Liberatory education: upholds the agency of students to design and decide what they want to learn, and how they will apply what they learn. We focus on Cultural and Political dimensions of learning by incorporating knowledge students already hold from community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), and addressing the power dynamics of systemic oppression we are all navigating. The goal of Liberatory Education in our work is to transform the ways we learn about ourselves, eachother, and the world through a dialectical unlearning-learning process in each class we offer.

For Us, By Us: is a collaboration and co-curation of curriculum with students to address what they are directly experiencing and navigating in themselves, their relationships, and our society. Students co-design strategic plans to apply what they are unlearning-learning with their communities, and integrate this knowledge towards a vision of collective liberation.

Each One, Teach One: “This African proverb originated in this era of enslavement. When one enslaved person acquired knowledge or skills including learning to read or write, it was a shared understanding and commitment to teach another” (BC Black History Awareness Society).  Learning involves a responsibility to share the fruits of the unlearning-learning process with others to support their transformation. Knowledge is power, in that, knowing how to apply crucial information to change oppressive situations can liberate us from patterns of thinking and living which keep us chained.  This is also why some knowledge systems have been under attack, dismissed, or erased (e.g. Indigenous knowledge systems and practices), because it is a threat to Eurocentric or Western institutions who seek to dominate and gatekeep what knowledge should be. We must be responsible in how we use knowledge systems rooted in our ancestral, cultural, and community practices.  This responsibility involves resisting educational hegemony and offering expansive ways to live and be in a loving relationship with ourselves, one another, and our planet.

The Unlearning Community School upholds these foundational pedagogies or teaching styles as a decolonizing model to education which centers Indigenous pedagogies and epistemologies.