Just Homeschool Your Children!

The title is misleading because I am not here to tell anyone “JUST HOMESCHOOL YOUR CHILDREN!” I am here to present a picture of why some Black parents haven’t and probably won’t.

Life has proven time and time again that it isn’t JUST black and white, so it grates my nerves when someone oversimplifies a complex situation that spiders out into other issues. This happens often when people speak from a place of privilege. Sure, everything seems doable when you’re doing it and haven’t had obstacles in the way that turn shit into a mental burden that evolves into physical manifestations of constant struggle.

I think about this when people “suggest” homeschooling Black children.

I’m not speaking from a place of not even being willing to try it. What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I was actually homeschooled from half of 4th grade through the 10th grade. I returned to the public school system when I was entering the 11th grade. When my parents pulled me and my sister from the public school system, it was 1988. When we returned, it was 1995. The entire world has significantly changed in the last 27–34 years and homeschooling is no exception. However, the one thing about homeschooling that hasn’t changed is the necessity and value of a community and support group in order to effectively provide an education solely from the home.

There are great benefits to homeschooling. You get to pick and choose the curriculum for your child(ren). This is a huge part of what disrupts our children’s natural inquisitiveness because they’re constantly told what to think and conform, be docile and obedient, and other things that prevent independent thought are incessantly fed to all children. There would be space for all children to learn the true history of their people, regardless of ethnic background, and the country they currently live in without it being referred to as critical race theory. Standardized testing would be null and void because the government wouldn’t be the overseers of our education budget. Life would be their tests, more often than not. Applied learning would be the preferred way for children to absorb, digest, and implement what’s taught. Homework wouldn’t be something handed out after sitting in chairs for hours of learning, to be immediately turned back in the next day, leaving very little recuperation time between getting home from school, doing chores, eating snacks and dinner, and getting ready for the next day to do it all over again.

Homeschooling DOES allow parents AND children to reclaim a LOT of their time. Did I mention that the school day doesn’t have to be 8 hours? The required amount of time spent on a child’s education can be chopped in half and depending on how they’re taught, they’ll process and retain far more information.

So why aren’t more Black parents choosing this for their children?

While I cannot speak for other parents, I can tell you why I don’t homeschool my daughter. I do not have the support and community required to do this ALONE. I’m a single mother, full-time student, full-time employee, and the sole breadwinner of our two-person family. No, her father doesn’t participate in the parenting of his daughter. No, her grandparents (on either side) aren’t involved on a level where homeschooling is possible either. Yes, I have friends but most of them do not have children and the ones who do have similar situations to myself. We MUST work full-time if the children are going to be fed, clothed, and safe.

Yes, there are homeschooling communities that can be joined, however, the responsibility of it all still falls on one person… me. Just as my daughter’s other parent decided to opt out of parenting because it wasn’t a responsibility he cared to fulfill, other adults don’t truly understand (or care) what “it takes a village” truly means either. No one is required to help me parent my child, so I work with the resources available to me in the setting of which I live. In theory, it is a GREAT idea to be surrounded by other adults and parents who also value my daughter’s education beyond words. In reality, everyone is living their own life and raising their own family so committing to a single-mother and her child for the express purposes of one more child attaining a healthier, well-rounded education suitable to their needs is… a fantasy.

Is it possible for a person in my shoes to homeschool their child? Maybe. I don’t know because I’ve never seen anyone in my shoes walk this road.

I do recall when I was homeschooled, my father spent the least amount of time with us because he was working and sent more than a few messages that my mother was responsible for the majority of this job. He was the authoritarian that made sure we finished our assignments, and they were ready to go when my mother had to mail them off. My mother was responsible for literally everything else. I skipped a part… I grew up a Jehovah Witness and the first homeschool setting was with a school in Sacramento (we lived in Oakland) that was specifically for Jehovah Witness children. So, while homeschooling IS a good option to exercise, when your education’s foundation is attached to religion, there’s still a good chance that some things won’t be taught because they aren’t in alignment with the religious beliefs. Did I mention my mother also worked? It was part-time but imagine what we were doing at home once our homework was done? Whatever we could think of to limit boredom, bad decisions, and natural curiosity. Those bad decisions didn’t always remain as nothing more than thoughts.

Our social lives were quite shitty because religion sometimes has a way of stripping diversity from a lot of interactions. We only hung around other Jehovah Witness children, so the awkwardness experienced when engaging non-Jehovah Witnesses was something I always felt in the depths of my bones. I heard other adults and children refer to us as “weird” and not the good kind of odd. My parents didn’t have one of our most valuable resources to constantly keep us connected to other children… time. So yes, we were considered odd birds. In a lot of settings, my sister and I were called know-it-alls by children our age, to the point that I learned how to silence myself fairly quickly, just enough to fit into what was considered “normal” settings and environments. I grew to enjoy the company of adults more than children because they usually didn’t call us names; most adults were intrigued by how knowledgeable we were and how we talked. I won’t lie, a lot of that was DNA. I’ve always viewed my parents as two of the most intelligent and resourceful people I’ve known in my lifetime so of course, it’s in our genes. To a large degree, I believe that’s why my father was adamant about us being homeschooled. He knew how his brain worked and had a pretty good idea that ours didn’t work too much differently. If I’m being honest, I think he made the decision out of fear… much like a lot of parents right now, considering what’s going on in society.

I digress.

The second school I attended for homeschooling was not a Jehovah Witness school but once we graduated from the 8th grade, a lot of Jehovah Witness children living in the Bay Area migrated to this school in San Ramon, CA. We attended school once a week. My mother and her friends with kids at the same school alternated taking us every week. I think our dad only took us to school once out of all the time we attended that school. There was no limit as to how quickly (or slowly) we could learn. It was very Montessori like in that all education mattered and if you were a quick learner, they weren’t going to prevent the child from moving at the pace that suited them best. We had workbooks to complete for each grade level. I had completed so many that I could have graduated when I was 16 years old. I found this out when I decided to return to public school. However, back then, homeschool wasn’t accredited how it is now. If I had stayed at that school, I could have graduated from high school a year early. My parents hadn’t talked to me about college (something else that some Jehovah Witnesses weren’t too keen on allowing their children to do back then because it encouraged them to interact with non-believers too much; their view of extracurricular education has changed) so I didn’t figure it a big deal to repeat work for an extra year and graduate in my original year of 1997.

Public school bored the shit out of me when I returned but what didn’t was the social interaction. Even though I am more introverted than I am extroverted, humanity has always interested me so seeing all of these humans who behaved SO differently than me? I was getting applied learning in social interaction. High school is one of the worst/best places to learn about humanity; in hindsight, everything is highly exaggerated because of hormones. I learned a lot of social normativism that I wasn’t aware even existed; I also learned how to get along with people who were different from me and that different didn’t mean wrong… like I was being taught at home.

I could go on, but I share this because quite often when the push comes out to “HOMESCHOOL YOUR CHILDREN!” it’s not from a full spectrum perspective. It’s often implied that parents who don’t choose this for their children don’t care enough about their education, don’t want to do the work to get it done, and that real life obstacles are just excuses preventing us from being our child’s teacher. Homeschooling aside, single Black mothers already don’t typically get the mental, physical, spiritual, and financial support they need. How dare anyone add more to that already overflowing plate? But it happens. I’ve had several people tell me it can be done but never show me how or provide everything needed for a person in MY SHOES to successfully achieve homeschooling.

There are other factors that don’t make this an option I’m going to rack my brain about and those have to do with my daughter’s personal information. I won’t be sharing those factors here but please know and understand that it isn’t me not weighing the benefits. It’s me weighing the reality of how possible it is for my situation. So, when the suggestion comes or the question, “have you considered homeschooling?” understand that I don’t have the privilege of homeschooling my daughter. It takes a village to raise a child so if all children (especially Black children) should be homeschooled, be the village you wish to see. Be the consistent, unwavering, supportive pillar necessary to teach the babies from home. Otherwise, understand that we’re all working with the resources we have, and some Black children will never be homeschooled.