The title of this book is so long, I can hardly fit it into my title. Morning by Morning: How We Homes-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League, by Paula Penn-Nabrit was the book that cemented my decision to homeschool.
Sometimes it is just easier to envision yourself succeeding when you have seen others who look like you succeed. The title says it all. Many African Americans, including myself, were raised with the notion that we had to work twice as hard as non-black to succeed. Homeschooling, therefore, was a dangerous notion. If we took a different and often immeasurable route to education, we would certainly be damaging our possibility of competing with our non-black peers. Although I had already decided to homeschool when I came across this book in the library, I knew that it held the key to homeschooling success for us, an African American family. …And it did.
The book also scared me a bit as well. While Mrs. Nabrit did not go into deep detail about all the how’s of her homeschooling experience, it was clear that her approach was rigid. Therefore, as far as I could surmise, rigid homeschooling meant Ivy League Colleges. I even went as far as flying to California from Georgia to a homeschooling conference to hear her speak. I met her, her husband and her three sons, and was quite disappointed to find that while incredibly bright and accomplished, her sons hated being homeschooled. They could not however, argue with the success they had achieved.
Fortunately at that same conference were several speakers on the subject of unschooling and other homeschooling methods in between that and the Nabrit’s stringent approach to education. As I settled into my first year of homeschooling, I began to challenge much of what I had learned in the past, including the inferiority complexes that had been passed down through generations. Whenever I wondered if my kids would be able to get into college, I remembered Paula and her book. I was grateful the she proved that African Americans could homeschool and get into Ivy League College. However, I reminded myself that homeschooling was as much about nurturing the heart of the child as it was about academics. Therefore, while I made sure that my kids met certain educational standards. I also, made sure they enjoyed the process.
I am very grateful to have found the book “Morning by Morning….” that day in the library. It certainly gave me and several other African American parents the confidence necessary to homeschool our kids. Once we (African Americans) let go of our preconceived notion that blacks need to work harder than non-blacks, (which the Nabrit’s and many other African Americans have) the process of homeschooling will become more enjoyable as well.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like On Being Black and Homeschooling