National Home Education Research Institute Examines Barriers to Homeschooling In Fragile Communities
By: Dr. Brian Ray
Many millions of parents now find themselves as school-teachers-at-home during this serious health concern and are finding out that they, as parents, are teachers, by definition. Parents should relax and enjoy their children and realize that relationship and learning are more valuable than “following the institutional school curriculum.”
Parents, read aloud to your child for 15 minutes per day and have them read aloud to you something they choose for 15 minutes per day. Discuss what you read. Have your child write a letter per day to grandma, the zookeeper, or the store-owner. Help him or her do a math lesson, at whatever level he or she is, then move on to the next.
There are many “free” online learning resources that are not dependent on public and private school systems that homeschoolers have been effectively using for decades. Go on long walks with your child. Remember to relax and enjoy learning with your children and not try to duplicate institutional school in your home.
If your child cannot yet read, go online and find a simple and enjoyable phonics program, and do it together. You can do, in home-based education, generally in two hours with a child what it takes about 6 hours for him or her to accomplish in six hours in traditional school. Although many families are not able at this time to go to libraries, museums, and family co-ops (co-operatives) as homeschoolers usually do, the barriers to homeschooling are coming down across the United States and around the world as parents find out that they are competent to teach and do not necessarily need government-provided curriculum, state-licensed teachers, and $12,000 of tax dollars for their children to learn and enjoy learning.
Parents who have been forced to teach at home are learning many of the things that the last 35 years of homeschooling have brought to the table.
For more insights, view Dr. Ray’s recent interview on WGN9 Chicago
The Center for Educational opportunity has funded research for Brian Ray, Ph.D., founder of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) to survey and talk with parents in fragile communities, with special attention given to African Americans in Georgia to determine and understand the barriers to homeschooling for them and identify factors that would mitigate these barriers.
