Welcome to ELN AAG!

Greetings!

Since the last AAG (At-A-Glance) shared in the fall/winter of 2019 (feels so long ago), ELN has been pivoting its practice to support families locally and abroad through various mediums and would like to take this opportunity to share them with you through this newly adopted format!

Before we get into it...

In addition to ELN's consistent focus around ways to engage this work, over the past couple of months, life as we've grown accustomed, continues to shift. If the impact of a global pandemic wasn't enough, racial and social injustices are also being experienced and felt in greater numbers.

​Global pandemic aside, the current challenges that we're experiencing have existed well before lockdown and ELN views this moment, though unfortunate, as a needed wake-up call..

As a Black woman and a business owner who centers BIPOC communities, ELN stands with our global BIPOC communities to disrupt this harmful cycle of racial injustice in all its forms. How this work is showing up has been simultaneously beautiful and heavy.

People are and rightfully so...

• Angry
• Enraged
• Shame-filled
• Guilt- filled
• Tired
• Cautious
• Fearful

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The damaging and long-term ways racism continues to plague society in all it's forms, impacts everyone. Again, this impacts everyone and it's our individual and collective duty to do the work, however it's respectfully showing up for you.

To my BIPOC communities, I love you. Your voices, bodies, and brilliance are valued and appreciated. For generations, we've been feed this belief that our voices and bodies only matter when it can commodified, nah. That we are no different than the pets people collect and control, nah. These current times are overflowingly with loss and overwhelm paired with a heaping of tired. If you are familiar with Fare of the Free Child by Akilah S Richards, her words on those levels of tired that I'm personally feeling along with many others is beautifully and perfectly expressed in episode Ep 174: Not That Kind of Tired. These Racist Patterns Ain’t Pullin’ Me Down. 

To our non-BIPOC people who are feeling nudged to deeply question and explore ways to pivot away from these painful practices, this work is a life-long commitment from the inside-out.
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A kind reminder
Ally-ship does not mean you're a direct benefactor. It can, however, bring awareness to the areas and ideas in your life that have been unconsciously or consciously taken for granted. Life from the peripheral provides a vantage point that can only be fully understood empirically. The option to move oneself from the center is a privilege not a hardship.

With that stated, check out ways ELN is centering community, connection, and awareness to support families and folks about this life through and beyond these times. 

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"Black families have been homeschooling children long before COVID-19. However, the current global pandemic has brought homeschooling to the forefront of many conversations regarding the education of Black children. While homeschooling has often been approached from the perspective of white families who homeschool and several scholars who have attempted to set the tone for homeschooling in the U.S, the perspectives of Black homeschooling families and the researchers who center them in their research largely go ignored."

Register

$5 pp plus tax

"Who Are the Organizers:
Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars (BFHES) Network was created by Dr. Cheryl Fields-Smith and Dr. Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman. Dr. Fields-Smith is the most prolific scholar of research focused on Black homeschooling families. Dr. Ali-Coleman is a homeschooling parent, community organizer and scholar who recently completed research on African-American dual-enrolled homeschooled students. Both wanted to create the teach-in to bring together practitioners and researchers to share ideas and identify the ways Black homeschooling families thrive."

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Deschooling: Issa Thing

​A global, monthly, virtual meetup for caregivers who are committed to exploring ways to shift their parenting practices. We will focus on liberatory approaches that center healing and learning as a lifestyle as well as explore the impact and intersection of parenting, education, and race. ​

Waitlist ONLY

Learn more and join the waitlist

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An open and honest Q & R (Response) that focuses on a daughter asking her mother questions that explores ways to engage partnership-based parenting approaches. One question per episode with five minutes to respond. To add a bit of fun, none of the questions are shared previously to support real-time responses. 

Check out previous segments

I.O.T.A. (It's Okay To Ask)

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Webinar Series: Supporting Parents During and Beyond Uncertain Times

These webinars are for parents who are faced with quarantine, and experiencing difficulties in figuring out the best way to navigate schoolwork, learning, and living together. We recognize there are folks out there who are looking for support and we want to be able to offer a listening, caring, and supportive space for people to respectfully engage the challenges that are showing up in our parenting practice, and together, explore ways to shift things.

View the Series

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Why become Patron ?

• Exploring respectful and equitable ways to center the voices of our young people and oppressed communities
• Providing access to committed individuals and families without the heaviness of finances to engage this work
• Offerings that disrupt the generational, trauma-filled seeds of schoolishness and pervasive whiteness
• Tapping into ways that shift our practice toward relationships built on racial equity, liberatory centered, and ancestral healing​

ELN @ Patreon

Join

​As a monthly sustainer, you assist ELN in walking their words in this work. To continue to provide resources and offerings that center BIPOC communities and voices through workshops, training, and programs for individuals and groups who are committed to this work, without the unfortunate barrier that finances often bring. Plus, perks are dope!

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Pre-Order TODAY!

"​No one is immune to the byproducts of compulsory schooling and standardized testing. And while reform may be a worthy cause for some, it is not enough for countless others still trying to navigate the tyranny of what schooling has always been. Raising Free People argues that we need to build and work within systems truly designed for any human to learn, grow, socialize, and thrive, regardless of age, ability, background, or access to money.

Families and conscious organizations across the world are healing generations of school wounds by pivoting into self-directed, intentional community-building, and Raising Free People shows you exactly how unschooling can help facilitate this process."

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​​As always, if you have any questions, email maleka@eclecticlearningnetwork.com

With appreciation,

Maleka