Erika Davis-Pitre joins me to talk about unschooling and diversity. She and her husband, Michael, have four now-adult children and they enjoyed unschooling for many years. Erika continues to speak at unschooling conferences all over the US, her favourite topics being unschooling teens, the joy of unschooling, and celebrating diversity through unschooling. We dive into the value of digging into our own fears around diversity and race, ways to encourage diversity in our unschooling lives, tips on approaching challenging conversations with extended family members, and so much more!

Quote of the Week

“I really would hope that, especially in the unschooling community, diversity is achieved by moving out of your comfort zone, your area, your neighborhood, and moving into someone else’s culture, comfort zone, neighborhood, for all kinds of art classes, library things, swimming things, opportunities for all kinds of cultural and community experiences.” ~ Erika Davis-Pitre

Questions for Erika

Can you share with us a bit about you and your family?

What did your family’s move to unschooling look like?

I heard you speak at an unschooling conference earlier this year about unschooling and diversity and really enjoyed it. You shared some very enlightening stories about the subtle impact of privilege in our society. Can you share one with us?

As we move to unschooling, we learn the value of digging into our own fears and questioning conventional wisdom in many areas of our lives. For example, our fears around learning—that our children won’t learn if we don’t tell them what they need to know, or if we don’t insist that they follow a certain timetable. We eventually discover that we truly can trust them to learn—that they are born to learn—and our world opens up. Can we can apply this same process to our fears surrounding race and diversity?

Can you share some ways in which we can be more welcoming to families from the wide variety of backgrounds that exist in the unschooling community?

Do you have some tips on approaching these kinds of challenging conversations around diversity with extended family members?

Links to Things Mentioned in the Show

Erika on Facebook, and the FB group she moderates, Unschooling

Episode Transcript

Read the transcript here