Street Smarts
A Student’s Take on Road Schooling
Leland Sheils
Street Smarts…. No, I am not talking about looking both ways before you cross the street or how to avoid a dangerous neighborhood. Instead, I’m talking about an alternative learning system that’s a fun and effective way to learn while traveling. We call it called Road Schooling.
It started a few years ago when my parents went through a midlife crisis and decided to buy a 35-foot RV and pack the 4 of us kids in it. Of course, they wanted to go for a test drive but you could say they got a little carried away, because they ended up driving us all the way to Nova Scotia, which took around a month. But I couldn’t miss an entire month of school! So, instead we decided I wouldn’t need to miss even a day. We came up with a way to take our schooling on the road while traveling all across America and Canada: Road Schooling.
What Is Road Schooling? For our family, it’s a combination of Florida Virtual School (FLVS) and homeschooling, and the travel destination of our choice!
An example of my daily schedule: first I would wake up any time I pleased within reason… say around ten (but that rarely happens because there was a 4-year-old and 2-year-old on board) after that I would have breakfast and log onto FLVS see if one of my papers have been graded, or if I need to complete an assessment, read a lesson, etc. Then after my work is complete (from 10 minutes to 2 hours depending on my assignments) I would either go eat lunch or go back to sleep, also maybe look out the RV window and take in the scenery. Then we would hopefully go see a landmark or somewhere interesting like that, and if I wanted to get ahead in my classes I could go back on to FLVS for however long I wanted, then the rest of the day is for whatever pleases me.
Some of the many benefits of Road Schooling are you get to learn interesting things in amazing places. and not stress about what other kids think about you, mean teachers or of course endless piles of homework. You can also work on things your passionate about while getting academic work done. You get to stay with your family and work at your own pace. The number one best thing is you get to have the wisest, best tutor of all to help you: your mom.
One drawback to Road Schooling is that it is easy to get distracted. That’s why it’s important to develop a rhythm that works and stick with it. I personally get a lot out of Road Schooling, and it’s the way to go if you are interested in seeing awe-inspiring places and traveling as a family.
