I wanted to sit down and circle with you on our experience with "schooling".
What we do now has had many incarnations and inluences. Homeschooling, unschooling, radical unschooling, roadschooling, world schooling.
Each of those pieces is part of our whole journey, and I certainly invite you to explore them in more depth, if you feel called toward them.
I want to share with you how they impact us today.
Homeschooling was our first adventure out of the public school system. I did hardcore research for 6 months on how to create my own curriculum, centered around my values at the time of frugal living, environmentalism, family connection, community, and interest-based organized learning. I also learned how to translate our living neatly into subject categories and see all the delicious overlap.
Still to this day, I organize my insides using the information I learned in my homeschooling research. It brings me peace to see what they are doing through a lens that leaves me feeling like a fulfilled home-maker.
Unschooling is a trust journey unfolding. It is child-led learning. It is parent supported (not parent driven). It is absolutely a journey, filled with learning about learning, practicing, self-doubt, reflection, pace, learning curves - the whole shebang.
Unschooling has been a huge piece of our learning foundation for almost 5 years.
Radical Unschooling emphasizes whole life learning, rather than just academics. To me, RU is about how far-reaching and how deeply we can dig to embody a self-guided learning trusting lifestyle. We are absolutely radical in our unschooling. My world revolves around trusting my kids and allowing our processes.
Mostly, I think what we got from this was to trust my kids in every area of their being, and trying to not make it about me, but allow them to be free to be them.
Roadschooling is whatever-style-of-"schooling"-floats-one's-boat on the road. Homeschoolers who live on the road, roadschool. Unschoolers who live on the road, roadschool.
For us, living on the road has opened up unique opportunities for living and learning that have become embedded in our lifestyle.
World Schooling, to me, is expanding to understand we have the whole world as our curriculum, and also to be aware about including the whole world in our learning. It also means travel to other countries and immersion into cultures, traditions, and lifestyles that grow our understanding of people and ourselves.
I can already feel us expanding to include the whole world in our scope, and I look forward to international travel.
Gypsy schooling is about being where we are. And honoring where we are in our journey.
It's about making a whole day about exploring a beach or a hiking trail or a new library or a park.
It's about meeting new people in new ways and learning how to find and give value in those interactions.
Gypsy schooling often looks like driving down the road and seeing a sign or a viewing point that feels right to investigate, and pulling over to do it.
It means moving at my kids' pace. Not rushing them along. Allowing them to be ready to leave when we start preparing to.
It means iphones and Netflix whenever the kids want.
It often means a lot of Mindcraft, Legos, action figures, and Cartoon Network for Noble.
And My Little Pony and babies for Jaja.
Kass spends most of her time learning about love, relationships, self, music, and entrepreneurship recently.
It means lots of parks and lots of library days and lots of community events, because we are living in the midst of it.
It means that the bulk of my kids learning revolves around living.
How to interact with people of all ages and all journeys.
How to tell time based on our van's clock.
How to tell number placement based on the "estimated miles remaining" guage.
How to read prices, add, and subtract through grocery shopping.
Economics when we talk about varying food prices in different states. Or gas prices.
And sometimes politics.
How to divide through sharing food together.
How to read based on finding favorite shows on Netflix, books, street signs.
State and US flags because we drive by them and yell them out everytime we see them.
State capitols as we drive through them.
Science based on the incredible variance of bugs and plants we see, and how we investigate our hypotheses.
We experience weather and seasons in different areas.
But the bulk of our learning is about ourselves and how to be a family.
We learn about our needs. We learn how to move our bodies in new ways as we explore our constantly changing world. We learn what we like and don't like. We learn how to learn more about something if we are interested.
We learn how to have feelings and how to express them in ways that do us justice while simultaneously honoring another.
We learn how to play together, how to explore together, how to flow together, how to help each other, how to grow together.
Gypsy schooling is about honoring each family member's free-flowing path, and finding ways to be together in that diversity.
It's about taking advantage of the moments when the iphone is dead and we have a nice car ride together, to talk about interesting stuff and about life and about ourselves.
It's about driving through lightning storms at night and listening to the little kids exclaim at every light show, without feeling the need to explain what lightening is. So they can enjoy the magic and the wonder... And maybe checking out lightening in slow motion on YouTube the next day and googling a bit about lightening, in a way that keeps their imagination and sense of wonder intact.
It's a balance between living and understanding. It's a dance between understanding and not knowing.
And the view along the way is breathtaking.
That is a little peek in our gypsy schooling lifestyle.
It varies so greatly, often depending on the child (my 14 year old is certainly learning differently than my 6 1/2 year old), or the experience (sometimes it is a pass-through, and sometimes it sticks and we want more and more).
Ideally, I would fill this page with pics from our many adventures, the varied landscapes we have viewed and wandered through, the people and experiences we have been honored to connect to.
The beautiful thing about living on the road is how big it all is. A big giant world of things to do and see and partake of.
New. Similar. Both important.
We go with the flow and trust that there is always plenty on the living and learning buffet :)
All my love,
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