Lessons Learned on the Road - Episode 2

"Please, let this be a normal field trip!"

With these kids....? No way!

As "road scholars", we're trying to learn from the environment, cultures and sites all around us by mixing the good-old-fashioned 3R's (reading, writing and 'rithmetic) with the experiential learning 3R's of research, reconnaissance and reflection. 

As I listen to Trish and Isaac practice Arabic greetings in preparation for our travels in Morocco, I thought it might be interesting to list all of the "educational" field trips that we've gone on since we left Ottawa last year.

It is turning out to be a long, and admittedly eclectic list that has the kids (and us!) majoring in geography, social studies, languages, history, archaeology, ecology and the occasional experiments in physics (if you count roller-coasters and hot-air balloon rides).   It has also been fun to note where the different cultures and empires that we've seen -- Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Spanish, Swahili -- have intersected and influenced each other. 

Here is a partial list of the museums, national parks, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and experiences that were just-too-cool-for-school. 

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Canada

As I wrote back in July, we started our road schooling as "Tourists in Our Own Town" by taking advantage of some of Ottawa's world-class museums. But we continued learning as we hit the road in Southern Ontario and Quebec. 

• Museum of Science & Technology (before the attack of the mold closed it down)
• Museum of Civilization (before the Conservatives made civilization "history")
• Museum of Nature - a perennial favourite for us; 
• Point à Calliere -- Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, with a fascinating exhibit on the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal and à propos exhibition on Marco Polo; 
• School House Museum, Deep River (ironically, we ran out of time to visit the Clock Museum)
• Royal Ontario Museum - Toronto - with Tricia's dad
• The Hodgson-Terry House of Wonders - Meaford, Ontario
• HMS Strider's Nautical Adventures, a 3-hour sailboat tour with Captain Suzette & First Mate Brent, Georgian Bay
• Making butter tarts with Grandma and then translating the recipe into French;
• participatory experiments in physics: gravity, momentum, centrifugal force and nausea at Canada's Wonderland

 

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Checking out the Aya Sofia with the book and an audio guide

Turkey

Turkey is deeply-steeped in history -- archaeologists have found signs of human habitation as far back as 12,000 years -- and everywhere you go you are standing on one or more levels of Hittite, Lycian, Greek, Roman, Seljuk, Ottoman, or Turkish ruins and architecture. There are a gazilliion museums and historical sites, of which we visited the following: 

Isaac Wind, Road Scholar, channelling Indiana Jones at Ephesus.

Zoe and Isaac at the Sultanahmet Mosque

• Hagia Sophia Museum (a.k.a. the Aya Sofia), a cathedral turned mosque turned museum;
• Sultanahmet Mosque (a.k.a. the Blue Mosque)
• The Basilica Cistern -- an Ancient Roman water system under the city of Istanbul that helped it withstand sieges;
• Istanbul Modern, a contemporary art museum that had a great exhibit on sounds and sights in Istanbul;
• Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul -- the first home of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire
• Rahmi M Koç Museum of Science & Technology -- a very kid-friendly museum with a hands-on mathematics exhibit and an awesome soap bubble maker; 
• The Canakkale Museum, an Archaeological museum with many artifacts from Ancient Troy; 
• A guided tour of the Gallapoli War Memorials & Battlefield, where Turkey's  eventual first President held off the combined forces of England, France, New Zealand, Australia and Newfoundland. 
• Kadifekale (Castle). Izmir, and old Ottoman fort on the top of the hill. 
• Greek-Roman Ruins in Izmir (Smyrna), 
• Ephesus, the ancient Greek / Roman city made famous in the Book of Acts, and the follow-up hit, the Paul's Letter to the Ephesians; 
• Çesme Castle, a Geonese then Ottoman then Crusader castle on the Aegean Sea;
• A private model ship museum in Boranova (no website just yet, it seems). 
• A personal visit to one of the Levantine Mansions in Bornova
• Muğla Fethiye Museum, with a great collection of Lycian artefacts 
• The Lycian Tombs in Fethiye
• Abandoned village of Karaköy, formerly home to a mixed Muslim and Christian population prior to the population exchanges of the 1920s;
• A day hike along the Lycian Way
• Visits to the Ancient Greek towns of Letoon, Xanthos and Patara
• Knidos -- an ancient Greek, fortified town at the end of the Datça Peninsula
• Hiking in the Ilhara Valley near Cappadocia, the site of hundreds of small churches and monastaries cut into the rock walls of the cliffs. 
• Hot-air ballooning at dawn over Cappadocia;
• A pottery-making lesson and a tour of a Turkish carpet factory in Avonos;
• A visit to several Caravanseries (overnight hotels for caravan traders) in the Cappadocia area
• Two underground cities in Cappadocia area: Derinkuyu and Kaymakli, where populations of local Christians hid from invading armies for up to 6 months ; 
• The Zelve and Goreme Open Air Museums in Cappadocia
• Two weeks volunteering on an organic farm (mostly en français) near Antalya;
• Antalya Museum of Archaeology
• Kaleiçi, the Old City of Antalya
• A visit to the Safehaman Hammam, a 13th-Century Turkish bath in Antalya. 

 

Tanzania

Because the people of Tanzania tended to build with biodegradable materials (e.g. wood, mud, thatch), there is comparatively less "built-history" to see. As well, post-independence Tanzania has not had the resources to document its history and culture to the extent that you see other places. But still, it was very interesting to learn more about the culture, development issues and of course, the ecology of the area: 

• Stonetown, the old city of Zanzibar, made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. 
• Ismilia Stone Age Site, near Iringa, with flint tools from a long, long, time ago...
• The National Museum of Tanzania, Dar-es-Salaam; 
• The Village Museum, Dar-es-Salaam, with examples of traditional housing found throughout the country;
• Vipaji Foundation Art Gallery, Dar es Salaam, a gallery set up by our friend, Jean Pruitt. 
• The Sultan's Palace Museum, Stonetown, Zanzibar. 
• Cultural Heritage, a gallery of pan-African and Tanzanian art in Arusha
• Going on wildlife safaris in:
  • Ruaha National Park, now the largest national park in Africa... 
  • Serengeti National Park, where they shot the Lion King movie....
  • Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area

Zoe outside the Museum of Design in Barcelona with the Torre Agbar in the background. 

Spain

Okay, it's imperial and largely built with stolen loot from the New World, but during our brief visit to two cities in Spain, we saw a fascinating mix of Moorish, Andalusian, Spanish and modern architecture and history. Barcelona also seems to have a museum on every block, and i hope that we can return there to see a few more. But so far, we've seen: 

• Museu del Pardo, Madrid, Spain's largest museum and home to Goya, El Greco and other Spanish masters;
• Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's Moderniste masterpiece of a basilica;
• Cathedral de Barcelona, a Gothic church with flying buttresses and soaring vaults; 
• Picasso Museum, which houses many of his earlier works -- the later paintings and sculpture are in Paris, I understand; 
• the 1 Dia / 1 Foto exhibit 365 photos of life in Barcelona in 2014 at the Centra de la creativitat, Arts Santa Mònica; 
• the Museu de les Cultures de Mon, a kind of old-school anthropological museum;
• the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, another massive collection of Spanish and Western European art;
• the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, which included a huge Spanish galley; 
• the Museum of History of Barcelona for an overview of the development of the city from a small, Roman village to a city of 1.6 million;
• the Caixaforum, where we saw an exhibit celebrating 25 years of Pixar animation; 
• the Museum of Design where we saw a temporary exhibit of 99 Projects for the Real World. 
• Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona -- where Zoe and Dwayne saw a performance of Bizet's Carmen
• Camp Nou Stadium to see FC Barcelona play Levante UD

 

To Be Continued

So, that's a summary of some of what we saw and did during our first seven months of this year-long trip.  And best of all, we've still got five more months to see some more cool places in Morocco, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Spain. So please be sure to check back in a few months for Episode 3.... 

Lessons Learned on the Road - Episode 1

History / photography / zoology class in Izmir, Turkey

As we were planning to take this year off, the second question that everyone asked was  “So…uh….what will the kids do for school while travelling?”

Given that Zoe and Isaac are 11 and 8 respectively, we figured that it would be enough for the children to focus on their 3R’s: -- Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic – with the rest of the time spent travelling internationally they’d naturally be immersed in geography, history, social studies, archaeology, phys-ed and ecology. We also wanted Zoe to keep up her French so that she can rejoin the Grade 7 immersion program, so we're planning to spend some time in France and Morocco.

To make sure that we were on track, we met with both kids’ teachers last spring to get their advice. Both of them said they were excited that the kids had an opportunity to travel, and they were both surprisingly chill about how much we “covered the curriculum”.  “Just make sure that they don’t get too far ahead,” one quipped. They also pointed us towards the provincial curriculum objectives, and also suggested a few online resources that we could incorporate (e.g. IXL Math, Duolingo, Khan Academy, Brainpop).

We also checked in with Tricia’s sister, Heather, and her cousin, Sandra, who have both home-schooled kids up through high school. “Don’t worry too much about structure,” Sandra said. “They’ll be fine.”

But as someone who is never one to worry about things – especially structure! – I did a bit more research on how to “road school” kids. It seems that most vagabond families either:

1. Enrol their kids in a local or international school (not practical given that we’re moving a lot);
2. Sign up for more structured correspondence or online courses – again a bit tricky given that our access to internet will vary dramatically this year
3. Pack text books and workbooks – a bit heavy given that we’re trying to carry everything in 4 rolling bags, but we did purchase the JumpMath curriculum that a friend recommended;
4. Take the “unschooling” approach and just let the kids learn wherever they go from whatever’s around them,

So far, we’ve used a mixture of 3 & 4, designing topical learning task designs as we go, and drawing upon the “teachers,” we meet and the “generative themes” from where we travel. For example:

Turkish history is on a roll....

• When we were visiting my parents in Durham, Ontario, my mother taught them how to bake butter-tarts, and the kids wrote out the recipe and took photos of each step. Zoe and I then did a rough French translation of the recipe and added in the photos.
• At my brother’s place, they appreciated the art all around them by critiquing three pictures – including some original paintings by their artistic aunt, Suzette Terry – and by counting all of the pictures on the walls – 308 by their census count, (+/- 5 pictures, 19 times out of 20).
• To help us dig through the different layers of Turkish history, we’ve mapped its empires and events along a very high-tech, historical timeline: a toilet roll in which each square equals 100 years.  (This will work well unless we run out of toilet paper… then our timeline will be history).
• On another day Zoe did some research on the landscape of Turkey and some of the local environmental issues we’ve been learning about.
• Recently, the kids are drawing maps of their “dream hotels” and I’ve asked them to create a video commercial for each of them. Not surprisingly, Isaac’s is in Barcelona and has a football (soccer) theme. Zoe will then need to do some basic calculations of the area of the hotel, and to name some ways that it can be eco-friendly.
• In the spirit of their Hallow'een costumes, we're planning on a knock down game of Greek Gods & Goddesses Charades later this week. 

Now that we've been in Turkey for just over six weeks, we’re finding that 2-3 hours of “road schooling” per day is about what we can manage and realistically, probably all that they need. Without taking time to get the bus to school, line up at the bell, take off and put on layers of clothes (Oh, Canada!), wait for teachers or on other kids, etc. they can get a lot school work done in a short time.

Other days, the program is much less structured, either because we're travelling, or because there are things to do that are just too cool for “school”. In the past few weeks, they have:

• toured the Ancient cities of Ephesus, Xanthos, Letoon, Knidos, Smyrna and Patara;
• sailed on two boats in the Aegean – including steering our friend’s catamaran --
• visited several museums of archaeology to view their collections of Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and/or Ottoman artifacts; 
• learned some basic Turkish phrases;
• taken a guided tour of the Gallipoli Peninsula, site of the infamous WW I battle;
• sea-kayaked on the Aegean Sea;
• visited the abandoned village of Kayakoy, a town whose Christian population was "exchanged" to Greece after the war of Turkish independence. 

Some days it feels like we’re in an episode of the Magic School Bus…

Of course, the kids are picking up some informal skills too, like how to improvise as the days unfold, how to buy groceries in a foreign language, and that well, Mom and Dad don’t always know where they are, never mind how to get back to our current "home"…..

On the plus side, I love the challenge of designing lessons on the fly, and the creative challenge imposed by the constraints and unique opportunities of each place that we stay. And we’ve also appreciated that they kids, by and large, have played along, and taken these lessons in stride. 

However, we’ve also found that road-schooling requires a fair bit of time and planning (duh!), and that the kids pretty much need constant supervision lest they get distracted by the closest iThing. As well, on the days that we don’t have easy access to the Internet, it is harder to capitalize on those spontaneous learning moments and questions like “Is seawater more salty in bays? Who would be the Greek god for soccer” Finding enough English, children's books in Turkey has also been challenging, but thankfully we can usually download e-books from the public libraries when we have WIFI. 

It is also clear that Zoe and Isaac really miss the social side of learning with other kids. It might be the places that we're going, the time of year or the fact that Turkish kids tend to go to "cram schools" after their regular classes, but we've met very few children on our trip so far. Both kids have been real troopers so far, but we’re still hoping that we can check in periodically with their friends at school back in Ottawa. Stay tuned...