Customer Reviews

Morning by Morning: How We Home-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Home Schooling is a controversial subject within the African-American community particularly those of the so-called upper middle-classes. America's public school system has proved itself a failure to adequately educate African-American children and private schools are no better. What is one to do? Paula Penn-Nabrit provides an answer, home schooling.

Yes, home schooling is a viable alternative. She should know because she and her spouse created such an environment for their sons. The results? All three young men were accepted into Ivy League schools. In viewing the results home schooling should not be ignored as an option for your child's education.

Morning By Morning takes us on a faith journey of parents who decided to take charge of the education of their sons. Ms and Mr Nabrit describe how they reached the decision, the steps they took to develop a curriculum for their sons, the criticism that they received from family members and the change in themselves and their boys as they went through the program.

Ms Nabrit shares with her readers practical information about home schooling and presents a well thought out philosophical foundation of the need to give her children a wholistic education not found in schools. She doesn't preach that her method is the only way or that home schooling is for everybody. She lays out the facts, resources and lessons learned from her experience and lets the reader make the decision.

I found this to be an excellent book by an African-American who has clearly shared with her readers the challenge of home schooling her children. She doesn't leave any aspect of the experience untouched and lets the parents know what they're getting themselves into emotionally, economically and spiritually. I certainly enjoyed Ms Nabrit's incorporation of the spiritual aspect of her children's lives in the education process. She and her husband are truly committed to a wholistic
education for their children and succeeded. This book is an example of how African-American parents can achieve the same thing for their children.

As much as I liked the book there were some philosophical problems I had with it. The Nabrits are "Ivy" League graduates as well as products of private white schools. They sent their children to private white schools and upper middle class public schools. Their commitment to home schooling came about when their sons were expelled from their elite private white school because their parents failed to pay the tuition in a timely matter. Although the Nabrits admit that this was the reason for them going to home schooling, I'm wondering if they still had the need to prove that their children could get into "Ivy" League schools because such institutions are white.

Certainly the class bias predominates throughout the work. Ms Nabrit makes sure that we learn about the pedigrees of both her family and that of her husbands who were fortunate enough to have a tradition of college educated family members. This book is certainly geared towards the African-American Upper Middle-Class.

Home Schooling is considered a risky alternative form of education. The Nabrits have proved that it can be successful and that your children can compete with anyone. If you as a parent have the time, tenacity, commitment and ability to take on the challenge by all means seek home schooling for your child. There isn't any doubt that they will do better than their institutionalized colleagues. The Nabrit's experiment proved it.

This is a narrative book more than a how to book, for sure. The Nabrits' story is interesting and adds unique insights into the world of homeschooling from a black family's perspective. I do agree with some of the other reviews that the book is saturated with racial and class issues. As a product of the establishment that she values so highly, I find her priority on Ivy League (or other similarly exclusive school) education a bit ridiculous and at odds with her balanced and "holistic" goals for her sons' education overall. However, I do not think that that makes the book a less valuable resource. She does an excellent job of addressing both the big picture and many specific details as she tells their story. She does not pretend that their choices will be right for everyone or even many, but she does show the process by which they made those choices and I think that is helpful. Any homeschooling family needs to begin with the end in mind and think carefully about how they define success before they jump into the nuts and bolts of curriculum, teaching approach,schedules etc.

Things I found particularly compelling in their homeschool inlcuded: the idea of "holistic" education - intellelctual growth, physical fitness and spiritual growth; balance of depth and breadth, solo and team, fitness and competitive in athletic activities; purposeful exposure to a wide variety of fine and performing arts; structuring quiet time into their daily family life; the importance of community service; the importance of families and children interacting substantively with people of different racial, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds; the distinction between intellectual growth and quantifiable academics - all schoolwork does not produce learning; a schedule as a tool to help you accomplish goals, avoid overloading and maintain priorities, especially the intangibles, what Covey calls the important as opposed to the urgent; the significance of rituals; the necessity of planning ahead, good record keeping and being aware of the complexity of the task in the college admissions process.

This is a good read - her strong personality and humor shine through clearly - and there is indeed a wealth of ideas and information in it. She has added a dimension to the resources available for homeschooling. Good homeschooling how-to books abound, but this is something different.

As another reviewer said, I was somewhat surprised and very saddened at the description of "polite", upper-middle class institutionalized racism they encountered. Hopefully I will be more able to be part of the solution and not the problem because of the Nabrits' willingness to tell their story.

I loved this book. By telling her story so intricately, Nabrit, provides the foundation for all of us who are choosing to educate our children at home. I appreciate her transparency and vulnerability in the book. She made some mistakes (along with her husband) and we can all learn from them. She also shares some brilliant ideas. This book does have a Christian theme in part because they are a Christian family. Another reviewer said it was more about race, than homeschooling. If you are homeschooling an African American child/teenager, rest assured this book IS about race and YOU WILL BE GLAD FOR IT. When you buy this book, you will read it for information and keep it for inspiration.

Paula Penn-Nabrit chose homeschooling for her three black boys when they were pushed out of an elite midwestern private school. She and her husband, C. Madison, managed to put together an effective homeschooling program that supported their Christian, upper-middle class black values and helped her children reach elite education. For educators seeking radical solutions to addressing the challenges facing black students, this book offers a powerful testimony of one family's strategies in finding an alternative path.

For those readers looking for nuts and bolts information, I'd advise you to look elsewhere. Much of this book is spent clarifying the values and motivations for their choices. Little space is devoted to explaining curriculum choices. I can see how other reviewers were frustrated by the relative lack of specific details. I wish that the title didn't include "how" and focused on "why" or had some kind of cue to alert prospective buyers to how radical this book is.

Sadly, one audience who would really benefit from this book will probably never find it. This family is related to one of the lawyers who argued the Brown vs. Board of Education case. They have ties to elite networks in black America and both parents are Ivy League educated as well, which may have eased the process in gaining acceptance to Princeton and Amherst for the boys. Nabrit's painstaking defense of her decisions and her reflections on the attitudes she faced can be very helpful for those seeking to understand black elites and the tensions between trying to gain access to the upper echelons of American society such as private schools and Ivy League schools while trying to maintain an identity that is very distinctively black.

Some readers may be turned off by the frequent quoting of scripture to defend the values. Others may find this story to be too particular a case to apply to their own homeschooling situations. Personally, I was very intrigued by the chance to peer into the home of a black family that defied many traditional categories and found a very creative response to the challenges of education.

I'm not about to homeschool my future family after reading this book. But I do plan to apply some of Nabrit's holistic values for educating black males to my own work. Already, I see myself wanting to use some of the values in this book for supplemental educational projects related to black male middle schoolers.

Very helpful for a narrow audience...
4.5 stars for me
2.5 stars for being somewhat mislabeled
3.5 stars overall.

I am grateful to Paula Penn-Nabrit for having written this illuminating book. It is beyond my criticism. Perhaps the greatest treasure it offers is its revelation of how racism is still being played out by well-meaning white people. (You would have to read it to "get" it, especially if you are a standard white person like I am.) I also love that the Nabrits devised their own curriculum: so creative and applaudable! In fact, Paula is so personable you will appreciate her as a woman, despite the flaws that she confesses. You will also know she is no less a genius for not graduating all 3 sons from Ivy League Schools. I think those sons must be fantastic people and the Nabrits have done us all a favor by sending out into the world children of such extraordinary character. I would hope everyone reads this book, whether they choose to homeschool or not- it presents such a superlative example of what you can do for your children. Thank you, Paula.

The Nabrits did an exceptional job of homeschooling their 3 sons, but I never finished the book. The rhetoric of racism and the Nabrit's "Ivy league status" was like a recurring theme on every page that took away from the purpose of the book. Was this a biography or a homeschooling book??? I came away with 2 things....all white people are bad, and she is (self-described) smart. I felt like it was her outlet to tell her story of mistreatment, and not a practical homeschooling book. I have moved on to practical, helpful, not negative, homeschooling resources.

I started reading this book and couldn't get past the pages upon pages of racism that she spouts. This woman obviously feels that her Ivy League education makes her better than everyone else and seems to make every little thing about race. What she accuses her peers of she herself is guilty of. She is racist against white people and that is all this book really is about for her. Definitely NOT worth reading.

I was so excited to read this book, and couldn't wait to receive it. I was sorely disappointed. I've read about half the book verbatim, but then just started skimming. So far, about 80% of what I've read is about racism, and how it has impacted the author, her family/children, etc. There is SO much racism described on nearly every page, that I began to realize that racism is truly the topic of this book - not homeschooling. If you want to read one family's account of many, many racist situations, then you will love this book. If you are looking for the every-day details of a happy and successful home-schooling family, look elsewhere. In fact, the author writes that the kids all "hated" homeschooling from the day they started until the day they ended.

My other complaint about this book is that the tone on many pages is truly one of superiority. The author goes on and on about ways she and her family are superior to others - her kids are smarter than most, they are better looking than most ("I have heard, like, "Oh, my God, they're gorgeous! or "Paula, you sons are so incredibly good-looking!"), the family's education is better than most (she loves to talk about how her qualifications were always superior to the children's school teachers), etc.

Basically, there was not much info about how they actually home-schooled.

First, let me say I totally commend the Nabrits for their inspiring accomplishment with their sons and also for their desire to share their experience with the African American community and the homeschool community. But the book wasn't the 'homeschooling resource' that I expected it to be. Ms. Penn-Nabrit's experience of racism were shocking and disappointing to this white woman who 'thought' America had moved further beyond racism than, apparently, we have. I found the book enlightening on that score, but after a while (& could this be my own defense-mechanism?) I started to feel like some of the racism she finds might be a part of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you look hard enough, you will always find it. I am not doubting her first-hand experiences, but perhaps don't fully agree with some of her choices as to what to focus on.
Penn-Nabrit does offer useful suggestions such as using graduate students as tutors, and finding other strong mentors for your children. I also like how she used 'reverse-engineering' basically, to use college admission requirements to help design a course of study. I just wanted to hear more of THAT sort of info. I wasn't crazy about the organization of the book, and felt I had to sort through lots of personal data: which son had which birth weight or liked which sports, as well as the racism experiences in order to get to the bits that were fresh and applicable.
I totally support homeschooling, and would love to see more of it. I agree that African American homes have been under-reached on this topic. This book may well motivate someone TO homeschool, but you'll then want to move to other resources as to the HOW TO homeschool.