Many parents debated on whether or not they should be taking kids out of school to travel. This has been a hot topic in many school systems and cities around the world lately. What I am learning about is that other school systems in the world have very strict guidelines and rules about taking your children out of school for travel. Some of the penalties include fines, detentions and some going as far as expulsion if the child misses so many days of school. Do you take your kids out of school to travel?
We often take our kids out of school to travel and where we live in Canada we don’t have any fines, detentions or expulsions, but the “unwritten rule” that your child should not miss school for vacations or travel. What our school tries to convey is that we should try to arrange our family vacations around the school calendar. If our child misses school, they will need to catch up (which I am fine with).
What I do not understand is how the schools are not advocating for children to travel and encourage their learnings. Do they need a few reasons? If so, this is why I think the world is the best education my child can ever have.
- Learn about something by visiting it, seeing it with your own eyes versus reading it in the textbook. It will stay with the child and be more memorable than just reading it in a textbook. Try this on for size, ask you kids what the most memorable day at school was last year… chances are it was a field or day trip that they thought was the most memorable and/or made a lasting impression on them.
- Acceptance and understanding of people and their differences. Without dipping our children into other cultural spaces, kids will not truly understand how to act, react or be around people who are different. The first step to accepting other differences is to understand them.
- Everything you do travelling can incorporate traditional learning.
Reading: Try having your kids read the travel brochures, information, menus, etc.
Math: Have your kids handle small amounts of money to learn about currencies, exchange rates and math skills. Identify the different amounts and ask what is different than their home currency.
Social: Have your child plan an activity on your trip; such as visiting a museum or surf lessons. Where they plan everything from start to finish; a school project type activity.
Writing: Have your child make notes or observations on what they did that day. For younger kids, you may want to have queued up questions OR have them draw what they did that day.
Language: Get your child immersed in the language with basic conversations skills and have them utilize the language while on your travels. People LOVE when kids try to speak the languages and focus their attention on helping kids.
Culinary: Have your child make observations about food, what is typical and traditions for other cultures and what may be similar and different. Our kids have to try everything at least once and give it a try, expect maybe the extremely spicy foods.
Art/Photography: Have your kids take photos/videos of what “they see” and get their perspective on what they saw. It will be very different from yours!
Religion: Investigate into the different types and most common types of religions. Visit temples, churches, etc to learn about different types of religions around the world.
The bottom line is, there are so many opportunities for children to learn so much while travelling that I have a very difficult time understanding how school systems don’t feel the overall benefits and longterm education for a child outweighs the missed classroom days in a traditional school system.
Let children learn from as many people, places and environments to enable their education to be enriched with diversity. Let children be enlightened by the vast amounts of information that can be shared around the world with them. If you are not exposing your children to these types of learning opportunities this will hinder their abilities to learn in different ways.
What do you think?
Have you ever taken your child out of school to travel?
How do you deal with your school system if they have hard rules about your child missing class for travel?
Claire at Tin Box Traveller says
There are many sides to this argument and before I say any more I’ll let you know that my one kids are not yet school age. My views may polarise when they are! I think there’s so much to be learnt from travelling and getting real life experiences. The value of this cannot be quantified and I hope to share this with my children. However, I can also see the point of schools not wanting children to miss classroom days because of the disruption to the planned curriculum. Catching kids up can take away from other children in the class and the places that they have visited may have nothing to do with what they’re studying at that time. Plus, the benefits of visiting a destination full of culture, history and new experiences cannot be given the same educational value as a trip to large theme park. It’s such a complicated topic and I have no idea what the best answer is at the moment! Like I say, I’ll have to make my own choice in the near future.
The Passport Kids says
Thanks for the comments Claire. You raise a good point about the differences in educational benefits with the different types of travel you take your children on. In the end, as you stated, you as the parent make the choice and as parents we try to make the best decision for our kids. Appreciate your thoughts!
Passports and Pigtails says
Maybe it’s a Canadian thing?? We take ours out as well! I also learned last year from a family who moved to our area that back in England they were fined for taking the kids out of school. If anything, it is nice to have the freedom to avoid peak seasons and prices! We pulled ours out 2 weeks early the end of last school year do Italy and it was well worth it. Now our oldest is in Jr High, so it’s starting to get a bit trickier.
The Passport Kids says
Thanks Passports and Pigtails for the comments, it might be a Canadian thing :) My kids are not at the Jr High school level, but I have heard from other parents about the added complexity of scheduling travel around final exams and other major school assignments! And yes, there is the added benefit of avoiding peak seasons and higher prices generally. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
wyldfamilytravel says
In Australia we have no problem with it either no fine system is present. I dont know how they get away with it its outrageous fining you for taking your own child on holiday just another example of a world gone mad. The kids learn more traveling than they do in school anyway
The Passport Kids says
Thanks for your comments. Kids can learn a lot from travelling and I think it engages them even more after they return to the classroom! I recall learning many things in History class at high school and actually being able to relate more because I had been to the places we were learning about. It makes it real!
Marta says
I absolutely agree with the educational value of travel and I think parents who feel up to the task should be facilitated in fostering their children education outside of the classroom – we want them to know the real world, so let’s start showing it to them! My only fear, and this is I believe the reason why schools are reluctant to have kids out for too long a time, at least here, is that travel can also be a wasted opportunity: I have often seen parents not engaging at all with their surroundings, not trying the local food, sheltering their children (and themselves) from anything that can be qualified as a learning opportunity. In that case, maybe a classroom is actually more educational, at least in terms of group dynamics. I guess it all comes down to parents as it comes down to having good teachers if we are in school – education is made of people so I guess wherever good, motivated, curious, empathetic people are, that is where the learning happens.
The Passport Kids says
Thanks Marta for your comments. Your underpinning of people who are involved with children learnings is a key and critical point, regardless if it is the parents or teachers. Great point! I also can agree that many times travel is a wasted learning opportunity for kids and adults.
Smithsholidayroad says
I am the first person to support kids exploring with their family at any opportunity and if that happens to be during the school term then so be it. In my state of Australia ( Victoria) we have to sign a form from the Dept Education to notify of the absence, how long and what outcomes we will reach curriculum wise. We sign it and the teacher/principal signs it. Our school supports us its a government regulation now to sign the forms. This year we are changing up our schooling a little with my eldest son being at home 2 days a week and school for 3 ( my daughter is at school full time) with the longterm goal being world schooling for both for at least a yearxx
The Passport Kids says
That is very interesting! I had no idea about a formal government regulation to sign a form for agreement for absence in Australia (your state). Thanks for sharing the insight!
worldwidewithkids says
This is such a hot topic in the UK, parents are regularly fined and taken to court for taking their kids out of school. After several years of putting up with the system (and paying for very expensive holidays in the school holidays) we chose to withdraw our kids from mainstream school and world school them. We still do some traditional schooling with them, work books etc, but the majority of their leaning comes from the world around us. I think the educational benefits of travel are fantastic, if done properly.
The Passport Kids says
Thanks for the comments and sharing from a UK perspective. World schooling seems to be a growing trend, I will have to go check out your website to see how you make this happen. Good for you!