Backroad Learning.

Posted by tiff in Funschooling, Tour d' Awesome, Travel in the U.S. | 4 comments

Back to School is starting up again, all around the country. Before 5 years ago, I never would have conceived I wouldn’t be taking part in it…I mean, Back to School is a huge rite of passage in our country. It’s a national event! Stores gear up for it, commercials on TV talk about it, parents eagerly await it after spending *gasp* a whole summer with their children. School is unquestionably the path one puts their kids on if one wants productive, smart, well behaved and successful kids. It’s the fast track to success! The highway to a one size fits all, standardized learning curriculum that has been approved by experts across all fields. All you have to do is get on and make sure you don’t run out of gas…you’ll be guaranteed to arrive at the destination in an efficient, speedy manner! At one point in time, this idea was soothing to me. Kind of a fail safe, a catch all, a safety net.

The problem is, safety nets are only handy if you’ve fallen. Fail safe and catch all’s are designed to work after nothing else has. Highways get you from point A to point B quickly, but skip all the stuff in between. And after a decade of trying to figure out school/standardization/curriculum, I’ve decided that it’s the stuff in between that is most valuable for learning. If you get rid of the interesting stuff, the cool stuff, the unique stuff, the quirky stuff, the off the beaten path stuff, then what’s the point? What’s the good of learning anything if you’re bored and don’t even care.

I’m serious about my kids, but have let go of the idea of straight paths, safety nets, a fast track; and have substituted all that with windy back roads and something more like a trampoline. I don’t want them to be caught if they fail, fall, or otherwise spin out. I want them to land on something that will launch them back up again in the direction they came from. Or a different direction altogether. I don’t want them to have to stop and take driving test after driving test or pay toll after toll. I want them to get in their car and drive wherever inspiration takes them!

Driving Route 66 was a very physical analogy for our learning journey. It took me 6 days on the slower Route to reach a destination that I could have gotten to in 3 days on the highway. But! The experience was totally different. I saw beautiful things and crazy things and broken down things and sometimes absolutely nothing. I got lost and made wrong turns. I ended up at a dead end more than once. Didn’t matter. When your journey is the destination, there is no such thing as a wrong turn or getting lost anyway. The experience drives the learning, and vice versa. I drove a coke truck. Saw a giant wiener (a lot of giant wieners, actually). A covered bridge that was turned into a blue whale. Most of those pictures were stolen along with my camera bag…but some weren’t if they were on my iphone:

I’ll never forget what I learned and saw along the way. People kept asking me, along the 12 day drive, if I was tired. But how could I be tired? I woke up every day excited to see what I’d find, and went to bed at night exhausted but wired, thinking about everything I’d seen. I felt like what it must be like to be 4…you know that crazy annoying age where your kids never seem to sleep? I found out what that’s from. Sheer excitement and learning. It’s beautiful.

This is what I want for my kids. It’s what we do as unschoolers. Get off the beaten path and take the back roads to learning. We’ve driven all over the country, gone to all kinds of parks, museums, historical markers, amusement parks, etc. We’ve meandered here and there, taking our time to investigate and explore thoughts, ideas, feelings, and communities.

I’m happy to NOT be part of the Back to School camp just yet.

Someday they’ll want to pursue a higher interest. Golfer has already started talking about transitioning into a real high school so he can do sports and take the traditional academic route into college. But for now, for this time in their lives, I’m happy that their childhood is uniquely theirs to explore and meander through. I watch them learn not only the 3 R’s, but also about life, living, happiness, joy, discovery, hardship, confusion, frustration, working hard, dedication, and curiosity. All in their own way, doing their own things, driving down their own path. To me, this is not only what childhood is about, but also the very foundation for a lifetime of awesome learning.

So Happy Not Back To School, for those of you celebrating not sending your kids off to school!
And also, happy Back To School for those of you celebrating sending your kids to school, if that’s your path!
My advice is the same for both groups..don’t forget to explore the back roads with your kids whenever you can. Take time for the meandering paths of thought, creativity, whimsy, spur of the moment inspiration. Chances are, those experiences are what they’ll end up remembering and learning from the most!

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