What Is World Schooling? Let’s Find Out
In a way, the title of this piece answers its own question: what is world schooling? It is all about finding out! To summarise, world schooling involves taking your children with you on your travels and educating them about the things they see and hear, teaching them the skills they need to problem-solve in real life situations and generally properly equipping them to deal with other cultures, different climates and more: the real world, in a nutshell.
What is World Schooling in Detail?
World schooling is a modern name for an old phenomenon. In the days before regulated education, aristocrats would often take their children (mainly their sons) with them as they travelled about the world, inducting them into the world they would inherit one day, whether it was learning about running vast estates, learning the ropes of a business from the ground up or simply learning the elegant manners and correct language with which to be accepted in high society.
World schooling is similar, in that parents do not put their children into the school system, instead spending their time as digital nomads working from wherever in the world they are, while the children learn languages from trying to speak them, pick up scientific theories from being taken to sites of scientific study, and generally learn to immerse themselves in new cultures, learning just from spending time and attention on other places and people.
Often the biggest take-away that world-schooled children end up with is an active interest in learning and achieving excellence: all children strive, at least until an uncaring tick-box education system starves them of their ambition and enthusiasm.
Who Coined the Phrase World Schooling?
The phrase is credited to Jenn and Tony Miller who took their children out of school to travel and liked it so much, finding their children thrived on it, that they decided to keep on travelling and exploring, learning how to work while on the road to fund their travels and lifestyle. But, as mentioned before, they just coined the best description for something people had been doing for many years.
Where do World Schoolers Sleep?
Depending on their income levels and budgets – and probably also upon the climate in which they are currently travelling – world schoolers sleep in tents, hostels, hotels and campervans or motorhomes.
Minimalists at heart, a family of four or five can fit comfortably into one of the bigger campervans which becomes a home for the family as they go, offering a point of continuity that younger children crave, and they can do so surprisingly cheaply with no rent to pay, solar power to heat and light their way, and rain water stores tucked into the roof for bathing and washing up.
In fact, the most significant expense that world schoolers might face is campervan insurance for their converted and adapted motor home! If you are planning a campervan adventure with the family, you can Compare self build campervan insurance here.
Now you know what world schooling is, do you think it’s time to find a campervan in which to fit all your earthly possessions and vanish around the world on a voyage of exploration? What can you learn from world schooling? Let’s find out!
