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Trends in African-American Home Schooling

© Jennifer James

It's 7:30 on a typical Monday morning and thousands of African-American children are not headed to the bus stop or being dropped off at school, but rather, they are headed to their kitchen table or to their in-home classroom. These children are home schooled and today there are more African-American home schooling families than ever. In fact, African-American children account for 5% of the total number of homeschooled students. Based on statistics recently released by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics almost 1.1 million students were homeschooled in 2003. That puts the number of African-American homeschooled students at around 55,000 nationwide. It's apparent that African-American families are joining the ever-growing home school community at an increasing rate for a variety of reasons and my family is one of them.

My husband and I decided that home education would be the greatest way to educate our daughters who are now four and two. Home education, in our opinion, affords the greatest amount of educational freedom and intellectual exploration. Even at such young ages, being able to learn at an individualized pace in a loving and supportive environment is most ideal.

In addition to the advantages of individualized attention and educational freedom, home schooling also allows my husband and me to teach our daughters cultural relevance and self-importance. This is vitally important, not only to my family, but to most African-American home schooling families across the country. In fact, African-American homeschoolers, although becoming home educators for a variety of reasons, look to provide a culturally uplifting education for their children.

As the Director and cofounder of two home schooling organizations, I have learned some things that are most common among African-American homeschoolers. For example, I have learned that those who choose to home school do so for a variety of reasons and I have also learned that those who are truly committed to home schooling create a thriving home education environment for their children. I have also gleaned that home schooling is not conducive to all families and that there are some challenges within the African-American community that render home schooling difficult, but not impossible. Here, I will discuss the trends in African-American home schooling from my vantage point as a home schooling leader.

One of the principle reasons why African-Americans home school is due to the lack of cultural resources and African heritage books, curricula and lessons provided in public and private schools. This coupled with cultural misconceptions, especially for African-American boys, and the lack of cultural equality taught in textbooks drives many African-American families to provide this on their own. African-American families go to extra lengths to include quality African-American positive books and lessons in their home schooling curricula. These families capitalize on the opportunity to provide an education for their children where African-Americans, Africans as well as the African Diaspora are viewed as active participants in all subjects and not simply as inactive bystanders. Families also oftentimes supplement multicultural lessons with field trips to local African-American museums, cultural destinations and historic sites.

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