Moving into a world schooling mindset- What do I need?

What is Worldschooling?

Worldschooling is the act of learning from the world,  inspired by everything around you and having the intention to explore, learn, research, participate and ultimately go deeper.  Many families who identify with the  “worldschooling” label supplement their children’s learning with curriculum, or formal classrooms. Then there are others that dedicated and adopted an entire lifestyle committed to learning from the world, like Miro and I, who are also radical unschoolers. There is no right or wrong way to worldschool, and all families define what works for them.  Many worldschooling  families participate some aspect of travel as a family to share the experience, although the length and mode of travel vary from family to family.

I wrote about worldschooling in detail here and Miro shared his experiences here.

However our story is not just about worldschooling.

Our story is deeper than being merely a traveling family. Our story is about a family who underwent a complete lifestyle makeover including mental, emotional, physical and spiritual changes. We went from living the American Dream to living a possession free.  We went from being over scheduled, over choosing to be present and live from inspiration.

Our perceptions of the world changed too…. and we discovered many things during this journey.

I write this post in hopes of providing some examples of areas to focus on in your own life. Over time, shifting your relationship to these aspects in your own life will create subtle changes over time.

The did for us.

Moving into a world schooling mindset- What do I need?

 

These are some of the areas we focused upon during our own transition into a worldschooling mindset. My  hopes are that this sparks your own unique paths of inspiration..

Flexibility.
My son and I left the US in 2009 with the intention to travel the world for 1 year. The first thing I have to share is the importance of flexibility. We have been on the road now, just starting our 6th year and we’ve only traveled throughout Latin America. And we are completely satisfied with our choices, since they are indeed, our choices.

Inspiration.
We’ve become intimate with our own inspiration, how it feels in our bodies and what it’s messages are. We now recognize that spark inside of us that ignites our creativity and passion. For both Miro and I, travel inspires us, but so does many other things. And now, we listen as it’s become a huge factor in our decision making.

Intuition.
Like inspiration, this another of those internal gifts we’ve tapped into and have learned to recognize it’s voice. Our intuition keeps us safe, and guides us with gut feelings and acts as our inner guidance system.

Trust.
This is huge. Trust the world. Trust that we are learning. Trust that we are on path. Trust that our decisions are right for ourselves, right now. We do have trust in these things and more.

Information.
Yes, we are unschoolers, and academic information plays a role in our lives too. It complements the experience and deepens our learning. But for me, as a parent, it helps me understand the dynamics of learning, the process of developmental stages, the nature of being human, how we are wired and how we grow. It is my responsibility as a parent to keep my son safe, support his dreams and allow him the space to make his own mistakes. The internet has been the best library for us for all subjects;  academic, health, safety, emotional, spiritual and travel resources. I can’t imagine how we’d manage without it.

Fear.
Fear is powerful. Fear, as a topic, comes up quite a bit for us now. But not how you may think. It comes up in the form of questions asked of  us, seeking the tricks we used to overcome fear in our lives. I’ve thought long and hard about this. We haven’t become ‘fearless” nor are we extraordinarily brave. We’ve merely learned to transform our relationship to fear and prevent it from becoming a dominant force in our lives.

My former reactions caused by fear have pretty much ceased but the lessons they’ve granted us are profound.

Did we transcend fear. The majority of the questions we receive from our readers is “how do we do this?”

But did we really overcome fear? I’d say no. But what we did learn over the last five years was how to identify, demystify and overcome fearful thoughts as they came up.
I wrote about fear in detail here.

Presence.
Presence directly relates to our relationship with “time”, something we never seemed to have enough of when we lived a conventional over-scheduled life, back in Los Angeles. Now we have time. Now we are present in our lives individually and with one another. We have learned to be present with so many things, our feelings, the mundane, our thoughts and interests, our inner going-ons, the world around us, everything. I can’t imagine life any other way now. Seems like upon reflection, our lives before had a lack of “presence” and we were superficially going through the motions that mimic life. Kind of like living in a matrix, but we had an inkling there was something else out there. In fact, wanting to have “more time” was one of the greatest catalysts for our lifestyle change in the first place.

Appreciation.
Along with the practice of being present in our lives, we started to feel appreciation and gratitude for everything around us. The sound water drops make when floating downward in a public fountain, the way my computer hums when it starts up, the sounds of barking dogs in the deep night. Gratitude to see my son wake up based on his own rhythms, the ability to buy fresh food from the markets and shake the hands of the farmers who grow it and the ability to learn something new each and every day. So much to appreciate, so much to be grateful for.

So, what do you think? Did I miss something? If you have suggestions to add, please leave them in the comments box below.