For the past three years, seasoned musician, artist, educator, researcher and parent, Kaolin Thomson, has focussed her research on unschooling/self-directed education. Using personal narrative, statistics and performance, Kaolin presents some of her research and reflections of the schooling system and unschooling/self directed education in this presentation titled Learning To Transgress: Learning as a Practice of Freedom.
One of the other titles that Kaolin considered is Learning To: Trust Myself, Trust Our Process; Challenge My Preconceptions
I love the inclusiveness of that word OUR. That parents know their children best is a preconception that needs challenging. Sure, involved, connected parents do know their children better than anybody else. But mostly, children know themselves best. Each family’s ‘our’ is also unique. I really love the alternate title of this presentation. It has so many layers to it!
Watch it below to journey with Kaolin as she shares her journey.
During the Q&A there was a question from Sandra about language and specifically about the word unschooling. Language matters, and it makes sense for people to find vocabulary that they are comfortable with, even if nobody else ends up using the chosen vocabulary. However, I thought I would share this piece that I wrote a while back to contribute to that discussion. Unschooling Unpacked – A Semantic Musing provides a brief history of the origin of the word unschooling, the trends towards other descriptors and why I personally choose to stick with the word unschooling.
Mother | Wife | Unschooler | Education Freedom Advocate | Child Rights Advocate | Learning Reimagined Conference Convenor | She/Her
For the last 25 years, Zakiyya has been experimenting with living and learning in freedom, also known as unschooling. She is an advocate for freedom in education. Her three children have never been to school, living instead as if the idea of schooling doesn’t exist. She has been supporting and has been consistently sharing her reflections on the intersections of unschooling with decolonisation, social change and unschooling’s foundational role in social justice. She convened the Learning Reimagined Conferences of 2017 and 2018, both groundbreaking in their own rights with the 2018 conference being the first conference globally to focus on the socio-political dimensions of Unschooling, Decolonisation and Social Change.