(Kirstin Davy, age 9, with her dad in Morocco)
I’m starting a new thing here on the blog. Each week, I’ll share the story of a Bold Schooler. “Bold School” is a term I use in the book (a lot) to distinguish this approach from the “Old School” models of education. Bold Schoolers don’t do things the usual way–they patch together their own education by selecting a variety of different learning options. Some homeschool, some unschool, some go to regular public school but graduate early and some do all of the above. They tend to be pretty self-directed, mature and creative and also pretty low-key and humble because not everyone understands or supports their choices. That’s why I want to showcase them here and in my book! They deserve recognition and their stories are truly inspiring.
There are as many Bold School stories as there are Bold Schoolers, and the first story I’m sharing is Kirstin Davy’s. Kirstin’s story didn’t make it into the book (I interviewed so many great Bold Schoolers but there’s just not enough space for every one) but I love her sense of adventure and commitment to learning on her own terms. Here it is:
I was 3 years old when I announced that I wanted to read after an evening at home with my parents and sister all sitting with books. My mom thought I should learn my letters first and tried to put me off but when I was relentless about the idea, she started “home” schooling me. That hadn’t been her plan but even at that age it was evident that I wasn’t going to be the average student and a traditional school wouldn’t do for me. Good thing, since within the next few years, my parents profession began to take us all over the world. We lived in different countries for weeks or months, sometimes years, and my classroom was anywhere and everywhere.
This semi-nomadic lifestyle made making friends and answering the usual question of “where are you from?” pretty difficult, but it definitely made the answer and my education more interesting. I had done the co-op homeschooling for several years before we starting globetrotting and I think that provided me with a really good foundation for the following grades. I had other kids to play and learn with, different teachers (mothers) for other subjects and some of the structure one would get at a small private school. Now when I think back, I realize those years were crucial to identifying my academic strengths and weaknesses, developing my love for learning, and also being able to adapt easily and socialize.
I can say now that the best part of my gypsy education is that we got to tailor my curriculum to wherever we were living. I did US Government when living on the east coast with access to great museums, libraries and all that Washington D.C. holds. My favorite year was when we were in about 15 European and Asian countries in less than 2 years. How else can you better study great art, world history, or foreign languages than to go there?
My mom and I became the queens of finding every single museum or some type of field trip in every town we could. I mastered the art of homework on the go – cars, buses, trains, and planes were my desktops, but my classroom was without boundaries. Beside the many fabulous museums, we tried to think outside the box when it came to picking my classes, field trips and projects. Science credits ran from living in a Swiss chalet with a working dairy farm and helping with calve birthing to learning about the fjord aquatic life and currents in Norway and Sweden. Other lesson ideas came from tours of a German print shop tours, a pearl factory in Spain, working on a farm outside Florence, a tea ceremony in Kyoto, an orphanage in Morocco, cooking instruction at a local restaurant or art techniques from an artist living a few doors down.
You can see why I was unsure of how I would fit in when we finally moved back to the States when I was 15. Since I had finished all the required high school units more than twice over, I enrolled in the local community college and was able to acclimate to it pretty easily – however I didn’t tell people my age and I tended to dumb down some of my educational experiences. Starting community college that early enabled me to take classes that I was interested in and make up for a few holes in my education.
It wasn’t until I transferred as an 18-year-old junior to a UC school that I started to really realize what my education had been worth. I became more proud of what I had seen, done, and accomplished and began to use that to my benefit in the more traditional classroom. I attended UC Santa Barbara because I loved the location and it had the majors that I wanted. It was also the one that gave me the best financial aid package – an important factor when you’re paying for college on your own and you believe that it’s only a means to an end! I was accepted to UCLA and Berkeley as well as a few well-known private schools here in SoCal, but when it came down to it, I realized that I firmly believe that the “4 year experience” is a joke and you don’t need to attend the “best” school to have a great education! : )
I graduated with a double major in French and Political Science. I worked several part-time jobs to pay all the bills and travel. I did make it back to several of my favorite countries for an education abroad program and to some new ones while backpacking on my own. I tend to have friends from other cultures or who have at least traveled a bit, but I’ve found that I still learn from friends who have had a more traditional upbringing.
I currently work in California in a type of college counseling role – helping high school students think beyond the norm and encouraging study abroad are my specialty. I work with the same families for an extended period, and one thing I find frustrating is when parents cling to the private-college idea even when it’s clear they can’t afford it. You can show them the numbers and still they want their student to have four years in a private university. The sad part is watching these same students drop out after their freshman or sophomore year once the family realizes they don’t have enough money to continue! If only they’d listen and start their student in community college, it would completely change their student’s education. Instead, they end up with debt AND a frustrated student who can no longer take advantage of the savings of community college. It just breaks my heart.
My plans for the future include working overseas and continuing to learn through just living life and absorbing all I can. And now, I have no problem owning up to my unusual education because though my unschooling was more unconventional than most, it was more memorable and made learning come alive.
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