Back to School!

Can You Take a Child out of School for a Year?

I recently came across a parents group arguing against longterm family travel on the grounds that “many children will never catch up after a year out of school…”

This seemed a bit bizarre to me. Firstly because the context was Emma Thompson’s plans to travel with her daughter. And one would think an Oxford-educated Oscar-winning screenwriter-producer-actress could probably add quite a bit of value to the primary curriculum.

Secondly because a lot of primary school teachers know (and will admit privately) that what’s taught in primary schools is fairly basic, and it’s the social element that’s most important.

And thirdly because it contradicts the experiences of most travelling families. Now including us.

Back to School After a Year Out!

Yup. After a year of unschooling – or a year out of school – my son is currently at school, here in Bali. Which means he’s out there learning and playing with other kids while I replenish the travel budget.

Here’s the school, err, gates we drive to on the bike each morning:

At the path that leads to Z's school in Bali: prayer flags and rice fields.

It’s a lovely school. A bunch of different nationalities and languages, including (never a given in international schools) plenty of locals. Shoes off in the classroom, plenty of lessons outside, good trips and fascinating visiting experts.

net assault course at Z's school playground.

A result, essentially. We bumped into a mother and son in our favourite pizza place who recommended it. We Googled it, checked out the website, agreed it looked like fun, I rang up and off we went.

What Sort of School?

Z’s school started out as a Steiner School. Based on the educational theories of Rudolf Steiner, Steiner schools take a holistic, child-led approach to learning, and as part of this children are not formally taught to read and write until age 7.

Or, as Z put it, rather cynically for one so young, “I’m bloody glad I’m at a Steiner School. It means I’m not going to be the only one with crap handwriting…”

Ahem…

But, because the majority of parents will be sending their kids to international high schools here in Bali, some of which are very academic, they’ve also revised the curriculum to inject surprising rigour.

What do you get? I think the best of both worlds. On the holistic side, there’s yoga, art, music, swimming, sport, an approach to social studies which doesn’t flinch from the harsh realities of poverty, and some Bahasa teaching.

On the academic side, it follows the British curriculum in English, Maths & Science (which is roughly one year ahead of the US curriculum) but is above that level in some areas.

I’m pretty sure I hadn’t heard of xylem, phloem or antecedents of pronouns when I was ten.

Some First Day Nerves

The night before starting school, Z was even more nocturnal than usual. After I switched the lights off, he wriggled anxiously for a while. “I can’t sleep, Mum,” he said. “I’m worried about school.”

“What are you worried about?” I asked.

“I’m worried I’ll be behind,” he said. “I’ve hardly done any work since I was in Year 4, and now I’m going into Class 5. I’m worried about my handwriting. My maths. My English. It’s not like,” he says, accusingly, for someone who’s been campaigning vigorously for more self-led learning over the last year, “You’ve really been teaching me.”

I switch the light on. We get up. I dredge up some of the formal writing he’s done. I show him his first attempt at an essay, back in Cambodia, on the Khmer Rouge regime. Then I show him the piece he wrote about social problems in Oliver Twist.

I show him his first stab at a story. Then I show him his 500 mature, crafted words about an alien visiting Australia (in Australia).

He can see the development. “But the maths…”

“Look,” I say. “You know those papers you’ve done from time to time? They’re Year 6 papers, and you’ve been getting the top level.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yep. I know it’s bizarre, but you did.” (Given junior can’t be arsed to learn his times tables, this came as a shock all round.)

“But my handwriting…”

Yep. The handwriting’s a bummer. No worse than it was when he started. But, err, not much better either.

He’s a southpaw, and loathes handwriting (not unusual in boys generally), so I figured I’d rather have him writing fluently, willingly and accurately on screen than unwillingly and slowly on paper, given that he should be able to do the important exams and assessments on screen.

“Do you want to take the laptop into school and do your writing on that?”

“No. I think that would look really weird.”

Right. Bugger! Alternative solution to handwriting goes straight out of the window.

“OK. Umm…” I say. Adding the single feeblest line in the parenting armoury (after umm…), “You’ll just have to do your best.”

Class lesson on snakes: children handling a reticulated python.

I Had First Day Nerves, Too

Me? I’m worrying about the integration aspect.

He’s spent plenty of time with other kids over the year, but not in a school context: how’s he going to navigate the complex friendship dynamics of the schoolyard? Will he be the new kid, the shy one, the odd one out?

How will he take to having to do drills, and homework? Will he, as at his London primary, go into daydreaming mode for every subject bar science and art?

It’s the integration aspect, rather than his attainment, that has been the sole cause of concern to the folk in the family who know about education.

(Full disclosure: I taught briefly in my early 20s; my ma was a headmistress and school inspector; a relative in Australia is an education assessor; plus there’s a couple of university teachers in the mix too.)

Neither of us sleep particularly well that night…

We Learnt That Travel Teaches You to Adapt

Next morning, he gets up happily, goes in, joins the right line and starts clapping along to the school song that starts each day.

When I pick him up, he is playing goalie in an impromptu post-school game of football.

“Wow!” I say. “Have you decided you like football, then?” (He’s always hated it.)

“Not particularly,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. I figure that he’s adapting his personal tastes in order to fit in with the new school. What boys his age do, it seems to him, is play football. So that is what he does.

Football lasts three days. Once he’s made his friendships, I find him on the climbing frame with mates, drawing with one if it’s raining. Or he informs me solemnly that he is going to a friend’s house and would like me to pick him up later.

This sort of adaptability is one thing longterm travel teaches. Because, yes, the skills you learn playing with Lao children on a tiny rural island or hanging out with nomads in the wild, do transfer to the complex friendships and alliances and social networks of the school yard.

And it’s this which has been my main concern. Academically, he’s up a year in some subjects, in his year in others.

There are Things School Delivers that Unschooling Doesn’t

School is, however, delivering some important learning experiences that unschooling, the way we do it, can’t replicate. Yet, unschooling has made him more equipped to participate in this education.

For example?

He’s Working in Teams

Dancing with papier mache monster in preparation for nyepi.

I don’t subscribe to the view that homeschooled kids are weird and asocial (though before I found myself doing it, I’d probably have kneejerked into it, and there is a scary Christian element in the US which does the rest of us no favours: Google Quiverfull and be afraid).

I do love the way they do reading at Z’s school. Each small year group studies one book as a group. That means that each week, one kid reports on the reading, one kid leads the discussion, one provides illustrations, one identifies new words and one develops questions to discuss about real life that occur within the book. They self-assess afterwards to see how well they prepared and contributed to the lesson.

It’s a great way of learning the skills of collaborative working and discussion. And, call me a hippie, but it’s way preferable to learning about teamwork by killing other teams on the sportsfield.

Not to Mention Presenting Skills

IMHO, it would just be plain weird for Z to prepare and present a piece of work to me. But presenting to an entire class of different ages, from many different cultures, language backgrounds, is great for him.

As part of his science learning, he had to find a piece of science news, write an observation on it, print it out to go on the wall and report on it to the class. So he found a piece about a meteorite in Antarctica which might support theories that life may have originated in a meteorite barrage.

Given he had to write it, his observation was on the terse side: “Personally, I agree with the pro-meteor scientists, although there is of course the question of why this planet alone had all the right components and proximity to the sun to sustain life. For now at least, it remains a coincidence.”

Admirably succinct work for a secondary school essay. For how it played read out to a multilingual class of 9-11-year-olds, I’ll pass you Z: “It was pretty rubbish, really, Mum. Nobody in class really seemed to understand what I meant, even after the teacher read it out for me.” Lesson learnt, I guess.

Singing is Fun

Every day starts with the song, and there are four periods of music every week. Z’s enjoying singing (and miming) and I’ve caught him singing (as opposed to humming) when he’s getting on with things.

He was really happy chanting along as the school marched with their ogoh-ogoh monster in the Nyepi parade. And he’s starting to enjoy the music lessons.

Unschooling has Improved his Approach to School

He’s More Organised

Packing up his own stuff and being responsible for his own belongings when we’re changing base every few days makes keeping on top of homework deadlines, swimming stuff, lunch, motorbike helmet, sandals etc. a piece of cake. Though he has forgotten his helmet once.

He’s Better at Motivating Himself

Now, much of Z’s time at his (good) London primary was spent staring out of the window: he did not complete a single handwriting project from Nursery to Year 4.

A combination of a handful of timed tasks with working on and completing his own projects has worked wonders. This means that he can, in fact, welly through a) his classwork and b) his homework with a decent degree of motivation.

Don’t get me wrong, here. He is not bounding across the rice fields to his 40 pages of maths homework. The phrase “losing the will to live” has been uttered and he’s still fairly distractable. But I don’t need to kick his butt (much).

He Has More Confidence

A double-edged sword for his teachers, this one, particularly given we’re in Asia. I don’t think either he or his mate are really supposed to stand up and correct their teacher and am not surprised to notice that they now sit in different bits of the classroom.

He’s Good at Research

We’ve done a lot of online learning in unschooling and he’s answered some of his own questions using the internet. He’s really good both at finding information and assessing the reliability of its source and checking it.

He Knows A Lot…

Z has learnt a hell of a lot about history, geography, social studies and science. His writing has developed immensely as have his IT skills. He’s picked up a bit of some languages and a lot of Indonesian.

And, he also knows his own limitations, and that it’s his job to deal with them. Which means, for example, that he’s actually working on his handwriting rather than avoiding doing it.

On Balance…

If my parenting goal were to produce some kind of child prodigy, I’d always pick homeschool/unschool over school. It ain’t. It’s for Z to be happy, confident, himself, with a good understanding of the world. So I like the notion of combining the two.

And What Does Sir Make of It?

Sir’s take on it all? (I’ve shown him this post.) “I like my school. I prefer it to the London one. On balance, I prefer unschooling, but proper unschooling, where I choose exactly what I want to do, rather than the more restrictive type that you always make me do.”

Yeah. I’ll tell the little, err, sucker that next time he worries about his handwriting.

27 Responses

  1. Thanks for the insight into what unschooling on the road looks like.When people learn of my travels they say ‘yes, but you don’t have children’ and that is true but I always tell them of the people I know that have and do travel with children and explain that it’s all a choice. You are one of those that I point people to. I believe there is always a way. Cheers!

    • Theodora says:

      Aw, thank you! It does work — it is very, very doable, and there are a whole range of ways in which to do it. It’s true that some kids hate travel (as some adults do), but it can really work with children of many different ages. Teens are the hardest, I’m told. No surprises there.

  2. I am always so in awe when I see families traveling – not only that it must be infinitely harder then just taking care of oneself, but that I think about what fantastic and well rounded children will result.

    I always did wonder about the day-to-day, and now I have an insight into that with you. Brilliant!

    P.S. I googled Quiverfull – good grief! Scary….

    • Theodora says:

      Aw, thank you. It’s harder on some levels, but incredibly rewarding. Pleased to have introduced you to the good folk of Quiverfull, also.

  3. Nicole says:

    I think the combination of unschooling and now the great school you’ve found adds up to the best possible education–a varied life experience. No system (school or not schooling) is perfect in all ways. I love Z’s comment about going to a Steiner school, my kids would find comfort there too. And I understand the nerves on both your and Z’s part. My kids have never gone to school (they’re 12&9) but have done tons of classes and clubs with friends. Great to hear it’s all working out. I think I might steal the school’s way of doing reading group and start a similar group for my kids here. Very cool.

    • Theodora says:

      I think the reading group would work really well with a group of homeschooled kids. I’m impressed that yours have never gone to school… What do you plan to do about college entry? Is that on your plan? I had a question along those lines from someone on an earlier post, and I really didn’t know how unschoolers manage that sort of thing (though I’m guessing unschool prepares one perfectly for SATs).

      • Nicole says:

        Universities are becoming more open to admitting homeschooled students. Some even have specific admissions procedures for homeschooled kids. From what I know, the parent and student create the transcript. There are resources and seminars on how to do it. I figure it will become more accepted as time goes on. Imagine all you could put on Z’s transcript already!

        • Theodora says:

          That’s useful to know. I’d be really curious, in fact, to hear more from people who have got unconventionally schooled kids into university. Sure it must be possible…

  4. What a beautiful article! I am so excited for Z heading back to the classroom! All children are different and it seems this is a wonderful fit for him! Unschooling does prepare kids for life, at whatever level. I am excited to experience the other side of it through your’s and Z’s experiences.

    Hope to catch up with you guys in Asia near the end of the year!!
    Much love,
    Ongoing-Unschooling-Mom-Lainie

    • Theodora says:

      I think it’s really interesting how well the two approaches work together. You had Miro in a school in Guatemala, didn’t you, initially? I think it’s good to be able to dip in and out… We’ll be back on unschooling in a month or so, which should be fascinating…

  5. i love this – and that you’re so open to possibilities. we learn from everything in life, including schools! i am laughing that Z was playing soccer even though he’s not into it. smart kid! i told our 8yo (always unschooled) abt Z’s school – she said, but MAMA, how does he get up so early, after staying up late playing and learning? i said, well, he prob has to adjust his schedule some. what a hoot.

    • Theodora says:

      Unfortunately, he doesn’t need much sleep… Never has done, really. He normally gets to sleep between 11 and midnight, gets up 7.30ish on school days. Then stays up later on weekends, and gets up at 10am. But you’re right. i did wonder how the mornings were going to play, and they worked just fine.

  6. Natalia says:

    Inspiring post as always. I think the key here is that kids are adaptable, probably a lot more than we give them credit for. And that ‘conventional wisdom’ is often not very wise!

    • Theodora says:

      Yes. I’m amazed by how adaptable Z is, actually. Though we were never big on routine even when he was a baby, which probably helps.

  7. He is such a character!

  8. WanderMom says:

    Great post – as always!
    Two things:
    – in my children’s schools in Seattle the reading groups and presentation skills are common parts of the curriculum. I’ve no idea whether Seattle is unusual in this respect or not, but from the start I loved the inclusion of these in their school day.
    – Washington state has a big homeschooling population. Talking about university entry just with respect to this state, the school district supports parents who homeschool – they have an office for homeschoolers with materials, advice, etc. I can only assume that this extends to university entry although you could check at seattlepublicschools.org if you were interested. If I remember right, sixintheworld.com also had an older kid who was homeschooled during their trip who is now in college. They have responded to any questions I’ve sent them pretty quickly.
    M

    • Theodora says:

      Thank you, Michelle. The teacher in question was trained in Manila (i.e., US system), so that might explain where it comes from: it’s good to know they do that in the States as well. The English state (government-funded) education system doesn’t do it, I think because we don’t have the headcount in the classroom to do so: we’ll normally have one teacher and one or two assistants to a class of 30 kids, and these are groups of five. We do do presentations in the UK.

      That’s interesting to know that university entry is achievable in the States. I’m in touch with the homeschooling guy for our district back in London, though the population of homeschoolers in the UK is lower than in the US (we have many, many fewer homeschooling Christians) so I might email and ask him what sort of resources there are in the UK.

      • WanderMom says:

        I was thinking about this again last night + it struck me that the content-based nature of A levels with the British system might work against you. Personally I love the determinism of that system (it worked well for me) but it would be tricky to match to an unschooled approach. The fuzzier, SAT+interview+essay style of uni apps in the US is more suited to different academic approaches.
        Just a thought.

        • Theodora says:

          That’s pretty much where I’d got to, as well! IB (Int’l Baccalaureate), which some schools are moving, is also content-based. He’s very scientifically minded, as well, and there’s no way I can deliver a lab, or the subject for that matter: I did one science subject to 16 and that was a long time ago, so he now knows more science than I do, pretty much… Though it’s early days.

          The Australian model – at least in Queensland – is similar to the US model, based around thinking skills applied more generally. In so far as I think about it at this stage, I think of him doing IB, which I think is accepted everywhere in the world, though it’s topically much broader than A- levels, and which he could also do anywhere in Europe…

  9. Bails says:

    I’ve just stumbled across your blog via LP (Ethiopia) and it’s so wonderful to read your posts. I know in my heart that travelling with children is such an incredible experience and your blog confirms that. We are avid travellers who are about to embark on our own family -so many people around us are convinced that we’ll change our plans once the children arrive, and we know that all of our goals are possible and more meaningful with children. I met two women travelling with a small baby when I was 18 in Africa and they have been my benchmark ever since. And I love the name ‘unschooling’! I’m a teacher in the UK myself and yet wholeheartedly subscribe to the variety and value that education outside the classroom brings. Our big plan is to drive round Africa when our children are about Z’s age, so I’ll follow your adventures!

    • Theodora says:

      I’m so glad you feel like that, and I do hope you do it. It’s something a lot of people dream of, and then when the time comes there is always something else in the way. It is enriching travelling with children. It’s also intensive quality time as a family, that gives you shared experiences that they take into adulthood and beyond. I think overland round Africa would be an incredible experience, and the sooner you start travelling with them the better. There’s this weird belief that once you have kids you have to go to package holidays, but we’ve always done backpacker type stuff, and it’s always worked really well…

  10. Rachel says:

    Hey you know how I feel about it 😉 One important thing I’ve noticed that school delivers v home/unschooling is ‘respectful close relationships with authoritative adults while not in your care’ or something similar. Something else interesting? In Spain the children are taught from the word go (age 3) that it is the CHILD that is responsible for their work, belongings, appearance etc not the parent. My girls have really flourished under this attitude, WANTING to take charge of these things which may ease them into the independence of secondary school.

    • Theodora says:

      I think that’s the case in Indonesia, too. I haven’t really had to “help” with the homework much before, and I am sooo hoping I don’t have to again. He does monitor his time quite well, god bless him.

  11. jamie says:

    i say F**k em, most of the school is just to teach kids how to sit down and shut up, in usa they even drug there kids to keep them in line and that is NOT what i’d want for my kids

  12. Elizabeth says:

    Just ran across your post now. Sounds like it was an excellent experience for you both! Was this the Green School in Bali?

    • Theodora says:

      Yes, it was. It’s an excellent little school, and I’d thoroughly recommend it. They take kids on part-time and temporary placements, which is fantastic, but they’ll also equip them for the academic international schools on the island…