Interesting. What will you do for education when your kids reaches school-age? There are lots of people living off the grid, on boats, all over the world. A common choice is to return to the US when the kids hit middle-school and would benefit from the facilities at secondary and higher schools.
I lost the argument to home school with my first wife, and our children went through the system there in the US. They both did, and are still doing well, but both of them independently came to the conclusion, as well as my ex, that the homework load is insane. More than 3 hours per night, and my kids are pretty fast at doing it. Some friends were taking 4 to 6 hours! Unnecessary, and not education in my book. My son did the same as me, and works on his own projects outside of school mainly in the summer due to the homework load. My daughter reads her own books late into the night, and is developing my old habit of staying up too late!
I am not fervently against the school system like others can be. I just think the world holds enough wonder and obstacles to teach children. I've traveled enough to meet and speak with homeschooled children from boats, to remote areas, and I just like what I see and hear. Besides, I love spending time with family; I'm selfish that way!
I don't think any parent needs to be too academic either. It just takes love, patience and basic aptitude, since the materials are more readily available than ever, and attitude goes a long way to children opening up to learn rather than mechanics. Side benefit: the parents relearn along with the children. It's wondrous. A few focused hours per day maximum should accomplish more than 7 hour day at school confined to a room, and to administering a lot of the time away.
If I were to consider any school for my latest child, it would have to be project-based. I like applying as many disciplines to a singular project a child is impassioned about rather than teaching the discriminate subjects. They can focus later on, but getting how things work together in the real world is more valuable to me. Less is more in this instance.
Here, daily life is a learning experience, and social life is across the ages like when I grew up in Brooklyn, where it seemed to be an urban immigrant thing more than an American suburban thing. I don't believe in age segregation in schools. It was instituted about 170 years ago in America. I think the experienced elderly are an untapped resource, and it would benefit young and old to rediscover this.
I grew up with my Irish grandmother next door, and I learned a great many things from her, and the other elders around me - history, music, storytelling, and just life. I befriended a childless couple on our block who taught me so much too. The man was a very literate, sober, milk-drinking, pipe fitter who was like a very older brother, or more like a second father to me. He taught me the basics of celestial navigation, took me on a sail on a sailboat a group of workers co-owned to afford it, and would invite me over for dinner with his wife to discuss literature, philosophy, history, Latin, the classics and film. I will never forget those moments. They proved to me what a rich life a person can have at the poverty line.
The young children in the village here are naive to the world's history, politics and urban life, but they seem to have a lot more common sense at an early age than what I recall of my urban peers when we were children. I started an informal school here to give them some additional help with English, mathematics, music, literature and art. I had four girls show up daily, until a few of the boys that were making fun of us from the road, joined us. At one point, I counted 11 heads not including my baby girl walking around and creating havoc ;)
I plan on putting on a bit of extra space in the house I am building as an informal classroom, or at least where we start off.
I am buying some King Cobra antivenom just in case, since it takes over 2 hours drive from here to get to a facility that purportedly has a stock of antivenom. Attacks are very, very rare, but rather safe than sorry, given I videoed a 7 ft cobra at the edge of the rice fields in a patch of teak trees several weeks ago. Handlers or performers are generally the people getting bit like the singer Irma Bule who died in West Java this past April [1].
