We are raising Kyle to be a kind, loving, compassionate, self-disciplined, well-informed, humble yet bold, generous, considerate person. I hope he develops passions that lead to a satisfying career and life. I hope he enjoys his life and consciously makes decisions about it, as opposed to following the crowd for the sake of fitting in. I hope his life is extraordinary in ways I can’t even imagine yet. And I hope Travis and I both stick around long enough to see all these things come to fruition.
We do a hodgepodge of different things to help our son become a fully functioning and contributing member to society. If I had to describe how we educate him in well-known terms, Kyle is world-schooled, unschooled, and home-schooled.
We learn about places we travel to: the environment, the people, the animals, the culture, the climate, the government structure, the architecture, the landscape, social and economic challenges, map reading, how to source nutritious food, where to meet and how to make new friends.
We delve in to topics that Kyle explicitly expresses interest in: creating things, outer space, how things work, animals, math, nature, food, construction, and most recently, building motors. I spend a lot of time trying to thoughtfully and patiently answer questions and follow up with showing Kyle how to research and find information himself (this does not always go well!). He learns best when he’s most interested in the subject matter – go figure. I’ve found that I’m profoundly ill equipped to do this, but am learning a lot along the way. Unless/until he shows an interested in business (sales, marketing, leadership, management), I’m totally out of my wheelhouse, and that’s ok. One of the most important things we can teach him is how to find information and solve problems, so I’ll keep leading by example and hopefully he won’t think I’m an idiot for the knowledge I lack.
And we stick to some workbooks and helpful tools for consistent work in reading, writing, and math. This is more tedious and I’m wrestling with how much time, effort, and stress this stuff should get in our life right now. This is his least favorite part of school. Shocking.
We also spend a lot of time reading to Kyle and listen to podcasts and audio books when we’re on the road. We utilize a lot of apps and digital books as well.
I’m not open to sticking with just one schooling philosophy and running with it. I’m okay with catching some flack for this from those who think I’m crazy for not having our son in a traditional schooling system or following a specific home-school curriculum. I just ask that you meet and spend time with my son before making such judgment.
I know that our educational philosophy will evolve as our son grows and his needs and interests change. We are willing to settle down and be somewhere if the need arises, aka, if we make a joint decision with Kyle after doing copious amounts of research and all agree that a traditional schooling environment would be most beneficial for Kyle’s well being and future.
In the mean time, he doesn’t seem to be an antisocial moron who lacks self-awareness (any more than other 5 and 6 year olds I’ve met) and the basic skills necessary to be a five-year-old person. So far, so good.