ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

Hello, my name is Robin Janel Smith.  I live in Virginia Beach, VA, and I am the owner of Whatever Media, a company that works with small businesses and nonprofits to help them with their digital media needs, and founder of Surge Academy, an organization that offers digital media and technology courses to K-12 students online.  I am also a much loved wife, and a mother to an amazing 1 year old son.  I am a graduate of Hampton University and Regent University, and I am currently working on my MFA in Digital Arts at Goucher College.  This project is being completed as partial fulfillment for the requirements of that last degree.

I became interested in the concept of homeschooling when I was invited to teach video game design and digital media classes at local homeschool co-ops in the Hampton Roads area in 2010.  That experience opened my eyes to the world of homeschooling and since then, I’ve always been interested in exploring how this way of learning could have a positive effect on the Black community.  Through my exploration of homeschooling, I learned about unschooling, and I listened to Black parents speak about the idea of raising free black children outside of the constructs of a system that they didn’t believe was designed for children of color in the first place.

I believe that representation matters, and I want this docuseries to give Black families a way to share their experiences with unschooling, and to explain how this way of life and learning has affected them as parents raising Black children in America. I can’t wait to speak one on one with more families, so that as they share their stories, they will hopefully inspire other Black parents to find creative ways to inspire their children to learn and be successful.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for taking interest in me and in this project!  Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, and if you have any questions about me or this project, just contact me via the form on this website, and I’ll try to respond as soon as possible.