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Frances just celebrated her 11th
birthday. One thing about this cruising adventure we embarked on is that it marked time like nothing else, there's our lives before cruising and our lives after cruising, nothing else is like that. So the span of Frances's life from the 5-year-old we sailed away with to the 11-year-old we've got today is clear as a bell, and I've enjoyed it very much. |
Having
made the choice to raise our kids outside of the traditional school/home
environment, cruising parents expose their families to an unusual level of
scrutiny. We get kudos from fellow cruisers who perceive the education our kids
receive while cruising to be ideal: "Cruising kids are so way ahead of
their peers." And non-cruisers' perceptions, positive or negative,
typically are a product of their ideas about homeschooling: Grandparents worry
the grandkids will fall behind academically, family friends give pop quizzes
mining for gaps, and total strangers take note when our kids make or do not
make eye contact. And we, the cruising families, we are the harshest critics,
or the staunchest advocates, or somewhere in between; sometimes it depends on
the day.
The
litmus test is re-entry. What happens when boat kids finally start or return to
school? Are they socially awkward? Are they behind? Do they excel? Are they
overwhelmed? Competent? Resilient? Bullied? Bored? Confident? Disorganized?
Different?
Well,
we now can speak from experience and the answer to all of those questions is: Yes.
Our
kids started school three months ago in Ajo, Arizona. Prior to attending, Eleanor
(13) had completed half a year of kindergarten and Frances (11) had never
attended school. For the last 7 or so years we have homeschooled or boatschooled.
We have not followed a set curriculum. We have not followed U.S. Common Core
grade standards. Our kids have not taken standardized tests. We have provided
support and materials according to their interests (art) and encouraged them to
build skills at their own pace (writing). They have been expected to progress
in certain subjects they might not love (math). And of course they are cruising
kids and have benefited from a diversity of experiences that, when I look back
over the years, is incredible.
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| Frances getting an academic award from the principal and superintendent. |
So,
based on our sample of two, I am going to make some generalizations about what happens
when cruising kids attend school. Many of these observations may apply to
long-term homeschoolers entering a classroom.
First,
if your kid is disorganized in the cruising life, she will be disorganized in
regular life. If your kid typically forgets her sun hat, she
will forget her backpack when leaving for school. Seems obvious, but people are
who they are, cruising doesn't change that.
Boat
kids spend a lot of time with adults. They have adult friends. So the
teacher/student hierarchy typical in classrooms is more blurry to them. For
better or for worse, cruising kids are not reluctant to engage teachers.
Cruising
kids are accustomed to mostly respectful interactions between and among adults
and kids, and so the behavior they sometimes witness in the classroom will be shocking at
first: teachers pushed to despair, kids treated like toddlers, bullying, profanity,
cheating. That said, it will be shocking and it will be interesting. (To be fair, these are exceptions, their school here is great.)
Cruising
kids, especially those whose families lean toward unschooling, will be out-of-sync
academically. They have had more time to pursue their interests, and so will be
ahead of their peers in the subjects close to their hearts (we are an arts and
humanities family, all the way), and they might be behind in other
subjects. But to a degree, that's all kids, right?
Cruising
kids (particularly those who started young) will suck at team sports. Just
yesterday Eleanor asked, "What's softball?"
Sometimes
cruising kids will appear stupid to their fellow students. They will sit in the
wrong seat. They will not respond to bells. They will not know the Pledge of
Allegiance. They will turn in work they shouldn't, and their name will not be on
it. They will ask what a "homeroom" is. They will ask if a 'B' is
good, and what will happen to them if they get an 'F.'
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| The girls releasing one of several pack rats we've caught around the house. |
Cruising
kids will be surprised at how much of their day is eaten up by school and
homework. Some kids will be so heartsick over their loss of free time that they
will want to quit school. They will stick it out because their parents
encourage them to give it a chance and ultimately they will come to a certain
peace, but they will long for the hours spent in their berth buried in stacks
of comics and sketchpads. Just saying.
So
what happened when our boat kids went to school? A lot of different things. At
the very beginning one of the girls experienced some trauma, some tears. The
other was gleeful and fascinated from the start. Their response to the
transition had everything to do with their individual personalities and very
little to do with cruising or homeschooling. Academics have not been a big
deal. They've either jumped right in, or they've learned what they need to know
to be where they need to be. They've caught on to the ins and outs of school,
classroom etiquette, schedules, and homework. They are different than their
peers. They dress differently and they speak differently. They can't swing a
baseball bat, but they can pick up a mooring ball. They have hiked to Trapper's
Cabin, swum with sharks, and run from a hurricane. They have known the
isolation of long ocean passages, and said goodbye to friends again and again. It
all seems to have prepared them pretty well for school.
--WR
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| Frances with the Kindle reader she was awarded by the Ajo librarian for the bookmark contest she won. In the display to the left is Frances's bookmark, featuring a picture she drew of Charlotte and Wilbur. |
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| Here are the girls with another pack rat. I think they'd have liked to keep each one we've caught. "Eye on the prize, girls, no pets, we're headed back to Del Viento." |
