Your child’s education doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s says Jennifer Robertson
"Let me explain.
Our 11-year-old son Fergus, born in Bangkok to an American mother and a Scottish father, has been in brick-and-mortar private schools in five countries (Thailand, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus and the UK), but has also been home educated in three of those countries (Saudi Arabia, Cyprus and the UK).
His education has varied from spending hours on tedious homework worksheets after a long school day, to mountain biking on a weekday morning through a foggy Highland forest. If variety is the spice of life, he’s the equivalent of a spice souk in Oman (which we toured through when he was only three).
The Start of our Home Education Journey
Our home education journey officially began when he was four years old and we moved to Saudi Arabia. I had been toying with the idea of teaching him at home, and that itch, combined with the private schools for foreigners being full, with very long waiting lists, catapulted us into home learning.
We did themed unit studies and followed up with trips to immerse ourselves in first-hand knowledge. A month of learning about bees ended up with a ‘bee-keeper for a day’ trip to the rural hills of the island of Cyprus. Our block about ancient Egypt featured mummifying apples in our kitchen, and then trekking to Egypt to view real mummies in Cairo (which unfortunately ended up with all three of us admitted to the hospital due to pneumonia – the occasional pitfalls of travel).
Experiential Learning
Although Fergus did eventually attend school for a year in Saudi, it felt very underwhelming, and so we moved to Cyprus in search of new adventures, cooler weather and the opportunity to expand our horizons. When private English schools fell short of our expectations, we picked back up on our world schooling adventure and continued with our thirst for knowledge and experiential learning.
Catechism class online from America was topped off with roaming the streets of the Old Town of Jerusalem on New Year’s Day, visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and following in the footsteps of the apostles.
We studied history and wandered through the ruins of Salamis, an ancient city established by the Greeks in 1180 BCE and later taken over by the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Romans and the Byzantines. We harvested olives by hand, learned how to make village bread, sampled rose water in a distillery and watched as silversmiths demonstrated their craft in cosy village workshops made from hand-laid stone walls.
In Scotland, Fergus attended a beautiful Steiner school surrounded by pine and conker trees, where we he learned to appreciate a daily rhythm, watercolour painting, woodworking, storytelling and Maypole dancing.
When the school underwent changes this summer, we once again embarked on a home education journey, travelling to the Antonine and Hadrian walls as part of Roman history lessons, and visited the British Museum in London to see the exact ancient stone lion statues from the palace at Nimrud in Assyria that we saw drawings of in our encyclopaedia at home.
Poetry Teatime and Themed Book Parties!
Although travel and first-hand experience is the jewel of our educational journey as a family, there are plenty of days where we are slogging it out at home, working on more mundane topics like decimals, writing prompts and the intricacies of diagramming a sentence. But these moments can also be made more enchanting, in small but tangible ways.
Poetry tea times, themed book parties, and conducting lessons at the beach are all simple things you can implement to sprinkle more magic into your school day. And what I always remind myself of is this - just because you are doing something one way right now, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it that way forever.
Your family’s educational journey can ebb and flow just like the tides, be adjusted to suit your needs, and take shape in any way that you want or need it to. You might even find that you, as parents, rekindle your spark as life-long learners along the way!"
Jennifer M.S. Robertson is a Polish-American wife, mother and 17-year expatriate and immigrant who has lived in seven countries. She is a trained raw foods chef and holds both Master's and Ph.D. degrees in fisheries science. Check out her recipes and tips for healthy eating around the world at therawexpat.com.
