A Worldschooling Adventure: Some Early Considerations
Worldschooling Parameters
There is no “formula” for worldschooling. There are so many types of family travel, and new educational approaches are evolving all the time with emerging technology, infrastructure, and innovative models of work and school.
Worldschooling might coincide with a school year, a fiscal year, a summer, or some other significant time frame in your family’s rhythm. If you can’t take off several months or more, you can prioritize family adventures and adopt a worldschooling state of mind. It’s not an all-or-nothing prospect. It simply has to make sense to you and your family.
To help get your gears turning on what your worldschooling could like like for your family, consider a few key parameters:
Breadth or depth?
Do you want to travel fast and go to lots of places? Count countries? Or do you want to travel slowly and pick a few places where you settle in, find an apartment, and try to fit in with the locals?
Home or abroad?
Do you want to mostly stay in your home country and learn about and explore it more deeply? Or would you like to head overseas for an international adventure where the languages, foods, and cultures are different from what you are used to?
Take your home with you?
Do you want to travel in a motor home, boat, or van where, like a snail, you have your home on your back? Or would you prefer to carry a pack and be mobile, moving about freely without an engine or anchor to weigh you down?
Fixed timeline or open ended?
Do you have to return home by a certain date? Do you want to wait and see how your family does in motion before you decide if your trip is six months or three years? Maybe you do not have to decide any return date at all.
Getting clear on some of these priorities can help you focus your choices and move forward confidently. And don’t worry, whatever you think now, it is probably going to change! But having a few decisions made sets you in motion.
Let’s drill down a little further. Your worldschooling adventure could be:
* A six-month sabbatical
* Two years of full-time travel to six continents and thirty countries
* A one-year road trip through the US South in an RV
* Two months every summer for five years in a row
* Nine months in Barcelona with weekend explorations throughout Europe
* An around-the-world trip with a defined beginning and end
* A walk-out-the-door-and-improvise-everything adventure
Worldschooling can be whatever you choose; there are infinite possibilities. The consensus is this: Don’t try to do everything! Put your right foot on what you love. Put your left foot on where you want to go. Now, do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around, and that’s what it’s all about!
A Family Affair
There’s anotherimportant step. When the adults in the crew are on board and ready to start planning in earnest, we urge you to bring your children into the discussion. We loved involving our kids in the process. It was their onboarding to the great family adventure, and by virtue of being engaged, they felt valued. This was essential to our trip success and could be for yours, too.
Encountering Others’ Reactions, Too
Okay, so you’ve done some soul-searching, stared down your demons, considered your time horizon, talked with your partner, and engaged your kids. Now you’re letting yourself feel excited. It’s actually going to happen! OMG!
And then you tell some people your plan, and your sister-in-law says, “Must be nice. I could never do that.” Or a snickering colleague says, “Good luck finding work after a trip like that.” Maybe an uncle insinuates you are reckless for pulling your kids out of school.
Others may have opinions and question your choice. They might comment on your finances. Some will react with joy, but others might suggest you are irresponsible. Please remember that you don’t have to apologize or justify your decision when you encounter those reactions. Stay true to yourself and your family’s priorities, and absolve yourself of any guilt or need to explain.
It’s okay. You will find plenty of people who get it and will understand your reasoning and support your choice. We three coauthors are some of those people, and you will meet many more of them in our book and in the greater community of traveling families.
