Valorie Delp’s article in the education blog on Martin Luther King Jr. Day states that instead of taking the day off to play, that parents need to be teaching kids the meaning of the day, and that they should learn his famous speech in entirety. I wholeheartedly agree.
After reading her article, my mind trailed off, and somehow landed on the question, how would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have felt about homeschooling. As I alluded to in a previous blog, being African American and homeschooling has unique challenges. After all, did not King fight for the right to be educated in an integrated environment? Needless to say, most of my African American elders are less than pleased with my decision to homeschool.
My argument of course, is that today’s school systems are not what Dr. King wanted for us. Too much of the old attitudes persisted (that blacks were inferior) for children to get a fair chance. Seriously, people, a disproportionate number of black kids are in Special Ed, with a disproportionate number of white kids in gifted classes. This certainly was not what Dr. King gave his life for. (See Ed Paul’s post on how public school failed his adopted minority sons)
As a matter of fact, I believe that if homeschooling was utilized back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Dr. King would have encouraged all blacks to pull their kids out of school and homeschool them until they were allowed entry into the white schools. I like to believe that these actions would have proven the potential of African American children, as when tutored properly, their test scores would have surpassed the scores of schooled white children just as homeschoolers today outscore public schooled kids.
For many modern day blacks, homeschooling is a form of civil disobedience.
(Disclaimer: This essay is not a call for a black educational revolution… just something to think about)