The World Is Their Classroom: This Mom Took Her Kids Out of School to Travel
The Oxenreiders on the road in Kenya. (All photos: Tsh Oxenreider)
Traveling has always been a big part of Tsh Oxenreider’s life; she worked abroad for a non-profit and met her husband, Kyle, on a trip to Kosovo. So when the duo decided to have children, putting their love of traveling on the back burner simply wasn’t an option. “We both came into our marriage independently loving to travel,” Tsh tells Yahoo Travel. “So it became a no brainer that it would be a part of our family culture to travel.”
In fact, in 2007, with a toddler in tow, the family moved to Turkey, traveled to eight other countries, and not long after added two more children to their brood. Now they have Tatum, 10, Reed, seven, and Finn, who just turned five. With three young kids, you’d think it would be nearly impossible to travel the world, but these children have been to about 25 countries already and the Oxenreiders use their travels as learning experiences. “We’re not against public school and are very open to everything. It’s purely a lifestyle choice,” adds Tsh. “But when we travel we take it with us. We don’t call it home schooling, we call it world schooling.”
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Who wouldn’t want this to be their history classroom?
Like any teach would, the Oxenreiders chose subjects for their children to focus on during trips — their most recent around-the-world journey included stops in England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Turkey, and more. “We worked on reading, writing, and math. Every where we visited would be able to fall into that,” notes Tsh. “For example, we visited the Great Wall of China and that’s history, geography, and that’s even science in some ways. We come back to our guest house and our oldest daughter wrote a couple of paragraphs about what she did at the Great Wall and our middle guy practiced handwriting by writing a sentence about it. It all integrates.”
Though untraditional the couple believes these real-life lessons solidify the teaching even more. “They not only get to read about the Eiffel Tour and learn the physics of it,” says Tsh, “but then they get to go and climb it.”
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International friends.
The kids have even developed a worldwide classroom of friends. “They have friends in different countries,” she adds. “We will stay or visit with friends, so the kids do have a group and love meeting new people along the way.”
Certainly this way of life is adventurous, but traveling with a family and taking school on the road requires some logistics. “We stay exclusively in guesthouses like [those found on] Homeaway so we can have a kitchen and a yard,” says Tsh. “Those little things go a long way with kids and creating a feeling of home.” The family also determines a particular duration in a country based on how expensive it is, the value of the dollar, and how much they’ve been traveling before or after. “When we stay in places for a month or six weeks we like to go to the grocery store, catch up on work and homework,” she adds. “It keeps us sane.”
Next up for the world schooling lesson is Central and South America, though the family is considering having a home base in Austin as well. “We are looking at the possibility of having a home for the first time,” says Tsh. “But, it is with the purpose of being able to travel. We have to be able to rent it out so we can earn money while we’re away.”
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And while the mom-of-three admits her kids complain and bicker like anyone else, she’s found they’re much more resilient and adaptable to their situations than many adults. “We don’t think of it as a thing we do; its just part of who we are,” notes Tsh. “You can’t have expectations that you’re going to travel like you would when you’re just a couple or alone. There are no 9 p.m. dinners in Europe; instead there are lunches. But, I never thought it wasn’t worth it.”
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