In 2010, Stephan Stafford, at the age of 13, had a triple major in pre-med, mathematics and computer science at Morehouse College. As reported in the March 12, 2012, Milwaukee Courier series, Young, Gifted and Black, scholar Stephan is the youngest student ever to be admitted to this renowned Atlanta all-male campus.
And additionally, at the age of 15, as again reported in the Nov. 9, 2013, Courier series, Stafford was included among TheBestSchools.org listing of the World’s 50 Smartest Teenagers.
He was home schooled until age 11.
At the age of 11, according to the Courier account, his mother was challenged with teaching Algebra II. His parents then decided to send him to Morehouse College to audit mathematics. In his first class, College Algebra, he scored 105 and in Pre-Calculus his grade was 99. Given his exemplary academic performance level even in view of his still blossoming teen years, Morehouse admitted him as a full-time student.
Being an area resident and because of his age, Stephan was driven to campus daily where he attends his classes and picked up by his mom for his return ride home in the evenings.
Citing Garrett Tenney in his June 16, 2012, posting, African Americans increasingly turn to home schooling, nationwide, astounding numbers of American families are selecting to home school their children each year, and the fastest-growing segment of home-schooling numbers are African-Americans. Tenney estimates that some 220,000 Black children are home schooled.
According to the site, Successful Homeschooling, African-Americans, “want to escape a failing school system that harms Black children at even higher rates than it does other children.” The writing continues with the point that public schooling tends to teach, “ideals that contradict traditional Black values.”
“Since the landmark decision, Brown v. Topeka in 1954, there has been a 66 percent decline in African-American teachers,” posits educator Jawanza Kunjufu in his Sept. 27, 2013, Atlanta Voice writing on African-American home schooling.
“Many African American students,” he adds, “are in classrooms where they are not loved, liked or respected. Their culture is not honored and bonding is not even a consideration. They are given low expectations, which helps to explain how students can be promoted from one grade to another without mastery of content.”
Successful Homeschooling further shares that many Black parents additionally decide to home educate so that they can teach African-American history and culture, an area, notes the posting, that is “often neglected by traditional schools until Black History Month.”
“At home, children can learn about the heroic Black soldiers, pilots and inventors who have contributed to America,” the site reveals. “They grow up with a strong sense of purpose and identity, which is so often damaged by the racial bias, labeling and negative peer pressure that can occur in public schools.”
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