With two advanced degrees and a side job as an adjunct professor, I value learning and take school pretty seriously.
So, even before becoming a mom, I knew I’d be laser-focused on ensuring my future children get a great education. I even smugly assumed they’d get perfect attendance awards every year and never miss a single lesson.
However, parenting rarely plays out the way we intend. Now that my kids are a little older, I regularly take them out of school so we can go on trips.
I saw firsthand how much my kids learned through travel
At first, I was reluctant to pull my children out of school to explore the world. However, the more I saw the tremendous benefits of it, the more comfortable I became with taking them out of class.
In my opinion, teaching them how to convert Moroccan dirhams into dollars was a better math lesson than sitting in class solving equations that they struggled to relate to the real world.
Additionally, there are some lessons that I don’t think can be learned in a book — they need to be experienced to be fully understood.
For example, although my kids learned about the Holocaust in school, visiting museums and gas chambers in Auschwitz elevated their understanding of it and taught them even more about the horrific genocide.
Additionally, the reality of the climate crisis was never more real to them than when we stood before a rapidly melting glacier in Iceland.
Of course, there is great joy in our travel as well. Seeing how life adapts and thrives in the desert in Dubai taught them more about evolution than any textbook.
My kids have missed class to visit places like India, the United Arab Emirates, and Istanbul, but in exchange, they’ve learned about new cultures, languages, religions, and foods.
Eventually, I realized I had to pull them out of school to fit in all the trips we wanted to take
When we started traveling together, I quickly learned we couldn’t see as much as we wanted during school breaks alone.
My kids’ spring and winter breaks are usually about a week long, which I don’t feel is enough time for an international trip. Summer breaks are longer, but some destinations, like Egypt, are too hot to be enjoyable in July and August.
Plus, my kids attend different schools, so their time off doesn’t always line up. So, six years ago, I started taking them out of school to travel at least a few days out of the year.
Teachers aren’t always happy when my kids miss school to travel. I understand why, as teachers work hard to develop lesson plans and keep students on track.
They often express concern about the lessons my kids will miss and how they will catch up on their schoolwork. Although I share their concern, so far, my kids haven’t fallen behind.
To mitigate this concern, I even try to plan our trips so they’re absent for no more than a few days at the beginning or end of school breaks. That way, they don’t miss entire units, and there is less to catch up on when they return.
For now, we have a system that works and no plans to stop
Luckily, some of my kids’ teachers have responded positively to our travels, commenting on what a nice experience our trips will be.
One teacher — a parent herself — even acknowledged how great travel is for bonding as a family. Speaking from experience, I couldn’t agree more.
I’ve also found that when I take the kids out of school for a trip, they return more curious and eager to learn. If that ever changes, I’ll revisit my approach to travel. But for now, it works.
And until my kids head off to college, I have no plans to stop taking them around the world with me.
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