not mistake yourself as free.

…The more compliant you and your young people are, the safer you/they are from White people who might call or be the police; live into that knowledge over all else.

…A seat at the table is the goal—not an actual voice—but a visible, perhaps even comfortable seat, is where it’s at, for now. Just accept that as progress and stay strong.

In a sea of laws and lessons singing the song that Black = bad, not enough, or too much in the worst ways, there is another frequency to which we are increasingly attuned. One that finds us well aware of our humanity and our value. One that finds us healthy, and always in touching-distance to our joy. And certainly, one that finds our young people free to live into their authentic selves. One that sees young people as the way forward, and not as a mere means of continuing to live with the very same things we’ve endured, only in nicer houses, with prettier clothes, and more on-paper education.

More of us are seeing through that never-right narrative, and so the change I’m excited about is rooted in something far more fertile and powerful than the expansion of the “unschooling” label. I certainly want more people to understand that there is an old-as-time alternative to today’s standardized ideas of human learning, but more than that, I am heartened by the ways Black folks are raising our voices in the direction of liberating our young people from these systems instead of pushing them deeper into them.

The most powerful change that I am experiencing is the one where more Black families are divesting from our survival-tactic focus on the White Gaze. I am witnessing our increasing capacity to discern our actual selves as different from dominant cultural perceptions of us. And I am witnessing that this discernment isn’t only due in relation to the White Gaze, but also the Adult Gaze—the way we judge other adults by their ability to control the young people in their care.  Black folks’ somatic memory of the need to perform for the gaze of the person in power makes strong arguments to just stay low, get that education, and survive the game. This memory has, historically and to this day, affected our willingness to imagine a liberation that is not contingent upon someone’s approval, validation, degree, or any other form of modern-day freedom papers.

The change I want to keep talking about and living in alignment with is one that unites my elders’ history of love, trust, and community with my ancestors’ love and trust of young people and of natural learning. The change I want to amplify is one toward the young person-trusting, anti-oppression, liberatory, love-centered approach to parenting and caregiving that Black and Native Indigenous cultures practiced before our/their lands and young people were taken. Some of us call that unschooling, and ultimately I don’t care what we call it, as long as we keep giving it the energy and consideration it takes to help us free ourselves.