RTW Walkabout Countdown - Homeschooling on the Road

On Researching Home Schooling for Older Children During Extended Travel

Our season of summer play is waning, the girls are back in school. The arrival of September reminds us of all the planning and things we need to get in order before we can start our ‘round the world walkabout in February; our planned departure is now less than six months away. So many details I’ve put on the back burner need to be worked through. Not the least of which is education for the girls.

Of course, everyone I talk with tells me that learning will just “happen organically.” I know the girls will gain a lot from just exploring the places we find ourselves, and it is so much easier to pick up languages when you are immersed in them. Humanities subjects should be easy. It’s the middle and high school math and science I’m concerned about.

I’ve looked to some of the people have gone RTW walkabout with their children before me, to see what they’ve done. Soultravelers3 is a family of three who have been on walkabout since 2006, and have chronicled it on their website. ( http://www.soultravelers3.com/ )They’ve told me that schooling has not been an issue for them, the experiences provide the learning. I believe their daughter is about eight right now, so her needs are not really the same as ours. I would not have been concerned, either, if our girls were in the primary grades. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that I can’t really teach my daughter the high school level math she’s currently taking. Algebra was a long time ago.

Our school needs to be highly portable. As my older daughter, Hannah, left for school this morning, she hefted her book back onto her shoulder with the usual grunt. Two binders and three textbooks is a lot of weight, I can’t imagine lugging this from country to country. So, armed with laptops, maybe an external drive to upload virtual textbooks onto, and the internet, we are searching for a plan to make our way through.

Online resources for education are growing rapidly. Both Google and the US Library of Congress are working on digitizing thousands of books to make them available over the internet. Amazon is working on many more to make them available on their Kindle e-reader. FadiPick, a blogger I follow from time to time, tells about a private school in Boston which is getting rid of the traditional library altogether and getting Kindle devices for the students to check out. (http://blog.thoughtpick.com/2009/09/traditional-library-books-belong-to-museums-thanks-to-e-readers.html ) YouTube even has video “classes” available in a whole section dedicated to education http://www.youtube.com/edu.

Most of these resources are somewhat static. Although the video includes expression and voice, it is still one-way communication. There is a movement toward interactive distance learning, but it is mostly taking root in the college level. It will eventually trickle down into high school and middle school, but these resources are more limited right now. VirtualWayfarer (aka blogger Alex Berger) talks more about this in his post http://virtualwayfarer.com/reddit-ted-and-sir-ken-robinson/. As someone who spent a couple of years traveling with his family during middle school (as our girls will be doing) he has a lot of insight into what it takes to “attend school” underway.

We have found some resources, from online private schools to e-curriculum for homeschooling. In Ojai, California, is a private prep school called Laurel Springs (http://www.laurelsprings.com/home ) which offers complete curriculum and a seamless move to and from other schools, as they are just that, an accredited private school. I understand they offer a great deal of teacher support and can customize classes. Say, if we were staying in Croatia, they could put together a curriculum to study the country’s history and geography. They can begin courses on our schedule, as well. The down side is that, as a private school, the cost is private school tuition, with extra charges for customization. For us, this may be too much, although may be a perfect fit for families with greater resources.

Another private online school I have found is K12.com. ( http://www.k12.com/ ) They offer online classes, and one can take them separately or enroll in several. They do begin on specific dates. These may be a good alternative, to fill in the math and science that will be more difficult for me to accomplish for my children.
As a resource for homeschooling families, there a number of sites which offer online curriculum, such as Global Student Network (http://www.globalstudentnetwork.com/ ). These will also help us cobble together schooling for the girls.

I am finding the time it takes to put together the plan, even to begin this RTW walkabout is huge. From researching apartments to making plans for our pets to online curriculum, there are an overwhelming number of details. I’ll give updates on the education component once we are underway, what works and were we run into hurdles.

Update: October 7, 2009. I was actually on the phone this morning with our regional education service district home school specialist. She is sending me a form for “enrolling” the girls in homeschool, basically letting the school district know that they are not truant. I talked to her about wanting to make sure that we took the courses which would be required for their grade levels, so the return would be painless. She sent me to the state board of education website and said they have the curriculum requirements online, I have not gone there yet. Colorado may have something similar. She also suggested that we talk with the counselor at the high school our older daughter will return to once we have a curriculum in mind, to see if they will be happy with it and not make her repeat anything.

I’m hoping to have the girls go through the K12 sample lessons this weekend sometime.

Update: 10/11/2009 I spent a good deal of time on the phone last night talking about homeschooling with my sister-in-law. She homeschooled her three children, mostly while living in Japan. Their circumstances were a bit different than ours; living in one place for months at a time allowed them to collect their own library of books. Obviously, we will not want to lug multiple books with us.

She did know people who had used both Laurel Springs and K12, and had used K12 for her own children’s math courses. She felt that both had good reputations, and people were happy with them.

The most valuable information I got from the conversation was about the relative importance of transcripts. In elementary and even middle school, the requirements for documentation are not nearly as vital as in high school. For the younger children, it is enough to use an online course for their math, science, and English. Social studies can be through learning about the history, culture, and government of the places we visit.
Hannah, who is in middle school, is currently taking a couple of high school level courses, and we will want to continue those for the second half of the school year, as well. Once Hannah hits high school next fall, we will want to enroll her in an online school which will handle all the testing and transcripts, so the return will be easy.

Our next step is to meet with the counselors from the schools the girls will be returning to. They will be the ones deciding what is acceptable and what is not, so getting their input before the trip could be extremely valuable.

Update: 10/14/09 Today I got an e-mail back from the counselor at the local high school, confirming what my sister-in-law Nina said. Marlie will be fine returning to middle school with just our own records of what subjects she covered. The high school, on the other hand, needs accredited transcripts for Hannah to re-enter school with her peers. So, my advice to anyone planning to homeschool on the road and return to a regular high school is first contact the guidance counselors at the school your child will be returning to at the end of your travels. They can tell you exactly what your school district will and will not accept.

Update: 12/10/09 OK- I think we’ve done it. I found some more resources from a special intrest group forum on homeschooling, posing the question about online curriculum, and found some other really great options. For high school, I think we’ll use Compuhigh It looks decent, is accredited, and the price tag was much easier to swallow than the others we liked. For little monkey we’ll go with Time 4 Learning as the school district is not such a stickler for accreditation for middle school curriculum.

There is also a new blog, put together by some of the Location Independent moms. They are working on information for families going “Location Independent” with their children: Location Independent Parents Could be a very valuable resource for anyone in our situation. I wish they had started it a year ago…