Nature Journals-Anne of Green Gables House, PEI, Canada
“What do you do about the children’s educations?”
It’s by far the most commonly asked question, and it’s a fair one; education is extremely important.
I come from a long line of teachers, three generations, beginning with my grandmother, who taught in a one room school during the depression, both my parents are teachers as well.
I was educated by a variety of means, public school, parochial school, private school, and for third grade and eighth grade my folks took us out of school altogether and hauled us around the continent in the back of a van. My brother and I both agree that those two years traveling and “van schooling” were the best of our educational lives.
We decided, before we ever had kids, not to send our children to school. It took me about five minutes on “the other side of the desk” in the public school system in America to realize that this was NOT what I wanted for my kids, should any ever join us on our journey.
However, knowing what you DON’T want to do is not the same thing as knowing what you DO want to do, and so I dove head long into five years of reading and research and “re-education.” Much of what I discovered resonated at my core with what I intuitively “knew” to be right about children and how they learn, and ran in direct contradiction to my university education in “education.”
To make a very long story short, our first business was born out of my passion for education and the awakening that resulted from that research period. I’ve spent over ten years in educational consulting and curriculum design for families who desire to create a Living Education for their children. I’ve home/road/world schooled our children since birth and I can show you how you can create a completely unique, incredibly fabulous, wonderfully inspiring childhood and education for your children.
As this section of the site continues to grow you’ll find articles and resources that will share our world schooling with you and give you the resources you need to find your own path and learn together with your kids… life is an Ed-venture, after all!
Helpful Links:
Are you wondering about how we home school high school on the road? Here’s an article I wrote about that for Vagabond Family that will answer some of your questions!
Here is a small rant I wrote recently about education and socialization, in response to a question we received.
This one is about Longterm Travel As Education and was published on Boots-N-All. It’s about travel as education, not instead of, not in spite of, but the world as a classroom, you know?
This is a very long Road Schooling 101 piece that I wrote for Wandr’ly Magazine with lots of resources and age leveled recommendations.
Here’s an article about how to Take Your Kids Out Of School and travel with the teacher’s blessing.
This one is a quick list of Five Great Resources for World Schooling on Wandering Educators.
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I truly connect with what you wrote Jen on Education. I’m 55 now, and have had 8 children. I was brought up in an atheistic So. Calif. home, and went through the upper class “best” public school had to offer. I ended up a hippie on drugs, stoned at my high school graduation. My wife Sally (brought up in PA Old order Amish home) and I have brought up our family with a Christian worldview, in Christian private schools and did a few years of homeschooling too. We have not traveled all over the world, but raised the children amidst large scale gardening, learning woodworking and all that goes with it in my woodshop, and learning building by helping with major old house remodels we did as family projects. And of course the 6 girls learned much about cooking, baking, and everything kitchen from my Amish raised wife and her fantastic cooking skills. No home ec. needed. I rode dirtbikes with my 2 sons, and they learned repair and fix it skills hands on. Its great to be able to travel the world with the family and learn that way, but the vision can be carried out right in our USA. Just follow the vision, and don’t hand your responsibility to the state to do for you.
Ed Sillman
Mr. Sillman,
Your kids are certainly the very best evidence of what you say being absolutely true!! You surely CAN carry out that vision with the USA, or any other tiny corner of the world and we’re blessed to know MANY families who are!! For us, the vision includes travel, but that’s just us.
We are working on a little project right now that will launch in January that is going to be dedicated to helping families do all sorts of “different” things and live their dreams, no matter what those dreams are. We’re not quite ready to announce it yet, but it’s a collaborative effort with lots of different families with different lifestyles and different dreams. I hope it will be an encouragement to families that want to step outside the box at home, or abroad.
Stay tuned!
I also come from a long line of educators as well as
proudly representing myself as an educator. My philosophy on
education includes true learning takes place wherever one is
engaged and captivated. This could be in a classroom or under an
oak tree. Congratualtions for taking the responsibility of
educating your children and not allowing them to be bombarded with
the ideas of what others think.
Thanks Tracy! We appreciate the encouragement!
[…] The Edventure Project: No one has helped us more around education and travel than Jennifer and Tony Miller. […]
we homeschooled/unschooled for 2 and a half years, then put our kids in a school we founded ourselves (experimentation, emotional intelligence, nature, social interactions was the focus), and now we’re in our second year on the road. education is a grand adventure. thanks for sharing yours. i know we are close regionally, i do hope we’ll get to meet up . the kids (and their parents) would love that. gabi
Me too Gabi! We’re finally settling in here a bit! It’s been a long couple of weeks! We’d love to connect! How long are you here for?
When I retired from 33 years in IT in Nov 2011, I decided to start my own company: Learners First, LLC. (My web site is learners-first.com). I wanted to work with adults, though. But as far as kids go, your “edventures” are “living the dream” with learner-centered education, it seems to me. Your family has written and videoed so much! It’s going to take me forever to get through it all and really appreciate what you’ve experienced. — Russ
Thanks Russ, for the encouragement and your kind words. We’re just sold out to doing the best we can with what we have… and this is what we’ve got. 🙂
I am so excited that I discovered this! I think what you guys are doing is awesome! A sound education in my opinion goes far beyond academics and should involve building character, encouraging free thinkers, and fostering talent. Kudos! I would love to do a blurb about education on the road and share this great philosophy.
http://www.myphilosophyofeducation.org