The only episode you need on all things world schooling! Lainie has been in the world school industry for 10+ years, world-schooling her son since age 10, speaking on TEDx stages, and organizing her own world school trips for adolescents. In this episode, we talk about how she left America to embark on a world school lifestyle with her son, what is world schooling, how kids learn better from this structure, and why world schooling is for everyone.

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Lainey, welcome to the Work Wealth and Travel podcast. I'm so excited for our discussion today to dive into all things travel world schooling. But before we get into that, let's start out with introducing you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your story, where you started, and how you got to where you are today.

You never spend any time with me. And that kind of cut to the heart. And part of me was feeling like, well, I'm doing this because I'm providing for my family single parent. This is, this is living the American dream. You know, There, there, but there wasn't congruity in the things that I was trying to create and the actual time that I had to actually spend with my son.

And in essence, I felt like I missed out on the first nine years of his life because I was always working and he was always, you know, you know, he was in school, he was with a babysitter, he was at the office while I was working, whatever. It just wasn't the ideal way to raise a child, and I just really felt.

And I remember one night, it was late in October, maybe early November, and I said to my son, we were at, it was like 9:00 PM in the office in la and I said to him, what do you think we just get rid of? All this stuff and just go have an adventure. And he was playing a video game and he, he stopped and he turned around and he looked at me.

He's like, you serious? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, I'm in. And it, his follow-up question to me was, do I have to go to school? And I was like, no. No, and I knew intuitively that at the time we were planning one year travel. I knew intuitively that one year of travel would teach him way more than fifth grade could ever offer to him.

We had sold everything we had prepared, we had gotten rid of ev, everything found at home for our dog. And We set out for what was to be a one year journey. And being from California, we were just gonna head south and the goal was to leave California and head down and travel as far south as we could and end up in, in a year to the tip of Argentina, and that was going to be our trip.

So that was 14. We're just about starting on our 15th year being out the United States. And just so you and your listeners know, we still haven't made it to Usia. We've been all around the world over the last 14, 15 years, and I raised my son totally nomadically. We did have bases in different countries.

But from that adventure, so many things came from that. We we founded a couple companies together. My son and I, we traveled, I wrote a book. We, we launched and, and started to form community around this thing called world Schooling. And it was something that we sort of fell into and became very passionate about.

And so we started to organize around world schooling and introducing that to the world. And oftentimes, I'm even credited with founding this movement because of the work that we've done around the organization that we did it. My son and I together did a TEDx talk about. Six or seven years ago on this.

And we have hosted since 10 international conferences for world schooling families and started the trend of creating these world schooling hubs and popups. So we're responsible for all of that stuff. It was something I could have never imagined, but you know, The, the path of life takes us where it will, and as long as you keep saying yes and stay, you know, present with whatever is lighting you up and use your core values as a guide it won't go wrong.

Decided to leave for a year, which is a pretty long time. But then what did they continue to think? 'cause you just never came back. Yeah. We were met with a lot of resistance initially. I had a good friend who was a punk rock and, you know, pretty out there like I was a punk rocker too, but like, you know, you would think that there, there's more of a trust and, and.

Forging your own path, but she was so fearful. She, she told me that Miro, and I need, my son's name is Miro. We needed to get kidnap insurance because we were going to scary places like Latin America, you know, because everybody's dangerous. Everywhere. And you know, that kind of fear is such an integral part of the American culture.

And fortunately, it was never something that I bought into. I traveled in my twenties for a year. I hitchhiked all over Europe and had a wonderful sense of, of self and, and discovery in the world. And so I wasn't fearful. I, I knew. The unknown was an exciting place, not a scary place, and I've never been afraid of, of people from countries that were different, the country that I was born in, my passport country.

So you know, that to me, those kinds of comments were kind of. Kind of ridiculous. We just sort of, you know, forged ahead. Obviously I made dis different decisions and safety is, you know, a, a totally different kind of concern than being a single traveling female in my twenties versus being in my forties, which is how old I was when we left.

With a, a nine and 10 year old son, you know, nine, he just turned 10 just as we were leaving. So Yeah, you know, our, our As as a parent, right, you're gonna make different decisions anyway. But of course I wasn't afraid just because I had to make different decisions to keep us safe. Obviously, we're not gonna walk down a dark alley and at.

You know, 3:00 AM which you might choose to do in your twenties if you're coming back from a bar, right? I mean, who hasn't done that? But that those aren't the choices that you make in any place with, with a child. And so, you know, I wasn't fearful of people being different. I wasn't fearful of. Something bad happening to me.

I knew that what we were doing, we were being guided by in in our own intuition. We had a wonderful set of core values that we can use as a tool to see if decisions were in alignment with the things that we both wanted. And it really allowed me to, to. 100% be the one thing that I hadn't been for my son and for the first nine years, and that was present, completely present for him.

And so, yeah. Yeah, I think that's, it's such an interesting, such. Such an interesting concept and I think your answer really says it all. You know, I have been in places where I think people, I'm from Canada, so I think people in Canada, America would probably be like, oh, you don't wanna be in this country at this time.

Like when the protests were happening in Hong Kong or there was just something in Mexico a few months back. I don't even know what it was. And it was in Mexico City and I was pretty close and everyone was very worried 'cause I was close to Mexico City and it's so interesting the. Fear from news and from different sources in North America, at least that I know of in North America, I'm sure in other countries as well.

But the fear that gets put into you to stop you from traveling or having a mindset of traveling is scary. I have to go short term. It has to be on a resort. So I think, you know, it's very interesting that you also experienced that and that you broke free from that because I think that is something that is pretty difficult to do.

But I guess you know, myself and you, we haven't lived in our home countries in years, so kind of have our eyes open in that sense. But yeah, I think that's really interesting. But I hope you did have some family that was supportive of you and I'm sure they've grown, supportive, if not over the years as well.

Actually the opposite. Really? Oh, that's so interesting. Tell me more. Yeah, it's rather unfortunate. One, well, I mean, I, I recently wrote a book. I wrote a book and was published last year and I share a lot of, of the trauma and, and challenges that I faced growing up. And a lot of it had to do with my mother.

And it's. A lot of that stuff is in my book, which talks about how to overcome and reprogram traumas and, and limiting beliefs and things like that. But a lot of that stuff came from my childhood and one of the experiences that we had it was probably four or five years into her travels. My mom actually, who was, she was, Supportive for the first year and said, yeah, okay, this is a great idea.

You guys are gonna grow and it's a great adventure. But after a while she's like, okay, it's time for you to come home, bring your, your, your son home. I want my grandson here. And then it started to get a little more. Sort of forceful and controlling and then nasty and manipulative, like, you know, it's time for you to grow up and, and, you know, here I am, I'm at this point I'm probably in my late forties or early fifties, and I have have a mother who's being very judgmental and, and you know, but it, it's not just the travel, it's, it's, it's the whole history of our.

Relationship, which I, like I said, I wrote quite a bit about, and then she just decided that since we weren't coming home, we were acting in her opinion immature. And she decided not to. Not speak to us anymore. So it's been about seven years since I've spoken to her, which is probably for the best at this point.

But it's interesting because not only, like I said, have we created this whole movement around world schooling and empowering families to not walk through the planet. Fearfully to be present for their children to be in partnership. I'm an advocate for something called partnership parenting. I'm an advocate for healing mental health and, and generational wounds, which is something that I completely, you know, put, put an end to with the way that I chose to raise my son.

And healing your own healing. You know, I will never. Please somebody who is unpleasable, and it's unfortunate that this is the kind of parent that, you know, the cards dealt me, but it's been also, on the other hand, my greatest teacher. And that's why the mental health portion of everything that we do, or.

Everything that we do has a big mental health portion to it. So for example, when we're facilitating teens we're taking them on a trip to say South Africa and we're there for a month. First of all, you're, you're outside of your comfort zone. What kind of language can we facilitate in order to make this something that we can talk about that.

You know, we can explore. We can address fears, we can challenge belief systems and patterns of thinking that are not serving us. We can learn to become. Comfortable with the discomfort of being uncomfortable. We can learn to be present with all the emotional stuff that's happening inside of ourselves and address fears from a very conscious place.

All of those are tools that I learned. Personally in my, my twenties and th thirties as I was healing a lot of these wounds from my childhood. And as we're bringing teens to different places in the world and these sorts of things come up because of the, you know, being in a brand new place and away from home I had this rich toolbox that I had used with myself, and the, the partnership and the language and the facilitation and the, the nonviolent communication and all, all of those things became a skillset that I, that was in demand for the trips that we were leading.

So, What I recognized from our years of travel and years of, of facilitating other young learners to have these immersive learning experiences was the outer world is going to be an absolute reflection of your inner world. And. You know, when you're in a space where you are outside of your comfort zone, we like to call it in the stretch zone.

We've got language now to identify the emotional state, the the beliefs that it's triggering, the patterns, the, the fears, and then the way that our subconscious and. Unconscious mind serves to protect us and making friends with all that stuff is a fantastic tool, especially while you're traveling.

Wow. That, I mean, you just explaining all of that, I feel like I have a very small glimpse of what it looks like to be world schooling with you to, you know, like you said, go to South Africa for a certain amount of time, so that's very interesting. You've, you, it seems like you have created. An entire framework and system that you know works because you started world schooling with your son.

So why don't we back up and explain what is world schooling and then from that, I would love to know. How the journey has looked for you, how you have started with yourself and your son and built up this world schooling empire and are now, you know, one of the pioneers it seems in world schooling empire.

That's so funny. Yeah. Okay. So world schooling is really utilizing the world around you as a rich canvas to learn from. So it's ins, it sparks inspiration, it sparks curiosity, but just by virtue of having. A brain, right? We all have brains and as brains take in new stimulus and information that is indeed learning.

And I've become an advocate for all different forms of alternative education. But once I realized that very simple key fact that we've got learning. Computers that we're carrying around on the top of our shoulders every single moment of every single day we are learning or processing or integrating, and we've got this amazing learning machine.

And when I discovered that, Learning happens naturally that my at my mind blew wide open. I no longer needed the instruction from an institution, which looked a lot like indoctrination to me. I don't mean to get political, but there's there, you know what is her name? Roosevelt once said, the purpose of education or schools is to create good citizens and.

Sort of summed up what the purpose of the conventional education system is. And when I really looked deeper into it and did a lot of reading and a lot of exploration, I recognized that the institutional education System was not in alignment with what I wanted for my son or what he wanted for himself, and the fact that we were traveling and learning and asking questions and doing this in partnership and really gaining a deep understanding of.

So many different aspects of the places that we were in. Like for example, we could go to like we were in Nicaragua and together we listened to a book, an audio book called tales of an Economic Hitman, which is an economic political book that had to do with the American government's interference.

In Nicaragua and the revolution there and there we were in Nicaragua understanding and being surrounded by these beautiful people who, who, whose history was so foreign to us. And as we became more and more engaged in the world around us and meeting people, we wanted to know why there was poverty, why there was separation in, you know, political parties, why there was.

You know historical violence in certain places, why the revolution took place? Well, I was busy going to my prom when I was in high school. The people that were my age were in the middle of a war, and that to me, really struck me in a very deep. Place. And the more questions that, that we, that my son and I asked, the more that we dug deeper and explored and spoke to people and read books and followed our natural curiosity.

And there is no way that you could measure the amount of Information that that we learned because we were intrinsically motivated to understand the world around us, and nobody was telling us to learn this or you can't learn this 'cause it's not appropriate for your age. You're in fifth grade and you have to wait till you're sixth in sixth grade to address that.

That it's just, it was such an arbitrary curriculum is such an arbitrary Thing that, that when I discovered that I didn't want my son to be Ed educated, I wanted him to be a learner and those, those that shift, I. Changed everything. And so if we're using the world around us to inspire natural curiosity and learning, that is indeed world schooling.

Now, there are world schoolers that use curriculum, which we chose not to. We chose a natural learning or self-directed learning path. Some people call that unschool links. But you can do it. By, you know, with curriculum and homeschooling and supplementing, if families are, are concerned with staying, you know, present or current with a, a system of curriculum and scope and sequence, which we weren't interested in We, or there are world schoolers that move to a foreign place, foreign to them and immerse their kids in a school, like a conventional school.

So they can learn, you know, culturally and socially. There are world schoolers that. That invite people to their home and don't travel at all and explore different aspects of culture that way. And then there are world schoolers that just vacation. But as long as you are utilizing the world around you as the the jumping off point to use your natural curiosity today.

To dive deeper into topics and multi-age learning is powerful. And so learning with your child, you know, like I remember going to the Panama Canal and, you know, we were so fascinated with the locks and the the people. The immigrants that came to build it. We were fascinated by the history. We were fascinated by the humans.

We were fascinated by the ingenuity, and we were even fascinated where that took us with learning about Noriega and, and again, the American interference with, with The political with the politics in that country, I, it's, it's really fascinating because, you know, having a, an American centric or Canadian centric in your case worldview is so limiting and we don't recognize that until we leave our.

Our passport country, we don't recognize how much of the in our case, the American centricity. Flavors, the way that we look at people from other countries. And that was a big observation for ourselves. And when we recognize that our worldview is not the only worldview, the world got so much larger. I'm gonna give you one more example of like a powerful.

World worldview exploration. We had brought a group of teens for one of our trips to Ecuador and we did a trip on the coast. We did a lot of different things, like we learned how to surf. We worked with the Pacific Will Foundation, we volunteered with a children's organization, which was a library and after school program.

And we also Worked with these people that were replanting Palo Santo trees in order to replenish the population. And all of this was happening in one area. Oh, and the fishermen, we met the fishermen that would, would. Go out every morning from the coast and then come back and they would drop anchor right at the shoreline.

And then the vendors would come and, and buy their fish. And those that, that caught the real big sharks and big fish, they would chop the heads off and the cats. Would come and there was blood and fish cuts everywhere. But it was such an interesting thing to see now the perspective of the fishermen.

They were looking at the ocean as this beautiful place to provide for their family. The Pacific Whale Foundation, when we work with them, we're looking at this, the ocean and the shoreline as a wonderful place. To understand the science, be behind migration and how that, and how those two perspectives.

Even though they were both Ecuadorian interfered with one another, and then the children's organization, they were concerned about cleaning up the shoreline and picking up trash and using the shore as a place for recreation and learning. And then the people that were planting all the. Trees that were cut down also had a different perspective of the shoreline and the litter coming in.

And these were all different worldviews and our worldview as an observer looking at this. Had this tinge of foreigner like we were a foreigner and now we're separate from the daily living. And it, by recognizing that each one of them had different worldviews, it allowed us to tap into what. Is flavoring the way that we're seeing this situation?

Are we saying one is right, one is wrong? Are we sitting in a place of judgment? Are we, you know, what is the, you know, do we do it this way at home? What are the things that we're bringing to the situation in terms of our perception and how can we be a better world citizen by. Not seeing the world only through the lens from the lens that we brought with us from our home countries.

So I, you know, all of that is all about growth and, and learning and, and education, and you can't learn that in school. And that, to me is more important. Then, you know, knowing about your internal worlds and seeing the world through whatever lens you choose to see the world through, but you have an absolute choice at that point.

So, yeah, I thought maybe that'd be an interesting. Something to chew off. Yeah, that's, that is really cool. I feel like I just had a little mini glimpse of what you teach and what you teach these kids, and so that's so interesting. And even just that very small example, which thank you for sharing. That really makes you think, because you're right.

That's something that you would never learn in any traditional education system because, You really have to be in that surrounding to be there and to experience that and to see the different worldviews that all of these people around you could have. So I think that's so beautiful and so interesting, and I love what you shared before too, about.

It sounds like you know, you are also always learning, and I think that's so important because in the traditional education system, you stop learning. When you finish high school or when you finish university or college or whatever it may be. You, of course, you continue learning small things throughout life, but you really.

I think the traditional education system tells you, okay, you finished education, you can stop learning and now it's your time to go work. But I love your viewpoint on it where it's, I'm always learning, you know, you're with your son and you're 40 years old and you're learning and you know that it's going, learning is going to be a lifelong event.

And so I think that mindset shift right there is so crucial. But I think it doesn't happen to a lot of people unless you travel and you experience other. Places, other cultures, and you think critically about it as well. You don't just view it from that one viewpoint of your home country. Yeah, and I've always said, I'm sure there's a way for you to have that kind of experience without traveling, but for me, travel was the, the, the sort of entry point to my transformation as a human.

Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting too, and I mean, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure there is a way that you can get that experience without travel, but I think I would not understand what you just said if I didn't live a global citizen nomadic lifestyle. I think if I was, for the most part in my home country or just even in one country, I may not really understand what you just said, but because I have experienced it and I've been in that exact situation, maybe not on the Marine or on the port, but somewhere different in the world, and you just see all of the different viewpoints around you.

And so I completely understand exactly what you are saying. And there was, there was so much I wanted to touch on in what you just said. So I'm trying to think of what everything else that I wanted to say was But yeah, I think it's so interesting and for me, you know, of course I'm not world schooling and now I'm like, is there world schooling for adults?

That would be so interesting. But I think for me, I guess the closest thing to world schooling is every time we go to a new city, especially the capital of a country we always like to do a walking tour. You know, there's so many free walking tours online. You're giving back to the locals through the tips, but you learn the history that.

You would never be able to know what happened in that place, the history, how other countries have interacted with that country due to the history if you didn't hear it from a local who has most likely lived in that city their entire life. And so for me, that's my learning because if I'm not, if I'm going somewhere and I'm not doing one of these free walking tours, then I feel like it's almost kind of a waste because I don't fully know the city that I'm in.

Yeah, and I'm with you. I love walking tours. I love them. I think my favorite walking tour was in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. Oh my gosh. Crazy, crazy history. I just love Poland. It was just, and, and my, my love for that country came from the students that were sharing their, their history through these walking tours, I think.

Yeah, whatever city you go to, if you can find one, do it. Totally always do it. It's so worth it. So I wanna talk to you about the world schooling program that you have set up. So what does that actually look like? Is that a set duration of time? Is that are, are they in the program for a year and they're traveling to different countries?

Where are these kids, these teenagers? Where are they coming from? Are their families coming with them? Give me all the details of what this looks like. Sure. Now, before the pandemic we were running between three and five month long trips a year. So that, that gives you an idea of how much we, and I, when I say we, my son and I founded the company together.

He was 14 when we founded the company, and for the first few years, obviously he was a, a participant. The reason why we founded. And created Project World School was because he really wanted social interaction and we were living high in the Andes in Peru at the time. And he didn't wanna go back to the States.

He didn't wanna go back to the life, you know, before travel. And so one of, but he did wanna have a social life. And so one of the ways that we. We're able to do that was okay, let's, let's bring the teens to us then. And so we've done trips in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru south a Africa, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam Wales, Greece.

There's gotta, and many of them, we've done more than once. Yeah, that's probably a good, good set of locations that we've been to. And so we were doing anywhere from, like I said, three to five month long trips a year. And then we do one intro trip, which is only nine to 10 days, and that's around the conference, which I'll talk about afterwards.

But basically the way that it works is the teens sign up for the trip and depending on where they wanna go so it's, it's only a one time program, but most of our teens that travel with us have been on more than one trip. I would say 80% have been on more than one trip. So they, they come on one trip and then they love it so much they wanna do another trip somewhere else.

And then basically the, the trips are set up based around the area that we're going to. So for example, the trip that we did in Greece was primarily focused on Greek mythology, and we walked the path of the gods and we went to a bunch of the the ruins and, and learn the history. And we did a, we did a, a ton of, Theater and we even built a Trojan horse.

It was, it was a wonderful trip and it was highly thematic and, and it was filled with a lot of theater and, and art and creative stuff. So that was fun. The trip that we do in Peru though is, is primarily focused on the Peruvian culture, the Anden culture, the history, archeology andan, mysticism and anthropology.

And so we dive deep into that and that's, you know, so we have done a lot of exploration with some of the bigger sites and then we've worked with alternative researchers and we've, we've done some exploration around some of the alternative histories in Peru and Peru is one of the only countries that has an official OMI department.

No department of of, of UFOs or unidentified. Objects because they're so, so they have a governmental department. And because the culture itself has a rich history of beliefs with visitors from other places, it's, it really is fascinating to explore and to see it in the artwork and in all of the, the archeology and traditions.

So that's really fascinating. In Wales, we did a project where it was a project-based trip in three, almost four weeks, we built a roundhouse. We you know, a cob roundhouse, we Worked on an organic farm, lived and worked on an organic farm in Wales, and worked with bees and really learned about firsthand about food culture.

You know, what's it like? Having the privilege to say, no, I don't like this vegetable. Or, yes, I do like this vegetable and I'm choosing not to eat the others. You know, that's very, very western. And it's something that we don't really concern you ch you eat what you like most cultures, right? But there are some cultures and economic challenges where you don't have that option.

And so how do you deal with. With creating food you know that, that. Appeals to your taste buds. And it was really an interesting dive into the slow food movement. And, and we really had these, this hand on experience in a way that I never even imagined. South Africa, we explored the, the big five.

Animals. And we learned about the challenges that the natural reserves were having. We also dove deep into the culture of apartheid and the history of Nelson Mandela and the, we went to where the rights kicked off. And it was really, really fascinating to see from a political and social perspective.

You know, how people were treated and are treated in the belief systems, and yet also just see how people treat and interact with wildlife and nature. Something I never ex you know, expected to experience in a deeper level. And also we got to see Lucy, who at what, when I was growing up, was supposed to have been the oldest.

You know, the missing link, which I think it's been disproven since then. But that was really fascinating to me because, you know, history changes as new things are uncovered and, and discovered and so forth, and that's really fascinating and all that stuff, learning. All this stuff in context makes these trips valuable because they're memorable.

People are never gonna forget because they did this stuff and it, and it had meaning to them. And the way that we formed our trips, we would always unpack everything that we do every day. This work, this didn't work. I discovered this. This was fascinating. I never thought about it from this perspective.

And the. Our nightly circles, our, our, our structure that we design for our trips really created a rich environment for rich, deep social learning. Social learning, especially among teens is. Such a powerful way to learn. 'cause if one person observes something and shares something from their knowledge base that relates to it, that means all of us have now learned a whole new perspective to it, and another person can add onto it based on what they know.

And that really is a, a rich way to learn through social engagement, which is powerful for teens. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh. This is like mind blowing. Amazing. I mean, I feel like this, like I want it, like where can I sign up? You know? And it's like, you are doing it and I wanna do it. So I think it's interesting because it almost sounds in the way that you're describing world schooling and the detail that you're going into it.

It's for everybody. I mean, of course, yes. It's for teens who are. Got maybe an alternative or going through an education system. So they're at that age where they're absorbing and learning. But yeah, it really sounds like everyone can benefit from this and like who wouldn't want to go to South Africa and explore the Big five or go to Egypt and learn more about the history and the culture and the traditions there.

Like who wouldn't want to do that? So it's so interesting. So I'm curious in you saying that how are. Is knowledge assessed or what does it look like within world schooling? I assume there aren't like traditional tests and quizzes. Is there a marker of how much knowledge you have retained or how you're going to be using this knowledge in the world, or what does that look like?

Well, so the things that you're asking are what we call schoolish thoughts, and yes, it's meant to imply that it's foolish. Institutional learning uses a tradition of scope and sequence. Here's the scope. You have to learn it in this sequence.

Evaluations, testing and evaluation in our approach to world schooling. There's none of that. For example, one person can look at a building and be interested in exploring the architecture of that building. Another person can look at a structure and be interested in the history of the area. Another person can look at structure and share.

, the fashion that is, designed in that building. I like, I don't know what the thing is, but each person. Is going to find something interesting or different or, each person is an individual, first of all, and we're not all meant to do the same thing in life. So why would we all have the same education?

Why not empower the learner to dive as deep as possible? In the things that are important to them, because that's where the motivation comes from. School uses extrinsic motivation. We're going to reward you by testing you, and we're going to punish you if you fail, right? So if you don't learn based on their scope and sequence or memorize, or retain or recall, which is not deep learning based on their scope and sequence You know, then, then you don't pass.

Well, this is not learning for an external reason. This is learning because it lights you up. And there's a big difference to that. So there's not an expectation or an agenda. There is pure partnership and empowerment, and every time a learner feels empowered to. To learn what lights them up, that builds on their deep love of learning.

School doesn't do that. Yeah. I love that. And I knew that you were gonna say something along the lines of that is a traditional education system way of thinking. But I love that and I think that's so interesting because I even think back to. When I was in school, you know, I went through the traditional education system and always just thinking, you know, there has to be a better way.

I was doing tests and I was doing quizzes, retaining nothing, remembering things for two days, and then it would be out of my head. And I just always remember thinking, there has to be a better way to do this because there's no way I'm remembering everything I've learned over my 12 years in the traditional education system.

And. You're not there, you're not, you know, on the ground in Warsaw, for example, on the walking tour, learning about it. And that's what I love about travel is you're there and when you're there, it's so much more interesting when you're learning it in a textbook, in a classroom in Canada or America or wherever you are, it's nowhere near the same.

Yeah, true. So true, true. So this has been so, such an interesting, enlightening conversation. I know that you have so much more to say than what we could fit into this 45 minutes, but I wanna give you a chance to. Say anything else? Anything. Whether it pertains to world schooling that we haven't touched on, whether it pertains to mindset, to travel to whatever that may look like.

What is kind of to wrap up the episode, an ending thought or something that you want to share to speak on, to kind of start wrapping up out? Normally I say in terms of travel, take it slow. It's an opportunity to really be present in your own life if you are traveling as a family. Really look into partnership. Partnership parenting is a powerful way, and I haven't really spoken about that, but it's a powerful way to raise a child and to learn, you know, alongside of them and to start, oh, what is that?

What is partnership parenting? Partnership. Parenting is parenting without the authoritarian paradigm. And so you're, there is not an agenda. There is, there is presence and it can get messy. It's also an accountability for mental health con conversation about emotions, about the inner worlds. And it's also a way of.

Walking side by side with your child or children versus pulling them and dragging them and pushing them into a direction that you want to go into. It's, it's a connection through trust, connection, through vulnerability, and really valuing the relationship over. Anything. It's, it's a powerful way to raise a child.

It's how I raised my son. It was very healing in terms of the stuff that I had to overcome from my own childhood traumas. And it was the only thing that kept us sane living together 24 7, traveling, you know, for 13 or so years. I mean, it's. Longer. He's now 24. He doesn't live with me anymore, but he lives here in Mexico in the same city as me.

But you know, the connection is there and that's forever. And it's because we lived in partnership and, and lived with that respect. So partnership, parenting, I think is really important. Slowing down if you're gonna travel very, very important and step into the role as an adult. As a lifelong learner, the world will be so much more inspirational to you if you think of yourself as somebody who is on a lifelong path of learning. I love that. And I feel like that has been the overarching theme of this episode is just be a lifelong learner. And if there is any, any one or any episode to really get that to hit home. I think that's you, and that's this episode. So thank you for sharing everything you have shared here today. It's been very mind-opening, eye-opening.

I really appreciate you. So where can people find you online? Yeah, so if you are a parent, pick up my book. It's called Seen, heard, and Understood Parenting and Partnering with Teens for Greater Mental Health. It's not just for parents of teens. You can read it when, when your kids are any age, but it talks about partnership, parenting, and there's also a couple of chapters of tools for mental health, and they're tools that I use on my trips, tools that I use in my practice.

Mentoring and, and coaching teens and the courses that I teach for them. If you're interested in those things for your teen or tween, you can go to transformative mentoring for teens and you can find out all the information about the work that I do directly with teens and tweens and young adults.

If you're interested in sending one of your teens on a. Project World School is the place to go. And if you are interested in just learning about world schooling, please join my Facebook group. We're about 15,000 people now. It's called, we are world Schoolers. And we have a website called we are world schoolers.org.

And that is a membership site, but it's free. So you can join it. You have to join it, but it's free. You don't have to pay anything. And there are videos and articles and interviews and. Broken down into topics like world schooling, ethics, world schooling and education, world, schooling and travel world, schooling and, and volunteering world schooling and, and logistics, things like that.

So the website's a wonderful resource for families, and the Facebook group is a wonderful place to connect and see what's happening in our community.