Homeschooling as Liberatory Practice
An excerpt from the forthcoming book, Homeschooling Black Children on a College Pathway, edited by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman
I was raised attending traditional schools for most of my life, but for two years I attended an independent Pan-African school in D.C. My mother raised me specifically from a Pan-African perspective. What does that mean? Well, for the most part, Pan-African practices include recognition that Black people all over the world are people of African descent and are therefore connected. A Pan-African culture highlights the history and indigenous culture of African people from around the world.
I attended a Pan-African independent school in Washington, D.C., Nation House Watoto Shule, back in the 80s, very early when it started, though only briefly. It was started by Black independent school founder and author, Ajyei Akoto, author of Nationbuilding: Theory & Practice in Afrikan Centered Education. At Nationhouse Watoto Shule, we called him “Baba Ajyei.” Baba means “Father”or “Male Elder” in the West African language, Swahili. “Watoto Shule” means “Children’s School.” I stayed at this school for 2nd, 3rd and part of 4th grade before returning to public school when my mother moved us to Maryland.
At Watoto Shule, I memorized all of the states in the US and the countries in Africa. I learned about Kwame Ture and Patrice Lumumba, celebrated Kwanzaa and learned African dance. I had to learn how present public speeches, and plant food and my school uniform was clothing made with traditional African print fabric. I was there between ages 6-8. At the time, none of this seemed too advanced or unreasonable for such a young child. This was the early 1980’s. When I left this school, I had read books about Black cowboys, Black explorers and learned a new language, Swahili. I had been in community with people who had African names like me and taught me history that did not start with slavery.
While in public school, I transitioned pretty easily and quickly made friends. My new school was a diverse mix of children of every ethnic descent you could imagine. My new teacher, Mr. Bruso, was impressed by my reading skills and creative approach to learning. He immediately recommended me to be admitted into the school’s gifted and talented program. This program allowed me to spend time engaging in creative writing and many lateral thinking activities. I had him for 4th and 5th grade and he was one of my teachers when I went on to middle school. He was one of my favorite teachers who went on to support me as a writer when I became an adult.
While at this new public elementary school, my mother still was my primary curator of my learning, if I’m being honest. She supplemented any learning I received from a traditional school setting by centering Black people and our experiences within my learning practice. My mother took me to the public library regularly to choose books specific to Black history. I was to examine book cover art and read the backs of books to gain insight on what the book was about before checking it out. I was taught about imperialism and how colonization has desecrated the ancestral history of Black people worldwide. I learned that liberation is the concerted effort to stay knowledgeable of the truth about our history and engage in ways that serve our community so that the community benefits from the seeds we plant.
This early experience shaped some core beliefs that I still hold today about what education should entail. This experience primarily taught me that the primary purpose of education should be to benefit the learner's immediate community. If it does not seek to do that, it is not education that is useful to the holistic development of the learner. I reflect on this as I consider the work that I do now.
Homeschooling as an Education Practice
I became familiar with homeschooling when my mother began homeschooling my brother, who’s 11 years younger than me. I was an adult at the time, and he was set to begin 8th grade. She was unhappy with the Montessori school she had him in for 7th grade and decided to homeschool him for 8th grade before making a decision about high school. I witnessed her practice and was intrigued. My mother was a college graduate with a degree in Math who had taught various grades in Math and Science while I was growing up. But, those weren’t the only subjects she led. I noticed that my brother really was self-directed for the most part, but she would assign him various projects that were interdisciplinary. He had significant duties around the house which included helping tend to her half-acre of land and general upkeep of the homestead. She was caring for both of my grandparents at this time, my grandfather having advanced Alzheimer’s and bedridden. My brother would help her care for my grandparents, too.
My mother enrolled my brother in the public high school the next year, opting to have him enroll in ROTC. She was very afraid that if he didn’t have certain protections in place, then he would be victim to the prison industrial complex. She didn’t have any of these concerns for me or my three younger sisters, so we were not homeschooled. I also witnessed that, while the emphasis had been on a Pan Afrikan education for me as a youngster, my mother did not emphasize this as much with my brother and younger siblings. I often wonder what informed this decision.
I considered homeschooling when I became a mother. I had a daughter who showed early signs of giftedness that included being an early reader and writer. I had enrolled her in a private preschool when I was working in Baltimore, but when I returned to my hometown suburb, she was ineligible for preschool and too young for kindergarten. I homeschooled her for a year before enrolling her in a private school for kindergarten and first grade. This was more out of necessity than anything else. Homeschooling as a practice became more visible in the world around me as a college instructor who had more homeschooled students registering for my college courses while they were still homeschooling for high school. When I began homeschooling my daughter for elementary school and, later, high school, this practice, dual enrollment, became an option that settled in the back of my mind.
Homeschooling and Black Families
When I decided to pursue a doctorate in education and become a researcher, I focused particularly on African American homeschool dual-enrolled students and their perceptions of preparedness for commuity college. My doctorate program was a higher education program with an emphasis on community college leadership. What I found is that at the time, the literature on Black homeschooling was really absent of a historical framework and didn’t include the voices of Black homeschooling children—those who were formerly homeschooled, currently in the workforce, or in college. Thus, much of my research came from people who hadn't been interviewed by the news, written books, or participated in studies. There was practically nothing about Black students and dual enrolled.
What I came across were anecdotal stories showing that, for the most part, Black homeschooling has been considered fringe. When you think of homeschooling, it’s often associated with white, cultish, conservative families. But Black homeschooling really gained prominence with the rise of independent Black schools in the late 60s and 70s. Many of these parents did not want attention drawn to their homeschooling practices because they feared retribution or interference.
In the early 90s, you saw people starting to write about homeschooling, like Paula Penn-Nabrit, a very prominent Black homeschooler who has a book on it. Researcher Dr. Cheryl Field-Smith, who co-founded Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars (BFHES) with me in 2021 interviewed Nabrit during our annual BFHES virtual teach-in where Nabrit was a keynote speaker. She shared that when she chose to homeschool, there wasn’t the community there is today. Homeschooling wasn’t something she and her husband set out to do—it was something they had to do. She was confronted with so many deficiencies and overt racism in the public school system that homeschooling became a necessity.
What I found interesting was that she said that her kids didn’t want to be homeschooled—they didn’t have the gleeful attitudes we see in kids today who are part of homeschooling communities. But she and her husband knew they had to do it because they were witnessing the destruction of their children's love of learning. She talks about how it was a combination of systemic white supremacy and what she coined as “colored conspirators.” She explained that this system could be upheld by people with brown or white faces, even within the school system.
This remark had me reflect on my own experience with my daughter. When my daughter was in fourth grade, I knew that public school wasn’t for her. She had been in and out of the public school system—if I didn’t like the school, she would come home. In fourth grade, the teacher asked me to come in for a talk, and she mentioned that my daughter would finish her work before everyone else and then start writing in her journal, which she felt was disrupting the other children. That moment made me realize, “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. This is not what I want for my daughter.” How is a child being disruptive by writing silently and minding their business when they are completed their task? It made no sense. When I talk to parents, they often have these stories—these red flags where they know school is not the right place for their children. The National Center for Education Statistics reported that homeschooling among Black people had doubled between 2007 and 2016. Census data reveals that the percentage of Black households homeschooling their children rose significantly, from 3.3% at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to 16.1% by the fall of the same year, marking the largest increase among all racial groups.
In 2020, when my daughter was being homeschooled for high school and taking community college courses, I interviewed her for the inaugural BFHES teach-in. I asked her many questions, one of them being about what she felt about being homeschooled and taking college courses while still a high school student. She replied, “I like being around people sometimes, but then I also get the opportunity to come home and have days where I can just be by myself, work by myself, and be at my own pace. So yeah, it's definitely my thing.”
When I hosted the BFHES virtual teach-in in 2022, I interviewed two formerly homeschooled adults, one of them a young adult who was starting college that fall, Gregory Wickham. Gregory started by describing how his path to homeschooling was born out of dissatisfaction with the traditional schooling model. While attending his high school in New York, he felt capable of doing more on his own. However, he initially agreed with his parents to complete at least one year of traditional high school before reevaluating his options.
"For a long time I knew that I wanted to homeschool because school was just... it was fine but I felt like I could do better,” he said. The pandemic ultimately provided the perfect opportunity for him to transition to homeschooling.
To convince his parents, Gregory researched New York’s homeschooling laws, prepared a home instruction plan, and explained how he could tailor his education better than the traditional system allowed. His plan included Advanced Placement (AP) courses and self-designed learning pathways that aligned with his college aspirations. This approach not only convinced his parents but also gave him greater flexibility and efficiency in his studies.
"I was able to customize my education to what I wanted to learn, which was obviously related to where I wanted to go to college,” he said. He now attends a STEM-focused college in California.
Gregory spoke candidly about the challenges of convincing his parents to deviate from a traditional trajectory that had worked for other family members. He acknowledged that his family’s education-focused environment and resources, including parents deeply invested in learning, gave him an advantage many do not have. This awareness shaped his desire to make the most of his opportunities while critiquing systemic inequalities in education. I learned from him how homeschooling can empower learners to take charge of their education, overcome challenges, and thrive in ways that traditional schooling might not facilitate. His insights provided valuable lessons for the parents who were part of the teach-in that day.
Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman is director of Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, LLC and founder of the 501(c)3 nonprofit, Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice. She is an Associate Professor of English at Coppin State University and the current poet laureate of Prince George’s County, Maryland. She hosts the 5th Annual BFHES Virtual Teach-In taking place on January 11, 2025. She is author of the collections For the Girls Who Do Too Much (2024) and The Summoning of Black Joy (2024) and the children’s book, Mariah’s Maracas (2018). She is co-editor of the book, Homeschooling Black Children in the US (2022).