Getting Started: Unique Challenges Faced by African-Americans who Home School
By Mimi Rothschild
All parents who make the decision to home school their children face challenges in choosing subject matter and finding resources to support their choices. African-American home schooling families who wish to emphasize African and/or African-American culture in their studies may find that they face a special set of tests. Fortunately, there is an increasing population of African-Americans who choose to home school their children. Due to this increase in African-Americans who educate their children at home, the supply of reference materials available for African-American home schooling has grown tremendously. There is also a growing network of African-American families who either graduated from home schools or who are currently engaged in home schooling.
Many families have chosen to home school as a result of their religious beliefs. This is particularly true of the African-American home schooling community. As a result, one of the mainstays of a large number of home schools is the Bible. For generations, the African-American home schooler has learned not only the beauty of language and literature from this holy book but also the staples of moral behavior. As other religious traditions have gained importance in the home life of the black family so have other religious texts. The use of these books as foundations for the home schooling experience is always a well founded option.
The African-American neighborhoods and the elders who inhabit them are also rich and rewarding sources of black history, literature and tradition. Touring an African-American locality can ignite an interest in a student's cultural heritage in ways that simply reading books cannot. Also, given the comparatively recent dates of many important civil rights events, there are many living African-American citizens who can bring the past alive for the students of an African-American home school. There are also many museums in cities large and small which have given over sections to the important issues which comprise African-American history. Indeed, there are now several prominent museums devoted entirely to the celebration of African-American culture.
One of the many outstanding attributes of a home school education is the ability of the parent to emphasize important topics which may be overlooked in traditional schools. The capacity to open doors to a child's cultural heritage in a very specific way is an important advantage which home schooling parents have. At first it may seem to African-American parents that resources about their culture are limited; however, quite the contrary is true. The African-American community, its citizens and the entire network of home schooling African-Americans will provide a vast and rich marketplace of ideas and experiences for African-American children enjoying the prerogative of home schooling.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling mother, writer, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of home education company Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of 28 years reside with their 8 children right outside Philadelphia, PA.
Rothschild launched Learning By Grace, Inc. because she believed that our nation's public school system has failed parents and students. Learning By Grace, Inc. offers online education through a multimedia-rich curriculum to PreK-12 children across the country and throughout the world.
An accomplished author, Rothschild has written books regarding education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Homeschooling News Café Blog consists of the most current and relevant education news.Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
