If it's "years spent traveling," then it's like home-schooling, and the parents are running the show and who knows how good or bad it is for the kids, but the article is mainly about parents taking their kids out of public school and causing them to miss days or weeks of classroom instruction and justifying it as beneficial to the child.
The top comment at the NYT:
As a retired university professor I find it rather shocking that parents think that "worldschooling" makes up for lost time in the classroom. When I was teaching, if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments. I can't even conceive of taking a child out of primary or secondary school for weeks at a time and think the lost learning opportunities could be made up for with "cultural experiences."
I don't doubt for a second that cultural enrichment acquired through international travel can benefit children greatly. But to sacrifice in-person learning in school simply to take advantage of cost-savings on travel is beyond self-indulgent. And to rationalize the practice with claims of "worldschooling" seems disingenuous to the extreme.
I'm giving this post my "motherhood" tag because every single person named in the article is female. Presumably, fathers are involved, at least somewhere along the line, but this feels to me like mothering, not fathering.
Now, where's my eyeliner? I need to spend an hour in front of the mirror doing a project about ancient Egyptian makeup traditions.
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73 comments:
Can't wait to see how it look in the eyeliner, Ann! Then will you try Greek and Roman hairstyles?
then it's like home-schooling, and the parents are running the show and who know how good or bad it is for the kids, but the article is mainly about parents taking their kids out of public school and causing them to miss days or weeks of classroom instruction and justifying it as beneficial to the child.
"who know how good or bad it is for the kid?" better than public schools. 40% of Boston school have zero children that cant read at grade level
causing them to miss days or weeks of classroom instruction and justifying it as beneficial to the child
Our daughter taut in a district with a large Hispanic population. It is common for the entire family to take of to Mexico for 4 to 8 weeks. They never used any pretense. They didn't care.
I can't even conceive of taking a child out of primary or secondary school for weeks at a time and think the lost learning opportunities could be made up for with "cultural experiences."
But no doubt is fine with remote teaching, "fuzzy math", CRT, ephemeral pronoun enforcement and any number of other deleterious new concepts.
We used to have 90%+ literacy and math competency. Now, due to teachers, we have a barely literate populace that can't even add double digits in their heads.
"classroom instruction" has become an oxymoron unless it's a briefing on the teacher's sexual orientation and techniques.
Only the ultra-rich can take their kids to Europe for a month.
Since far too many public schools are no longer centers for learning but for indoctrination, the person getting the vapors is just angry about indoctrination chances lost. The parents are correct.
I support this. I wouldn't want my kids to look back on their lives and think, "My God. I've only been robbed in Europe."
"If it's "years spent traveling," then it's like home-schooling,..."
No. It's not. Home schooling is schooling. You can disagree with how it's done, or note that from home to home it will not be the same, but it is an attempt at teaching specific topics- math, reading, history, etc.- to kids. This is travel & leisure, which is another way of saying, "We're teaching our kids how to be Americans."
I'm pretty sure no engineers will be coming out of the Worldschooling trend.
Except for the blacks who served in World War II, and other than making the Great Migration, until recently blacks in South Central, Los Angeles mostly didn't know what travel is. We just saw and heard planes flying overhead to LAX. I was the first person in my family to fly anywhere. I'd come back and tell stories, feeling like I was "Chicken George" in the TV show, Roots.
White kids I went to school with regularly vacationed in Europe. They lived in what I thought of as McMansions, they had horses and airplanes, and their parents were famous executives and/or celebrities. They didn't strike me as any smarter than anyone else. They still don't.
"they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments"
What a narrow, sad view of what it means to be alive.
As a retired university professor I find it rather shocking that parents think that "worldschooling" makes up for lost time in the classroom. When I was teaching, if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments. I can't even conceive of taking a child out of primary or secondary school for weeks at a time and think the lost learning opportunities could be made up for with "cultural experiences."
I think he's confusing university education with primary school education. They're quite different. My memories of primary school are fading with middle age, but what I do recall is that it wasn't particularly effective at teaching basic skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic (all of which my parents had to teach me) and that it was extremely repetitive, particularly in the month or so after the summer or winter holidays, when teachers had to reteach everything we had forgotten while school was out. This does sound like more of an excuse for parents to go traveling with small children than a real educational exercise, but I don't think the children are missing any meaningful "learning opportunities." The parents who have the free cash to be jaunting around the world like this probably have enough education to keep their children up to date on the basics anyhow.
Someone here is overestimating their own importance. See if you can figure out who that might be. Your answer will tell us a great deal. About you.
I was cleaning up awhile ago and found a box of old papers and cards from the 80s hidden in a larger box. There were a few union cards in there. I threw it all out.
I'd have loved this kind of education, but people like my parents only went to Europe or Asia when there was a war going on. They were the first generation in my family to finish high school. At that time, that gave you an edge.
When I was teaching, if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments.
That is SO 1970's !!
in our Brave New World, there Isn't ANY "important information that would aid them on subsequent tests"
The MAJORITY of students today graduate without knowing how to read or write; let alone know what century the civil war was in.. HELL! the MAJORITY of students graduate today without knowing what century The Present is called.. (and CERTAINLY not WHY)
There is a grand total of NOTHING that is taught to children in school these days..
That is, EXCEPT FOR being taught that it's COOL to chemically castrate oneself
I thought NYT was against air travel for all but the elites due to climate change.
" parents taking their kids out of public school and causing them to miss days or weeks of classroom instruction and justifying it as beneficial to the child."
That's a given.
1. To Crack Emcee's point, people who have traveled a lot aren't necessarily smarter, but they often seem to THINK that they're smarter -- which tends to be kind of a bad thing.
2. Travel ain't what it used to be. There's a same-ness to most of the places people travel to in the 21st century that didn't exist prior to say WWII. The travel experience itself is the same, airports all look the same, hotels, McDonalds, etc. Everyone's on the internet and modern technology abounds virtually everywhere. Not saying that every place is thoroughly Americanized, but world travel isn't nearly as "exotic" as is once was.
3. Using world travel as a substitute for book learning seems to imply that your child will end up on some kind of liberal arts / non-STEM career track. You kid's not going to learn math or chemistry that way. Although the affluent white parents who are inclined to do this probably don't envision their kids going into STEM fields, anyway.
I doubt the children missed very much by skipping a few weeks or months of primary school. They do not teach much at that age.
"I support this. I wouldn't want my kids to look back on their lives and think, "My God. I've only been robbed in Europe.""
LOL.
I didn't notice the double meaning until now.
"I'm pretty sure no engineers will be coming out of the Worldschooling trend."
Oh, I don't know. Worked out for at least one person I know who did this for an entire year.
Students can still hit the books during their travels.
"No. It's not. Home schooling is schooling. You can disagree with how it's done, or note that from home to home it will not be the same, but it is an attempt at teaching specific topics- math, reading, history, etc.- to kids. This is travel & leisure, which is another way of saying, "We're teaching our kids how to be Americans.""
You could take your kids on a years-long trip while taking time out of every weekday to go through real school subjects in a systematic way. I think it's highly unlikely but it could be done by very conscientious parents. Let's say there was a lot of walking and the parent was conducting a Socratic dialogue during the day and at night, there's assigned reading. I believe I could do it with my children and that, if I had the money needed to be at leisure and staying in hotels, etc. etc., that I'd do a fantastic job of it, much better than serving time behind a desk at public school.
“ at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments.”
I guess if you’re a professor that values “tests or essay assignments.” this is a high impact statement. IF you’re a parent that wants a child that can navigate in a complicated and diverse world you don’t really care what some professor says. Right now I’m picturing Cartman yelling “RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAAAY!”
Is the family doing something that qualifies as educational? Back when my adult children were school kids the parents who pulled their kids out for trips to Europe were usually going on ski holidays or the like. Not taking them to art museums or to see the ruins of the Roman forum. Or to see Shakespeare performed by the Royal Shakespearean Company in Stratford.
The main benefit for a kid going on a ski trip to the Alps instead of staying home and going to school is in learning how bread should taste. (N.B., my son and daughter-in-law visited her closest friend, now a doctor in a provincial French village, back when their son was about one. To this day he refuses to eat any American breads, including expensive artisanal breads.)
3. Using world travel as a substitute for book learning seems to imply that your child will end up on some kind of liberal arts / non-STEM career track. You [sic] kid's not going to learn math or chemistry that way.
I agree with Dogma and Pony Show, with the caveat that I’m pretty convinced that any math or hard science a child learns these days is an example of “learning despite the teacher.”
The real reason public schools hate parents who take their kids out for weeks at a time is because they get paid for students in attendance (at least they do in TX; I assume it's similar elsewhere). We've known Indian or Asian parents who take their kids out of school for several weeks at a time to visit family; some districts let these parents pay to compensate for the lost government money. But that's not a bribe - of course it isn't.
Elementary school kids aren't going to miss much in a few weeks. Back in the day my parents took off to FL for a month each winter, and my mom would get all my assignments from my teacher. I'd sit by the motel pool and get my work done in 30 minutes and then go off to play. I wasn't behind the rest of the kids when I returned. My mother and I weren't very well-liked at the elementary school, so I think they were happy to be shot of us for a month.
"Can't wait to see how it look in the eyeliner, Ann!"
Like Elizabeth Taylor I'm sure. Meade is in for a treat : )
As for this method of education, unless it's road trips in the Buick, it could get very expensive.
'I was the first person in my family to fly anywhere.'
This is very common with white folk too, Crack.
I didn't get on a plane until I was out of high school.
My father grew up without hot water in the house, and heat at night were bricks taken from a fireplace, wrapped in a towel, and put under the covers. Oh, and my father and his two brothers all slept in one bed. I could go on.
So I get it, you were poor. But so were a lot of people who got on with their lives and vowed not to be poor ever again.
The white folks living in McMansions weren't given those homes as presents.
The world's not out to get you...
Whether or not a few weeks or years overseas is in the long term detrimental to a child's learning/education depends on the child and the parents -- not all children are the same and neither are all parents.
I once worked in medical research where "fellows" from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa would spend a year or more working on clinical and laboratory research projects. They brought their spouse and children with them.
In many cases, US schools were judged to be inferior to their home schools -- not just because they were taught in a foreign, to them, language. But the kids all survived and at the end judged the experience to be worthwhile. Parents had mixed feelings.
In 1989, when my sons were 15 and 12, I took them out of a very good private religious high school -- which they attended because of Québec's longstanding [as in 50 years] universal "the money follows the child" school voucher program -- for a 5-week overland trip to southwestern Mexico. Because they each carried nine courses [standard for that school] some of the teachers were reluctant; but the geography, science, and history teachers were fervent supporters of the idea. French, English, and Maths were neutral, but said that because the boys were A students they could catch up. Home Ec, Phys Ed, and Music were reluctant, but finally agreed that "compared to this, we don't matter". So off we went, me and my sons.
We stopped at Lincoln's birthplace, on his 180th birthday. Mammoth Cave. Natchez Trace. Geography, Geology, and History the whole way. They could see the situation at Vicksburg, and understood how difficult (but important) it was to slice off one-third of the Confederacy and simultaneously restore the entire Midwest's access to world markets. Down through Texas, the Alamo, and Jackson's justified obsession with holding New Orleans by pushing Mexico far back -- because that was the key to America's geo-political future.
Huge loop from NE Mexico to the far SW, thence to the far NW, all the way the boys copying (and learning) their father's fluent Spanish and learning, by seeing, 1500 years of Mexican history, along with both modern and traditional Mexican agriculture, development issues, and so on.
Back through the SW USA -- Grand Canyon, Santa FĂ©, Cahokia, and so on. It never could have happened in formal schooling. The school's only request? That each boy share his learning in the appropriate class. Which in itself was highly educational.
Oh, and regarding that journalistic numpty's arrogant comment's about STEM, etc, and "lost opportunity" and such ... each boy was trilingual by age 18. One is now Senior Technical Consultant for a well-known airline, and the other has over 20 years as Lead Aviation Software Developper for a very-well-known company quite active in that space. Those 'boys' still talk about the impact of that trip in their lives.
I'm currently single father of a 12 yo daughter, and am fully developping plans to travel with her next spring to New Zealand and Australia [winter there so everything's cheap, including airfare] with a stop in Hawai'i for native culture, Pearl Harbor, the astounding geology, and so on. Having family in NZ is a huge plus, and it will be Maori new-year, with great cultural and historical activities. Now that she's only six years from launching -- and if she wants uni, she'll pay for it herself, without student loans, just like her brothers did -- I've only got a few more years in which she's intellectually and emotionally mature enough to benefit from such trips in the close company of a parent capable of providing true educational value.
Call it "worldschooling" if you wish. I'll counter that my children are the most important crop I've ever raised on my farm, and these trips are an essential part of that. I'm far from wealthy, but willingly sacrifice current frivolities in order to train, inform, equip, and enhance the next generation.
Over my lifetime have tutored (free) multiple people n math. started in 6th grade. I'd learned early on a few truths:
- Elementary through high school teachers are often math illiterate or even scared of math.
- There are many ways to approach math problems especially for algebra and above. Very few teachers know more than one.
- People that thought they were "stupid in math" often are not.
The last kid I tutored was brought to me by a neighbor because she knew my son had math skills and he told her I tutored. She brought him in and announced he was stupid in math just like her.
He needed to pass algebra I because otherwise he would be cut from the baseball team...
Sigh.
I took a couple of sessions working on eliminating the fear of math. Also working on ARITHMETIC (curse you public schools).
I focused on visual clues that would set him on the proper path to mechanically solving the problems. (Math theory was NOT on the agenda.) Lots of working individual problems. He began to catch on.
Mom reported back. She and his teacher were amazed his grades were improving quickly. More amazing, they said, he was actively participation n class.
His F had turned into a solid B. I asked his mother to let me have him few more evenings as finals approached. I told her he was getting better so fast an A might be possible.
"Nope" she said. "we are not gong to need me anymore. He and his Dad always take a week off at this time of year for a hunting trip..."
He flunked the final but was given a "D" for the course. Mom was thrilled... His GPA was just enough to keep him on the team.
But I'm sure, just sure, the trip was enlightening.
One of my retirement goals is to own a sailboat and sail the world (or at least parts of it). In doing research on it (mostly through YouTube) you discover there are lots of families that are doing it with their kids. They were typically already homeschooling, and discovered that they could homeschool "from anywhere".
Essentially "world schooling" is to "home schooling" what "remote work" is to traditional "office work".
It works for some families and not for others. One advantage for longer duration travel is that there is a lot of downtime for things like schooling that you wouldn't have time for on a traditional vacation.
One channel I follow is Sailing Zatara. They are currently in Spain having circumnavigated the globe 1.5 times. They do have a regular schooling schedule, but have plenty of time for learning about the local cultures they travel through as well as develop their own talents, etc.
By being "out on the blue" they avoid the normal tug of things that take up family and schooling time (select club sports being one example).
"Presumably, fathers are involved, at least somewhere along the line."
They are at work paying for the vacation.
When I was a kid in a very demanding private school, giving up most of a normal American teen life for the chance to get into an Ivy, I would be silently infuriated when some well-intentioned grownup would say “that would be an education in itself!” about some travel or cultural thing.
I would be thinking to myself “yes, but it doesn’t count for anything. Even if it makes for a good admissions essay, that essay won’t counteract the lower grades and test scores I’d suffer.”
Now I interview kids trying to get into my Ivy. Their rat race is ten times harder than mine was.
I can’t see how getting pulled out of school for travel would possibly help their chances.
JSM
I don't believe this is a one-answer issue.
I missed about two and a half months of classroom time in the fifth grade (all of October and some of April and all of May. Didn't seem like I was falling behind because I didn't pay much attention in class anyway. As an early and avid reader, keen observor and curious little guy, I got by.
I did not have a single classroom teacher who reached me until my junior year in high school. Thank you Sister Fergus. You changed me. I planted a tree in my backyard many ears ago and named it after you. It's doing great and causes me to remember you often.
There was a problem missing those particular two months, though. Certain concepts in math beyond add, subtract, multiply and divide were introduced. Math itself isn't that "hard" but if you missed out on being drilled on the vocabulary of math and the understanding of basic methods of problem-solving, then every solution has to be invented "from scratch". It takes time.
Also. I kinda missed out on grammar, entirely. In spite of making a living all my life writing things (articles, scripts, speeches and other stuff), I could not, to this day, diagram a sentence. Most of what I know about grammar comes from studying German, rather late in my life.
On the other hand - while missing out on grammatical nuances in fifth grade, I got dropped into a very foreign culture (Japan, 1953). I instantly knew that everything I thought I knew about Japan (not much, really) was way off-base. I learned that people who seem so different aren't really all that different, especially if you respect the differences that are important to them.
Bottom line, I learned more outside the classroom in the next two years than the average 10-12 year-old "Teacher's Pet".
Fast forward about 30 years and I spent four years in an important but mid-level job in Tokyo.
Never one to "know my place" and bouyed by my comfort level in an environment that was "Lost in Translation" to many Gaigins in High Places, I found myself frequently coloring outside the lines.
I started writing for the weekly ExPat newspaper and next thing I know, the publisher gives me a couple of pages to fill. The US Ambassador hears a speech made by my boss and asks to borrow me occasionally. I get invited to be a contributor/editor for the government's annual White Paper - "Defense of Japan".
Japan's Foreign Minister calls me at home one Saturday and asks me to get the US to make an official statement on a subject that is threatening the survival of the government. Official chanels are in a flat-line state. EasyPeasy, really. After a couple of days of back-and-forth, we came up with something that took the heat off his government without compromising US military interests. I became the US Official credited with the statement and therefore the head on the chopping block if something went awry.
Education's like life itself - win some, lose some - one size doesn't fit all. Just sayin'
'I was the first person in my family to fly anywhere.'
This is very common with white folk too, Crack.
I didn't get on a plane until I was out of high school.
Same with my family - my first flight was in high school, travelled with a friend and his family. To my knowledge, my mother only ever flew once or twice, and my father only a single time, when he was flown back from Korea while in the Army. I only ever travelled more than a couple of states away (grew up in New England, so not much distance) other than to attend an uncle's funeral in Virginia.
I add this not to be critical, but to emphasize that there is some commonality among us regardless of race, which is a good thing.
If you're rich enough to take your kids around the world, you're rich enough to not care about public schooling.
This is really a no-brainer. Your kid can travel the world and experience different cultures and remember it for the rest of his life. Or he can stay at home and go to a classrom and have a stranger teach him ABC.
So much of what you do in class before HS is just marking time. And that leaves aside the fact that what takes you a month to learn in 1st grade, can be learned in a day in 8th grade. It used to be rich people would homeschool their kids and send them to prep school when they wer 13-14.
“Dave Begley said...
Only the ultra-rich can take their kids to Europe for a month.”
Good Lord, no. Almost anyone with middle-class means could make it happen with a little planning.
Nevertheless, I did find it comical that the NYT takes that as a given. The degree to which wealth-signaling accompanies virtue-signaling is a never-ending source of mirth.
It very much depends on what sorts of "Travel" is done.
My family homeschooled, and in our Dallas metro area the students "traveled" weekly or so to spend a day in places the out-of-towners visit for an few hours once per lifetime. The Dallas and Ft Worth zoos, the Fair Park natural history museum, the Perot Museum, the Myerson, the Majestic, the Aquarium... Kids can study up before hand, see and touch or smell (especially the animal) exhibits, ask questions of staff, go home and draw pictures, write a page, think up BETTER questions, and GO BACK, to ask again, or ask somebody else. Gets to be a habit to apply on actual trips, to see the "sea turtle rescue" event on Padre Island, or the "UFO/ghost lights" at Marfa, or track sunspots at the McDonald Observatory ... If a child or family just shows up at the Louvre or Big Ben or Yellowstone without the habits of learning, no learning takes place.
And frankly a typical public school classroom in my experience gives very little evidence it ever does very much to teach "learning" in general; and certainly not to help a student gain from a "field trip". I suspect the NYT readers who object to "world schooling" are projecting the behaviors they see in a mob of badly behaved, age-segregated, day tripping public school kids yelling as they march off the big yellow bus onto all sorts of other arrangements.
When I was teaching, if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments.
That's as clear evidence that schooling is about getting good grades, not real learning. A topic Paul Graham dealt with quite well in his 2019 essay, The Lesson to Unlearn. Parents, teachers, colleges all incentivize getting good grades over real learning. Deep learning, spending more than is necessary to pass the test is likely to cause the student to fall behind in the class or other classes. And to be a good future bureaucrat, grades matter, not real learning.
One can't fault this former professor, they were paid to get students to a good grade, not on what comprehension the student might have even a week after the exam. It's gameshow knowledge school promotes. Quick answers to simplified questions, not brooding, considering or evaluating.
A man learns more about business in the first six months after his graduation than he does in his whole four years of college. But—and here is the "practical" result of his college work—he learns far more in those six months than if he had not gone to college. He has been trained to learn, and that, to all intents and purposes, is all the training he has received. To say that he has been trained to think is to say essentially that he has been trained to learn, but remember that it is impossible to teach a man to think. The power to think must be inherently his. All that the teacher can do is help him learn to order his thoughts—such as they are.
Marks, Percy, "Under Glass", Scribner's Magazine Vol 73, 1923
Teach the kids how to breakdown and process lectures and reading and you are well on the way to them knowing how to learn. But the last thing a US school will do is teach students how to study as then they might stop paying tuition for spoon-fed grades.
I remember the stories early in the pandemic, I believe in the NY Times, of parents who had discovered their child was a voracious learner who had been suffering in their industrial schooling. Those stories were disappeared quite quickly as the narrative was to cover for the then closed schooling system and not show kids succeeding outside the classroom, especially the disastrous Zoom classrooms.
This April 20, 2020 post here, looks at the deception of Harvard Magazine over depicting homeschooling as a child locked in a house of books while the other kids are free outside "in the world". Now we have the opposite, where a child out in the world is a bad thing since they will not be in the clutches of the government approved educators.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/04/harvard-magazine-gets-attention-for.html
BTW, Ann sides with the Harvard law professor who wants a presumption against letting parents teach their kids. Sure, some parents may not go it right, but in my family there is a cousin who did the whole professional government schooling and ended up with a certificate of attendance instead of a high school diploma. And she passed through dozens of "educators" to get there. But also, one generation later, a boy whose home schooling by his college instructor (she was a head coach) mother failed to oversee his schooling. He's sorting that out now and on his way to becoming an electrician.
So please, save me the "educator" fetish idea that teachers and professors can't be just as bad as the most uncredentialed parent. Only the former get paid for their incompetence.
"I was the first person in my family to fly anywhere."
Me too. I was about 30 and it was a work related trip.
This isn't the first time you've displayed an unrealistic view of "white life". And now I understand why:
Crack said…"White kids I went to school with regularly vacationed in Europe. They lived in what I thought of as McMansions, they had horses and airplanes, and their parents were famous executives and/or celebrities."
That's like upper 1% experiences, not "white" experiences.
I took my kids on trips, usually to Europe. That was during school vacations, though. My youngest daughter commented that the art she was shown in her AP art history class, she had seen in person. My middle daughter got very adventurous from her travel experience, including flying into the headwaters of the Amazon from Ecuador where she was working on an archeological dig.
My wife and I were able to give our children a wide view of the world without hampering their education. We were not wealthy, but we had help.
I was in the Army and that let us see much of the US, and we spent 10 years in various locations in Europe. I hope it served them well.
Dogma and Pony Show:
2. ... Not saying that every place is thoroughly Americanized, but world travel isn't nearly as "exotic" as is once was.
Time Magazine with a photo of a Bedouin talking on a cellphone in the desert.
The intelligent kids I knew in school didn't get the info from the teachers. Go through the books, take all the chapter tests and stick the pages in the book way before the chapter came to class. The teachers were more for confirmation.
Joe Smith:
My father grew up without hot water in the house, and heat at night were bricks taken from a fireplace, wrapped in a towel, and put under the covers. Oh, and my father and his two brothers all slept in one bed. I could go on.
Hey! I knew those people!
I actually preferred buses so I didn't fly until I started contracting into corporate. They don't want to wait 2-3 days. I hated, hated it. Haven't flown since I quit.
As I have done through all my child rearing years, I follow the philosophy of Aunti Mame regarding travel for children. " Yes! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Definitely take the younglings to see the starving masses.
I can't help but notice that the quoted teacher lamented that by travelling broadly some students might miss what they felt was information helpful in completing assignments or answer test questions. Note: the teacher didn't say that they might miss learning something independently valuable. Having seen my daughter finish high school without the impediment of going to a high school reinforces just how little of value is going on there.
So go ahead, take your child abroad, or stay here. Open their minds up to possibilities and perspectives. They will be much better off.
The Crack Emcee said...
"White kids I went to school with regularly vacationed in Europe. They lived in what I thought of as McMansions, they had horses and airplanes, and their parents were famous executives and/or celebrities."
Are you making this up? Where did this happen? When did this happen? Based on your photo, you've been out of school for decades.
In the 1960s, I went to public JHS/HS in La Jolla CA, which was and still is a high net worth/income community in San Diego. Most of my classmates' parents didn't own horses or airplanes. Their parents were not famous executives or celebrities. Even the same age students at local private schools didn't have wealthy parents like you describe.
You write about a familiarity with South Central LA and then the same about places like Malibu, Rancho Palos Verdes, or Beverly Hills. I'm not buying it.
That NYT commenter sounds like to worst sort of pompous "EVERYTHING I TEACH IS FUNDAMENTAL" windbag.
Oh, college prof. Of course.
It's funny that some in higher ed push foreign travel--with them--as the pinnacle of true enlightenment and world citizenship, and some knock parents (in my case, a grandmother and aunt) who have the nerve to think that there are more important things than the day's lesson.
That was true even in my day, when there was a reasonable chance of getting a good public education, even in the South.
Oma and Aunt Louise had to get special OK to take me for a week to NYC in the 5th or 6th grade, by using the cultural enrichment argument. We saw a Broadway musical (movie? Gypsy?) and an opera (Butterfly--Louise's school chum Mignon Dunn was singing, we went backstage) and Metropolitan Museum I think. FAO Schwartz at Christmas time!
A lot of time in the taxi--Oma had hair goods business to do and we went to a lot of importers and specialist suppliers. Louise had gone to finishing/secretarial school there and knew her way around. Pretty sure I had to make a report of some kind in class after but I can't be sure.
A few years later, we went for three weeks to Europe. I'm not sure if I missed school or not--I think I did. I've got some photos to help jog my memory.
Opa and Oma had become comfortably middle class after decades of six-day-a-week hard work, but they weren't rich, and neither was their son when he died at age 39.
One of the smartest guys I know--I hired him as a student assistant and he's now a valued friend--defied his MD father to 1) go to a public school rather than Frattyprep Academy, and 2) drop out of that school, ace the GED, and get on with a real education and life.
I'm conflicted on this issue. It seems to me that taking your child on vacation during the school year, especially if it's only for about a week, could be done without great effort or noticeable harm for most kids. I mean, if the family is going through a run of a bad virus, the child could easily miss that much school anyway due to illness.
In my case, I was out of school in fourth grade for about two months due to a broken arm and injured knee (these days they would probably have me in some kind of walking cast and back at school much sooner). The school assumed that I would have to repeat fourth grade but my mom insisted that they test me and since I was reading at high school level, there was no problem.
But, schools really frown on taking time off for some sort of family travel and it's easy to see why. What kinds of absences should be excused? Is it a five-day absence for fun travel to Disney in the off-season, is it a month in Europe, is it two weeks to be with a dying grandparent across the country, is it time spent in some sort of sports camp or musical enrichment program? And how much are teachers expected to process the disruption and put together a custom package of curricular materials and make-up exams?
This was not so strange for older kids during the previous centuries, when young men would take the Grand Tour to Europe to polish their understanding, view the artifacts of western civilization, and dip into other cultures. Of course, they were done with what we would call high school.
Dr. Dennis
because every single person named in the article is female
Because the Times writes overwhelmingly for women in a predominantly white culture.
It could be very beneficial for kids today to experience how kids in the rest of the world live.
A lawyer handling an accident case can interview the witnesses and read the accident report and still not understand it. But when he visits the scene of the accident it all comes together. The same happens when a student of world historical events visits Europe or visits Israel. It finally all makes sense.
So travel is hyper educational to people like that.
I like how the whole family did their own research papers and read them to the rest of the family. This is a family into learning and talking about interesting things. Better than barely taking the time to see what each other can learn.
... if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments.
And there's the focus of academics everywhere. Tests and assignments. A kid who's learning through travel is not learning the one-size-fits-all cookie cutter curriculum. They can easily make up gaps through reading, possibly learning math through calculating currency differences, there are any number of opportunities they won't get by sleeping through a teacher's droning on.
... if a student missed even one day of class due to illness or something like varsity athletics they were at risk of missing important information that would aid them on subsequent tests or essay assignments.
And there's the focus of academics everywhere. Tests and assignments. A kid who's learning through travel is not learning the one-size-fits-all cookie cutter curriculum. They can easily make up gaps through reading, possibly learning math through calculating currency differences, there are any number of opportunities they won't get by sleeping through a teacher's droning on.
"[A]t risk of missing important information..."
Long ago, when I was in college, I got a chance to go to an exotic part of the world for free for a week or so on fairly short notice.
I remember being worried about an assignment in my English class that would be due during or shortly after my trip. When I told my Professor about my opportunity to travel -- and miss her class for a week -- she adamantly told me to enjoy and learn from the trip and not to worry about her class or the assignment. I could turn it in late, no problem.
That was a long time ago now and since then I've taught plenty of college classes myself, but the years have given me the perspective that she was exactly right.
My father (1923-1962) was the first in his family to graduate from high school, because he was the first in his family to be born in this country and speak English as his mother tongue.
He was also the first to fly in an airplane, courtesy of his Uncle Sam, 1942-1945. He got shot at while dropping bombs on Germans who might have been his cousins. I met some of them later.
My daughter was homeschooled until she was 12, when her mother and I divorced. I was given custody and she was sent to public high school, which lasted for about a month. By agreement with the school superintendent, I withdrew her at that point, and she was essentially unschooled from age 13 to 16. Then, on her own initiative, she took a single class at community college until she was 18.
She's now at at Embry-Riddle, full ride scholarship, majoring in aerospace engineering.
The idea that you must attend public elementary/middle/high school in order to get into STEM is utter BS.
RigelDog:
But, schools really frown on taking time off for some sort of family travel and it's easy to see why.
Yes indeed. It cuts into their funding/salaries/control.
Our daughter, PhD Chemistry, was schooled at home very much like the traveling family. The main difference was that we did all our traveling and interest items locally.
Missing class.
As a Farm kid, it was not uncommon to miss parts of the school day or whole days. Depending on class schedule and what I could miss, and what I could not, would determine what part of the day I would take off.
One spring evening at the supper table the phone rang, Asked for Dad. He listened, then responded he was unaware my grades were slipping due to being absent. He listened some more, and then said, "well get back to me when his grades drop, and we'll see what part of the equation needs fixed".
Today, I'm not sure why attendance is so important. They don't test anymore, don't grade, advance kids that haven't learned the material....but butts in the seat is critical
We homeschooled our two youngest from 1st through most of high school and traveled the world every winter when farming was done. We didn't need much money as we traveled on the cheap. Buses in Mexico and central America, trains and hostels in Europe. You get the idea. Lots of great free stuff to do with museums and art everywhere. Our kids got an education like no other and have done very well. Our son is a Lt Commander in the Navy reserves as a JAG and is the elected prosecuting attorney for our county. His sister has a Masters and works for the VA in health care. Well adjusted people with a love of travel and an appreciation for what we all enjoy by virtue of being born here.
What we discovered that set us free was that the public schools are mostly there to babysit. They make very poor use of the time they have with your kids so it is easy to exceed what normal schools teach with only a few hours a day of mostly self directed study. Our kids each found what they liked and really dug in. They learned because they loved it not because they were forced. Homeschooling works and it is easy and so much better for your children. Travel the world and take the children, you'll both benefit.
I don't know how much travel she did, but one of my younger staff colleagues at work was homeschooled until college--and she was outstandingly smart, hardworking, and socially adept.
Hot too, but I wasn't supposed to notice.
I regret that we didn't take our son overseas at some point. All his travel, with or without us, has been stateside, and he doesn't have the historical-cultural-aesthetic interests I (and to some extent my wife also) do.
"What we discovered that set us free was that the public schools are mostly there to babysit. They make very poor use of the time they have with your kids so it is easy to exceed what normal schools teach with only a few hours a day of mostly self directed study"
This.
Sending you kids to public school is almost child abuse. I am guilty.
"World traveling with your family" is an experience that depends upon your family. Have mercy, my family came very close to mayhem on a family trip through the next state over. It's over sixty years back, and my sister and I still refer to it as the vacation from/to Hell. No two schools are exactly the same, nor are two families.
Fortunately, our home was well supplied with books.
Enjoyed spending a month in Europe with our kids this summer.
They learned a lot in museums in Edinburgh, Cambridge, Bath, London, Lyon, Paris, Copenhagen etc.
If your children are average or above average, they are likely to be bored in a public school environment where they are surrounded as readers by age 5 (pretty normal) with kids who are still learning their ABCs.
Home schoolers have the opportunity to fan the flames of curiosity inside their children in a way that makes them desire to become lifelong learners. The proof regarding the efficacy of the approach is in the standardized testing (working out well for decades now). Our failing educational system in America is spending more than ever before, for worse results. That is too bad. Part of the solution is to quit ignoring special education for gifted students, and quit warehousing kids in a way that punishes smart kids until high school when they can do AP or IB.
One hundred years ago, when my father was in school, it was common for farm kids to miss many days and weeks because their help was needed at home. Dad basically attended school only in the winter, as he had to be home for fall harvest and spring planting. He missed almost his entire sophomore year and he decided not to go at all his senior year because he assumed he wouldn't be able to graduate. The school principal told him to come anyway, so he did. When Dad took the comprehensive test required for graduation, he had the highest score and ended up being the class valedictorian. He said the town kids, some of whom had perfect attendance, weren't happy with him. It turns out you can learn a lot from real-world experience. Oh and BTW, for a graduation present his uncle gave him a one year subscription to the Wall Street Journal.
He started traveling in his 30s, going to many states, Canada and Mexico. He was one of the smartest people I knew, and he took his children out of school for a week every fall after harvest was over, so we could travel, too. I was one fortunate kid.
"I need to spend an hour in front of the mirror doing a project about ancient Egyptian makeup traditions."
Witty, but that could actually be an in depth study depending on age; styles, connections to religion, components, tie ins to fashion. You've got a good hand so I've no doubt you could replicate the styles. I wouldn't recommend original ingredients though.
In college (way back) one art professor tossed a metal box of 500 or more slides of art "things" on my table. My grade for the course was finding the information for each thing and writing a mini-synopsis. Saw more and learned more about art doing that than all other lessons combined.
Same thing, different grade levels. Glad it didn't affect my staying in art.
Why'd you quit doing rats?
When I was in high school I was friends with a Dutch guy who was in a nearby high school taking classes for the year he and his family were in our country while his father, a Dutch Army colonel, was working on a project at Redstone Arsenal. It was simply accepted that while he was attending his junior year at an American high school it was sufficiently worthless that he and his sister would have to repeat the year back in Holland.
When my sister and her family went to Norway for a year the 3 boys were put in Norwegian schools for the year and came back home and went into the next grade. They also spoke and read Norwegian.
I think the one and only thing I learned in all my years of schooling at 9 different schools was touch typing. I pretty much learned the rest by reading or at home.
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