Call it whatever you’d like … life-learning, home-learning, world-learning, roadschooling, travel-schooling, homeschooling, unschooling, lifeschooling, hackschooling, independent learning, or just plain life.
People who are self-directed learners at home are also self-directed learners when away from home . They bring their interests with them.
On this trip, Esmé has returned to a favourite project of hers’ … BUGS.
{nb. We’ve purposefully steered away from the subject of tropical disease, mostly because Esmé is a bit nervous of things like Dengue or malaria when they are a real possibility, and while she’d love to delve into those subjects, we’d rather she not worry the whole time we’re here. We’ll save those studies for when we get home.}
Besides, there are so many cool insects (and snakes) here that she’s mostly set aside her virus/pathogen/disease project for a return to her first love. Lori Pickert talks about this in her work, how kids often revisit ‘old’ or seemingly ‘completed’ projects. This is a very good reason not to make a big deal of moving on to ‘new’ projects, or ceremoniously shelving old ones with the assumption that your kid is done.
So far, when our kids have seemed to be ‘done,’ we’ve just moved on, without any fan fare. And good thing, because now Esmé is revisiting a so-called ‘done’ project, and I wouldn’t want her to have any mixed feelings about going ‘backwards,’ because she’s not. Learning isn’t linear, and so we’re not on a flat, straight line. We can go in any direction we want.
And so, Esmé arrived in Mexico and quickly oriented herself here in the context that makes the most sense for her … insects and natural science.
Hawk did the same, but not with bugs and natural science. His time in Mexico is centred around tools and workers and machines, which is how he organizes his world at home too.
By inviting their project work along with us for our time here, we’ve inadvertently supplied a very comfortable means for them to slide into daily life here, so very far away from home.
How did we ‘invite’ their projects along with us?
- I packed a mini-atelier of sorts; paper, pencil crayons, crayons, scissors, glue, tape, bug boxes, paints, string, notebooks.
- Just like home, it’s at kid-level and always available and well-stocked.
- For Hawk, we brought his most valuable toy diggers, plus a couple of his beloved heavy machinery identifier books.
- Perhaps most importantly, we’re still ‘facilitating’ their project work in the same unspoken way that we do at home. This means documenting their work, and looking for opportunities to let them dig deeper. For example, I took Hawk to visit a local garage, and let him spend as much time as he wanted watching workers mix, haul, and set a new concrete patio down the street.
- And, as always, we point out the things we know they’re passionate about. ”Look at that caterpillar, Esmé!” ”Hey, Hawk, that bigtruck is delivering gas. Let’s go watch.”
- And as always, making time. Not time to indulge, because that’s not what we ever do. Just time to be with the ideas and interests that are so important to them. This means limiting expectations and big excursions, which is what we do at home too.
