FLYING SQUADS
Self-Directed Education
on the move.
Flying Squads believe in liberation for all people.
Flying Squads is a youth liberation and anti-oppression collective. We believe in the abolition of divided spaces between young people and the rest of their community. This means that Flying Squads step out of the “classroom” and off the playground and into public space as a form of youth activism. Instead of being at TCC, we take to the streets of St. Louis to fly!
We offer Flying Squads for ages 13 - 17, every other Friday, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in various locations within St. Louis city.
We provide young people with time to practice making their own decisions in a nurturing community of human connections through which they can develop relationships and develop self-confidence with genuine feedback from peers and society.
Unlike school field trips, the Flying Squads do not have a predetermined destination but instead practice the crucial skills of deciding together where to go and how to spend their time. Each day starts in a public space (typically a library) documenting and reflecting on previous time together in a communal journal. The group then sets out into the world to explore common interests as a collective, experimenting with how to build community and deciding how to voice group concerns on the social justice issue of being youth in a city built for adults.
Even in the most caring of school and homeschooling co-op spaces, a definitive line is drawn on where children learn and what space and materials are and are not for them. By intentionally not being tied to a specific learning space or having predetermined plans, Flying Squad participants learn the important value of abolishing these distinctions as the young people involved interact with the world outside often, carving out a space for themselves in their city. And as they do, they learn perhaps one of life’s most crucial lessons: how to honor their autonomy while caring for and developing a community with others.
Flying Squads operate on the values of anti-oppression, young people’s rights, and community.
We believe that one cannot stand for anti-oppression for young people without standing for anti-oppression for all oppressed and marginalized groups. Liberation is intertwined, and we all must be willing to support and advocate for one another in order to get free.
All of us, especially young people, exist within systems, relationships, caretakers, and communities where oppression affects us. If the adults and elders in the community are not on a path towards liberation, we cannot hope to support our young people on their path to liberation.
A recent Squad day found us in a cozy bookstore for hours, ambling through a local park, and perusing a comics shop.
Part of our commitment to anti-oppression involves ensuring the STL Flying Squad is financially accessible to any young person that wants to fly with us. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. We offer enrollment with a trust-based sliding scale model. We invite households to reflect on their access to privilege, resources, and financial wealth, as well as their relationship to systems of oppression and marginalization. We ask folks to select a tier that’s both sustainable and generous with the above considerations in mind. With youth liberation as our central focus, we must make Squads accessible to youth.