Special guest edition: How we homeschooled today by Joel Bowman

Travel is fatal to prejudice

Regular readers will have noticed that my family loves the Classical Wisdom Kids Substack, which shares information and activities on the Classical world. When I discovered that the family behind Classical Wisdom Kids are a family of homeschoolers I was desperate to get them to contribute to How We Homeschool. And here they are! I’m really excited to share this very adventurous family’s experience with you, so without further ado…

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Dear Catherine,

Thank you kindly for inviting us to contribute a little something to your wonderful resource How We Homeschool. And congratulations on the publication! 

As you know, we’re “away schoolers,” which is essentially like homeschooling only... without the “home.” 

Currently, we’re embarked on a kind of Junior Grand Tour around the Old World, having flown north for the summer from our semi-regular base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We’ll be on the road (and on the rails, in the air, on the seas, etc.) for five months, give or take. 

Our carry-on only party numbers three – Anya, who heads up Classical Wisdom and its fledgling offshoot, Classical Wisdom Kids; Frida, our 8yr old budding classicist and world traveler; plus your grateful guest for today, rounding out our peripatetic little troop. 

Now, I was going to write to you today with a classic “day in the life” type piece, outlining how we do, well... whatever it is we do. Oftentimes, that’s visiting museums and ancient sites and then turning those experiences into various activities. (Frida and I write a weekly “Postcard from the Road” together, for example, which we use to help formulate storytelling techniques, plus work on spelling and grammar, along with some basic typing skills and vocabulary building.)

But to be honest... things don’t always go to plan, and I don’t want to present your readers with an “Instagram filtered” version of our Away Schooling experience. As I’m sure members in your community well appreciate, life isn’t all finger-painted Mona Lisas and perfectly baked pies cooling on the window sill. 

A recent trip to Hadrian’s villa

In fact, sometimes things take a turn for the unexpected. Like they did today...

To back up a bit, I’m typing this letter to you from Tel Aviv, Israel, where we’re staying for a couple of days in a little Airbnb nearby the popular Carmel Markets. This morning, Frida and I headed to a local cafe to pen our weekly column together, while Anya prepared some questions for a Classical Wisdom podcast (which she’s recording, live, in the other room as I type). Frida had already sketched some notes about last week’s excursion to Hadrian’s Gate in Antalya, Turkey, that she was excited about working on. After plenty of coffee (dad) and chocolate croissants (Frida...ok, dad too), we got the job done and headed home. 

So far, so good...

By the time we returned to our place, Anya had finished her podcast questions and we were ready to hit the streets for some exploring. First stop, a half hour trek to the central bus station to purchase some tickets for tomorrow’s journey south to Eilat, down on the Red Sea. 

Being first time visitors to this city, we assumed a half hour walk across town would be a cinch and might even provide some opportunities for a few School of Life-type lessons. (We often use things like bus schedules, time zones and exchange rates to work on basic math. It’s part of an organic “learn by doing” kind of curriculum, where we try to turn everyday experiences on the road into fun and engaging opportunities to learn something new.) Only, like life on the road itself, Away Schooling often presents its own, peculiar kinds of challenges.

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The area surrounding Tel Aviv’s central bus station is very confronting... not to mention the station itself, which is a far cry from the picturesque esplanade overlooking the Mediterranean sunsets. In fact, it is another world entirely. 

Just to be clear, this is not a commentary on the complicated politics of the region or the situation here in Israel, both of which are well beyond the purview of this pithy letter. And we have certainly seen and experienced neglected areas in major American and European cities, often a few short blocks from towering wealth and privilege. Suffice to say, there are parts of the world – both at home and abroad – that present insights into scenes that do not typically appear in glitzy travel magazines or on laptop screensavers. 

One side of Tel Aviv

But it’s this part of our Away Schooling experience I wanted to share with your readers, because it illustrates a critical part of what Anya and I are trying to pass on to our little learner that is seldom addressed elsewhere. That is, from a purely educational perspective, we often find ourselves face-to-face with very harsh realities while traveling. 

Extreme poverty. Stark cultural differences. Seemingly insurmountable political, racial, and ethnic divides. There are moments when we are taken well out of our comfort zone and forced to acknowledge parts of the world as they actually are, as opposed to how we might like to imagine them from the comfort of our living room. 

It’s almost impossible to convey these “life lessons” in conventional curriculums, but they form an integral part of how we come to view the world around us. As such, we try to discuss these situations in an open (and, of course, age appropriate) manner, asking questions and addressing the realities we see along the journey as best we can. The lessons can—and do—last a lifetime. 

I remember traveling with my own family when I was not much older than Frida. Growing up in a working class household, Bali was our first and only family trip overseas (something akin to a jaunt over the Mexican border for your American readers.) As avid surfers, my dad and I spent the week hiking down the winding cliffside trails to the classic break, Uluwatu. (At the risk of further aging myself...this was looong before they paved the way with fancy resorts and expensive amenities.) Down by the beach, there was a row of thatched huts where the local Balinese sold sodas and rented makeshift hammocks. I befriended a young fellow of about my age, Ketut, who greeted me with his toothy smile each and every morning. 

At the end of our week abroad, we said our thanks and waved goodbye to our friends. But before we left, my father told me to give my shoes – the ones on my feet – to young Ketut. This I did grudgingly, trying not to appear upset as I handed them over. On the ride back to the hotel, I asked my dad why he had been so mean as to give away his own son’s shoes... his favorites, no less! 

He told me that there are kids in the world who don’t have shoes. Any shoes. He told me how fortunate we were to be able to go on a family vacation – one he worked two jobs so as to afford – and to enjoy these experiences together. And he told me how much a simple pair of shoes would mean to my friend, Ketut, about whom I’ve thought many times over the years...

The world is a big, complicated place and our young learners have many difficult conversations and realizations ahead of them. Our hope is that, with some moderated exposure to a broad cross section of the world, we can instill a measure of empathy and compassion that goes beyond the classroom. 

As the perennially quotable Mark Twain wrote in his first book, The Innocents Abroad, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

I still think about the lesson my dad gave me on that trip. If we do a good job, maybe Frida will one day remember some such incident from our time together on the road, “Away Schooling.” 

Best,

Joel Bowman

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Classical Wisdom Kids shares information and activities inspired by the Classical world. We have a paid subscription and I love the ideas they send over. Recently we had a great time learning about the different types of gladiator with a rather cunning Pokemon theme. Your children can also connect with Frida, who responds to readers’ questions from around the world. Recommended.

And, Joel’s second novel, Night Drew Her Sable Cloak, has just been released. The novel weaves together three distinct narratives, following three generations of heroines from the Midwest to the Far East, spanning the width and breadth of the entire 20th Century. Read more about it on Joel’s Substack.

If you’d like to share a day in your own family’s homeschooling life, please get in touch!

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