There are endless sources on the internet of information on educating your own children. Interest has only grown since the pandemic. Methods range from following rigorous online programs with live instruction to ‘unschooling’, which is basically letting your kids decide what they want to spend their time doing and hope for the best. What we chose to do was somewhere in the middle.
Travel schooling
Travel schooling is a bit like homeschooling, just more mobile. By strict definition, it just means ‘schooling by extensive travel’. Live online programs are not a realistic option, given scheduling issues due to differences in time zones between the instruction and the student. Even learning in a purely online environment is not possible when wi-fi is not omnipresent.
What appears to work best in a highly mobile lifestyle is a mix of instructional videos accessed at any number of online sites, along with some physical exercise books, and the balance made up from hands-on experience on the road. A typical day might be:
- 1 hour of math, from an exercise book that can be filled out by the child, reviewed by a parent, then discarded once the material is understood
- 1 hour writing in a journal, or creating a story based on something seen recently
- Discussion about some unusual cultural aspect in the country or region being traveled, and some basic research as to its significance and origins
- Physical exercise by walking or playing in a park
- Reading, best completed while waiting for or moving on transport
Determining Curriculum
Obviously this is highly dependent on student age(s). I focused only on elementary school material, which is relatively simple and manageable without a great deal of specialized references. We took a few math exercise books that cover her current grade level, as well for the next grade. We have a few blank notebooks for journal writing and drawing. The only other physical paper items are maps, which I want to serve both as tangible lessons in geography, and to give meaning to where we are going. Through our tablet we have access to digitized books from our (formerly) local library system, which can be ‘checked out’ just like physical books. Just about everything else learned will come from the pure sensory experience of being places and dealing with real life encounters.
Not wanting to completely disengage from the school district we left, I chose to register as an official homeschool in the State of California, which can be done online. The specific curriculum for every grade level can also be downloaded. I didn’t do this to formulate lesson plans, but more as a general reference of what my child would face, in any given subject, were they handed a test. Following the state requirements would theoretically allow a seamless transition back into normal school, if we chose to re-enter the school system at some future date.
Focusing on the task (both students and parents)
This part remains to be fully field tested. But, in planning the trip, I felt that we had some advantages. Forced distance learning during COVID did not severely disrupt our child’s capacity to focus on school. Receiving instruction or correction from parents, while not accepted as readily as from her teacher, has not proved overly difficult. I realize that kids all learn at different rates, and that some require a great deal more help than others, so really one size does not fit all. Some only learn with a lot of structure, while others need freedom. The test of time for us will be how to adapt to whatever allows our daughter to get the material into her head.