Today's guest post is by Tonya from Live the Adventure
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Announce to your family that you are going to homeschool and you’ll get a few weird glances. After the initial shock is over, and they realize they indeed heard you correctly, you’ll probably get the standard questions that all homeschoolers (and potential homeschoolers) hear.
What about socialization?
Do you really think you are capable to teach them without a teaching degree? After all, teachers are taught how to educate, they’re the experts.
How will you know what they need and when they need to know it?
What about sports?
What about algebra?
What these questions and comments really amount to is this: Are my grandchildren going to turn out normal?
Your experience may be different than our experience when we began homeschooling eleven years ago. But chances are, if you’ve homeschooled for any length of time and told anyone what you’re actually up to, you’ve encountered a bit of resistance.
Now imagine telling your friends and family that not only will you continue to homeschool, but now you’re going to step outside the bounds of normalcy a bit further and you’re going to live in an RV. No longer will you be bound by textbooks and schedules. Your classroom will now be the entire world, or at least the United States, while you can afford to buy the gas anyway.
Since we’ve homeschooled for a number of years, we’ve established the fact that our children are learning. My children have friends. So what is the problem this time? That’s easy. Now everyone wonders: What would possess us to even consider such a venture? Will we ever see our grandchildren again? Will the children’s education suffer?
The truth is I don’t know how long we will continue to live this lifestyle. I guess we'll do it until we’re either tired of it, think we’ve seen everything there is to see, or we’re just flat broke. One of the three is bound to happen sooner or later.
What would possess us to leave our family, our friends and pack all five of us and our puppy into a space smaller than our living room was at home and hit the open road? I guess you could call it an act of faith. Although it had been our dream for nearly 15 years, it was a terrifying step to take. I have to admit, even if we put on a brave front, deep down inside, we were scared stiff!
Some people may ask if my children still receiving a decent education. Are they kidding me? With all of the parks, battlefields, museums of various venues, national, state and community programs available at our disposal? Not to mention the diversity of our great nation’s natural environments and people. Yes, we are all learning, much more than I’d imagined, lessons that we will never forget!
You can catch up with Tonya at her blog Live the Adventure where she writes about their homeschooling-on-the-road adventure from wherever they may be.
photo by Bill Ward's Brickpile
7 comments:
What a fun adventure! That sounds like such fun, I have to admit I'm a bit envious! :)
Maybe it's because we're already weird, unsocialized homeschoolers, but that sounds like such an incredible adventure and unbelievable learning opportunity to me. I agree with Dana -- I'm a bit envious.
I was homeschooled from 8th grade thru graduating from high school. My family did exactly what you are describing for my last two years of high school! It was quite an adventure - have fun, your kids will NEVER forget it!
What a blast!
What an exciting way to live. My husband has talked about doing this. I think it would be a great adventure and one of the best ways to learn about life and the world we live in.
Awesome! We have talked about traveling through Europe in a similar way when our son gets a little bigger. I can't imagine a better educational experience!
I TOTALLY want to do this! My husband is a Renaissance Faire performer and we have talked about this possibly being our future. :)
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