Now 33 countries into our family travels, we are absolutely loving our lifestyle of educating our kids while exploring the world together. With four young minds to grow and nurture, we’ve learned that travel, academic rigor, and social-emotional development can happen synchronously.
It’s called worldschooling — and it’s the idea is that the whole world is a classroom, and everything in it can be an intentional learning opportunity.
We are currently in South Africa, where we are are exploring the African savanna biome with our four children while we film our TV show, Journey Into Wild.
Through it all, these children are thriving in their online learning.
Worldschooling is a Thing
We not alone in this educational trend of virtual learning paired with traveling. In fact, through worldschooling Facebook groups, hubs, and websites, we are connected to a tribe of over 60,000+ other families who are of the similar mind and heart.
Trend: Educational Family Travel
Our family explores a new country each month and we typically stay in beautiful homes rented on Air B&B. From there, we carry out work and educational activities as a family. Lots of families do this, and it’s entirely possible.
Our family provides just one example of how this lifestyle might work out practically, but for us this means the following.
- Myself and my husband share the facilitation of our four kids’ ongoing education and we both have our own careers, which we do from wherever we are in the world. My husband is an impact consultant for NGOs and philanthropists, and I am a travel journalist.
- Our whole family is out together exploring the world for 6+ hours every weekday (between 10 am — 4pm) as well as on most weekend days. This amount of time together gives us a deep and rich family bond, as well as a treasure trove of precious memories.
- The children learn through real-life, hands-on experiences as we travel, and they also study academics like Global Studies, Languages, STEM, The Arts, and Health & Wellness. They do this via iPads using a variety of stellar educational apps and platforms. These include favorites such as as Reading Eggs, Math Seeds, BrainPOP, Teacher File Box, and Epic.
- As a side project, we are often filming episodes for another TV show called Adventure Family Journal, which is a child-focused, educational show. Together, we have released over 70+ episodes so far. In addition to YouTube, our show is available for kids to watch on on KidsBeeTV and SensicalTV, and Epic.
- Our older children (ages 9, 10 and 12) are also actively engaged in about 15 live learning experiences each week on a platform called Kubrio.
Trend: Globally Distributed Education Platforms
Like remote working opportunities, globally distributed education platforms are on the rise.
They are meeting the new demand required by families who choose this lifestyle of travel. Since covid began, traveling families have increased exponentially.
Here is a quick look at some of the top distributed education platforms.
Kubrio is an engaging learning platform offering clubs, bootcamps, and on-demand nanocourses to help kids find their superpowers, and then dive deeper into their preferred topics.
Outschool is a learning platform with thousands of on-demand (flex) and live classes for kids across many subject areas.
Synthesis is an online enrichment school, which is a brainchild of Elon Musk’s AdAstra school.
Prism is a full-time virtual school where kids choose what they learn and are mentored by coaches along the way.
Personally, we have found Kubrio to be lightyears ahead of the other platforms in both thought design and progressive learning. For us, it’s a perfect fit.
Trend: Multi-Age Learning
In distributed education platforms, there is a trend away from grouping children by age and school year. Unlike mainstream schools, many of the above platforms have found great success in combining wider ranges of ages.
At Kubrio, this is also true. The learning pattern doesn’t follow a traditional school program at all. Learners aren’t separated into grade levels.
Rather, they’re invited to learn in a shared setting for students ages 8–18 years old. The Kubrio platform is right for children who have already learned to read and right, understand basic math, and have strong communication and technology skills.
This rich, diverse, multi-age learning environment stretches the younger ones in their communication, vocabulary and languages, and it provides leadership opportunities for the older ones in mentoring and coaching the younger ones.
Trend: Year-Round School
Kubrio’s learning opportunities are offered year-round, and they are structured into themed seasons, each three months long. The seasons each center loosely around an overarching theme, such as “Press Play” or “Empowering Stories.”
Most of the other platforms also offer year-round schooling, making the learning more flexible for global travelers and less dependent on school grades and rhythms specific to a country or region.
Trend: Open Door Learning Experiences
Kubrio offers a range of on-demand, video based nanocourses. But the core of the platform is around the 18 ongoing clubs which happen each week. In addition, each month, Kubrio releases three new specialized learning opportunities called bootcamps. These are typically one-month long.
Learners can pick and choose which learning experiences they want to participate in depending on their personal passions and interests.
The community of Kubrio has cultivated an incredible open door culture, allowing students the freedom of choice. No clubs or bootcamps are required. That’s right — everything is optional.
This means what kids are learning can ebb and flow naturally with students’ interests and/or with family lifestyle. There are no repercussions or judgements if kids don’t show up to a learning experience or choose to take a break from it a while. They learn WHAT they want to WHEN they want to.
Sometimes, this means parents and teachers must let go of a focus on mastery — which the traditional school system depends on. Some critics say mainstream education’s need for aligning with state or national standards requires teachers to “teach to the test.” Kids must learn the information, perform it on the test, and move on.
The trend of having a more open door approach revolves around spiral learning, which allows kids to come back and revisit ideas, concepts or subjects as their passions and interests drive them to be interested in them. It does not require mastering a concept before moving on to the next one.
Trend: Passion-Driven Learning Schedules
At Kubrio, this means kids can dip in and out of learning experiences as their interests change and as their time and schedule allows.
This is vastly different than traditional schools, which require kids to follow a one-size-fits-all learning schedule and set of coursework.
With this freedom, my girls’ schedule changes slightly from month to month based on what Kubrio is offering and what we have happening as a family. As their learning coach, we have a collaborative process where I work with them to structure a robust learning schedule which includes a range of Kubrio activities and work from other platforms.
Here is an example. This is what my kids are doing this month and how it shakes out into a normal week while we are exploring South Africa.
All items labeled “club” or “bootcamp” on the schedule above are included in Kubrio’s Superpower Pack, which is priced at $2,900 USD (annually), or $290 (monthly).
This month, my kids have chosen to join in these with Kubrio: Music Club, Global Citizenship Club, Creative Writing Club, Drama Club, Horrible History Club, The History of Everything Club, Problem Solving Club, Blender 3D Modeling Club, Math Club, Debate & Negotiation Club, Filmmaking Club, Arts Club, Money Masters Club, From Sample to Song Bootcamp, Science Club, Animation Club, and Circular Economy Bootcamp.
They LOVE these clubs and bootcamps because they CHOOSE them and no one is forcing them to go.
Trend: Flexibility
All the learning experiences at Kubrio are offered in three different time zones each week: 1. The Americas, 2. EU / Middle East / Africa, 3. Asia / Pacific.
This means my kids can participate from anywhere we are living in the world and still be enjoying the same facilitators and experiences. We simply adjust the learning schedule to a new time zone when we arrive in a new country.
Kubrio presents an incredible step in making remote learning possible from anywhere — even the African savanna.
Plus, it makes for a consistent, familiar learning environment for the kids within a deep and rich community where they are loved and known.
Is this educational trend right for you?
Kubrio is a strong example of how learning platforms are taking a whole new approach to what the word “education” means and how it can be re-imagined to be more: Globally-distributed, Year-round / open door, Inclusive of multi-age learning, Passion-driven, Flexible in scheduling
I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions about this learning trend or about Kubrio in general. Email me anytime: janelle@adventurefamilyjournal.com.
