The thought of being on the road comes with so many iconic images that sparkle around the edges. The reality is a little grittier. Living a transient life requires sacrificing all the creature comforts that society has laid out for us in nice, neat rows. We consciously choose the road less traveled. And in doing so we must continuously and actively buck the trends and systems set up for sedentary life. For parents, the most difficult trend to buck might be the modern education system. So, let’s talk about homeschooling your child while traveling in an RV.
Nowadays, there are so many terms for homeschooling in a nomadic capacity. There’s road schooling and worldschooling. There’s travel schooling, boatschooling, unschooling, natureschooling, and deschooling. And lastly, good old homeschooling. That’s the word that my in-laws love to hate.
What the Naysayers Say
For some folks, homeschooling is attached to a deluge of negative associations. So, the push back from outsiders is a force to reckon with. Sometimes, it feels strong enough to break the dam. For example, my in-laws repeatedly remind me how important “institutionalized education” is for my children, but they don’t really consider the immeasurable benefits that education on the road fosters. They will never know what it’s like to learn about constellations under the dark sky of the Mojave Desert — learning where the stars are so bright they are like a blanket of light. They will never know what it’s like to take education out of the pages of a book, and into the most beautiful pockets of the world imaginable.
Peter Gray, the author of, Free to Learn, is a wonderful resource about the nature of education. It helps remind us on a human level that educating outside of an institution can be freer and more natural. Ultimately, only the nuclear family unit can determine the best way to embark on an educational journey. Everyone else’s opinion is just that: an opinion.
Traveling on the road will give you golden memories with your family. And homeschooling on the road will weave those memories into the core and foundation of who your children are, and how they will see and face the world in years to come.
How to Measure the Immeasurable
The benefits of taking school out there, into the real world, can’t really be measured in a traditional sense. They certainly can’t be measured by standardized tests or report cards. The reward comes in the form of real life skills that only applied learning can nurture.
Homeschooling on the road facilitates an experiential avenue of learning. Learning through travel will take your child’s education and interweave it with what they see and interact with on a daily basis. It’s like the counterpart to institutional education. Instead of learning about things that can’t be seen, touched, felt, or heard in the pages of a book and behind closed doors, your children will be learning with all their senses, fueled by the wonderful and boundless curiosity that children possess. That in itself will attach a positive association with learning. Institutionalized education simply cannot replicate that.
Here’s an article by CBS news on the upswing of homeschooling with your child while traveling since COVID, and the benefits of taking education into the real world.
The Wild Rumpus
The energy that children possess is a marvelous wonder to behold. If it could be bottled up it would be a precious elixir worth more than its weight in gold. But, as any parent knows, their energy can suck us dry into a shriveled haggard thing with nothing left to tend to our own basic needs.
Now, pack that energy up and put it in a tiny space, and hit the road in your RV! I suggest having resources available ahead of time, so you aren’t stuck in a cactus garden after an 8-hour drive, with nowhere to go to keep the kids away from the endless pin cushions at every corner. (Yes, this was us at Gilbert Ray Campground outside Saguaro National Park.)
3 Life-Saving Resources for Homeschooling Your Child While Traveling
As I looked around at our prison of Saguaro Cactuses as far as the eye could see, I could feel the walls closing in around us. We were going to be in this campground for over a week! How would we keep the kids from running head first into a giant precariously leaning cactus? Some national parks are so grand in scope and scale, they can be overwhelming upon arrival. And after a long drive and two small children bursting with energy, there isn’t much time to sit and ponder your next move. Our saving grace came straight from the national park.
The Junior Ranger Program
The Junior Ranger Program is available at every national park in the county, and even most state parks. It’s a site-specific activity filled work book for children of all ages packed with information, history, and interactive activities throughout the park. It offers a path for success to embark upon the exploration of your national parks. After a certain number of activities in the workbook have been completed, you can watch as a Park Ranger officially swears in your child, and presents them with a badge. It’s beyond precious. And if you’re not careful, you will end up like us: obsessive collectors of all the junior ranger badges. We have almost 20 now, and they are our most prized possession.
Participating in the Junior Ranger Program taught us so much, not just about each place we visited, but about each other. We learned together, in an active capacity, applying each educational fact to a real world setting. I learned that being a teacher is so much more fun and successful when I am learning with my children. It makes the event more engaging and interactive. Teachers don’t have to be experts on everything they are teaching. In fact, one might argue that learning would be more fun and informative, if both student and teacher were learning together.
Libraries
Maybe this goes without saying, but libraries offer the most reliable resources for all things homeschooling. We have homeschooled, worldschooled, boatschooled and roadschooled with our children; and public libraries gave us familiarity, routine, and even just a safe place to land on our journeys. Almost every library has a kids corner, and they also carry reference books specific to your area which are great for learning about local flora and fauna, history, geology and so much more. Want local knowledge? Ask your local librarian! No matter where you find yourself when you’re homeschooling your child while traveling, the likelihood is that you’re not too far from a library.
Socialization
This is probably the biggest fear factor that people use to advocate for a more traditional schooling environment. It’s the one thing that we can’t control or replicate as parents. But lucky for all of us, in this post-COVID modern age, finding a social group related to your family’s chosen path in life is available in almost every corner of the world. My husband and I and two children have traveled extensively in and outside of the country by boat and RV. And everywhere we found ourselves, there was a Facebook group of other families doing the same thing, in the same place. Want to take your family in an RV to Mexico but worried about socialization for your children? No problem! There’s a Mexican RV Caravaning social media group for that!
