Nonfiction / Education
Date Published: 10-06-2024
Educational Disobedience is a compelling and transformative guide for parents, educators, and advocates committed to reimagining traditional educational systems. Drawing from her extensive experience as an educator, homeschool advocate, and law enforcement professional, Dr. Mabry challenges the conventional paradigms of schooling that often fail underserved and marginalized students. With practical advice and deeply personal insights, she explores how parents can use homeschooling to reclaim their children’s education.
Dr. Mabry argues that educational disobedience is not about defiance but about empowerment—empowering parents to resist systems that perpetuate inequity and disempower children, particularly those from at-risk communities. She provides a roadmap for creating individualized, flexible learning paths that focus on student well-being, literacy, and personal growth. The book also highlights how cooperative educational models, like her own Tiers Free Homeschool Cooperative, can serve as community-driven alternatives to traditional schooling.
Educational Disobedience is not only a call to action but a beacon of hope for parents seeking to revolutionize their children’s learning experience. It’s a must-read for those ready to challenge the status quo and advocate for educational justice.
Ripple Effects
“What I didn’t realize is that my push for her to be included into the program was actually making her a target; even her smallest missteps were magnified, and she was often excluded more than included. My daughter was ultimately being used as a pawn in a fight she didn’t even start because people in leadership didn’t feel like she belonged. It was her kindergarten teacher who finally found the courage to speak up, and she independently scored her. The teacher’s gifted score was only one point off in the exact same area I had scored. Even still, my daughter never got into the gifted program in that school district. This journey taught me two valuable lessons about advocating for my child’s education: Be prepared to play the long game, and be ready for unintentional collateral damage.
For years, my daughter begged me to homeschool her; time and again, I found a reason for why it wasn’t a good idea. I made so many excuses. But the truth was, despite being a trained teacher, the prospect of being 100 percent responsible for my daughter’s education terrified me. It terrified me because I knew some homeschool parents and I was nothing like them. The moms in these families were true stay-at-home moms. I didn’t see any working moms or single moms homeschooling. I didn’t see any moms going to college and homeschooling. And I definitely didn’t see any moms like me homeschooling. There was no representation of me anywhere. When I looked around my suburban $250K house on the lake and golf course community, I saw no representation of anyone who looked like me, and I wouldn’t have had anything to use as my success metric to even know if I was doing it right.
But rather than try to explain all of this to an elementary child, I made excuses such as, “I have to work full-time and you are too young to manage the work alone”; “I don’t have time to do all those homeschool field trips”; “You’ll miss out on the socialization of school.”
My experience and academic training led me to believe that public education at the hands of complete strangers was a better option than me teaching my own child. The irony was that my own daughter believed more in me and my ability to homeschool her than I did myself.”
About the Author
Dr. Annise Mabry is an educator, advocate, and founder of The Dr. Annise Mabry Foundation. She specializes in alternative education and community engagement, with a focus on creating inclusive and empowering learning opportunities.
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This looks like a fantastic read. Thanks for sharing.
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