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Clearly you missed reading and comprehension class.
Your opinion of homeschooling doesn't make it a true fact. It's an opinion . And not well thought out.
Most families who take extended holiday to venture also see to it that the children do have a take away from that excursion. Some artifacts. Or some knowledge to share. Not the gee we saw the hat from Harry Potter.
Our schools allow parents to have kids excused with the understanding that certain fields of studies are incorporated. Which is where my suggestions came into play. No where did I tell the OP to quit a career job. I said that the premise of homeschooling. ..which is to educate the kids with set guidelines can be done when traveling.
Hey now, I didnt say anything about the hat from Harry Potter. I was thinking more the train ride through Edinburgh that's featured in the films, the underground, the historical places they filmed and that are mentioned in the books. Things can be both educational and informative. I plan to also see Culloden Moor, the William Wallace house, fort William places that are significant to the Jacobites. Northern England where the Dutch first landed. It doesnt seem significant yet to him but playing in castles and seeing the kelpies is fun for kids. It all about balance
Then the question isn't really "is travel more valuable than time spent in school" but rather "is my convenience and expense worth more than time spent in school".
The expense is a big factor. Taking an extra few days around a holiday off vs going in the middle of summer is potentially thousands of dollars. That makes it affordable every year instead of every other year. The question is, in your opinion or experience is learning in real life every year more valuable then that same week spent in school would have been?
Travel during those times is often much more expensive and crowded, as well as sometimes inconvenient (such as a large family and traveling at Christmas isn't necessarily feasible)
I don't want to be validated in my decision, I just wanted to open a discussion about educational value of travel vs being in school for the same time. Obviously its easier in elementary than high school and I wouldn't schedule travel during testing or test prep or important school things.
You're flying a 'large family' around the world, and you're complaining about the cost during the summer? Here's an idea: don't fly your large family around the world.
And... crowded? Where? EuroDisney? The Sydney Fish Market? Then stopping dragging your kids to tourist traps. The world positively teems with great places that aren't overrun by tourists ever. They're going to be more educational. And they usually aren't marred by a Starbucks and a McDonald's alongside them (who knows - maybe that's what you prefer). Example: the British Isles are covered with megaliths, and almost all of them not called 'Stonehenge' aren't overrun with tourists.
You know what's inconvenient? Missing school. Know what else is inconvenient? A student who misses a week's worth of class because Mom and Dad don't want to be 'inconvenienced' by travelling during the abundant times when class isn't in session.
A week in class is more important than eating at a Pizza Hut while gazing up at the Great Pyramid of Giza along with 5000 of your closest friends. More to the point, if you are convinced that little Junior's childhood just won't be complete unless he visits the Space Needle and kisses the Blarney Stone, make a huge sacrifice and going during June. He can still treasure the precious moments - such as having his photo taken standing on Dabney Coleman's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or getting free water at Wall Drug - for the rest of his life... right?
He can still treasure the precious moments - such as having his photo taken standing on Dabney Coleman's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or getting free water at Wall Drug - for the rest of his life... right?
Hey! Don't drag Dabney Coleman into this. He's a legend!
The question is, in your opinion or experience is learning in real life every year more valuable then that same week spent in school would have been?
In elementary school? Yes.
In middle school? No.
In high school? HELL NO!!!
Not only does the work get more difficult in higher grades, the speed at which each class covers the assigned material increases, and (especially in science and mathematics) the work builds on itself. Miss a week of chemistry or trigonometry, and the student may not be able to catch up even if he really tries (especially if he or finds that subject difficult to begin with).
I can understand your desire to travel during the school year, but don't become too wed to the idea. As your child grows older, those plans may need to be revised.
Not only does the work get more difficult in higher grades, the speed at which each class covers the assigned material increases, and (especially in science and mathematics) the work builds on itself. Miss a week of chemistry or trigonometry, and the student may not be able to catch up even if he really tries (especially if he or finds that subject difficult to begin with).
I can understand your desire to travel during the school year, but don't become too wed to the idea. As your child grows older, those plans may need to be revised.
Absolutely. Hes only 4, I figure we have 5 years of willy nilly travel before it becomes too difficult to work with schedules.
My opinion has always been...if you travel with your kids when they are under 7-8 years old you arent really doing it for them. A preschool kid doesnt care about this stuff. This is new parents trying to continue the lifestyle of childless college kids more than anything.
Also, I was on a transatlantic flight yesterday full of little kids and their millennial parents. It was a nightmare for the crew and other passengers. Little kids are ill-suited for the rigors of travel.
Yes, travel can be beneficial and more educational than a couple weeks of school missed. I credit much of who and what I am today from things I saw and learned back then. There is no better way to understand history than to walk where history was made. There is no better way to understand the role science and engineering than to see it happening.
The hardest part is school schedules today are designed around the needs of the school system, not the families. Ignore those who claim "you can fit everything into breaks." Just because the school schedule they had worked for them does not mean a different school system works for other's schedules. During my kid's school years, I was seldom able to schedule a vacation week off at the same time as a school break. The difference was our school system was also very uncooperative about letting kids miss school using that same "fit into the breaks" excuse. The irony was they actually become more lenient as our kids moved into high school than in elementary school.
In the grand scheme of things missing a few days of school here and there didn't hurt them, and gained them an understanding of the world that many of their classmates lacked. Oldest is working as a physicist and youngest is a Yuck.
The last 10 years, I've taken my family to vacation two to three times a year. Mostly not a long trip and during school breaks as that works out better for everyone in our family. Memorable? Yes! Fun? Yes! Educational? Vacations can be, but probably not much. And it's not exactly a substitute for school. For young kids below 7, you can surely miss few days or even a couple of weeks from school without having to make up any schoolwork and almost no effect on their learning. However, don't expect that they will also learn a lot during vacation and even remember most of where you went. My kids are now 10 and 13, both can hardly remember anything of "educational value" from their trips before the age of 5.
And for young kids, they want to go to Disney. They want to go to Universal Studios. They want to go to the beach. So how educational can those vacations be? Earlier this year, we went to Washington, DC. We visited government buildings and tons of museums. Yes, it was very educational for them, but I don't think they can absorb and retain that much information they can get during those few days. And they actually can appreciate information presented to them if they're already taken it up in school. Like when we visited the US Capitol, my son was happy that they were just taught the three branches of government in school. We go to the museums, and certainly, some things that haven't been taken up in school will remain unexplained. Like when I pointed out at the Space Museum, that's a photo of Neil Armstrong, what he rode, what he wore... and then the kids will ask, "Who is Neil Armstrong?" I can only explain so much, and they can only listen to so much. It's a different experience for me, who traveled more later in life, when I first visited DC. I pretty much can identify lots of things, because I learned and remembered them from school!
When one gets to higher years, trips can certainly not substitute what is learned in school. Certain subjects like Math, you really cannot learn from vacations. Those struggling with it, can hardly make up when they go back. My daughter excels at it and can probably make it up if she wants to be an average math student. But she does join competitions and will probably want to pursue a STEM career. Why will we hold that back for a vacation? You might be able to marvel at the wonderful engineer feats before you, but if you want to aspire to be an engineer, you are better off acing that trigonometry class rather than looking at the Great Pyramids, the Great Wall, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Empire State Building.
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