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Travelschool with The Berger Family The Land Sailors: Alex, Jo, Nate, and Ed |
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A BIT OF HISTORY Working with Southwest Research and Education Service, Inc., we have had the opportunity to pioneer, for our own family, and other families, experiential, enrichment learning activities. When our boys were 8 and 11, we wanted to immerse our family in 'real-world' educational experiences woven from a rich tapestry of sights, smells, sounds, anecdotes, and incidents ... we wanted to learn about cultures, languages, philosophies, geography, budgeting, habitats, ourselves, and more. Our first year, we traveled in Europe for 11 months. We were hooked! We came home for a year, planned our next family learning adventure, and took off in our RV to travel around the United States for a year.
As a result of these trips, our family is deeply bonded. We are a tight unit.
As we continue to travel, even on short trips, we add to our rich base of shared experiences. Yes, at times,
we get on each others' nerves and the creation of personal
space is an on-going challenge. We also find that we have to re-define
our roles a bit and begin to look at each other less as "parents"
and "children", and more as individuals. Packing has been an additional learning experience. For our Europe trip we traveled via trains, buses, and eventually procured an automobile. We were interested in flexibility ... so we each packed a backpack. The boys carried their own stuff, while Ed and I carried our clothes, assorted books, and cooking gear. It worked out really well once we adjusted to the weight. It's not such a bad thing living like a snail with your house on your back. It really forces you to get down to essentials. On our US trip, however, we traveled in our 32 foot long fifth-wheel trailer. Okay, okay, it's true we had a ton of stuff ... all essential of course! Our favorite indulgence was our computer system. This enabled us to link electronically to the rest of the world. If you want to know what we took along, our Packing List breaks down our "essentials" by category. The Family Album is a collection of snapshots we captured from our video camera and downloaded into our computer. We became quite dependent on e-mail. Once we figured out how to connect and transfer files, it was a snap. E-mail communication is a marvel and the intricacies of the Internet continue to be an interesting learning experience for us all. Hope you enjoy our page. Maybe we'll see you on the road! |
Experiential education ... travelschooling ... family adventures sponsored by Southwest Research and Education Services(SRES)
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