One of the strange things about homeschooling, or worldschooling (as they call it when you go off somewhere and they learn from the change of environment) is it's hard to say exactly what they are learning. I've been on the facebook groups asking questions and in response I get amazing stories of the success of this education method. Some of the worldschool parents teach a bit, some just let them learn. Children who had literally no formal education, dropped into the American school system often scored at their year level or above straight off the bat! So they learn, but what? You just mess about on the beach right? Well actually I teach quite a bit but that's not my point.
The other day Jasmine suddenly announced "Back home it's all, a plant! quick cut it back! pull it up! Here it's yay! a plant! grow, fill the bare earth!" Clearly she's observed the differences in climate, types of vegetation and how much there is around. We have seen irrigation pipes everywhere, keeping all the green spaces alive, and cactus plants growing to the size of trees. I found sea sponges on the beach and we looked them up, and found out they are definitely animals, despite having no nervous system, heart or brain. We also found out what it's like to shower with them! A walk to the harbour at night led to finding out about port and starboard lights on a ship and the lights on the harbour itself. Who knows if it's on anyone's required curriculum (except those who sail of course) but I'm willing to bet she's at least as likely to use it in life as I am trigonometry! Perhaps it doesn't matter what we learn - as long as we learn to learn and like it. If you think about it you have the same problem with school, you may know that they sat in a lesson, but you are still taking a gamble that they learn anything. I once took Jasmine to the Egypt exhibition at Brighton museum, she was so interested in the exhibits, and my stories from Egypt that we nearly missed our bus home. When she studied Ancient Egypt at school I expected her to be interested, but all I got, after a long pause, was "Um, they had pyramids." When I expressed my surprise that she was not excited she explained "Well mostly they just write on the board and we copy it." This also leads to beautiful work books filled with data, to further fool you that they are learning. I'm not blaming the school system, teachers or education, I'm pro education, I went all the way to degree level. I'm just saying it's an interesting problem to try to work out what a kid needs to learn and if they really ARE learning it.
I think my gamble will pay off, Jasmine seems to have learned more French in our few days in France than I learned in my entire time at school. She keeps accidentally coming out with it instead of Spanish! The good part is worldschool is very application lead. Is hard to interest kids in learning what they cannot imagine using except in some far off future others insist is coming. For example: Knowing I planned to tour this peninsula in a campervan, and seeing as Tim speaks quite good French, I tried to interest Jasmine in learning Spanish, together with me, some time ago. We watched a YouTube video of basic Spanish for kids, she got frustrated and annoyed with it. Yesterday I put the same video on and we watched it avidly together, repeating every word. When I went off to the kitchen to start making lunch, she put it back to the beginning and ran it all again of her own accord, by the time I had assembled some food she had made a page of notes, pausing the video to get the Spanish spelling right. The only difference is she could really see it's usefulness! Today, out there, I can use this to make a friend, or get what I want to eat! It's good motivation. Do I have a point? Can I prove my point? Not really until she's grown up and you can ask her if she judges her life a success, and if so, did her unusual education equip her for it? But I can tell she is learning and she is having fun.
If anyone urgently needs any trigonometry done this week, I'm only a message away, and I think I can remember about a third of it from school! 😂 (And if you really do need help with it, my husband, the tutor really can help you on Skype.)
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