This story in a local paper is about two boys who took a year off between middle school and high school.
What sounds too good to be true is in fact the real-life adventures of Stephen Krach and Kyle Blair, who enter Los Gatos High School this week as freshmen. The travels took place during what has been dubbed “the year between”—when the boys took time off, after graduating from Fisher Middle School and before enrolling in high school, to make the world their classroom.
Thought by their parents to be young for their grade level, Krach and Blair, both 14 at the time, were presented with an option: take a year off to travel to different countries, work hard and test their abilities.
I have no idea how the parents came up with this idea or with the extremely eclectic itinerary that they devised. Eclectic to the point of appearing a bit flighty, but perhaps the parents decided to give their kids the widest possible range of experiences to see what would stick. Hey…expose kids to lots of interesting things and see what they take away from it, instead of forcing them to learn a whole bunch of seemingly A concept we might call…wait…there’s a term for this, I know there is…
“There were rules. They could not fritter the year away,” said Laird. The curriculum he developed for the boys ranged from having to keep a daily journal, write reports and learn at least 30 words from each country they visited to studying the countries’ political and monetary systems. The boys were also expected to go on challenging excursions that would count as physical education.
At least one adult was always with Krach and Blair. Oftentimes the boys’ parents would take turns flying to different countries with them.
On their own, Krach and Blair studied math so they would not fall behind their peers.
My favorite bit:
Their final project involved delivering an oral presentation using PowerPoint slides to the Los Gatos Lions Club in June.
Powerpoint: the key to a successful life. (Or, according to Edward Tufte, the root of all evil. Which is a pretty simple dichotomy, no? Link via Ceej.)
Now, not everyone can afford such an extravagant way to experience the world. But one year in “the real world” (or at least parts of the world vastly different from the mostly homogeneous and upper-class Silicon Valley) evidently made an amazing difference in these kids. One year. A key quote from the article:
“Being treated as an adult rather than a kid to be taken care of made him look at himself differently. He saw himself more capable than he would have otherwise,” (Krach’s mother) said.
You know, this article has done a marvelous job of helping to sell me on how to teach kids and grow them into good people, and it doesn’t involve them going back to school. (It doesn’t involve flying them around the world a couple of times either, though that is always a nice bonus.) If these kids had such an amazing transformation doing this sort of thing during one year, imagine if they had this sort of education all the time. If they were always learning in the world, from a variety of other people, maybe that maturity would have arrived a while ago. And maybe so many people wouldn’t report being surprised by it.
What we all know is—sorry boys, but this is the truth—in another year they’ll be right back to being the people they were, more concerned with their Nintendos and their peers than their independence and broader outlooks. But maybe it would be different if they learned like that all the time.
As a third culture kid- one who lived ovreseas whle growing up, I have to disagree with your last comment. If their parents thought they would get something out of traveling the world, for a year, than perhaps they will. It is very possible that their year off will affect them in profound ways for the rest of their lives. They may go back to playing nintendo, because like it or not, that is part of American culture, but don’t underestimate the power this year can have on them.
When I read this, the article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto in the September issue of Harper’s jumped to mind. Travel and independent study is one way American schooling might be fixed because it is surely broken now.
I agree with Leslie. The year could have a very far-reaching impact on the boys. I think the most important thing that kids can learn (and which is so hard to teach) is that they can do things themselves. It seems awfully cynical that such a big lesson could be completely obliterated by American pop culture. American pop is a mighty influence but it’s ultimately pretty shallow.
Well, I could have moderated my remarks — but the odds aren’t particularly with these boys that any sort of lasting change will have taken place. How many times have you had an experience and said, “I’m going to do such-and-such forever!” …only to revert to how you used to do things within a week?
If the boys have some concrete plan for the future that reflects their growth — maybe after building the houses in Honduras one of the boys became interested in architecture and went to work for an architect or something — the article didn’t tell us. Which is another reason I’m slightly on the pessimistic side.
Hey, if I’m wrong…I’m wrong.
amanda, your remark about learning to do things for oneself is interesting, particularly in the context of this article about travel. True, my children are only 4 and 1 1/2, but that lesson is critical to my wife and me. Our children attend a Montessori school where that is emphasized as well. And I can see my children learning it, particularly the older one. He’s been reading now for a few months, and he insists on trying to read the new words by himself.
This school is a good blend of the two things: a classroom with a focus on experience and learning from all kinds of sources. More to Diane’s point, I think, I feel that my kids are learning that lesson on a daily basis, so that it becomes more ingrained.
I’m not trying to promote a particular school. Rather, I think the article highlights what I consider a kind of shock education–throw the kid into the water and see what they learn. In this case, they got out of the water fine. 🙂 However, I think there’s an equally immersive way to teach the same thing, though it’s not perhaps nearly as sexy. And that is with the little, daily things.
your remarks were predicated on the assumption that the boys were immersed in popular culture prior to this time. There are many people in this country who go to great length and effort to keep mainstream American culture at bay.
– Stephanie
I, too, agree with Leslie. I just spent a week with 20 American teens (ages 13-17) who have lived overseas, some for most of their lives, some for only 2 years. They were uniformly puzzled and dismayed by the value that their peers here place on things like movies, computer games, music, clothing styles, sports, etc. Many expressed frustration at the lack of interest their peers show in the world outside the US. After spending the past 6 years working with third-culture kids like this group, I can tell you that they are far from unique.
Assuming the boys in the article were truly exposed to other cultures (as opposed to staying in luxury accomodations and visiting tourist attractions), the impact on them may well be lifelong. Why? Because they have experienced the world as a real place with real people. They can hear about something happening in far away countries and say, “I know that place. I’ve been there. I spent the day with people who live there & are affected by this event.” And thus, world events take on a far greater significance to them. And when that happens, when people have a genuine concern for triumphs and tragedies that happen in far away places to people of different nationalities, somehow the high scores on Nintendo don’t seem quite so important anymore. There are tens of thousands of American kids who live or have lived overseas who can attest to that fact.
“How many times have you had an experience and said, “I’m going to do such-and-such forever!” …only to revert to how you used to do things within a week?”
Yes, but how many of those “experiences” encompassed every moment and detail of your life — for a full year? It’s not like this was a 3-day Tony Robbins seminar…