Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more families are choosing to homeschool their children.
U.S. Census data indicates that since the Covid-19 pandemic, more families are choosing to homeschool their children. According to 2020 U.S. Census data, the rate of white homeschooled children increased from 5.7% in the spring of 2020 to 9.7% in the fall of 2020. For Asian children, homeschooling rates increased from 4.9% to 8.8% during this same timeframe. Although there was an overall increase in homeschooling rates among American children in general, the most dramatic increase was seen with Black families. The data reveals that number of Black children that were homeschooled rose from 3.3% in the spring of 2020 to 16.1% in the fall of 2020. There could be a number of reasons why Black families are opting to homeschool their children. Implicit bias within education can contribute to issues like the adultification bias and the school-to-prison pipeline, which may be a growing concern for Black parents. An added worry is the push from some U.S. lawmakers to ban the teaching of Black history. Many Black parents are taking their children’s education into their own hands. Pamela Smith is one of those people. Smith is a mother of five who has homeschooled her kids for the last 14 years. Smith sat down to discuss her experiences, debunked common homeschooling myths and offers advice to parents who are considering homeschooling their kids.
Janice Gassam Asare: So, Pamela, could you share a little bit more about yourself for the Forbes readers that are not familiar with you?
Pamela Smith: Yes, I'm Pamela. I am a homeschooling mother of five, and we have been homeschooling...this year makes 14 years homeschooling our kids. I'm also an entrepreneur. I'm a nurse and I own a home healthcare agency in Florida, so definitely busy between the homeschooling and the running a business.
Asare: You also have a great social media presence. I follow you on Instagram and TikTok. I would love to hear about what went into your decision to homeschool your children. Did any of your children start off in the public or private school system, and what went into your decision to homeschool?
Smith: I have five kids, they're all homeschooled. My oldest one was the only one [who] experienced public school, and then my second oldest went to a private Christian school. The reason that we decided to pull them was because in Florida, we were living in Florida at the time, they had what they call the FCAT. And my daughter, despite studying and working hard the entire school year, was told that there was a possibility that she was going to have to repeat the third grade, even though they didn't even have the test results back. But they were basing it on a test that she had taken earlier in the year. And that sent so much anxiety and panic through my husband and I, and also through our daughter who was terrified of having to repeat the third grade. It seemed to me that in public school, they were only teaching kids to pass a test. We wanted our children to be able to enjoy learning, to have an environment where everything wasn't driven by tests. Just because you pass a test doesn't mean you obtained anything.
The other reason was when I did take my daughter out of public school and put her into private school, they were experiencing a lot of microaggressions and racism. I saw their character changing, being that there was only a handful of Black children in the private Christian school. My daughter, who's now 27 years old, at the time was coming to me and she was wanting to straighten her kinky hair and she was being bullied and teased by some of the white boys because of her kinky hair. And right then...I said, I cannot have her in an environment where she's not seeing herself reflected among her peers. She's not seeing herself reflected upon the curriculum and the literature that she's reading. It was changing my children, so I knew I had to do something.
"We wanted our children to be able to enjoy learning, to have an environment where everything wasn't ... [+]
Asare: Thank you for sharing that. When you made the decision to homeschool your children, were you the one that was teaching them or did you hire someone to teach them? Where did you start when you decided that you wanted to homeschool your children?
Smith: Homeschooling parents are facilitators over their children's learning. A lot of times what's stopped parents from wanting to attempt to homeschool is because they think they need to be teachers or certified teachers, or they have to have an expertise in every subject. By being a facilitator, that means that I can find the right people, I can choose who teaches my child math. So, for example, my kids are in online programs for math. In the past, when I first started, I would hire a tutor to come in and do STEM experiments with my children. I've taken them to tutoring centers. I have facilitated their learning over the years. And there are some subjects that I teach. I love history, so I enjoy sitting down with them and teaching them history. But some subjects like algebra, I can't teach that. But I do know I can hire, I can interview, I can hire a tutor, whether that's online or I could take them local to a tutoring center. There are so many options out there for parents today.
Asare: Can you talk a little bit more about whether [home schooling] was a large monetary investment?
Smith: It was not. We actually saved a ton of money because we were spending thousands of dollars a month on just private school fees. With homeschooling, we're doing the very minimum. There may be a software charge, let's say for my son's math, we only pay $100 a year for the entire software program. There's also the library. We take advantage of the library. We take advantage of the resources that are available for free online through the library. We get a lot of used curriculum. There's a ton of used curriculums out there in Facebook groups online. And we pass down books. When one of our kids finishes their Algebra 1 book, it's passed down to the next kid. So, we spend very minimal every year on homeschooling supplies. I would say it would be less than $1,000 a year per child.
Asare: Thank you for sharing that. A common misconception with homeschooling is that kids will be socially awkward and that kids won't be socialized to understand how to interact with other people. Do you feel like you saw any of that with homeschooling?
Smith: That's one of the biggest myths out there. I can't speak for every homeschooling family, but in addition to homeschooling my kids, I also ran one of the largest homeschool centers in South Florida. It was a center that just provided classes for homeschoolers. And those kids, along with my kids, were some of the most social kids, because let's think about it. When kids are in school, they're telling the kids, line up, be quiet, be still. The teacher tells the kids, ‘You're not here to socialize.’
The other thing that people don't think about is in school, kids are only in class with fifth graders. For homeschooled kids, the world is their learning environment. They're not only around their parents. Our kids grew up in our business, going into our office, they were interacting with our elderly clients. They're interacting with people of all ages, which made my children more well-rounded because they're given the opportunities outside of the box of the school system.
And for example, my daughter that's at UCF right now, she's a communications major. She just got a major internship on a show that's been on the air for probably 10 years. She's amazing at communication. My oldest daughter is an entrepreneur, and when she first got out of school, she went to work for a company, and they quickly advanced her up to a manager role. And they ask her, ‘Where did you get your leadership skills and communication skills?’ She says, ‘I was homeschooled.’ So, it's a myth.
Asare: In the era that we're in now, when there is a war against critical race theory and all kinds of bills lawmakers [are] pushing that prohibits the teaching of African American history and the teaching of topics that are deemed as controversial...what are the benefits that you see in homeschooling, especially when it comes to Black children?
Smith: This whole thing with critical race theory has really, really opened a lot of parents' eyes, and it made me more grateful for being a homeschooling parent because I can teach my children true American history without watering down or romanticizing the enslavement of our people. We can choose the curriculum. You have to be careful with homeschool curriculum as well. You have to look at the author because some of that curriculum can be more whitewashed than the school curriculum. We have the opportunity, as homeschooling parents, to teach our children true American history without it being censored or anything like that. I absolutely love having that opportunity to teach my children true history.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
