There is no question that the best thing about homeschooling is its free structure.   One of its best fringe benefits, though, is the unique opportunity it gives kids to learn while traveling.   As a homeschool mother, I learned that the best of both worlds is being associated with an alternative school that can provide such opportunities for travel.  It had an added bonus, the students get to go, not with boring mom or dad, but with other kids of similar age and interest.  Every year of his middle and high school days, my son got to go on a Big Trip as they called it at Upattinas, an alternative school which was used as a base for his homeschooling.   It was a full month long journey in a caravan of mini buses and every year it had a different theme which meant traveling different roads. 

Arranged, as such, it also offered a totally unique new set of adventures on every trip.  The classroom was no longer a static environment, but on the road, constantly changing and offering new challenges for learning.   It made learning come alive for the lucky ones who decided to make the journey.   The total expense was only $400. plus whatever pocket money is needed which is fairly inexpensive for such a long trip.   Even so, it was a bit expensive for me as a single mom trying to foot her part of the bill alone.  Never for a moment, though, have I regretted being able to put my personal comforts aside and give my young son these wonderful experiences what turned out to be his opportunity of a lifetime.  For many reasons, it was an learning experience which would not have been easily reproduced in any other environment.

 And, every single year my son came back a changed person . . . as the lead in for the Bionic Man used to say, he was ‘rebuilt’ a new and better person that he had been before.   On these trips it became evident how crucial it was that everyone work together as a team.  This teamwork was the fabric that help all these kids bond and became lifelong friends.  It helped him learn responsibility as well.  Each person following through on their assigned duties was essential to the survival of the group.    It took real team work to keep this group from falling apart into a brawling mess.   It isn’t easy for dozens of young kids to stay in a cooperative cohesive group.  The tendency normally was to start fight over trivial things like who gets what cot or what chore.   And, if someone snores too loud what do you do?   It was okay, my son said, because they could share these types of frustrations with everyone in a group meeting every night.  They could talk and work it out together.   For my son, though, it was also an invaluable multi-cultural experience.  

About ten percent of the kids who lived in the dorms and attended regular classes were exchange students from Japan.   Many of these Japanese students attended the big trips.  Through the big trips Shane found himself in a ‘living’ Japanese classroom.    He started to learn Japanese just by being around these other students.   Imagine being thrown into, not only the language, but also a mini universe of one country’s culture as well!  Still, as far as learning Japanese, it wasn’t quite enough.    Shane had become frustrated with the fact the school had no Japanese language classes, even though the school had a large population of Japanese students.  So, Shane took it upon himself to gather a group of students interested in studying Japanese and because of my son,  Japanese classes began at Upattinas.      Although such travel experiences aid and complement the learning of a foreign language, Shane realized he still needed the foundation given in the classroom.   Japanese is perhaps too complicated a language to go without that foundation.

My son Shane was much into the environment and to its many creatures.    Traveling helped him gain a perspective of both and all the many things he could do with his life after graduation.   He felt sure it would be something related to the earth and animals.  As it turned out Shane choose to study archaeology full time at college..   Wonder why?   In Shane’s own words from an old essay I found,  “My homeschooling was connected to a school that had a month long trip every year to other parts of the country.   We went to many of the state parks.   I found Dinosaur National Park particularly interesting because of the dinosaur fossil formations”.

Later in the essay he remarked about America’s state parks which he loved visiting, “It made me sad, though, to see so few of what is now referred to as ‘endangered’ species.   I get upset whenever I see a hunter stalking for another kill.   There are fewer eagles flying our skies, too many poisonous frogs released in Australia and too much waste being dumped.   They say everything is out of balance.”

“I got to see first hand a lot of things I’ll probably never see again.  We were canoeing one time up the Rio Grande, the river that divides Mexico from Texas.   I fell into the water.  I hit my head and nearly passed out.   Someone pulled me out but before I was saved, I saw a Manatee.   It was an awesome experience.  I would not have seen it, had I not fallen in!”

Shane spent a lot of time after that reading everything he could find about the environment.   He had done this before the big trips too, but now he was reading about things that he had actually experienced himself.   This time he was truly on a mission to learn what he hoped would rocket him into an environmental career.  What a wonderful enhancement the Big Trips had been to his education and his life!   Thank you Upattinas!
 

BIO:  Shane P. Steward.   Shane’s homeschooling adventure ended when he graduated from Upattinas Open Community School, Glenmoore, PA in June, 1994.   He went on to attend Temple University studying Archaeology with a secondary emphasize in Japanese.  He graduated with honors in June, 2004.   During his time at Temple he worked on local digs, and in the school’s archaeology lab.   After graduation, he spent a year in Japan with the Nova Foreign Language Program.  There, he taught English to the Japanese people.   His plans, had originally been to continue his education for a Ph.D. in marine archaeology and become a working archeologist home-based from a university teaching position.  He has since changed his focus to business and will be entering the MBA program at Temple University in the fall.

BIO:   Shirl A. Steward is Shane’s mom.  Shirl moved from Pennsylvania to Santa Fe, NM in December, 2003.   She is a journalist and writer of poetry, children’s books, screenplays and novels.  Her stories skillfully address critical topics for children such as self worth, friendship, and self fulfillment but her speciality is the sensitive topic of death and dying.  Her stories “Cal and Tuddie” and “Wishful Willy” are also onsite.  She also has several collections of poetry and novels in the works.   She spend many years in the more business aspects of writing: as copywriter, technical writer, ghostwriter, instructor and later as an editor for an environmental journal.   She now works for the Santa Fe New Mexican as one of their web producers/editors.  Her formal education includes a BBA from Temple University and attending the MA program at Lehigh University grad school studying social psychology.   Her specialty there was the psychology of sexuality in film and society.

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