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Imhotep! Welcome to B.L.A.C.K.

B.L.A.C.K. is an Afrocentric homeschooling community dedicated to increasing black awareness, cultural expression, and self pride in the homeschooling community. We offer classes in African American history, art, and literature for homeschoolers in the Washington, D.C. area based on the African Centered Educational model. We facilitate hands-on training by nationally recognized education specialists and disseminate information via the B.L.A.C.K. blog on how to infuse African culture and history in the traditional American education. Our mission is to increase awareness of the African Centered Educational model and to share the positive results we are witnessing in B.L.A.C.K. students who are reconnecting with the truth, beauty, and grace of the African heritage and culture.


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Perhaps it wasn't a bad idea after all to let my five year old son, Gyasi, spend his early homeschooling years building intricate robots from paper boxes, designing web pages, producing comical movies about his six sisters, or digging up rocks, bugs and other organic matter in our backyard.  Twelve years later, Gyasi, now seventeen and soon to graduate, will use the skills he acquired during those "unschooling" years to compete next weekend in a national robotics competition.

As a working, life-schooling mom of seven,  I just didn't seem to have enough time in the day to instruct Gyasi in a lot of formal lessons.  At a young age, he was determined to become a famous physicist, although this has since changed to computer scientist.

 In those early years, I worried less about getting enough "schooling" in and afforded my children opportunities to do what they love---exploring, building, designing, and creating.

After a few hours of "table time" lessons in math, grammar, and writing, we spent our afternoons in what we called, "productive leisure time", when the children were able to "play" engineer, doctor, banker, social worker, seamstress and more.  Today, my youngest spends her productive leisure time playing Minecraft, the popular, technologically-advanced video game used by educators across the nation to teach science, history, and language.

I am content that several of my "unschooled" children are not only honor roll students in college, but have a life-long love for learning, know how to live and not just make a living, and more importantly, use their God-given gifts and talents to enrich the lives of other people.  I would not trade my precious memories of our productive leisure time together in the backyard for the highest SAT scores, scholarships, or salaries in the world! Now that several of my children have left the nest, I cherish those memories even more and am often saddened that the time went by too fast.

On April  3-5, Gyasi, and his childhood buddy, Tumie Hurd, also a lifeschooler, will compete with their Robotics Team in the Chesapeake Regional FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) at the University of Maryland, College Park.  Their team is an activity of the Patriots' National Society of Black Engineers Junior Chapter. Patriots is a local organization that has operated minority STEM summer camps and other programs for over 17 years.

 The FRC is the Nation's top engineering challenge for STEM students.  The students work with mentors and instructors several weeks leading up to the competition to design, build, and program a robot they hope will win the competition.  It is an outstanding program that allows students to use their engineering and computer programming skills in practical applications. While Gyasi and Tumie acknowledge building the robot for the competition is hard work, the prospects of their robot winning keep them motivated.

Next week's competition, expected to attract a crowd of over 20,000, promises to be fun for the whole family. It is really quite mesmerizing to see the student-built robots strutting their stuff like hyperactive, colorful peacocks in the competitor ring before the large crowds and judges.  The robotic teams operate the computers remotely from a distance, holding their breaths and hoping it will perform as programmed.

If your lifeschooler likes to spend his productive leisure time building, designing, constructing or playing computer games, he will definitely enjoy the FRC Robotics Competition. And you need not feel guilty about letting him "play" Minecraft or other video games during "school" time; He might just use his gaming skills to develop an award-winning computer application later in life.

Do you ever feel like you are not getting enough "school" time in with your little ones?  Are you concerned that you aren't doing enough to prepare them for standardized tests?  I'd love to hear your comments.









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1 comments:

  1. Peace Kyna,

    I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Being a homeschool (life school) dad for the last year I have encountered similar concerns. Because it was such unfamiliar territory I would have this reoccurring fear of am I doing this right? I would (and sometimes still do) get frustrated when my 7 yr old is having challenge grasping some of the "formal" material that is said a 1st grader is supposed to know. But the frustration was always with myself, questioning and criticizing myself for not being able to teach my own child. Then an hour later we would be outside working in the garden and I would look up and awaken to something much deeper, lessons that he was learning that surpassed any state benchmark. The ensuing conversation between us would start about what makes good compost and end up covering the cycle of life, where the ancestors go when our loved ones pass away, the cosmos etc. Yes my 6 yr old asks me continually about the ancestral realm. It is these moments that bring me back to realizing the beauty of the path we set out on when we decided to homeschool. What other school would be able to address those types of question from a child without telling him now is not the place, or worse yet feeding him misinformation to fuel his curiosity? So yes I agree fully with the idea of life schooling. Why would education be anything but that?

    Peace and blessings.

    Geoff

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