I Want That Schooling

Talk about a fantastic way of “going to school”, Scott McCloud and his wife Ivy will be taking their kids Sky and Winter (dig the names) on a 50 state speaking tour. The kids will be speaking, blogging and podcasting and be home schooled.

Each member of the family is blogging about the trip over on Live Journal. And they are working together to produce a series of podcasts which they are calling Winterviews (after youngest daughter, Winter, who will be the on-camera presence in these films). The daughters will research about some of the comics people they will meet along the way, read and discuss some of their work, prepare questions, do interviews, and edit them for transmission via the web. Sky is also preparing an evolving powerpoint presentation as they travel to explain to various audiences about the trip and what they have learned along the way.

Meanwhile, she remains in contact with a larger circle of home schooled kids who are also tapping into their interests in popular culture (in this case, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars) to inform critical essays and research projects.

For years I’ve wished I could have gone to some kind of international or alternative school, one of my best school years was 4th grade when I was part of a class split 50/50 between 3rd and 4th graders. Each half would get half the day with the teacher and the second half we’d work on our own, I always prefered learning stuff at my own pace and in the subjects I’m interested in.

This setup of “official” learning with the parents and of spending all that time exploring and creating (plus the traveling) sounds brilliant. Wish I could have done something like that.

4 Comments

Philippe-A. September 20, 2006

Sky McCloud? Are you kidding me?

I don’t believe in alternative school (my two years in one of those were a total joke). The reason being of school is not only to teach you that knowledge, that fact or that ability, it’s also to teach you living in society. Most of the things I hated about school turned out to be very usefull much later.

Patrick September 21, 2006

I’d say traveling all over the US, speaking in front of people and meeting hundreds in the process qualifies as living in society, possibly more than the cesspool of bullying that school can be.

I’m certainly not saying school isn’t good but I have no doubt that I would have learned more in a more flexible environment. None.

Julie September 27, 2006

So why not have a few kids of your own, pack them into a winnebago and homeschool them across Canada? Hell, you can even drive down to Mexico during Jan. & Feb!
;-)

Patrick September 28, 2006

Riiiiiiiiigght

Comments closed