Sunshine apprentices at an herb nursery and learns about architecture

Freedom Challenge

African American Homeschoolers

edited and with an introduction by Grace Llewellyn

ISBN 0-9629591-1-1, $16.95, 320 pages, 6"x9" paperback, 1996. Laminated 3-color cover. Includes bibliography, index, and appendices.

Sunshine apprentices at an herb nursery and learns about architecture, Spanish, and astronomy from family friends. Adam was "criminal minded," reading "pathetically," and getting F's when he left school at age thirteen; at fifteen, he has helped build a barn and enjoys reading Maya Angelou. Khahil and Latif collect bugs and read physics books. Indira challenges herself far more than school ever did. Tunu wins piano competitions and joins with other Black homeschoolers to learn robotics from an engineer. At six, Maya taught herself to read; at seven, she decided to learn to row a boat....

Read these fifteen groundbreaking essays and interviews--by parents, teenagers, and children--and discover:

	how African Americans fit into--and don't fit into--the rest of the homeschooling movement
	why parents can be their children's best educational allies--no matter what their backgrounds
	how children and teenagers can direct their own learning
	how homeschoolers make friends, and why they're often happier without school socialization
	how children learn to read (and do all kinds of other things) with little or no formal instruction
	how some single parent families homeschool
	some of the different roles homeschooling parents choose
	how and why African Americans go beyond the educational "experts" to invent their own best paths
	why homeschooling doesn't have to be expensive
	how homeschooling can allow children to develop naturally and hold on to their inborn excitement, curiosity, and desire to learn
	why many African Americans see homeschooling as a positive continuation of the Civil Rights movement.

Among the contributors:

      Donna Nichols-White, the editor of the nation's only national multicultural magazine for homeschoolers.
      The Pogues, a military family who has homeschooled in Okinawa, Japan, as well as in the United States.
      Merry Tackoor, a single mother who recognizes that everything can be a learning experience for her 8-year-old daughter.
      Adam Clough, 15, who got all F's and D's in his last year of school--8th grade. After a year and a half of homeschooling under the guidance of his mother--a single parent--he no longer aspires to becoming a gang member and enjoys reading Maya Angelou and learning about Black history.
      Whitney Sparks, 10, whose love of Greek and Roman mythology sparked her interests in math and word origins.
      Brandon Sparks, 9, who discovers mathematical patterns in basketball scores.
      Toby Rhue, who often takes his sons with him to his office so they can understand and learn from his work with the Forest Service.
      The Gounards, a bi-racial family who built a houseboat in Sausalito, California, and plan on spending several years sailing through the African Diaspora.
      Detra Rose Hood, who started a network for African American homeschoolers--which organizes free science classes taught by volunteer experts.

Unique, inspiring words on self-directed learning, healthy socialization, how single parent families homeschool, how parents can be their children's best educational allies, how homeschooling continues the work of the Civil Rights movement, much more.

To buy online, to buy not online, or to get a quantity discount, click here.
For reviews, click here.
For a short excerpt, click here.
For three longer excerpts, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
For a bio of Grace Llewellyn, click here.

Reviews

This is possibly one of the most unjustly overlooked books in the English language. It tells the stories of 15 black families who decided to educate themselves. This book was a key inspiration for creating the self-education foundation.

-Billy Wimsatt, the Self-Education Foundation

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Strong stuff...A collection of revelations about the power of learning and love.

-Bloomsbury Review

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An inspiring read...16 African American homeschoolers from all across the country, telling how homeschooling has challenged and inspired and renewed and blessed their families.

-Home Education Magazine

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Whatever the quality of the nation's public schools, it's clear African American students are particularly affected by their weaknesses. It's not surprising, therefore, that Llewellyn found more than a dozen parents and children willing, even anxious, to share their experiences with what Llewellyn calls "unschooling." Some of their narratives are formal essays; others use an interview format. The learning resources these families draw upon can be as ordinary as a bug or a lamp and are limited only by the parents' or the kids' imaginations. Although homeschooling is an option for only a small fraction of the children who want to learn, true believer Llewellyn certainly makes it look good for all in this success-story collection. Appendixes include a transcript of a homeschoolers-of-color discussion group, advice on how to start homeschooling, and a long list of useful resources.

-Booklist

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Safeguard your children's intelligence, joy, self-esteem, and cultural integrity by helping them grow and learn outside of the traditional parameters of the public school system by considering the alternative of home schooling with Freedom Challenge: African American Homeschoolers! .... Freedom Challenge can be the beginning of homeschooling based empowerment and the bonding of family values from one generation to the next, regardless of community-based shortages and public school resource limitations.

-Midwest Book Review

From "The Daily Rhythm of Life," by Pamela Sparks

Homeschooling is really just one facet of raising children. We feed them good food, we clean the house, we take them to church. We read to them and teach them to read. I read my own books and they read theirs. We play together and they play with each other or by themselves or with their friends. I'm sewing a quilt and someone may help me out for a while. Whitney may gather flowers and press them and I may join her to dissect a flower and learn about the parts. Then we may use them to decorate homemade papers. I write letters and they write letters. Then I am embarrassed by a dear friend into actually having a lesson or two in how to write letters. We all learn Spanish together. I practice the most but we all, including Haley our nineteen-month-old, can speak some. I teach math in the morning but Brandon teaches in the afternoon when he shows Kyle how to keep football scores or how to build taller towers; and Whitney teaches in the evening, calculating my grocery bill before I can get to the checkout line. Brandon studies architecture, U.S. History, and any sport known to man. Whitney studies wildflowers, dance and art. Kyle learns to read and add, swims in the deep end, and loves toy animals and cars. Haley studies fish and birds and likes to play football with her brothers. It's all about living and learning.

I've heard homeschooling called the "mothers' milk" of education. And I think it's a fitting analogy. For years, we as a society were convinced by "experts" that formula feeding was superior to nursing for both baby's nutrition and mother's convenience. Now we are coming full circle with the realization that nothing comes close to mothers' milk for overall nutrition, immunoproperties, brain development and emotional bonding from the experience of nursing. We've been similarly duped, only far moreso, educationally. What can compare within an artificial institution, to the natural education of living and learning within one’s family and the world?

Homeschooling is empowering. It means taking control and making decisions for one's own family and one's children instead of abdicating these rights and responsibilities to others or simply complying with societal norms. Particularly for African Americans, schools are by and large failing our children even while they have convinced us that they know best. And societal norms are not effective in supporting our children to be happy, strong, and smart.

Keith and I have this ongoing discussion about the aftermath of integration. It seems that in many respects where there were no alternatives we fared better by taking care to teach our own in small (segregated) Southern schools where education was part of the larger communal care, hope, and commitment. That "it takes a village to raise a child" still holds true. We need communities and cooperation and support for each family. We've gone awry to take childrearing, and education as part of that, too far from the individual, family and community, out to these nebulous experts and institutions.

My husband has expressed the opinion that every Black family should homeschool, and that schools are ruining our children and therefore our communities irreparably. Perhaps this is unrealistic. But certainly if we spread the word about this alternative then every Black family could at least consider it, which is the beginning of regaining control and making choices about our children's education. Some families will choose to remove their children from school. Some will stick with schools but be more informed. Some will perhaps create other alternatives, like cooperating between families. Of course our whole society now is dependent upon schools and having our children occupied away from home for most of the day. Many of us haven't learned to relate well to our children, or we need to work away from our children. But there are ways and possibilities, if only we will conceive of them.

For longer excerpts of three essays, click here.