Is there really a typical day in home schooling? No

Is there really a typical day in home schooling? I can’t really say that it is. Let’s see. We have seven children and to some decree we teach all of them. From our youngest to our oldest we have lots of stories to tell. We started home schooling roughly 6 years ago and we are in no ways regretting this decision.

Benjamin ,the baby, is learning to speak, run, feed himself, etc. Samuel, the 2 year old, is repeating everything he hears, Hannah, the 4 year old say. Rebecca is soon to be 7 and she is on the verge of being a math genius. She does math on a 4th grade level and enjoys this accomplishment. Sophia is nine and very shy. However, when we are filming she springs into action. She definitely lives up to her name Wisdom. Eric is 12 and he is our young scientist, meteorologist, theologian and political ace. He also loves reading. Tiara, our oldest has been completely engulfed in reading since we could remember. She enjoys reading so much that she would sometimes check out 6 or more books from the library at one time.

All that being said, we love home schooling our children. Quite frankly, it hasn’t always been easy and still isn‘t. When we lived in Michigan our business kept us so extremely busy that we didn’t know if we could continue effectively. We eventually hired a few people to aid us in our business so that we could lighten our load. Since moving south we still run our business from home and now have a full classroom set up for the children to learn. Our library is their classroom and it is right next to our office which makes our job a lot easier.

When it comes to home schooling our children we have tried many different methods. Our oldest uses a high school curriculum that has simplified her studies. She is maintaining a 3.71 GPA and will be graduating soon. The other children are on a more diversified course of studies. We have tried curriculum based studies with them but it was getting to be very expensive so we have developed some of our own. My husbands brother, who works for the board of education, gave us some extra books that he had. This was also a great big help to us.

We first started with all of the State required subjects and built from there. We have incorporated business, technology, videography and many other things into their studies. It is our goal to have very well rounded self sufficient children when it is all said and done. We are in no means saying that this is all easy, but what we are saying is that this is a task worth the effort.

We try to stick to a structured day starting at 7:00 a.m. each morning and ending around 3:30. It doesn’t always happen but we are very close to it. We even have school on Saturdays and Sundays if necessary. Our kids all love home schooling with the exception of our oldest. Because she had gotten a good taste of being popular in public school she has never been thrilled with the idea of being home schooled. She has made many attempts at trying to get us to let her return to public school, but to no avail. It is our belief that the public school is very damaging to many children and that it needs a major overhaul.

As Christians, my husband and I feel that the public school is no place for our kids and that we are best suited to teach them. We encourage anyone that is on the fence about home schooling to do their research and understand the ramifications behind keeping your children in public school. If you need more information there are many support groups springing up including ours, The Black Home Schoolers Association, Inc. We can be found on the web at www.BlackHomeSchoolers.com


Tamiko Banks
Director, Black Home Schoolers Association, Inc.
Email: contact@blackhomeschoolers.com