One of the main things people want to know about when I tell them I am taking Nyneave travelling around the world is how she will keep up with her education.
Many people don’t realise that in the UK putting your child into full time education is a choice and isn’t a legal requirement. Legally you must provide your child with an education but that does not mean you have to send them to school.
Why I wanted to worldschool
I have always had my reservations about the benefits of school. Even from when I attended myself I always questioned why I needed to learn about Trigonometry but not about TAX. Why I needed to learn about photosynthesis but not how to get a mortgage.
Life skills are not taught to us in standard education and we leave school qualified for nothing. Literally! So what is the point of it all?
I feel schools are there simply to teach children how to conform, become obedient employees and do as they are told and not question anything.
The education system we have today was created during the industrial revolution when we needed lots of people to have these skills to keep everything working, but times have changed.
We live in a digital age where the people who move forward in life are the creatives, entrepreneurs and people who think outside the box.
What we should really be teaching our children to do is think for themselves, question everything, research for themselves and learn about the world around them.
Problems with our current education system
It’s no secret that our current education system has many problems.
Teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate, just take a look at this article from the Guardian – Burned out: why are so many teachers quitting or off sick with stress? There is a high focus on passing exams which many people would agree doesn’t actually bring out the best in our children and puts so much additional strain onto teachers.
Have you heard this saying before?
Yet we test all of our children in the exact same way on the exact same things and then tell them they are smart of not. This is so unfair. Children will have different strengths and no two children are the same. They do not learn in the same way and they will not see a test in the same way.
You only have to look at the success of the Nordic education system to see that the way we do things in the UK isn’t quite right. There children’s learning is heavily focused on play in the early years.
What is the difference between homeschooling, unschooling and worldschooling?
Homeschooling is the education of children at home by their parents.
Unschooling focuses on learner chosen activities. Or in other words it lets the child decide what they are interested in learning.
Worldschooling will be slightly different for every family. The one common factor is that children do not attend a formal school. They learn from their environment usually whilst travelling with their families either long term or regularly throughout the year.
Benefits of worldschooling
Worldschooling puts children in control of what and how they learn. Nyneave has dyslexia and so she struggles to take in large amounts of information by reading. However is she watches a video about a subject she remembers lots of what she has seen. The freedom to work in a way that best suits you child is one of the key benefits of worldschooling.
Children are also free to learn about subjects that interest them, or discover more about things they are naturally coming into contact with in life. The other day we started talking about food and the food chain so we did an afternoons work on the subject. She had brought it up and was interested, so she took in all of the information.
Leaning about the world around you is so much more natural then learning in a classroom. Why learn about history from a book when you can go and see a play or visit a museum. Travelling the world gives so many amazing opportunities to learn about history, geography and culture first hand.
What is stopping you?
If this idea sounds appealing to you then I bet you are thinking there are reasons why you couldn’t do it.
You can’t leave your job, your partner can’t leave their job, you don’t have the money?
Well if you really want this then you can make it happen. Check out my Top Tips for travelling on a budget to find out how you can start worldschooling your child without much in the bank.
And check out my Online business ideas so that you can start an online business that gives you total location freedom!
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