Roadschooling

There is NOTHING taught in the classroom that is more valuable than the lessons shared looking out the window of a long bus ride.

This is a statement I read from a family who sold all their positions and took off for a yearlong trip around the world. I wonder at this and think about how many people think the same way or think it is the dumbest thing in the world to do.

We are thought of by some people to be very weird. Yes, I have heard just that. I think that that is exactly right. We are a bit weird and that is just fine. It actually makes me smile.

So far we have never been in a position with our children’s education to have to make a huge decision regarding our travels and their school. We have taken trips where they have missed some school (a few weeks) but this time they will be missing the last 3 months of their year. The first thing we did before making this trip a reality was to sit down and talk with their principles, teaches and the many other teacher friends we know. Most people seemed to agree that this experience was worth the schooling time that they would be missing. I totally commend them for saying that. I also fully agree.

The thing about leaning is that we all learn in different ways. Our kids like lots of others learn by doing. They learn best by seeing things with their own eyes, and touching this with their own hands. This trip will be filled with so many things to learn by seeing and doing. I love that.

If you have ever spent time with Dean doing well, anything. You will know that doing things with Dean is like Survivor meets The Amazing Race. Life is always filled with very interesting and amazing things when Dean is in the lead. The kids and I are on a continuous journey of learning if Dean is around. Dean is a natural teacher and so everything we do is a learning experience. We are so lucky to have him as our dad and husband.

So far we have decided that their schooling will consist of tones of reading as we go, writing in journals every day, discussing our day and what we learned about the similarities and differences of where we are compared to what we know about home. We will concentrate on the local history of the location we are at, we will learn about the local currency and practice daily money exchange, we will spend a lot of time hiking and rock collecting where the kids and I will learn from Dean so much about animals, bugs, rocks, trees, plants and the environment. We will spend time in the water learning about the ocean and the fish that live there, we will learn about different languages and hopefully pick up a few words of Thai, Japanese and Vietnamese along the way.

The last piece of education that we may be lacking is the math. That is the part is a bit harder to do while on the move. Some options are to bring some type of math work with, not do it at all or to do math work to catch up when we get back in summer. At this point we will talk more with the teachers and come to a solution that will make the most sense for our kids.

The last part is that we love our kid’s teachers. We are so sad to not be able to have them teach our kids for the rest of the year. Our kids will miss them. The school system has been so entirely supportive of our whole travel choice. We find ourselves so fortunate to live in the town we do and have the amazing teachers and principals that we do.

So ya, many have asked this question and now you know. Any suggestions of how we could do things better are always welcome.