LiberatED Podcast

Chioma Onyewuchi is the founder of Heart & Heritage Center, an alternative experiential, outdoor program for homeschoolers in Houston, Texas that focuses on childhood creativity, curiosity, and a deep connection to African heritage and culture. Chioma was born and raised in Aba, Nigeria, and came to the U.S. for college, where she graduated summa cum laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She currently homeschools her two children, ages 10 and 8.

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Karinna Fairbanks has experienced a wide variety of learning environments during her childhood and adolescence, including public schooling, virtual schooling, homeschooling, microschooling, and unschooling. Now, at age 15, she is entering college this fall as a sophomore, having accumulated numerous credits as a self-directed teen.

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Phoebe Love and Jennifer Lin and staff members at the Saint Louis Sudbury School, a self-directed, democratic, Sudbury-model school located in Saint Louis, Missouri.

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Nicole Doyle is a longtime homeschooling mom and home education advocate who cofounded the Georgia Black Home Educators Network in 2022. She is also the president of DeKalb Christian Home Educators, a homeschool co-op that's been serving the metro Atlanta area since 1989.

The Network hosted its first annual Flourish Black Family Homeschool Conference in January 2023 with nearly 350 attendees, and is expecting its January 2024 conference to be even bigger!

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Noah Mayers has been working in education for over 20 years. He was a teaching artist for 8 years in both public and charter schools, then worked as a woodshop teacher at a private school for a year for before launching Brooklyn Apple Academy in New York City in 2010. Located in the Park Slope neighborhood, Brooklyn Apple is a self-directed learning center for homeschoolers and unschoolers. It currently serves about 50 learners who attend part-time throughout the week.

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Dr. LeDonna Griffin is the founder of Leaders to Legends Academy in Omaha, Nebraska. She works directly with families who are seeking alternatives to conventional schooling to educate their children. LeDonna worked in the Nebraska public schools as both a teacher and principal for 30 years. In 2019, she launched Leaders to Legend as a homeschool co-op, and in 2020, interest in her model soared.

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Troy Salazar is the founder of Liberty Self-Directed Learning Center in West Des Moines, Iowa. Troy worked in public schools for 22 years, first as a second grade teacher in a rural community in Iowa and later in the Des Moines public schools where he spent most of his teaching career. He launched Liberty SDLC in Fall 2022 after becoming frustrated by the conventional schooling model. Liberty is part of the Liberated Learners global network of self-directed learning centers.

"I remember saying to colleagues and friends, why are there so many unhappy kids? It just blew my mind," said Troy in our interview. "There were several times in the last few years where I said I can't do this anymore. Then, in my last year, I called my wife and said the idea of our grandkids being in this classroom scares me. I wasn't exaggerating or being dramatic, and it was nothing that the kids were doing. It was the response that the kids were having to this system. They were so checked out."

Read the recent Forbes.com article featuring Troy and Liberty SDLC: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2023/07/21/its-the-year-of-universal-school-choice-but-barriers-remain/

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Listen to Kerry's keynote presentation on education entrepreneurship and innovation at the 2023 Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) conference, recorded live on June 23, 2023 at Long Island University.

Read the case study of education entrepreneurship across the US.

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Karema Akilah is a former teacher in the Maryland public schools who began homeschooling her children 20 years ago, of which the past 12 have been devoted to unschooling, or self-directed education. Through her personal unschooling journey, she began wondering about the possibilities of Web 3.0, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence to capture the magic of the unschooling educational experience. She launched The Genius School and the Genii DAO app to blend the theory and practice of unschooling with decentralization technologies to help build the future of learning.

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Linsey Knerl is a mom of 6 in Nebraska who has been a working and homeschooling mom for over 15 years. In 2021, her book, Homeschool Hacks: How to Give Your Kid a Great Education Without Losing Your Job (or Your Mind), was published by Simon & Schuster and served as a timely resource for the many parents who were drawn to homeschooling as a result of the education disruption caused by the pandemic response. It remains highly relevant today.

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