In the last few months, many parents and students have contacted me to ask what happened to my blog here at New Globals.  “What’s all this talk about Uruguay?” they want to know.  “What happened to the posts about studying abroad, saving on college costs, avoiding student debt and getting a personalized international education?” they ask.  “Why did you change it?”

The simple answer is that I wrote a 300+ page book packed with tons of information, student success stories, and how-to advice for those ready to get an outrageously relevant education on campus, online, on the road, and on their own terms and time lines.  It’s all right there in The New Global Student:  Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education, which was published last year by Crown/Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House.  In addition, I have maintained a blog here at NewGlobals.com for the last two years in which I have written extensively about advantageous and affordable ways to get a great college education.

But there are other reasons I’ve stopped blogging about education and have instead focused on writing about my new life in Uruguay and the topics that intrigue me most—life abroad, mindfulness, frugality, sustainability, gardening, and simple living.

Here are the main issues that have convinced me to shift my efforts:

1)     Fear causes paralysis. Since the publication of my book, I have talked with hundreds of parents and students interested in doing high school and college differently.  I’ve received loads of wonderful emails from those who are wildly enthusiastic about the Bold School approach.  “This resonates with me,” they say.  “I’ve been looking for a book like this for years,” they write.  But then, when parents check in with me months later, they often admit that they have not taken any steps to change the course of their children’s education.  Why?  Because they are afraid.  They’re worried that their kids won’t like it, or it won’t work out, or it will be too hard to try something new.  Even though they know there are far better (and far less expensive) options for their kids, they just can’t pull it together to make even one small change.  And so, they do what everyone does in that situation:  they hunker down and continue doing what they’ve always done.  I can inform, cajole and cheer (and I continue to do so, especially with private clients) but in the end, the decision to overcome fear in order to soar is not mine to make.

2)     Exhaustion limits perspective. The longer I am out of the United States (five years now), the more amazed I am at how frequently and proudly Americans wear the “exhaustion” word like a badge of honor.  “I’m swamped.”  “When I get a chance to breathe…”  “When things settle down…” We use exhaustion as our way to claim that we are busy and therefore doing all the things that lead to success and happiness.  When is the last time you heard someone say, “Oh, I’ve got plenty of time” or “My schedule is wide open”?  And on the rare occasions when we do hear it, we’re likely to think, “Why isn’t this person busy?  Don’t they have a life?”  Many teens and twenty-somethings absorb and adopt this mindset, packing their schedules to ensure their own exhaustion/validation.  Others run the other way, avoiding commitment and responsibility at all costs. The challenge is finding balance, and until we slow down long enough to see our possibilities and recognize the ones that tug at us, we will continue to struggle, strive and fail to thrive.

3)      It’s easier to ignore than to innovate. Keeping our heads in the sand is a protective mechanism.  We don’t like thinking about the future, especially when it may involve instability and change.  Our learned helplessness—behaving as though we have no choice about what we do, where we live, etc.—is reinforced every day, and worse, we are the ones most likely to keep ourselves from making decisions that lead us to greater ease and more fulfillment.  The world is changing, and ultimately, it is up to each of us to decide if, when, and how we will change along with it.

4)     Life goes on. When I wrote The New Global Student, I was living in the cosmopolitan city of Buenos Aires, Argentina with varying combinations of our four daughters.  Now, they are off on their own, living happily in their chosen destinations (New York, Buenos Aires, and a cruise ship in the Mediterranean) and Tom and I are living in a farmhouse in rural Uruguay.  Instead of writing about education, I am writing fiction—specifically, stories about those who have made big changes in their lives (some planned, some unintentional) and learned how to thrive. It’s a theme I find fascinating.

Perhaps I sound disgruntled or disappointed, but that’s not the case at all—I’m simply being mindful of how it’s all unfolding. I’m truly grateful that I’ve had such a fantastic opportunity to reach so many people who are ready to do things differently.  It’s been a tremendous gift to me in many ways, but it’s been a profound lesson in letting go.  I recognize that my role is to share stories and information that can help others and to do so with grace and generosity. Being attached to the outcome limits my energy, and I want to use all that I have in ways that allow me to be of service.  That requires me to step back in order to see my own possibilities more clearly.

I invite you to explore the many posts and links to education and study abroad resources I’ve included in this blog the last two years, and hope you’ll be intrigued to follow along in this new direction.  Though New Globals is still a very appropriate theme for me personally and this blog can be accessed at NewGlobals.com, it’s now become my personal blog at MayaFrost.com/blog.   Just keeping things simple.

Life is all about transitions.

Change is coming.  It’s always coming.

This is my place to explore and embrace it.

Thanks for joining me!

One thing I love about being in Buenos Aires is seeing how twentysomethings from the US are taking full advantage of the slow economy at home to go abroad and find interesting opportunities.

Things may suck in your town, your state or your country right now, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have options elsewhere! You can stay and compete for the same jobs with tons of others who have the same degree and experience you do, or you can get out and make yourself more valuable to employers and the world.

My advice to ANYONE is that if you are not thriving, then do something else. There is no reason to stick with a job that bores you to tears or in a work place that makes you dread each day. This is important for people of all ages but especially true for young people!

When you are young, you should be getting out there and learning in a range of settings that truly challenge you. It’s been shown that those who have lived abroad have more creativity and improved problem-solving skills. Well, obviously—when you have to figure out what’s going on, how to make things work, and how to make your way in an unfamiliar place, you have to get creative! Being adaptable and innovative is absolutely the key to success for those in the 21st-century global economy.

If you’re not actively increasing your ability to be flexible and creative and you’re not learning more about yourself and the world around you, quit what you’re doing and dive into something that allows you to come alive. Do not waste another minute doing the “right thing”—there’s plenty of time for that later, if you’re still interested in it. Instead, focus on your natural interests and talents. You won’t go wrong if you do what you love to do and you’re creative about finding new ways and places to use your skills.

Of course, if you have student loans, it’s a much bigger challenge. That’s one of the reasons I wrote The New Global Student—to help young people avoid college debt so that they are free to pursue their interests after graduation!

Remember: the key is to challenge yourself in new ways. You’ve done the classroom thing already. Think about how to leverage what you know and layer more knowledge and skills on top of it.

In what non-classroom ways can you expand and deepen your experiences and options?

Keep in mind that your life doesn’t have to follow a straight and predictable line. Often, your best opportunities are those that might seem to take you off on a tangent. The most interesting and successful people I know are the ones who have learned to trust their instincts and go where their interests lead them rather than follow a prescribed path. Don’t be afraid to do something that excites you even if it sounds kind of crazy.

My new book shows how people of all ages and with limited resources (some with less than $1,000) are creating new lives for themselves abroad. This has been an option for years, but it’s even more compelling if you happen to be in a situation in which you are:

* unsatisfied
* unable to find a job or an internship
* losing hope in your ability to do something creative, meaningful, fulfilling and self-supporting.

If you’re in your twenties and not fully engaged in work that lights you up, go find your spark somewhere else–at least for the time being. Who knows where it will lead?

Blake Boles has written a remarkable how-to handbook that is destined to change the lives of young people across North America. In College Without High School: A Teenager’s Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College, he offers a step-by-step plan to help students envision their best educational experience and make the most of the time they would have spent in high school.

We didn’t have Blake’s book when our youngest daughter was figuring out how to do high school differently. As a freshman, she spent a year as the only foreigner at her high school in Mexico, and then started taking Spanish classes at a local university in Buenos Aires alongside college students from the U.S. After a great semester of college courses, enrolling in high school seemed like a huge step backward, so she took advantage of some wonderful opportunities to work with tutors and mentors and then spent a summer in Oregon taking a full load of college courses while preparing for her GED tests. That fall, at 16, she enrolled as a freshman at an American college in Buenos Aires, and the following year, she got a nice scholarship/grant package when she transferred as a junior to a private college in upstate New York at the age of 17. She spent the summer doing an independent research project in Argentina and is excited to complete her BS this December just two weeks after she turns 19.

But that’s just her story. Her three older sisters also pursued alternative routes, and there are many, many ways to prepare for and get into college without attending high school. Blake’s book is full of tips and stories to help students plot their own best path.

I had the chance to interview Blake between his sessions leading the Not Back to School camp for teens. He shared some thoughts about the book.

You had an epiphany in college while majoring in astrophysics. Tell us about that—and where it led you.

Since early in high school, I had a passion for physics. Getting high grades in my math & science classes and watching the movie “Contact” also nudged me in that direction. So, I entered UC Berkeley under the astrophysics major and studied it diligently for two years. It was in my third year that cracks started forming in the edifice. In quantum physics I started to see that astrophysics was really just hardcore math, and I began to question my motivations for becoming a professional astronomer. Luckily, that same semester a friend from a 1-unit elective class handed me a book by famed public-school-teacher-turned-homeschool-advocate John Taylor Gatto.

Like a chainsaw, Gatto quickly cut through every assumption I held about the necessity and benefits of regular public schooling. I consumed his book in three days and immediately did a Google search for related authors, which led me to Grace Llewellyn, The Sudbury Valley School, Summerhill, and John Holt. Within two weeks I saw that my passion for astrophysics, genuine but faltering, was no match for the immense intellectual curiosity I held for alternative education. I scoured Berkeley for a design-your-own-major option, argued and pleaded, and eventually got my way. For the next two years I studied alternative education exclusively, following a plan of my design. My curriculum included volunteering at a local “free school”, reading Gatto’s gigantic Underground History of American Education, taking numerous upper division education courses, and designing and leading my own elective course for undergrads (entitled “Never Taught to Learn”). The intellectual and emotional high that I derived from self-directing my college studies was the major epiphany of my young adulthood, and it set the foundation for later writing College Without High School.

What advice can you give to students who have parents who remain unconvinced of this alternative path to a college degree?

Parents should be rightly skeptical of anyone peddling college admissions snake oil–there’s a lot out there. My ultimate response to skepticism is: Look at the evidence. Look at MIT or Stanford’s online admissions guidelines for homeschoolers. They don’t want high school diplomas. They don’t want some perfect equivalent of 4 years of high school classes. They want teens who have taken personal initiative and designed meaningful, independence-building activities for themselves. They want teens who have boldly explored the realms of business, international travel, and college-level research prior to convincing themselves that they actually need college. Traditional high school is very often a handicap in pursuing these character traits. And while not every college has explicit homeschool admissions policies like MIT and Stanford, the logic remains the same: colleges want dynamic, innovative teens who leave the cookie-cutter approach behind for greener pastures.

Skeptical parents often compare their child’s college preparatory journey to their same journey of yesteryear. It’s important to realize that high school diplomas don’t hold nearly the same cachet today as they did a few decades ago. Community colleges are much easier to get into as a teen, and dual- or early-enrollment programs abound. The biggest bureaucratic hurdles exist in public college admissions, but an easily obtained GED can soothe those ruffled feathers. These facts are the kind of evidence that parents should seek out to decide whether their fears are founded or unfounded.

What tips do you offer to students who have been in public or private schools through the 8th or 9th grade and are now considering preparing for college without high school?

My book is actually written for just those teens: the ones who have attempted to diligently follow school’s path but have only met disillusionment and boredom in the process. (Middle school is usually when this sets in.) A majority of the teens interviewed in my book made their unschooling decision in 9th grade.

What’s most important for a teen making the transition away from traditional school is to identify, as specifically as possible, their personal dreams and goals. Read the books that have always caught your eye in the bookstore. Take the train to visit your friend three states away. Build a computer in your garage or spend six hours a day writing music. Unschooling should be a “moving toward” something, not “moving away”. Once these values are clear, they should start pursuing them ruthlessly–and then figure out how college prep can be mixed into the brew. Following this order (interests first, college prep second) is vital for maintaining enthusiasm and self-motivation as an unschooler.
If a teen doesn’t know what truly excites them (as often happens with first-time school refugees), a short “deschooling vacation” might be in order. This is a period of time during which no structured academics are required, no schedule is followed, and parental nudging is kept to a minimum. The point is for the teen to push through the “no one is going to tell me what to do” barrier and enter “I have to motivate myself” land.

Though you encourage students to get creative about designing a personalized college-prep education, you suggest they prepare for and take standardized tests like the SAT or AP tests. Why not continue their alternative approach by finding other options for admission?

The SAT is certainly not required for all college admissions as a homeschooler., but the vast majority of traditional schools require at least one traditional academic achievement indicator (SAT, ACT, GED) and often more (SAT Subject, AP). The good news is that these tests have always existed independently of high school, and for that reason, it’s easy to prepare for them as a homeschooler. Grab a few SAT study guides, figure out exactly where your weak spots are, review hard in those areas, and take the test when you see fit. It’s a self-directed and results-oriented approach to college prep.

In view of the financial challenges facing many families, what’s your advice for those who need to reduce their college costs?

Community college is a golden bullet for financial hurdles. Many of the college-bound unschoolers with whom I work start community college around age 16, gather a significant number of transferable credits (or an Associate’s degree) by 18 or 19, and have lots of cool adventures along the way. Then they’re ready to apply (or transfer) into a 4-year school with sophomore or junior standing, saving thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

What options do you recommend for those interested in increasing their knowledge of the world and themselves?

As you argue excellently in The New Global Student, international immersion provides teens with an incredible wealth of self-knowledge. But many teens don’t want to participate in a packaged tourist program that carefully clings to the beaten path, and many parents won’t let their teens leave the beaten path alone. The solution lies somewhere in the middle–in finding a program that provides some modicum of safety and structure while providing teens with ample time to explore a new culture and learn from the common travel mistakes that they’ll inevitably make.

To find such opportunities, I recommend that teens first explore Idealist.org and search for volunteer positions specific to their age and desired location (using the “advanced search” feature). Often these programs provide a host family, English-speaking support network, and both structured and unstructured time. Another option (for those who don’t mind getting their hands dirty) is WWOOF: World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. In exchange for a small number of hours of farm work each day, students get to enjoy total immersion in the rural life of a foreign country. Both volunteering and “WWOOFing” offer the coveted combination of low cost and high immersion that a globetrotting teen seeks. There are also, of course, my own Unschool Adventures (http://www.unschooladventures.com) and Homeschool Leadership Retreats (http://www.homeschoolleadershipretreats.com) that strive to offer a similar experience.
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I highly recommend Blake’s book to any middle school or high school student seeking more excitement and engagement in their educational journey. Smart parents should buy this book for their kids and be bold enough to encourage them to forge ahead in new ways. To learn more, visit http://www.CollegeWithoutHighSchool.com

Some of my earliest memories are of playing in the vegetable garden. I remember eating handfuls of parsley, drinking the first sun-warmed spurt of water from the garden hose, watching for the radishes (always the radishes) to be the first seeds to sprout. There were beans to pick (and bean tents to hide inside), stalks of corn to wander through, and cherry tomatoes to pop into my mouth.

From the time I was ten, my family lived on a ten-acre piece of mostly wooded property three miles by gravel road outside a town of 350 people. In our acre-plus garden, we grew the usual range of vegetables, herbs and fruits, but played with new crops each year, from peanuts to currants. I could tell the difference between the various pepper starts and developed an educated palate that could easily distinguish between the flavors of a Hood strawberry versus a Shuksan or Northwest. I worked in the fields in my agricultural town all summer long–strawberries, beans, cucumbers, onions–and helped the farmers harvest the prunes, walnuts, and apples in the fall.

Being a farm kid came naturally to me, and when I wasn’t in the garden, I was in the woods. I taught kids at camp how to recognize the star-shaped tip of the salal berry (edible) and sample the delicious nectar obtained by scraping the root of the licorice fern. I knew my cones and mosses, and a high school field biology class (and a summer hoeing the weeds in vast onion fields) taught me about the native plants in the area and how to make a salad from purslane and dandelion greens.

During college, I spent a year traveling through Asia. I was drawn to the produce markets and the rice paddies and felt a kinship with the bent-over women in the fields. In Nepal, I studied the flora and fauna of the Himalayas, and stayed with a talented gardener on the seashore in Cornwall during the final month of my trip. She introduced me to climbing roses and perennials of all kinds.

After college, I moved to northern rural Japan where I taught English for several years. I lived in a small community facing the bay, and loved spending weekends exploring the meadows and forests in the area. My next-door neighbor had a huge garden in which she grew things new to me–soybeans and even mushrooms on a long row of wooden tree branches. We shared tips and I learned about the delicious wild mountain vegetables that were such a delicacy and the trees that turned the hillsides scarlet in the fall.

My next stage of life gave me a wonderful opportunity to live in a small Oregon town while raising four young daughters. My husband and I lived five blocks from Main Street, where we owned a couple of small retail businesses. My girls grew up knowing all the shopkeepers by name, and spent many happy afternoons playing in the room behind the store, going to buy candy three doors down and hanging out at the used bookstore up the street. We played a key role in the community, and my daughters understood the benefits of living in a place in which it was possible to work together in order to create a fun neighborhood event or raise money for a worthy cause right in their town. I became obsessed with gardening, seeking out the most obscure perennials and digging up swaths of lawn to plant new beds full of flowering shrubs and my favorite natives.

Later, we lived in suburbia, where we had a dramatically different experience. Some of our neighbors had lived in their homes for 25 years without ever meeting the families in the houses four doors down. There were plenty of grassy parks and manicured yards, but very few natural places open to anyone who wanted to explore them. The only stores in the area were the two strip malls mile to the north or the acres of big-box retailers across the highway to the south. There were no front porches from which to greet passing neighbors and many had landscaping services come to mow their front lawns. Most people spent their time on the decks and in the hot tubs in their private backyards.

I missed chatting with neighbors while spreading compost in my front flower beds. I missed vegetable gardens. I missed having a community in which it might take half an hour to walk two blocks because there were so many people to chat with along the way. I could go on a two-hour walk without ever passing someone on the sidewalk.

Now, we live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s a city of nearly 13 million people, and we live in the heart of it. I can enjoy stately parks full of old trees and a fascinating botanical garden just a few blocks away. There’s a produce vendor across the street who sells all kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits in season. I am learning about the native plants and the growing season, and getting to know the people on my block. Though I do occasionally long to dig in the dirt, I feel a connection to the land, the climate and the people.

During the past two weeks, I’ve been back in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the height of summer, and strolling through the old neighborhoods has given me a chance to admire the lush gardens and remember the joy of creating textural and fragrant art by designing plant combinations. I breathe deep and smile as the bumblebees buzz in the lavender plants along the sidewalks.

I have spent the last few years giving my daughters a chance to live abroad and learn more about themselves and the world. I just devoted a year to writing a book that promotes the idea of giving our children meaningful periods of time spent living in other countries. And I’ve had many conversations with people who are enthusiastic about giving their kids a global education.

But during the last few weeks of this book tour, I’ve come to recognize and appreciate the very local education I received growing up in Oregon and the sense of place that was instilled in me through those many, many hours in the garden, the woods, and the neighborhoods of my youth. Our children need a sense of place. They need to know where their food comes from–even if that’s a farmer’s market instead of their own vegetable garden. We must give them an appreciation for nature that goes beyond freshly-mowed lawns and crowded beaches.

It’s becoming more difficult to give our kids a chance to hike in the forests, muck about in ponds and run through meadows, but it’s imperative that we show them the bounty of the earth and teach them their responsibility in protecting it.

And though I am an evangelist for getting kids out into the world, I am equally passionate about ensuring that our children know where they are from, that they have roots into the land and joy in the changing seasons. As parents, we can give our kids enriching opportunities to learn both locally and globally and teach them how to dig into their own community–no matter where in the world it might be.

Being global means having a deep awareness of the world and the ability to see it from various perspectives. Sometimes it means coming back home and growing deep roots. Other times, it means moving abroad and planting oneself in a whole new place.

In every case, it means bringing the appreciation of a sense of place wherever you go and connecting with others in order to enrich each other.

When we raise global localists, the world becomes a greener, more compassionate place.

I’ve been having fun connecting with Amy Tiemann, author of Mojo Mom: Nurturing Yourself While Raising a Family. I’d been following her updates on Facebook and knew that her book had been rereleased recently, so I was interested in seeing how her book launch was going. It turns out we have the same agent!

Amy has a PhD from Stanford and was a science teacher for years before choosing to stay home as a new mom. She started writing the book she wished she had as a new mother–one that describes not just how to care for a baby but how a mother can care for herself as well. She wrote Mojo Mom to help other women reinvent themselves after becoming mothers.

In addition to her great website/blog at MojoMom.com, Amy offers podcast interviews of all kinds of interesting women. Last Friday, she posted an interview she’d done with me about The New Global Student along with her conversation with a woman who is reinventing herself in Tulum, Mexico.

Check out the podcast here.

And just to show what a fan she is (I am so honored!) take a look at my Amazon page
Amy’s the first one to write a review! And she’s very honest about her own educational journey (head down, PhD at 27) and how the book made her wish she’d taken a few little detours along the way….

Cheers to you, Amy!

Yesterday, Tom took this three-minute video as I met my agent for the first time and found my book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble here in New York. I navigated through the entire pitch-to-publication process via email while living in Argentina, so if you’re dreaming of publishing a book someday (the old way, with an agent and everything) I hope you’ll find this inspiring!

Plenty of students are looking at the economy, their finances and the state of the world in general and saying, “Hmm–maybe I’ll just put off college for a year and spend some time doing something that will help me figure out what matters to me and what I really want to do.”

Bravo!

Unfortunately, many potential gappers don’t do any planning and end up working a retail job in their hometown and taking a two-week trip to Mexico with friends and calling it good. OR they choose a pricey gap year program that puts them into debt before they even start college.

Taking a year to do something completely different can provide clarity and a sense of direction–plus excellent skills (knowing how to navigate on your own abroad, communicating in another language, learning about another culture). But before you decide how you’re going to spend that year, make sure you are clear about how you can maximize your experience and avoid spinning your wheels.

Many gap year programs are nothing more than expensive group tours with other American students, and even if they offer a chance to volunteer, most don’t provide the elements that can make it a powerful personal experience of the type that can really help you blast forward once you return to the U.S.

If you are looking for a gap year that will give you a clear advantage personally and academically (rather than just a fun time and a line item on your resume), consider these points:

1) Leave the U.S.–and other Americans–behind. Go someplace where you can experience a sense of solitude and anonymity. Be a foreigner in a strange land, and let go of your identity. Who are you without the trappings of hometown, family, friends, sports, activities, awards, etc? This is your chance to find out.

2) Go to a place in which English is not the native language. Making mistakes is humbling. Being confused, lost, or seemingly stupid at times is a powerful way to develop compassion for other confused/lost/seemingly stupid people in the world. Learning how to let others help you is important–and learning how to connect with others even when you don’t speak the same language is priceless. You’ve got to make several embarrassing mistakes before lunch in order to get the most out of the experience, which means you can’t hang back, you can’t spend your time typing in internet cafes, and you’ve got to disconnect from the iPod. In other words, you’ve got to be fully present–no props or barriers allowed.

3) Find a way to connect with the locals directly. Plenty of gap year programs will give you a chance to sit in a classroom abroad with other Americans or work on a project alongside other Americans for the benefit of the locals. Your goal should be to connect DIRECTLY, even if that means you don’t get to put the name of an internationally-recognized organization on your resume. It’s better to be the only teacher in a tiny makeshift English school for several months than it is to be one of several Americans who show up at a designated school as part of a three-week program. Strip away the layers and get to the core of the experience–being with the people in a new culture, building relationships with them, and being of service.

4) Do an independent study or take classes–even if you don’t get credit. There are those who think a gap year should not be academic. I beg to differ. If you spend some time doing research via interviews, trips, or events, and you have to present something at the end of your stay, you’ll take the experience more seriously and recognize what you are learning in a more tangible way. At the very least, you should be blogging or writing in a journal so that you give yourself the chance to articulate your experience. Living and learning abroad can be a fantastic way for you to understand more about the kinds of learning that light you up–and the kinds that don’t. Don’t be afraid to take a class in something you’d never consider studying back home. Be open to areas that don’t fit in with your planned major or proposed path in life. (Physical activities or things you can learn by watching–like art or cooking–are great for beginning language learners!) This is your chance to try new things and challenge yourself in a new setting.

5) Find a mentor. One of the most valuable experiences in life is connecting with someone who inspires you. Finding that person abroad is even sweeter as you can learn so much more about where you are when you have a caring person who can offer information, share stories, teach you about the culture and give you advice. It can be a teacher, a host parent, the guy who runs the little tea shop on the corner, anyone, but don’t miss out on the opportunity to gain wisdom by connecting and listening.

What about volunteering? Shouldn’t that be part of a gap year experience? Sure, but most programs charge you a lot of money to do so and set it up so that you are actually spending more time talking with other Americans than the locals. Instead, focus on going solo, connecting with the locals, and finding a mentor who can help you learn. These are the people who can tell you about the needs of their community and how you can help them directly.

If you’re serious about seeing the world–and your possibilities–during a gap year, step away from the packaged plans. You’ll develop more skills, greater confidence and a clearer sense of your own culture–and you’ll save thousands of dollars in the process.

Looking for tips on how to set up your own gap year experience? I’ve got a whole section on that in my book! Basically, all you need is an internet connection and a willingness to do some Googling. Choose a destination (see pointers above) and find organizations or individuals that share your interests. Use Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, Couchsurfing, Global Freeloaders, Inter Nations and other sites to find people in your destination and then reach out to them directly. Let them know your interests and how you’d like to connect with them or help their community.

Being independent is cool but being collaborative is cutting edge. You don’t need a fancy program to make friends abroad and create a fantastic gap year for yourself. Go forth and connect!

Note: Are you worried about safety if you’re not part of a program? Here’s something you should know–connecting directly with the locals and learning from them how to stay safe is likely to protect you far more than hanging out with a group of Americans (always a target for crime abroad). The key is not how many Americans you’re with in the bar–it’s whether you’re paying attention to risks and making smart decisions about your safety. Those who spend time with locals will learn more quickly how to avoid the places and situations that may be hazardous. The key is building relationships with people who care about you AND know the area. Surrounding yourself with other newbies may provide a sense of comfort and the illusion of protection, but it won’t increase your safety level–and it’s more likely to attract the attention of those who prey on tourists.

Fred Wilson is a venture capitalist and the mastermind behind Union Square Ventures. Ever since I heard about his brilliant Hacking Education gathering in New York a few days ago, I haven’t been able to wipe the grin off my face.

Picture this: a room full of creative entrepreneurs, educators and assorted thinkers sitting around a big table for six hours and talking about how to change education. Disruptive innovation. E-learning. Online games and collaboration. Thinking about school and what it means, what it looks like. You’ve got my personal hero, Sir Ken Robinson, giving the welcome address, and the rest of the time it’s just open for discussion.

Now add a live Twitter stream on a big screen, which allows those present to add their thoughts without having to demand floor time (can you picture this in a classroom for kids who aren’t likely to raise their hands but have something very significant to ask or add?) There’s a steady flow of Tweets from those in the room AND from those who are following these Tweets on Twitter. (I’ve really gotten into Twitter lately. Follow me and I promise to follow you, too!)

I wish I could have been there, but frankly, I’m thrilled just knowing that it happened, I truly believe that we are reaching a critical mass in terms of new thinking about education, and we’re about to hit the tipping point when the Old School approach to education is considered not only outdated but actually detrimental for most students. Hello, Bold School!

And yet, as delighted as I am about the shift and the discussions among the edurati, there’s something missing.

It’s the parents. Because when it comes to hacking education, the biggest barriers won’t be technology or teachers or government. The biggest obstacle to overcome will be the parents–or, more precisely, their fears about the future for their kids if they choose to do things differently.

I get it. I’m a parent of four recently-launched daughters (ages 18, 19, 21 and 22, including three college grads, one senior and one completing her master’s in May) and I know how hard it is to let go of the standard approach to education. Even when I know in my head that this bold new option is better than that old one, I want some proof. It’s hard to feel convinced unless you can look around and see stunning examples of success among those who’ve taken a different path.

What I think many ed gurus don’t recognize is how scary it is for parents to risk feeling like, well, bad parents. You can show us the best tech tools on the planet, introduce us to the brightest tutors just a click away and yet we still worry, “What if my student can’t get into a decent college because I decided to get all innovative and encouraged her to do homeschooling or skip the SAT or get a GED or study online? What THEN?” Even if we know that tuition is outrageous and that our kids could learn more easily and quickly online or by simply reading books on their own, we still feel like we have to nudge our kids toward a college degree or else we’ve FAILED them.

And so we do what everyone else is doing: we hang that scarcity banner across our kid’s shoulders and say, “There are not enough spots in those colleges you like, and there’s not enough money available, so you’d better get your butt in gear, mister/missy, and study for those tests or you’ll never get in and get aid.”

Ack.

I feel this pain. I wrote my book for parents and I acknowledge their concerns while also giving them a loving kick in the rear. Nothing will change unless parents can release their own fear and ego (I refer to this one-two punch as “fego”) and it is absolutely critical that we appeal to the hearts and not just the minds of the moms and dads fretting about the future.

Too often, academics and entrepreneurs come up with fabulous ideas that they think will revolutionize education without considering those who REALLY drive the education carpool in the US–the parents. They’re the ones paying for immersion preschools and international high schools and SAT tutors and AP tests and college applications and on and on.

Well, let me just tell you that parents are sick and tired of footing the bill for an increasingly long list of must-have extras. They don’t want to be marketed to unless what you are selling is helping them SAVE MONEY AND/OR TIME while giving their kids a better education. They don’t want add-ons. They want alternatives. And most of all, they need to be convinced that what you’re offering will really WORK for their kids and not just line the pockets of those investors and inventors.

They’re right there. They are sitting on the edge. All you have to do now is show them that the alternatives are not only more accessible but absolutely advantageous.

Oh, and one more thing: they are waiting for you to go first.

Education hackers, disruptive innovators, and edurati: Go public about how you are walking away from the traditional track with your own kids. Until they see that happening–and see the RESULTS–parents won’t be able to budge, even though it’s what they want more than anything.

Education folks are cheering President Obama’s strong statements about improving education. They are thrilled that he is calling upon every American to get an additional year of college or training. They are elated that he has established a goal of dramatically increasing the percentage of college graduates. They are positively giddy about his emphasis on keeping kids in high school. As he put it in his State of the Nation address, “Dropping out of high school is no longer an option.”

Pardon me, Mr. President, but I beg to differ.

Now, I couldn’t agree more that we must emphasize education and get more kids into and through college, and I certainly recognize that a 30% drop-out rate demands our attention. Within that 30 percent, there are thousands of students who are leaving high school because it is too hard or too dull or too frustrating–and many are likely to avoid any form of higher education for the rest of their lives. This is a tragedy, and it should stir us to change the way we approach high school for those who are at risk of dropping out.

But the drop-out rate is misleading. Sure, it includes the pregnant girls, the boys who get in trouble, the kids who are just too overwhelmed to make high school a priority, etc. But it also includes plenty of bright students who are leaving the system in order to pursue other education opportunities.

Though it varies from state to state, in many places, students who homeschool, study online or even go abroad are counted as “drop-outs”. And make no mistake–some of these kids are leaving high school precisely because they are smart enough and motivated enough to recognize that they could get a much more rigorous and exhilarating education elsewhere.

My two youngest daughters would be considered drop-outs. Teal spent her junior year on exchange in Brazil, and then moved to Argentina to join us (we moved while she was abroad), finishing her senior year online. What’s she doing now? She was the youngest graduate ever at her university in Canada when she graduated at 19 in December, and now she is very happily working as a multilingual events coordinator for Norwegian Cruise Lines, where she is the youngest crew member aboard a ship that is currently cruising through the Bahamas. (Poor thing.)

Her younger sister would be considered even more of a slacker. Talya never went to high school in the US and would be counted as a ninth grade drop-out. She had a year of high school in Mexico and a month of high school in Argentina. She started taking college courses at 15, worked with tutors, spent time with mentors and earned her GED certification at 16. Now she is getting straight As at a private university in upstate New York, where she will graduate with a BS next December within two weeks of her 19th birthday.

You see, sometimes, high school can be terribly limiting. Granted, my kids had unusual circumstances–they had to find a way to finish high school without being in the US–but in the course of writing my book, I interviewed well over 100 students who found ways to get a great education that suits them perfectly, and I can assure you that they view “dropping out” of high school as the smartest move they ever made. All of them graduated from college–many of them went on to get master’s degrees. It’s not that they’re nerds or geniuses–they don’t have stratospheric IQs, nor are they socially inept. They are, in fact, quite mature for their age and simply prefer a more adult learning environment than high school. They are bold, innovative, clear about what they want, and very engaged in their work. These Bold Schoolers are THRIVING.

If I were hiring a new employee for my company, I’d pick one of these “drop outs” over a kid on the typical four-by-four plan (four years of high school, four years of college) any day of the week–and I’m guessing most other employers would, too. Unless, of course, they are looking for someone to sit at a desk, do whatever task is put in front of them, and never question the methodology or consider ways to do things differently.

Hey, I know all too well that if you disconnect a smart kid from the college-prep life support system (aka high school), those who don’t understand the advantages of doing so are going to see it as a sign of trauma and a reason for panic: “His university options are crashing! He’s losing pressure! More AP classes–stat!” But those who “drop out” as part of a strategy to dive into higher education early are leaving their AP/SAT test-crazed classmates in the dust–and grinning from ear to ear.

Listen, I want more kids to go on to college–and that means finishing high school in some way in order to move forward. But when 30 percent of our high school students are dropping out, we should be asking some serious questions about WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHEN THEY LEAVE rather than redoubling efforts to keep them in the same stultifying learning environment. Raising mandatory school age requirements to 18, as some states are doing, misses the point entirely. We need to ENGAGE them, and if high school isn’t working, let’s work with them to find more suitable options rather than handcuff them for another year or two.

Thanks, Mr. President, for making education a priority. Now, let’s make sure we’re not keeping our brightest students down by forcing them to stay in high school rather than pursue far more beneficial options.

Whenever high school students are able to earn college credits AND get a head start on a career, I’d say it’s a good thing.

Blending technical high schools (magnet schools, mostly) and community colleges may be a great way to save the state money, streamline the system and benefit students by giving them an opportunity to take relevant high school courses that count toward an associate’s degree. Naysayers fume, but come across as being reluctant to consider innovative solutions. This is no time to cling to Old School notions–and most educators agree that the middle college concept is a great idea (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has supported the “middle college” idea and is likely to continue to invest in this alternative.)

Learn about Governor M. Jodi Rell’s middle college plan for Connecticut–and read the comments from scowlers–here.