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The truth is that if you are planning or already providing a Location Independent education to your children, then you probably already have an educational philosophy. Whether you’ve ever clearly articulated it for yourself or for others though, is perhaps a little less definitive.

An educational philosophy is a touchstone. It’s a way of clearly outlining what you and your child want for your child’s education, and equally what you don’t want. It’s a setting of your intentions, a clarification of your aspirations and a calming of your apprehensions. It’s a very valuable statement which will not only empower you, but will also empower your child…

Ok, you may be thinking that this is all very well but what do I actually need one for?

Well, for one thing you’ll need to get very used to explaining to others why you are doing what you’re doing. In the first instance, this may be broaching the idea with each other as parents. As we all know, open lines of communication are key to healthy relationships and you’re going to want to explain your reasons as coherently as possible to your spouse. Home schooling and home education when one parent is all for it and the other is reluctant, is rarely successful.

Now that you’ve made your decision together, you can present a united front to family and friends. This may be where you encounter most resistance and so you’re going to want to make sure that you have discussed this thoroughly with each other, set down some core values for your child’s education and agreed on answers to some of the more predictable questions. These will more than likely be, ‘What about socialisation?’ ‘What about their exams?’ ‘Are you mad?’

You may also need to explain your reasons for taking your children out of traditional schooling to the educational authorities. Now there are different rules and regulations regarding the education of children – please please please ensure that you get the best advice possible for your country and area. What you may find is that you will be required to share your educational philosophy with local education officials or some alternative local government office.

And then you will always get random strangers questioning you at the bus-stop, at the supermarket checkout, the library desk as to why you’ve made your decision, what about your child’s socialization, are you qualified and do you follow the state curriculum. Of course, it’s up to you whether you choose to respond to this line of questioning; however, I’m generally of the belief that the more I inform others about alternatives in education, the better!

Knowing exactly what it is that you believe and value, will give you enormous confidence when engaging in any of these conversations.

A Request For Your Participation…

Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be sharing some inspirational resources to help you construct your own educational philosophy which, like your approach, will be unique to you and your family. These resources have been selected to get you to start thinking about some of the following questions…

• What do you feel is wrong with the education systems you are currently familiar with?
• What do you want for your children in terms of their educational experience?
• What do you consider to be a well-rounded education?
• What do you believe the purpose of education is?
• How do you feel about your own education?  What was good? What could have been better?
• If you were the education minister of your country, what policies would you set?

Each of the posts in this series will offer 10 quotes or links or video clips etc. to kickstart your thinking on education and your core values/beliefs regarding what you want for your child.

What we want you to do is share your favourite educational resources in response to the individual series post topics. Why? Because we’re going to create our first Location Independent Parent’s crowd-sourced book!!

The plan is to collate all of your responses along with our own recommendations into a document, which will then be made available for sale with all profits going to Save the Children to aid in their international efforts to improve the lives of children everywhere. Exciting, hey?

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Here at Location Independent Parents, we stress that there is no ‘best’ way to educate all children; there is no magic formula of curriculum material + free play + project work + educational outing + socialisation = best education ever!

There is no one-size fits all approach, and we will never recommend one to you…

Because the truth is that there are as many ‘best’ ways to educate your child as there are children.  Now, I completely understand that when you start out home-educating your child, this can seem bewildering at best, and downright chaotic at worst.

When my husband and I started to investigate the possibility of home-education, what I really wanted was someone to swoop in and say, ‘This is the way that you’re supposed to do it, and if you follow my example, you’ll have happy, intelligent, independent, free-thinking children!’

Now, I’m not saying that no-one did swoop in to say that – there are an awful lot of people out there that believe that they know best – but what I am saying is that if someone does tell you that, please don’t fall for it.

Only you will know what is best for your child.

You know the way that they learn.  You know the rhythm of their energy flows, their need for variety, their capacity to absorb information.  As a switched on parent, who is engaged with their child’s development, you are best placed to devise an approach that will best suit your child.

And I should add here, coming from my perspective as a mother of 3, you may find (in fact, you’ll probably find!) that what works for one of your kids does not work for the other. Flexibility is one of the greatest gifts that we give ourselves and our children when we choose home-education, so don’t lock yourself into rigidly applying an approach to your entire family, as it may not work.

So what kinds of approach can you take?

The Home School

This is when the rhythms, curricula, ethos of a school are transplanted from a school environment and replicated at home. This can be good for kids who respond well to this kind of structure, who are planning to reintegrate back into an educational system after a period of away time, or who struggle to find focus when the structure is removed entirely, as it is with autonomous education (unschooling).

Autonomous Education

This is the opposite extreme of the home-school where there is no structure whatsoever, and the child is allowed to determine their own route through their education. In this case the parent takes the role of supporter, facilitator and co-learner. It’s a very free-form of education that places emphasis of the importance of free-play and which actively avoids the imposition of structure.

Somewhere In Between

To be honest very few families adopt either of these extremes. In my experience, and maybe you will tell me different, most home-educating families choose something somewhere in between.

The approach that we have chosen to take with our own children has been a combination of curricula for maths, project work for language skills (based on whatever their current passion is), music lessons, foreign language lessons (currently Hungarian) and then a healthy dose of free play.

It’s an approach that works for us on many levels, as we have some structure so both the kids and I gain confidence in their progression, we have some child-led learning so the kids can develop independent study skills, and free play so we can enjoy creativity, spontaneity, serendipity. This is the way that works best for my family, but I will never tell you that it’s the best way for your family.

The best way for your family, will be unique to your children, and the way you will figure it out, will be through trial and error. Have fun exploring what works best – it’s truly a great adventure where the learning for both parent & child never really ends!

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Eva Gill from Gill Adventures

As I began this journey of planning for living location independent as a family, I found many bloggers who had left a breadcrumb trail I’ve been able to follow. For many questions, this made answers magically appear with little effort on my part, and I am extremely grateful. One path that was not so clearly marked as I set off was choosing home school curriculum for our teenager…

Many of the families I found who had home schooled on the road had younger children. Others with older children had no intention of stepping back into the life they left behind, or returning to a public school system at the end of their travels.What we needed was a curriculum that would allow our children to learn independently throughout our travels, before transitioning back into traditional education when we return.

Researching Our Options

Our first step was to look at any state provision of off-campus education. Oregon, like many states, offers an online public school. Although I understand that some states will allow a child to enroll if they have been attending school in that state and plan to return at the end of travels. Oregon does not. The requirement here is that the materials be used physically in the house to which they are sent; domicile and tax status notwithstanding.

I would suggest that any parent from the USA planning a limited time, location independent experience look into the availability and requirements in their state.

After surfing around unsuccessfully online, I turned to my sister-in-law, who had home schooled her children while living in Japan for seven years. Her experience looked much different than ours would, as she had a permanent home where the boys could keep stacks of textbooks and desktop computers were set up at three stations in the living room.

From her came the first and probably most important piece of advice: start with the school your child will be returning to. Contact the counselor there and find out exactly what they will accept.

From the counselor at our local high school, we found that the best way to assure that Hannah could step back into class with her peers was to choose an accredited program that will issue transcripts. This is not so important for elementary and middle school, as they have more flexibility.

Refining the Search

An online search for home school curriculum and private online schools produces a flood of results, which I found overwhelming. Comparing programs based on company websites was sort of like buying a car by looking at it through a keyhole. Hannah and I made a list of our priorities:

• No books - As we will be living from one suitcase and one carry-on per person, we won’t have room to lug books around. The girls must be able to access what they need electronically, via computer or Kindle.

• Teacher support - If Hannah does not understand something, there needs to be someone available who can help. We understand that this may not be 24 hour availability. After all, we’ll be in a different time zone, and sleeping during “school hours” back home. But, at least, someone available that we can e-mail or chat with through a forum.

• Accredited – To be able to return without worrying about testing or the need to repeat anything.

• Mid-year start – We are leaving in February, so will need to start for the second semester. As Hannah is currently in the 8th grade taking both high school Spanish and Algebra 1, we will need to enroll her in these two courses to finish the school year, and full time as a freshman in the fall.

We found a couple of online private schools that look like great programs. In Ojai, California, is a private prep school called Laurel Springs which specializes in expatriates and families who are traveling extensively. They can offer a lot of support and even customize curriculum to learn about places we would be visiting.

We could enroll at any time, classes are on the schedule of the student. This is a very attractive program, and, sadly, expensive. Not by private school standards, but for those of us accustomed to free public schooling. It would be a great fit for a family with a bigger budget.

Another private online school is offered by k12.com, with either a complete package or individual classes. This program seems to have a little less support and is not as customizable as Laurel Springs. I understand that this company is actually the service provider for several of the public online school programs.

They also offer their program via private school for those of us who do not qualify for online public school. This also translates to private school tuition, albeit a bit less than Lauren Springs.

So, we added another priority to our list:

• Cost – We need to be able to afford the schooling without choking. Although keeping up with schoolwork and not falling behind is a priority, much of the learning over the next two years will come through the experience, not the curriculum. We don’t have to pay for “the best,” we just don’t want to lose any ground.

Even with the list, sifting through websites was a huge undertaking. I turned to an association I am a member of, which has a special interest group for home schooling families. I posted the question on their forum, explaining our plans and what we needed. Connecting with people who have been homeschooling and know some of the programs available was very helpful.

Curriculum Options

There are several very good curriculum options out there, some of the non-accredited are even offered by accredited schools, such as Aleks Math and Thinkwell. For families who don’t mind going through the process of home school testing, these are outstanding. For us, we want the simplicity of transcripts from an accredited school.

Finally, we settled on Compuhigh, which is an online division of an accredited high school. It is fully portable, and teacher support is available as we need it. They will provide transcripts in the end, so returning to public school will be simple. Enrollment and completion dates are flexible. And, comparatively, it was a decent value for the price.

There are great improvements on their way that will change the face of schooling on the road. Current programs are one-way. Interactivity with instructors through the programs themselves is working its way into online college curriculum, and will trickle down into high school and younger. Huge libraries are being digitized to be made available online. Between Google, Gutenberg, Kindle, and Nook, we will have access to much more information from anywhere.

Yet, even today there is so much more available than a couple of years ago. So, as we head out, I’m casting a few of my own breadcrumbs, hoping that they’ll make the trail a little easier to find for the next family.

Image by Amy Palko

Possibly one of the most frequent questions I get asked about my choice to educate my children from home is the socialization question: What about your children’s interaction with others?  Aren’t they deprived of friends and social contact?  Don’t you find that they get lonely?

While I don’t want to appear boastful, my kids are extremely articulate, well-adjusted, and really very sociable indeed. They don’t come across as children who are deprived of social contact whatsoever! Consequently it’s a question that throws me every time, because it’s often asked after the enquirer has met my children, had a conversation with them, and commented on how well- spoken they are.

The assumption is that a child’s socialization occurs entirely within school-hours and that, by removing your child from the system, their socialization will somehow be stunted. Even when presented with evidence of the contrary through conversation with socially competent home-educated children, this perception remains virtually unshakeable…

Defining Healthy Social Behaviour

I think one of the main reasons why the question bemuses me so, is that I maintain a much broader sense of what a child’s socialization should entail.  I am not content with socialization being consigned to interaction with one’s own artificially engineered, age-specific peer-group.  I want my kids to have the opportunity to interact with a significantly wider sample of society.  I want them to feel confident in their social skills to converse with anyone from the age of 3 to 93, and not feel awkward, uncomfortable or somehow less capable of participating.

I have, on occasion encountered the argument that by removing them from the school system I am removing the chance that they will be bullied – and that this is a bad thing!?  From what I understand, there are some that believe that by being bullied at school, the child will learn to cope with that situation and that this, in turn, will leave them better equipped for the adult-world.

I argue, however, that I would much rather instill a sense of self-confidence and strong self-esteem as nurtured through healthy social behaviour, so that should they encounter bullying as adults, they are so secure in their own beliefs, values, opinions that they can stand strong.  I have yet to meet anyone who was glad that they were bullied at school, and felt that it gave them an advantage as they got older.

I certainly wouldn’t discount that some have had that experience, just that I’ve not met anyone who does, and it’s not what I personally want for my children.

A Broader View of Socialization

The truth of it is, is that most of us are all engaged in social interaction on a daily basis, and very few of us live in isolation.  There are infinite ways to connect with each other both in the real world and in the virtual world (and I would argue that in this increasingly technology-focused society, both are equally important), and that there is no reason why a home-educated child should be any less socially aware than a school-educated child.

In fact, as a child of a location independent family, they would find that the sheer variety of interactions with people would far eclipse those available to a child who attended school with the same 25 children day in, day out.  Exposure to different languages, different cultures, different customs is such a gift to give to a child, and should be valued as such, rather than adopting the attitude that they are in some way socially deprived.

I expect that there are many home-educating parents who have positive examples of socialization that have occured outwith the school establishment.  Why not leave a comment sharing yours…