The Young and The Restless | The world is a school, travel is a teacher

No lunches to make, no kids to wake up, no school uniforms to wash and dry by deadline, no school pick-ups to run late to because I had to meet other deadlines at work first.

Pressure lifted, breath caught.

Given my kids and I just got back from a mid-term break a few weeks ago, we probably should be feeling refreshed already, but I find our trips more exhausting than day-to-day life.

It’s all the extra work to prepare for going away and all the catch-up you have to do when you get back.

It’s refreshing on one level, just not necessarily rejuvenating.

Some teachers are unfazed when you take your kids out of school to travel; others frown with concern, as though they think you’ve made a poor decision in doing so.

I understand with term-long assignments, exams and other things, it can be disruptive to their learning, but in the same way, the school of life can teach them things school never could. Travel is also a mighty teacher.

Their core subjects are easily covered.

They’re converting currency several times a day, calculating if they have enough to purchase an item, or how much they can spend in the confines of a budget they’ve set to make their travel funds last.

If you’re moving around, they look at distances to the next destination and speed limits to calculate how long it will take us to get there, while also saves them asking me, ‘Are we there yet?’, like they used to.

There’s space interpretation while map reading, geometry in suitcase packing, time zones to consider when calculating flight distances or calls home.

Maths, tick.

With language barriers in foreign countries where English is not the native language, the kids have to really consider how they word questions and converse when talking to locals.

They also learn some foreign words during conversation, but mostly from signage, which, in Malaysia, usually has both the Malaysian and English words side by side for easy understanding.

While I don’t think any of my kids put pen to paper on our travels, aside from filling out customs declaration cards on the plane on the way home, they typed many messages to friends at home, describing their days and experiences.

English and LOTE (languages other than English), tick.

Not only did we learn a lot about another race, country and continent’s history, we learned loads of our own Australian history by visiting the Kundasang and Sandakan war memorials, which pay tribute to our Anzacs and tell the story of the horrific death marches to Ranau, which saw 2434 prisoners of war sadly die.

History, tick.

My kids used Google Maps so frequently abroad that I didn’t even have to open it myself, because they were showing me or explaining to me regularly how we were crisscrossing the country.

They were aghast realising some days it had taken three hours to travel 100km (because of the terrain or condition of the roads, which rivalled Victoria’s for the crown of most potholes).

They learned about Mt Kinabalu being the highest mountain in Malaysia and Borneo, and with that, the tallest waterfall also in Malaysia – Kadamaian waterfall at 700m – cascades off it.

Geography, tick.

Learning about another environment, its ecosystems, biodiversity, conservation, while feeling its climate, noting its weather patterns and researching its potential for natural disasters is very scientific.

And how about the biology of wildlife?

We went from the beach, to the rainforest, to the jungle, to river country, to the cities.

The landscape, climate and animal catalogue changed frequently.

We got sunburnt on the islands, shivered in the mountains, torrentially rained on under a sky of thunder and lightning on the Kinabatangan River.

We submerged into a coral reef teeming with tropical fish, looked up into the trees and saw monkeys and squirrels, followed the sound of scurrying on the forest floor to see a mouse deer, spotted a civet on the restaurant railing late into the night when all the staff had disappeared, avoided getting too close to the scorpions, monitors, crocodiles and snakes.

We searched mangrove rivers for fireflies and found them.

All the while learning about these creatures – which family they belonged to, what they ate, how long they lived.

Science, tick.

That’s the academic core subjects well covered.

All the walking and swimming can count as P.E.

The thousands of photos and videos captured and turned into montages tick off some art prac.

Health class could have been analysing our risk of eating or drinking certain things to avoid sickness, remembering to take our malaria tablets each day, having travel vaccinations in the lead-up to the trip.

And if this doesn’t qualify for a big enough side of education with our leisure, we can fit every single element of the trip inside the personal and emotional development subject realm, if you ask me.

Travel provides some of the most valuable education a human being can get.

You’ll never convince me otherwise.