Listen to “CHM132:Interview with Brenaea Fairchild of The Melanin Village” on Spreaker.
What a wonderful opportunity I had to chat with The Melanin Village founder, Brenaea Fairchild!
A lover of people and all things good, Brenaea is an educational entrepreneur who enjoys the gift of homeschooling her children alongside her wonderful husband, Matthew. Always looking for ways to innovate and make the lives of Black folks, moms, and educators more joyful, Brenaea has created both The Homeschool Stash-which helps homeschoolers easily pin and organize resources- and The Melanin Village, a growth-centered gathering space for Black and Brown homeschoolers.
Are you a visual person? I am super happy to introduce my video interview as well! You can watch our interview below. (It is the very same as the audio you will hear on Itunes and Spotify.)
What Brenaea Fairchild of The Melanin Village and I talked about
- How Brenaea entered into home education
- Her “Montessori-Mason” approach that focuses on educating the whole child. She believes that learning at its core is relational and allows her the opportunity to honor the child at their zone of proximal development (not too easy and not too hard)
- What her typical homeschool day looks like: structured learning time in the morning, balancing her children’s activities, lots of play and fun, and free time in the afternoons
- How homeschooling has changed for her since 2020. She put some organization for laundry systems in her home, as well as social structure for her boys. “Moms need lots of grace and systems in place.” Well said, Brenaea!
- Benefits in homeschooling: academic outcomes are typically better, siblings usually build better rapport with one another and choose friendship, and she has the opportunity to build relationships with kids who become young adults that she enjoys spending time with
Celebrate Diversity with The Melanin Village (and other resources)
- Heritage Packs by Amber O’Neal Johnston of Heritage Mom
- Woke Homeschooling’s Conscious U.S. History
- Science and Spanish classes run by The Melanin Village
Brenaea’s words of encouragement
- You are uniquely equipped to homeschool your children.
- There is no one who can show up for your children in the way that you do.
- You can do hard things.
- You don’t have to do them alone.
Join The Melanin Village Today!
The Melanin Village is a growth-centered gathering space for black and brown homeschooling families. Moms can show up and share authentially with one another. Pay a small monthly fee and gain access to all the many benefits, including: bi-weekly meetups and build relationships, monthly educational trainings, a learning library, and the Black To Homeschool Conference (coming up at the end of August 2022!). Fun things happen in The Village, too, like annual yearbooks, spirit week, gaming club, Black Girl Magic club, and self-paced homeschool courses. Join the village today!
(And in case you miss the cutoff, no worries, there will be more opportunities to join the village at a later date- typically twice per year. Be looking out again for new membership acceptance at the start of the new year.)
Thanks for listening and watching!
I truly love to chat with homeschool moms of faith. If you are a new homeschooler I certainly hope you’ve found Brenaea’s words and her homeschool story encouraging.
If you are just getting started with homeschooling, here are some of my homeschooling resources for newbies, and if you have additional questions about homeschooling, I would be glad to answer your homeschooling questions.
That’s what homeschool moms do – we help one another!
Until next time…happy homeschooling.
