How To Home School: A Guide For Black Families – Part 2

The traditional image of a homeschooling family is white, middle-class, Christian, with two parents, a stay-at-home mom, and a whole crock of children. Today’s homeschooling families are defined by their love for a child and their desire to demonstrate that love by making the decision to home-school. Homeschooling families can be single parents, grandparents, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, working parents, have one child, six children and might even be financially challenged.

When I began homeschooling my son in 1998, there were very few black families making that choice because financially it seemed impossible and socially it seemed, well, kind of weird. Education has always been of prime importance to me, so when I saw that he wasn’t getting what he needed in public school, I challenged myself to do it better.

The first thing I did was to turn one of the bedrooms in our small apartment in to a mini-school with items from Goodwill and yard sales. The people around me began to take an interest and asked me to include their children in our home-school. Before too long, I was homeschooling a small group during the day and tutoring public school children in the evenings.

This is just my story, there are so many others who have made homeschooling work for them, but they had to start with a determination to sacrifice for their child. One thing is universal, we all understand that education is the key.

From my example, you can see how other families were able to home-school their child without staying at home. If your situation, your education level, your patience, or your interest means that it’s too difficult to home-school your children yourself, look for a home-school group in your area. Locating a “cottage school” where one or more homeschoolers teach other children with their own, is a great option. You can work on the finances to contribute to the home-school while the teacher focuses on the educational needs of your child.

Step 1

Making the decision to home-school. Draw up a list of pros and cons for homeschooling. Consider what you think your child needs and their individual strengths and challenges.

Pros (Let’s Home-School):

• Junior is easily distracted by the behavioral issues in the public school classroom.

• Junior is moving faster/or slower than the rest of the children in his class.

• Junior is being bullied.

• The school administration wants Junior to be on medication.

Cons (Let’s Stay In Public School):

• Junior has a lot of great friends at school.

• Junior plays on the school football team.

• There is a great after school program at school, so Junior is well taken care of until I get off of work.

• I hate math, I don’t want Junior to hate it too.

Write your list in two columns and weigh up what’s most important to your family. If you decide that you want to home-school, let’s get to the next episode.

I would love to hear some of your pros and cons. Please share some below!