The 1st Virtual BFHES Teach-In took place July 20-24, 2020.

We decided to present this teach-in as a way to begin building a network of Black researchers and home educators committed to ensuring that home education remained an option for Black families. We believed that creating such a network was possible through opportunities to share information with each other, identify the supports and services available to us, and continue to center Black families at the forefront of our practice and research.

Whether you called your home education practice homeschooling, unschooling, deschooling, self-directed learning, or something else, as a Black home educator, you were radically reshaping the identity of education in this country by making the choice to home educate. This virtual teach-in featured over 20 talks from almost 20 speakers from across the country who were either Black home educators or Black researchers who had done research regarding Black homeschooling families. Most of the talks were presented in an interview format, and each speaker responded to one of three igniting questions guiding the teach-in. Those questions were: What did we need more of as Black homeschooling families? What was the truth about Black homeschooling families? And what were barriers to access for Black homeschooling families?

We provided registrants with a workbook to help navigate through this teach-in. We suggested that they watch the sessions that stood out the most based on title, speaker, or other characteristics important to them. We then encouraged them to use their workbook to write questions and thoughts and bring those questions and thoughts to our breakout sessions that took place on Friday, July 24th, virtually. Some of the speakers were present in these breakout groups to answer questions, but we wanted this to be an opportunity for participants to share dialogue and ultimately create networks with one another that would help enrich and build our Black family homeschool community.

In closing, we wanted this experience to be a meaningful journey of exploration. We encouraged participation throughout the week, invited comments on speaker videos, dialogue in the Facebook group for the teach-in, inquiries about the services and supports that our speakers talked about, and presence and outspokenness during our breakout sessions on Friday. The impact of this teach-in relied on active participation. We thanked everyone for choosing to take part in this inaugural event, encouraged them to pace themselves, watch as many talks as they were interested in, invite others to register so they too could have access to the speaker talks and our social media group, and reach out to us at any time with questions or concerns.