We have tried a bit of this and a bit of that over the 7 years we've been parents and lived and traveled with our 3 kids.
I started out gung ho homeschooler, with lofty aspirations of speeding through curriculum and achieving all sorts of goals... Brooke was a pretty willing student most of the time, she learns quickly and likes to learn.
Then reality hit with faced with doing this in a respectful, inspiring way with kids with their own opinions and paces of life, so I started to learn about child led learning. I had, as people say... a major "Aha moment." I could feel a switch in my head while I was reading a certain book, I believe it was "How Kids Learn." that now looked at learning as proactive discovery rather than passive acceptance of information. So I started to feel that if I could just keep the right materials and opportunities in front of them and certain distractions out of the way, they would find their learning path...
We decided to move abroad with them when they were 4, 2, and newborn and our focus became finding classes for them to meet people and have somewhere to go regularly, and provide enough time exploring outdoors, providing creative materials to explore with, and plenty of good literature in between...
Then we stumbled upon Reggio Method/project based learning, and spent time in Reggio Emilia Italy learning about it, and evolved into a project based, inquiry based learning style...
Along the way there have been plenty of curves in the road, good days and bad, doubts, and successes, but when I reflect on it all, I feel what we are really doing and inspired to do, is WORLDSCHOOLING!
Every so often and honestly more often than I really would prefer, we reflect, regroup and route plan for the next phase. Sometimes its exhausting, because when you open yourself to learning from the world, the options are endless and while there isn't a right or wrong answer, there can be good and better choices. We think about each new phase trying to take into account each of our interests, needs, and desires, and not get too attached to any certain place or situation, knowing that we can stay as long as we want, but there are new learning experiences and discoveries in our path if we choose to move to a new city or country.
So, what is worldschooling? A wise young, traveler coined the term and I so identify with it now that I forget most people haven't heard of it, (It's when one actively experiences and learns from the world around them: the home, family, friends, strangers of all backgrounds, libraries, parks, sports, forests, schools, towns, and of course the world and the world wide web. It also emphasizes that there is always more to learn from this wonderful, complex world regardless of whether one has a high school degree, is a doctor, or is solely self-educated. http://eligerzon.com/worldschooling.php )
As time has passed and we've lived and traveled our way around Europe, we've come to believe that it means making the most of our location in the best way we can taking into account the needs and interests of each individual. So, this can mean school, it can mean classes, it can mean, taking weeks or month off to travel, relax, whatever we decide at the time. This mindset is important to me because when you start roaming off the well trodden path, you need something to keep you focused and people to identify with. I've realized I don't completely identify with unschooling, or schooling indefinitely, or strict homeschooling either and I don't want to limit ourselves to anything. So we are always free to change our minds completely based on what we feel is best for the individual kids at that time. So, meaning we do some homeschooling, some unschooling, some worldschooling, and some school, hoping to learn in a natural way from people we encounter along the way.
