I am the only woman of color in my entire community of largely white people who home- schools, and more precisely, who un-schools her children.

I was raised in a family of very ambitious women determined to reach a western ideal of status and all that comes with it. Prior to coming to North America I lived in an African culture among people who also aspired to a western lifestyle and held the belief that the way to get there is through the education system.

So here I am now, living in a western culture that is forever drumming into our heads that there is no other, no better way to live (“if you got the dough, ray, me.” And if you don’t..?), and foregoing formal schooling to boot.

Having rejected the accepted way of success, how does the dominant culture feel about what I am doing? Do I care?

Ideals focused purely on material wealth go unquestioned, indeed are openly embraced by the many – people of color no less than whites – who fill the malls and boutiques on a daily basis. In a national consensus that declares their inalienable right to own all the material luxuries advertised on T.V. the people have spoken. No energy is expended on the matter of negative consequences to our Earth (and therefore ourselves).

I’m not against people seeking a modicum of wealth or status but I resent being viewed as less of a person because I am not out there fighting my way up someone else’s ladder. But by choosing to be home I have the experience to know that alternatives are possible, and that there is need to present a different definition of what success is and what a good life might entail. We have only to allow ourselves vision and create what we need.

To my mind, un-schooling is actually honoring the struggle of oppressed people because it teaches values that go against those taught by oppressors. It is not escapism, but rather, acting responsibly. It is a deep re-thinking and re-making of the way we live, and acting on it. I have turned away from the ‘norm’ and it’s expectations, not gone ( as I am often reminded that I ought) for a status career that supposedly could ‘ help raise the profile of women of color in traditional positions of power,’(even if it is admittedly by only one iota) to focus instead, on what I expect for and of myself. I do not see this as ‘letting down’ the ‘Brothers and Sisters’, nor am I ‘trying to be White’ by un-schooling, as some Black people incredulously think of it. Staying home, un- schooling, and extending the ideas inherent to this endeavor into the world, is a sort of rebellion against the dominant culture’s dictating ideals. I am also undoing ‘school like’ thinking in myself- the kind of thinking that asks one not to question too deeply, but to obey and defer to authority, to be intellectually dependent but to depend on yourself alone, to be submissive and not make mistakes,.... Maybe it’s precisely because I am from a non-white group of people, that I am all the more sensitive to the issues of power and freedom. I am especially attuned to social inequalities that abound and to the structures that support oppression. It makes sense to me to minimize support of a system that I find to be questionable in it’s democracy and which is and will always be, inherently oppressive to the large majority of the worlds inhabitants. Often, when people of color keep their children out of school, it is because they want to give them a better chance at ‘making it’ in the system. But why not consider raising them for an entirely different paradigm? “ The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house,” Audre Lourde wrote.

Values that are truly essential in life are too often repressed, to the detriment of society. Things like self-reflection, self-design and self-government, joy, community, without which we are driving ourselves to utter destruction and further division. I want my children to grow up exposed to these values and to be what they already are - critical thinkers, self-directed learners with a sensibility to, and an awareness of the world they inhabit. My job is to keep nurturing these qualities in them while I am able. In the controlled and compartmentalizing environment of school, there is real danger that these can not thrive. At home, we try to model what we must expect of a decent society for all people. Un-schooling welcomes attitudes that encourage these very qualities.

It’s largely about being aware and flexible, being attentive and inventive while remaining sensitive to real and necessary limitations. Curiosity, exploration and play are cherished and honored. Un-schooling doesn’t fret and worry if a child decides to spend a month, three months, a year on a single topic of interest. It enjoys process, depth, because it has time to savor and discover. What a joy it is to see my child working on a music composition of her own creation, or to go on a hike together and watch them throwing “beautiful dandelions” into the rushing creek, to “honor the creek, to honor Mother Earth as well as the grass and the trees and the sky and the wind,” my four year old says. Today, they are sitting on the kitchen floor, drawing models of the universe. “Do you know that there might a black hole in the heart, the center of the universe that generates energy as well as sucks up anything that goes by it and never, ever comes out again? Even light?,” the older sister tells the younger. A hole like their minds that sucks up everything and retains it for ever, it seems.

Un-schooling is ever aiming at co-operation and to avoiding coercion. With un-schooling, we welcome discussion and debate. Why is this person without a home, why are there no dark skinned people in this book, what can we do about pesticides that harm children’s health, what about war? What’s wrong with McDonald, or Barbie dolls? Challenging authority, whether it be in the home or in the world, is perceived as healthy and necessary. “How come you get to go to bed late and we have to go to bed early?” is a valid question that needs consideration. (Remember we don’t have the excuse of “you have to go to school tomorrow.”) Or “how come the police is arresting our father when he is a peaceful protester who doesn’t want bombs to blow up other families?”

The potential in un-schooling is enormous. It is so political that in the words of one of un- schooling’s most out- spoken advocates, and New York State’s teacher of the year (1991), John Taylor Gatto, “ Indeed, the very stability of our economy is threatened by any form of education that might change the nature of the human product schools now turn out; the economy schoolchildren currently expect to live under and serve would not survive a generation of young people trained, for example to think critically.” Powerful words from a person who knows.

My husband who is an organizer around social justice and environment issues uses every opportunity to include our children and myself. Our children get to participate in actions such as parking meter parties, critical mass bike rides, demonstrations with people in the community. As a family, we do a weekly radio show that explores the children’s interests and concerns. This is an amazing tool for learning and community building. Our home is a center, a nucleus of activity, of experiment, of the flowering of potential and possibility. It is a space in which to raise free- thinkers. Our home is a hub of creativity, challenging and interesting work, a place where we invent ourselves.

I feel privileged to be able to stay at home. By choosing to stay home and ‘un- school’ with my children, I can include them today, in the life we are trying to create. Upsetting the old guard and it’s stagnant way of doing things and striving for alternatives is fun. We are living and doing right here, right now, out of Dr. Seuss’s “Waiting Place,”- not waiting for a distant future in which we will make a change or live better, be happier or wealthier. Our work, our joy are being done in the present. Here, in my home, I’ve begun to translate ideas and vision into actions, that fit my definition of what is exciting and good and responsible. The rewards are plentiful. If staying home seems regressive to some, let them know that is done all the better for to leap ahead.

Gatto, John Taylor. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of compulsory Schooling. Philadelphia, PA and Gabriola Island, BC, New society Publishers, 1992.