March 1, 2025 • 43 mins
Ever wondered how to blend the joys of travel with education? Chad and Brittany, the Traveling Slaters, have taken an inspiring leap by transforming their family’s homeschooling experience into a global adventure. Join us as we explore their journey, from their decision to sell everything for world schooling, to the unique educational opportunities their children gain while visiting countries like Greece and Montenegro.
In this episode, Chad and Brittany recount their transition from traditional homeschooling to world schooling through the Boundless Life program. They share how this experience has provided their children with not only academic knowledge but also invaluable life experiences. From visiting historical sites in Sarajevo to partaking in local customs, their children are learning outside the confines of a classroom, enriching their education in culturally immersive ways.
Listen as they describe the challenges of leaving their home behind and making sense of the emotional landscape that accompanies such changes. Their adventure is about more than education; it’s about forming bonds, creating lasting memories, and raising globally minded individuals.
Tune in to hear about the unique experiences their children encounter, the friendships they've built, and how they continue to navigate their parenting and educational priorities on the road. If you're captivated by the idea of unconventional learning, you’ll want to hear all the details shared in this enlightening discussion. Don’t forget to connect with the Traveling Slaters on social media and follow their ongoing journey!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why are people homeschooling,how do you do it, how does it
differ from region to region,and should I homeschool my kids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome to the HomeschoolHow-To Today.
With me.
I have Chad and Brittany, theTraveling Slaters, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yes, I love you, kayla.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Absolutely Well, let's start out I usually start
out anyways by how many kids youhave and what ages they are.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, we have two kids Addison is eight and Levi
is five and we've been.
We started homeschooling Addiein 2022.
And then this past year wedecided to do something a little
bit more exotic, I suppose, andwe sold almost all of our
possessions to travel the worldwith our kids and give them some
(01:09):
world education.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Wow, so okay.
So let's back up.
What made you initially evenwant to homeschool the kids?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
A lot of factors, I would.
One of the main things is wedidn't want our, we didn't want
the government to teach our kids.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Have a say.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Pretty much.
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And we, honestly, we wanted to spend as much time
with them as we possibly could.
We didn't want to turn themover to somebody else for so
many hours a day and then onlysee them, you know, miss the
good part of them and see thebedtime meltdown.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, and that's huge.
Now, had you seen things likewhile your kids were in
traditional school anyway, thatkind of led you to think maybe
maybe a different school ormaybe homeschooling is the
better way.
Like what was that push overthe edge to start homeschooling?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, they never actually went to school.
We started homeschooling atkindergarten.
New York didn't need you don'tneed to technically go to
kindergarten, but we startedhomeschooling Addie at
kindergarten.
New York didn't need you don'tneed to technically go to
kindergarten, but we startedhomeschooling her in
kindergarten and stuff.
But I would say a lot of 2020kind of, was that final push,
because she was right on theedge of that fall going to
(02:19):
school.
We decided to hold her backuntil she was a little older.
So she was almost six when shestarted kindergarten, but they
were still requiring masks andthings like that, and that's not
something that we wanted.
Also, a lot of the you know, Idon't know I would say like the
vaccinations and stuff that'snow required for students and
stuff, that was something that Ididn't want, or both of us
(02:41):
didn't want that Right, you know, those were two things that
were kind of at the forefront ofdo we wait, do we send her, do
we homeschool?
I mean, there was a lot ofother decisions and stuff like
that, but those were some two ofthe bigger ones for us at that
age.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so we must have kids around the same.
My son is six now.
You said you were from New York.
My son is six now you said youwere from New York.
Yeah yeah, absolutely Okay,that's where I live, the
wonderful state of New York.
Yeah, the and that's kind ofwhat pushed me to my son was,
well, he was in daycare and theywanted to start masking three
year olds Cuomo in New York.
(03:19):
And that wasn't going onanywhere else, I mean maybe some
places, but it wasn't.
It was crazy.
And you know, I said and thiswas, you know, a year or two
into COVID.
Anyway, I said to the daycareprovider well, all right, have
you even gotten sick yet fromthese kids?
Cause it's been a while.
If you haven't yet, or show methe amount of daycare providers
that did get sick and diebecause these kids weren't
(03:41):
masked and they don't have thenumbers for that.
There weren't any.
So, yeah, that's what led me tothink, no, we're not doing this
.
We pulled him out and then itwas like, oh, we better start
thinking about homeschooling,because if I don't have the say
over what goes over my kid'sface in a private daycare it
wasn't even in like a, he was ata private home, but they did
follow all of the legalities ofit.
(04:01):
Follow all of the legalities ofit, you know they got audited
by the state and whatnot.
So they followed all of that andI said if, at three years old,
I don't have this kind ofcontrol over my kid, I don't
know what's going to come downthe pipeline, and then you just
look at now what school nursesare giving out to kids.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It is crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I'm sure we only know the half of it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Oh yeah, exactly, so okay the half of it.
Oh yeah, exactly so okay, soyou were homeschooling them, and
you did that at home for thefirst year two years, two years
and then he was actually thehomeschool teacher.
Plus, my mom was amazing andtook Addison one day a week or
two, sometimes two days a weekto help out with like reading
and stuff like that which was,which was incredible and very
(04:42):
helpful, but yeah, but he wasthe teacher, I had to go into
the office every day, which washard.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
There's a few homeschooling dads in the groups
that we run in.
So, yeah, I give you props.
I've had a couple of them onthe podcast too, actually, which
makes it a lot of fun.
But what made you decide let'stake this on the road?
And how did you do that?
Well, we'll get into that howyou did that with your career,
since you were in the office.
What made you decide like,let's break out of these four
(05:09):
walls, even from our home, andtake it on the road?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, we, we've always loved to travel, even
before we had kids, and we wereactually at a homeschool event
and we heard a child talking tosomeone about this, this world
schooling program.
And then we're like, what, whatdoes it?
What do you mean?
A world schooling program, whatis that?
So we started to look into it,um, and then it just started
(05:34):
looking better and better andit's like, well, you know, we
can, let's, let's give this atry.
We're we're kind of like stuckhere.
We love the state of New York,but we don't love the state of
new york.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm sure you understand what I mean there, I
totally understand and Iwouldn't mind getting out of
here right now especially infebruary, where it's like ice,
just sheets of ice everywhereyes, it wasn't an easy decision.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, both of our families are new york and so
it's definitely wasn't easy.
I'm one of six kids, so, andmost all of my brothers and
sisters are right in the samearea where we, where we left,
you know.
So all the cousins and otherkids, cousins and stuff like
that are there.
So it definitely was not alight decision.
It was definitely a.
Are we doing?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
this Are we going to try it?
Were you thinking like we're?
We're really selling everything, or we're just going to go for
a couple of months and Airbnbthe house?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
We thought about that .
It just financially it was itmade the most sense to just get
out from underneath everythingand then just kind of start from
scratch when we come back.
If we decide to come back toNew York, we're still we're
still up in the air on wherewe're going to, where we're
going to land after you knowwe'll get.
We're still up in the air onwhere we're going to land after
we get done with the program.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, so the program there's an actual program that
exists that says hey,homeschooling families join us,
are you?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
traveling with them, or are they just giving you
ideas of where to go and whereto stay?
So the program is calledBoundless Life and they have
locations called Boundless Lifeand they have locations.
They have locations in Portugal, italy, greece, montenegro,
bali.
They're opening up a locationin Uruguay in the fall and they
also have one in Spain.
So we actually, in September,we were living on the island of
(07:19):
Syros, greece, with this programfor three months.
Then they have three-monthcohorts, as they call them, and
then in the summer, in July andAugust, they have one-month ones
that people do at the samelocations, but they have the
three-month ones during theactual school year, september to
June, at all these locations.
So the kids actually go into aschool, but it's based off of
(07:41):
the Finnish school system andMontessori-style schooling and
the classes are a lot smaller,and so, example, in the fall we
had, there were 24 otherfamilies in this program with us
.
So we also gained an incrediblecommunity.
So we now have, you know,people that we know from all
around.
There were people there fromNew Zealand, australia,
(08:03):
argentina, canada, america.
You know, it was all over.
And so now we actually inbetween after in November we
left, we went to Cyprus for themonth of December and now we are
actually in the MontenegroCouture Montenegro location for
January, february and Marchright now.
(08:24):
So the kids are back in theschool system and actually
there's a couple of familiesthat we were with in Cirrus that
are here as well, that the kidsare really and we're also as
well as the adults are superclose with.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So that's so cool, all right, so I have a plethora
of questions.
So well, first of all, when youtold me, when we were setting
this up and you were like, wewere in Montenegro and I went to
public school, so I had to lookthat up.
I've never heard of it before.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I challenged my husband to find it on the globe.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
None of us.
Neither of us.
I don't know if it was on theglobe, we couldn't find it, but
I Googled it.
So you're near Greece, serbia,that sort of area, croatia.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So Serbia, that sort of area, croatia, so it borders
Bosnia.
Croatia and Albania are the twolike, are the three that are
kind of surrounding it?
What language do they speak?
Montenegrin, and then alsoSerbian as well.
Croatian kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So do you have to know the language, or is that
part of your schooling islearning the native language?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So the kids will start learning some basic words.
You know they learn to count to10 in Montenegro and they'll
you know good morning, dobrojutro, is good morning here.
So they'll learn like the basicstuff, but most people will.
When you go into shops orrestaurants, most everyone will
speak English.
(09:45):
So I'm not so clear, but mostit's you can communicate.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Okay, okay.
Oh, that's cool, all right, sothey're in a school, but you
have people, you have kids inthis school that are from all
over the world.
So what language are theyteaching the school in?
English, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And then actually of us to just assume.
Oh, they are going to startincorporating a little more
Spanish into the program, Ithink, starting in the fall to
um, just because they have um.
They're going to have threeSpanish locations here soon, so
they're going to startincorporating a little more
Spanish in them, but everythingelse is English.
(10:20):
Basically, the program isEnglish.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
So so you joined the program and they do you pick
where you go for the threemonths or the one month you pick
.
Okay, and you're going to liketheir spots, like we have a
school here and housing andyou're just signing out of that.
Now, what do you guys do allday?
The kids are in school.
What are you doing?
Kicking your feet up?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
We explore the country, we work.
Brittany has a remote job.
I have a small company that Irun, so we are constantly doing
that kind of stuff, and there'salso as part of this community,
(11:10):
there's several things for theparents to do, such as organized
hikes, yoga, lunches, all sortsof things that you can sign up
for to do as kind of likeextracurricular activities for
for parents.
This is a, this is awellness-based cohort, this so
there's some folks here that arebig into the wellness space,
and every morning there'smeditation, there's a workout
one or two days a week, there'syoga one day a week that they
facilitate.
Here you can.
You can go if you want to read,and if you don't, you don't
(11:32):
have to.
So there's it's, and then wejust hang out with the other
parents a lot of the times ifwe're not working and parents
have all different kinds of jobs.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
there are people that are in I'm a virtual assistant,
so I have a couple clients andthings like that and you know
there are other people that havefull time nine to five jobs
that were in the hub and somehours that are crazy.
We had they have a co workinghub for the parents and it's
open 24 seven.
You can go down.
(12:00):
It has cubicles, like for moreprivacy and then a more open
workspace for the parents.
You know there's parents thatown their own businesses.
There's parents that docommercial and residential real
estate investing.
There's, you know, there werepeople that were lawyers.
There were all differentbusiness coaching.
You know every parent has adifferent career, so that's cool
(12:23):
.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Now how will your children like graduate?
Are they graduating from justhomeschool, where you guys do
have to report, like still toNew York?
I know we have pretty strictreporting requirements in New
York.
Is that how you're managingthat?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, so the teachers will actually each after each
cohort or the quarterly reportsthat we need to do.
We have someone that we need tosubmit them to and the teachers
help write it because they'rethe ones that are doing the
teaching and stuff like that.
So, but yep, still same.
Whatever the new york requires,we're still completing that and
stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So yeah, our lovely quarterly reports and I am at
the beginning of the yearstatement of intent and
attendance.
All right, right, so that'sreally cool.
So are they learning everythingin school?
Like, do you guys add on any?
Is it Monday through Friday,nine to three, or what does it
look like for the kids?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So it is actually drop off is at 845 and pickup is
at 330.
So it's a pretty robust, robustschool day and they are
learning pretty much everysubject, every cohort.
There is also a they call it aquest, and that's basically the
meat of the curriculum for thatcohort.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So when we were in Greece it was Biodiversity, like
ocean pollution, and you knowjust everything dealing with the
water and the animals in thewater and stuff and so, um, they
do math and english, have theirquest, they have the quest,
they have the, they have recess,they have pretty much
(13:56):
everything.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Art science, yep, different, not every single day,
but they do them in different.
And then there's different, um,age groups.
So there's like a one to three,an eight to nine, and then like
a ten to twelve, I think.
Once you get, uh, twelve, Ithink once you become a teenager
, you age out of the program.
They don't have a.
I think it stops at twelve no,I'm 14, it's a 14.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh, excuse me, the pathfinders, or the trailblazers
, are 14, 13, 14 year old okay,so they, when I had posted this
earlier today, when I was hopingto get our instagram live going
, we're on youtube but, um,someone had mentioned, oh well,
I could never home or worldschool because the kids are not
forming relationship likefriendships and that sort of
(14:40):
thing.
You might have seen the comment.
Um, what do you have to sayabout that?
Obviously, people make commentsabout things that they really
haven't looked into and and thisis the first time I've even
heard about having a formalprogram to be a part of so
they're obviously with the samekids every day, forming these
friendships, correct, yeah, whatelse do you have to say?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
you know, kind of about the socialization aspect
there, our kids are forgingfriendships that are going to
last a lifetime.
They have the friends they madein Greece, and the friends they
made here in Montenegro.
So far have just have been likeamazing.
This is in here in Montenegro.
This is a very unique situationwhere pretty much everything is
(15:22):
in the same building.
Unique situation where prettymuch everything is in the same
building.
So there's six families livingin this building and then the
school is down below us and thework hub is down below us as
well.
So basically, school drop offis just walk down the stairs and
you're at school.
So it's almost like collegedorm education kind of
experience with kids.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's this education in Latin Negro.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So from the moment they wake up they're like
running out the door to go seewho's outside in the hallway
running around playing, and thenas soon as they come home from
school, they come up the stairs,they take their stuff, they
chuck it in the doorway and thenthey're gone or they're here
with the other kids.
So it's a very much a verytight knit community.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
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Tuttle Twins curriculum becauseit's not just for them.
I'm learning so much rightalongside them.
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(16:26):
I especially love learning aboutgovernment, because I never
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get to have these conversationswith my son about it and he gets
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They've got books for toddlers,a fantastic series for ages
five through 11, and so muchmore.
They even have a Tuttle TwinsAcademy.
I can't wait to get started onthat, because they have classes
(16:47):
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Speaker 2 (17:07):
Especially in this location, and the kids are just
thriving playing with kids thatare five-year-olds.
One of his best friends is a10-year-old boy, so they're
forming those relationships.
That's one of the things forhomeschool is co-ops with all
the range of the kids.
That helps kids progressinstead of being around just
(17:27):
their age group all day long.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Sure yeah, which you never think about again because
it's just you do what everybodyexpects you to do and send your
kid to kindergarten and youdon't really think about it.
But yes, when you read bookslike I think it was Free to
Learn where they really talkabout the beauty of the younger
kids learning from the olderkids and and it's not in this
(17:50):
authoritative way where it wouldbe, you know mom or dad showing
you how to do something, it'ssomeone they're like, really you
know think is cool and theywant to be like, and then the
older kids take on thisresponsibility of, oh, I get to
show the younger kids how to dosomething.
Does it always work out likethat?
No, but generally that's whatI've seen and it is hard.
(18:10):
My kids, the youngest boy out oflike kind of one group that we
hang out with and you know I'mconstantly having to kind of
like talk them through thingsand yeah, you know you're being
the youngest is hard, but alsowhen you're six and some of the
other ones gap but I see thebeauty in it and overall it's a
(18:33):
fantastic experience where hewouldn't be getting otherwise,
you know he'd just be aroundother crazy six-year-olds like
himself not learning like, like,oh, that's how you fish.
Huh, well, let me try.
Could you show me that sort ofthing?
So that's really cool, allright.
So does this program costanything?
Like if I just want to sell myhouse tomorrow and join this
(18:54):
program, do do I have to pay theprogram or pay for the room and
board?
Like, what do you guys eat?
How does that all work?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah.
So there's a tuition cost,there's a housing cost and then
there's a cost for the hub andthen if you want to do any of
the extracurriculars, they costas well.
So honestly, up front, it's notthe cheapest option there.
So honestly, up front, it's notthe cheapest option.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
There are more expensive options.
There are definitely cheaperoptions there's you actually
research into it.
There are quite a few worldschooling programs out there.
There's a lot of people Alsoone of our friends from Cirrus
they're actually in aninternational.
They put their kids in aninternet trying an international
(19:33):
school in Spain for the nexthowever many months.
There's so many differentoptions that you people don't
realize, like we didn't evenrealize until we started you
know, really researching it andlooking into it and stuff like
that.
So there's definitely cheaperoptions, but there's also
definitely more expensiveoptions as well.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So okay, so what?
So I've had a world schooler onbefore, jen, and you know they
kind of picked where they weregoing to go.
They've they just went as afamily.
They were on some sort of raftin the Amazon for like six or
nine months out there, and soyou know she said like I think
they Airbnb their house and theypick just cheap tickets.
(20:10):
This is where there was a cheapticket to, because there was a
war going on in the area thatthey flew into.
However, when you went to theoutskirts, you know, when you're
in the Amazon, they're prettysafe out there it's more like
scorpions, I would imaginealligators, but but.
And then I had a road schoolaround to which she was from
Canada and she was roadschooling in the US.
(20:32):
So I guess to her that is worldschooling, where she was in an
RV.
But yeah, this is a differentapproach.
What made you take thisapproach versus doing it on your
own?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We were just kind of stagnant in in life and what we
were doing.
It was kind of becoming mundane.
It was becoming the same thingover and over again.
Yeah, we, we love to travel andwe wanted to kind of instill
that in our kids.
I saw a quote that.
It was something along thelines if you, you know, teach
your kids to travel, they'llnever have enough money to do
(21:02):
drugs.
That's why we do it.
Yeah, well, we just wanted todo something different that was
a little more off the cuff.
I mean, we got a lot ofpushback when we decided to
homeschool so that, you know,maybe that wasn't enough for us
to get out to do.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So what was the pushback when you told your
family we're selling the houseand leaving?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
We're not even just putting it up for rent, we are
selling it and going.
Those were fun conversations.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
What part of New York were you from?
Upstate Rochester area?
Okay, yeah, I'm like Albanyarea.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, yeah, I'm from Cobuskill.
My folks live in that generalarea.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
No way.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, so we're from, we do the, you know the thruway.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Quite a bit, quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I'm more closer to Vermont now but I grew up in
Schenectady and I've been toCobleskill many times because of
just people that went to SUNYCobleskill or friends that are
from there.
I'm 40.
How old are you guys?
No, I'm 41.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I just turned 40 in December.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Really Okay.
Yeah, I had my friend Liza Geez.
I don't remember her last name.
Oh Ham, the Hams are out thereand Gottliebs It'd be so funny
if you oh, I think I know someGottliebs yeah.
Huh, you do know them.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think I might know some Gottliebs.
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
That's so funny Small world, and yet here, you are in
Montenegro right now 2.30 inthe morning talking to me.
All right, so are you going tostick with the program or like?
What are your next steps?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Great question.
We're currently debating that.
I'm trying to figure out whatour next move is going to be,
because we're halfway throughthis three-month cohort right
now.
So it's the end of March iswhen this one will be over.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So then what?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Are you like homeless after that?
Well, we are technicallyhomeless, which is which is wild
.
But we may try to do anothercohort somewhere else.
To finish out the year, maybejust do kind of a gap year kind
of thing with this program andthen go back to New York and the
nice part of New York in thisin the summertime.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Visit family and stuff the kids are.
You know that there isn't.
There's hard parts and there'seasy parts of this.
You know we all miss the family.
The kids miss, you know, theircousins and their friends and
stuff like that.
And also we all have ourmoments.
There's ups and downs of ofdoing this.
Um, you know, we had, um, youknow, an acre and a half of land
where we were, so we wereconstantly outside playing and
(23:34):
just exploring and stuff likethat.
So it's, we miss, uh, we domiss, our home back that we sold
, but um, you know it's.
Then we have days where we justare walking down the street
here or in old town and aretalking about history with the
kids.
And it was carnival this thispast weekend here in Couture and
(23:56):
there's a parade and the kidshad a blast and it's.
You know it has the ups anddowns.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, I wouldn't go to any parades in Albany.
Probably at the moment Cold ofskill.
You might get a few like cowparades going down, which are
probably fun too.
But yeah, you know you'll neverregret doing this experience.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know you can always buy another house and,
yeah, that was.
That was kind of a big part ofthe process and my dad was very
supportive.
He said some people live aboring life.
Your life will not be boring.
So that was like awesome, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, you know my um, a girlfriend of mine in our
homeschooling clique here.
She just wrote a book and sheasked me to read it, mary she's,
she was on the podcast a coupleof weeks ago actually, and she
was a teacher who left and uh,she kind of wrote this book.
At first she titled it takingback my life and I said, mary,
you know people are going tolook at this and think you were
in an abusive relationship orsomething you should think.
(24:51):
You know you want people toknow that this is about you kind
of separating from society.
And as I'm reading her book Iwas started to think, geez, it
is a book about leaving anabusive relationship, it's about
leaving the society.
It's abusive to tell you this iswhere you have to be every day.
I mean not even just as anadult going to school, but our
(25:11):
little ones, from the time wesend them to daycare and they
want that to be at six weeks oreight weeks.
Send them off to daycare andget back to work.
Mom, you know their day isstructured every day.
It's breakfast and playtime andoutside time and lunchtime and
da, da, da, and then it goesright into school.
Younger and younger too, youknow now we have them in school
in New York, or your universalpreschool is age four, so that's
(25:36):
a full day All the way up to 18and then college, and like your
whole day is structured for you, even telling you down to what
you have to learn, which is, Ithink, one of the biggest
realizations for me that, likewe don't have to learn this,
nobody says we have to learnthis, but Cuomo, maybe in his
common core.
But that is such a made upthing and so, yeah, reading her
(25:56):
book, I was really like, well,this is true, I think I've been
going through the breakup forlike five years now, which I'm
still not fully there.
You know, I love to be able togrow all my own food and not
have to live on the grid orwhatever and I know people that
do.
But you know, the time mightcome where we'll have to learn
that.
I don't know.
But I think it's so importantto teach our kids nonetheless
(26:17):
how to do that, cause we don'tknow what the future will bring.
Uh, but yeah, it is.
It's like anything you can dothese days to break from the
norm of that monotony.
It's just you look at it likewhy am I here If all I do every
day is get up and go wheresomeone else told me to go?
And I worked for the governmentfor 16 years, so it was just
sit here while someone elseraises your kid and you're
(26:39):
pushing an email here and there.
And if I had a better way tothink of doing something, they
were like yeah, that's cute,just do what we told you.
You know, nobody wanted to heargood ideas or make changes.
And yeah, you really getdepressed because it's it's just
groundhog day over and over.
And so I commend you for takingthat leap.
I mean, it's amazing and Ithink more people, if it felt
(27:01):
within our grasp, we would do it.
But society just makes you feelso pigeonholed and I think it
really starts out from likeeverybody's got to go to college
, because it's like, okay, nowyou have all this debt.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So now you gotta work , yeah they.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So now you got to work.
Yeah, they raise teachers.
School school teaches to beworkers, not entrepreneurs Not
saying that no one from publicschools or whatever school
system you're in, you're not anentrepreneur and stuff like that
but they're training you.
You sit at a desk eight hours aday, go to school, you eat
lunch in a cafeteria or this ata certain time, and that's
(27:35):
literally what you do in anoffice.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
They're training you for that office life and before
it was the industrial revolution.
Let's train them to be this way.
Yes, I've done a lot ofresearch on the history of our
education system and it's mindblowing because everything is
tied up in a pretty bow forequality and you know, little
Johnny in New York should knowthe same thing as you know
little Billy in Wyoming.
(28:00):
But there's so many differentthings to do.
Even today I was my son'sreally obsessed with that really
old video game, oregon Trail,mostly because it's like one of
the only ones we'll let him playand he's trying to learn how to
read.
So we're kind of trying to useit as a way to get him to read.
But I put into chat GPT today Iprobably shouldn't say this
because I should like sell thisas a product, but I put into
(28:20):
chat GPT.
Can you give me like a 10 dayunit study?
You know, include reading,writing, math, geography,
history on the Oregon Trail, on,you know, the westward
expansion.
So I can just bring it to hislevel, something that he's
curious about now and grab holdof it and then he can learn the
other subjects within that.
You can learn math, yeah, andrelate it to the Oregon Trail.
(28:43):
How far did they go?
Let's look at the map and see.
It's just.
There's so many more beautifulways to learn.
And you guys, you said it's offof the Finnish model that you
do, and the Montessori, and Iknow now in Finland they don't
even do any formal educationtill like age seven or 10, right
?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Correct.
I think it's seven is when forfor that.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
So they're not teaching letters or reading
before that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So they use here.
They use what's called JollyPhonics.
It's a really incredibleprogram and they teach the
phonics of letters before theyteach what the actual letter is.
So when a kid sees the letter Bhe may not know that it's the
letter B, but they know thesound, which has helped.
Our son didn't really know hisletters, you know.
(29:32):
He knew some here and therebefore we went to Cirrus and the
amount that he had learned inthat three months with this one
program that they use, jollyPhonics, was we were absolutely
blown away.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Thinking about homeschooling but not sure where
to start, or maybe you'realready on the journey and want
more guidance.
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You'll get exclusive access tolive interviews with me and my
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(30:09):
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Speaker 3 (30:35):
Like, so they.
They definitely have thedifferent methods.
It's not.
You need to learn your ABCs,you need to learn this.
You need to learn this.
You got to learn your sightwords at this age.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You got to do this Like it's they work with, where
the kid is, where your child isat and go from there.
Well, and if 24 families are inthe program, how many are
actually like the ratio ofstudent to teacher where your
kids go to school?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
So zero is because it was a bigger one, levi's class,
our youngest.
He was in a class of six with ateacher and an aide, so he had
a lot, of, a lot of one on onestuff with in math and in
phonics.
Addison was in a class that hadsix kids as well that had a
teacher and an aide that'sawesome yeah, the class is here
(31:22):
levi has.
It's just two kids here becauseit's a smaller cohort.
There's only eight familieshere for this one, but addison's
in a class of it.
Worked out, it's all girls thatare seven to eight years old
and there are four of them inthere, so it's one teacher plus.
There's an aide that goesaround to the older kids class
10 to 12 year old class and thenit'll go into addison's class.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So there's four boys in the older class and four
girls in the in the younger,eight year old class so they can
really get that one-on-one yeahextra help when needed or can
move them along if needed sothey don't get bored.
That's really cool, and whatare some of the coolest things
that you guys have done sinceyou started world schooling?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Geez, we went ziplining.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You can zipline and cobble skill.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
No, we actually last week was our mid-cohort break
for the week, and another familyand us we actually went to
Bosnia and explored Bosnia forthe week, and another family and
us we actually went to Bosniafor an explored Bosnia for the
week.
We did a couple nights inMostar and a couple nights in
Sarajevo, and then a couplenights in a city, dermator, in
(32:34):
the mountains here in Montenegro.
It was the.
Bosnia is about two hour drive,hour and a half drive from from
here for us.
So we actually did that and itwas.
We were still teaching the kidswhen we were traveling to.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Bosnia.
So Sarajevo has a lot ofhistory um with the war back in
the 90s we went to.
We took them to the LatinBridge, which is where, uh,
franz Ferdinand was assassinatedto kick off World War One, and
we actually were standing rightthere at the spot.
I mean, they have a littlemuseum there.
So we went in the meeting, tookthe kids in the museum.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
They asked to go in there.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, the kids wanted to do it, let's go in here, so
let's go.
So when the kids want to go inthe museum, you say, yes, you
just go.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You always say yes, and so they got to get a little
bit of World War I history andthat was awesome.
I mean, that was just verysurreal to stand there and think
this.
That was and we've, in Greece.
We island hopped a couple ofthe week.
We had some long weekends andwe were able to get on ferries
(33:39):
and go to Santorini and Parosthose are some bucket list items
for us and get to go and takethe kids and see different
things.
We've been on crazy hikes withparents.
We've taken the kids on hikeswith us on the weekends, just
getting outside, getting qualityfamily time, exploring,
(34:01):
exploring new countries.
This place, this Gator, is likea fairy tale.
Here there's what they call theold town and it's just this old
city that just has walls builtaround it like a fortress and
surrounded by water, and it'sjust stunning.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
That's Montenegro, or a place in Montenegro.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Mountains Everywhere you look there's a giant
mountain.
It's wild.
So we're not lacking for thingsto do and it's always.
You know, when you go to a newplace it's always exciting
because it's new, and then youkind of see what you can see in
three months, and then you moveon.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
But we're really able to kind of immerse into the
cultures, though here as well,we're not here just for 10 days
and then we have to go backbecause we have to get back to
work.
We're actually able to, youknow, become friends with.
You know locals.
You know the gentleman at thefruit stand in Syros.
We'd walk by, we'd say hello,we'd say hello to the kids, like
(34:55):
you know, the kids would sayKalimera, good morning is
Kalimera in Greek and goodmorning in Greek.
And it was really cool to seeyou know the relationships that
they have built with locals aswell.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do the locals think of Americans?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
It depends.
The kids go every other Fridaywith this program.
They have a field trip, sothey're always out and about in
the community.
It's funny, they're alwayswearing their little vests so
they don't get lost, which isnice.
But they do tours of everythingand they see a lot of the stuff
that the parents see, just atdifferent times, and it's
brought down to their level sothey can learn what it's about.
(35:34):
And most of the locals, oncethey realize that you're kind of
like a local, they kind of openup to you and they're nice to
you.
And you know, like Brittany wassaying, we form relationships
with some of the vendors, likethe butcher lady here.
She's, she's great, it'shilarious and it's just there's
so many options to.
(35:55):
There's workers that work withthe parents to to facilitate
community activities.
So that's their job in life isto you know a community advisor
and they set up all these thingsfor us to do and we can do them
if we want to.
And then it's you just talk tothem and say, hey, I need this
and this and this, and they'relike, okay, we'll go here, we
(36:16):
can get you a doctor'sappointment or a dentist
appointment.
You go here.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We have a dentist appointment today.
Today in a couple hours becauseit's 2 30 am.
There are you guys.
We found out she needed glassesand we got, went to a doctor in
greece and got glasses, and wecheaper than in the states well.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So that yeah, that brings up another good point
they don't take like mv, right?
So are you guys just paying outof pocket for things like
doctors and dentists yeah, wejust pay out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
The three months is set up so you don't have to like
get a visa or passport oranything like that.
So we're in the we're out of.
In Europe there's a Schengenunion, which is basically a
union inside of the EuropeanUnion, and for those countries
you can only be in thosecountries for 90 days out of 180
day period.
(37:10):
So Greece is one of thosecountries.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Imagine that, having rules around, your border.
Immigrants and peopleemigrating to your country.
Bizarre immigrants, and, yes,people immigrating to your, to
your country, bizarre, so somontenegro is strategically
placed with this program becausethey are not a shengen country
so we go to greece and tomontenegro and not have to worry
(37:35):
about a visa or passport yeah,I had a friend that just went to
mexico to get all this dentalwork done and and she's from
Poland but lives here now andshe couldn't believe the prices
in America, what things cost.
So yeah, it was cheaper for herto fly from New York to Mexico,
have an Airbnb there the wholetime.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
People don't realize that Mexico has very good health
care.
People go down there,especially families to give
birth, because their system is.
And it was amazing, wow, theeye doctor for Addison it was.
We got in.
What the next day after?
We said we needed anappointment and it was 40 bucks,
(38:16):
40 euros to get an eye examdone for Addison.
We got a copay.
That's just what it costs.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Wow, that's something All right as we round out the
hour.
What else did you guys want tomake sure that we talked about?
I know you guys have a page forpeople to follow you kind of
journey.
You know what you guys, orjournal what you guys are doing
along your journey there, which,yeah, I shared one today.
I couldn't get it to work justthe way I wanted to, so I kind
(38:45):
of like pirated it.
Screenshot it but, I,collaborated with you on it.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Loved it.
That's fine.
Just, I don't know.
Maybe just do what feels right.
Do what feels right for yourfamily and follow your dreams.
It's not easy, it's not alwayssun shining rainbows.
It takes work and you do missout on some things.
But if you know, if you want totravel, travel.
If you want to stay home, stayhome.
(39:12):
If you want to do your thing,do your thing.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Someone's always going to have a comment, but you
got to do what's best for youand your family.
Yeah, brittany, did you have toleave the job that you?
Had to do this and get a newjob.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I was there.
It was a wonderful company thatI worked for for almost eight
years, but it just wasn't aposition.
I was an executive assistantand it just wasn't one that I
could go remote with.
They needed someone that couldcome into the office a couple of
days a week, so I did have toleave position, which being the
only income at the time.
Like it was, it was not an easychoice.
(39:44):
There were a lot of late nightconversations of do we do this?
Do we not Do we?
What if we try this?
What if we don't do this?
What if we do this optioninstead of this option?
Like there was?
It was months of discussion.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, it wasn't a one day thing to make this decision
and it came down to.
You know, when we look back atour life, are we going to regret
not doing it, and kind of so wedid it.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, that's exactly how I went about leaving
government work.
It was like, oh, am I reallygoing to leave a pension?
You know they tell you for solong.
Oh, nobody has pensions anymore, you can't leave a pension, you
just can't leave a pension.
(40:29):
And finally I had to look at itand say, well, by the time I
get my pension, my kids aren'tgoing to need me anymore.
So, on my deathbed, where am Igoing to be?
And at the time too, I had afriend whose mother just retired
from the state because she gotcancer and she died a couple of
years later.
So, having cancer, the wholeretirement.
So, even that is not guaranteed.
What we have now is our kidsare young, we're healthy.
(40:52):
So if you can make somethingelse work and and even with the
podcast, I get, you know, tiedup and you know spending extra
time on this and extra time onthat and trying to grow the
Instagram page, and that's likeI have to take a step back and
say why we're doing with lessfor a reason, but then, at the
same time, it is it's not aneasy road by any means.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
We've sacrificed a lot, Even before we decided to
sell everything when it was justone income.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It was homeschool.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
We wanted to homeschool the kids and it was
not easy by any means.
There were very hard days wherehe's like we got to send her to
school.
I can't do this.
It's been a week.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
We've all been there.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Yeah, a lot, and so it's not easy, but in our hearts
it's been a week.
We've all been there.
Yeah, a lot, and so it's noteasy, but in our hearts it's
been worth it and for our kidsit's been worth it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
The overall is definitely worth it.
Well, chad and Brittany, thankyou so much for coming on today
at 2.30 in the morning, yourtime in Montenegro, people can
follow you.
Why don't you let them knowwhere they can follow you, and I
will also put that in theshow's description yeah, uh,
we're on pretty much all socialmedia channels at the traveling
(42:13):
slaters awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
We do most most of our stuff's on instagram.
That's our, that's our favoriteplatform.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
It looks pretty life's not always that way
though and the live streams workout.
Yeah, oh, oh guys, thank you somuch.
Yes, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Thank you and if anyone has any questions, they
can reach out to you and you canreach out to us or connect us
or reach out to us with anyquestions.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I have one comment here from Keith that said I love
the Traveling Slater videos.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No questions, but a nice comment.
Appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Appreciate that very much.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
We'll keep up your good work and spread the spread
the word that we can take thatleap.
Leave the groundhog day.
Love your podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, thanks guys thank you for tuning in to this
week's episode of the homeschoolhow-to.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
Or, if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
(43:11):
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool
How-To.
I'm Cheryl and I invite you tojoin me on my quest to find out
why are people homeschooling,how do you do it, how does it
differ from region to region,and should I homeschool my kids?
Stick with me as I interviewhomeschooling families across
the country to unfold theanswers to each of these
(00:26):
questions week by week.
Welcome to the HomeschoolHow-To Today.
With me.
I have Chad and Brittany, theTraveling Slaters, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yes, I love you, kayla.
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Absolutely Well, let's start out I usually start
out anyways by how many kids youhave and what ages they are.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, we have two kids Addison is eight and Levi
is five and we've been.
We started homeschooling Addiein 2022.
And then this past year wedecided to do something a little
bit more exotic, I suppose, andwe sold almost all of our
possessions to travel the worldwith our kids and give them some
(01:09):
world education.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Wow, so okay.
So let's back up.
What made you initially evenwant to homeschool the kids?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
A lot of factors, I would.
One of the main things is wedidn't want our, we didn't want
the government to teach our kids.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Have a say.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Pretty much.
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
And we, honestly, we wanted to spend as much time
with them as we possibly could.
We didn't want to turn themover to somebody else for so
many hours a day and then onlysee them, you know, miss the
good part of them and see thebedtime meltdown.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Right, and that's huge.
Now, had you seen things likewhile your kids were in
traditional school anyway, thatkind of led you to think maybe
maybe a different school ormaybe homeschooling is the
better way.
Like what was that push overthe edge to start homeschooling?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Well, they never actually went to school.
We started homeschooling atkindergarten.
New York didn't need you don'tneed to technically go to
kindergarten, but we startedhomeschooling Addie at
kindergarten.
New York didn't need you don'tneed to technically go to
kindergarten, but we startedhomeschooling her in
kindergarten and stuff.
But I would say a lot of 2020kind of, was that final push,
because she was right on theedge of that fall going to
(02:19):
school.
We decided to hold her backuntil she was a little older.
So she was almost six when shestarted kindergarten, but they
were still requiring masks andthings like that, and that's not
something that we wanted.
Also, a lot of the you know, Idon't know I would say like the
vaccinations and stuff that'snow required for students and
stuff, that was something that Ididn't want, or both of us
(02:41):
didn't want that Right, you know, those were two things that
were kind of at the forefront ofdo we wait, do we send her, do
we homeschool?
I mean, there was a lot ofother decisions and stuff like
that, but those were some two ofthe bigger ones for us at that
age.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, so we must have kids around the same.
My son is six now.
You said you were from New York.
My son is six now you said youwere from New York.
Yeah yeah, absolutely Okay,that's where I live, the
wonderful state of New York.
Yeah, the and that's kind ofwhat pushed me to my son was,
well, he was in daycare and theywanted to start masking three
year olds Cuomo in New York.
(03:19):
And that wasn't going onanywhere else, I mean maybe some
places, but it wasn't.
It was crazy.
And you know, I said and thiswas, you know, a year or two
into COVID.
Anyway, I said to the daycareprovider well, all right, have
you even gotten sick yet fromthese kids?
Cause it's been a while.
If you haven't yet, or show methe amount of daycare providers
that did get sick and diebecause these kids weren't
(03:41):
masked and they don't have thenumbers for that.
There weren't any.
So, yeah, that's what led me tothink, no, we're not doing this
.
We pulled him out and then itwas like, oh, we better start
thinking about homeschooling,because if I don't have the say
over what goes over my kid'sface in a private daycare it
wasn't even in like a, he was ata private home, but they did
follow all of the legalities ofit.
(04:01):
Follow all of the legalities ofit, you know they got audited
by the state and whatnot.
So they followed all of that andI said if, at three years old,
I don't have this kind ofcontrol over my kid, I don't
know what's going to come downthe pipeline, and then you just
look at now what school nursesare giving out to kids.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
It is crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I'm sure we only know the half of it.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Oh yeah, exactly, so okay the half of it.
Oh yeah, exactly so okay, soyou were homeschooling them, and
you did that at home for thefirst year two years, two years
and then he was actually thehomeschool teacher.
Plus, my mom was amazing andtook Addison one day a week or
two, sometimes two days a weekto help out with like reading
and stuff like that which was,which was incredible and very
(04:42):
helpful, but yeah, but he wasthe teacher, I had to go into
the office every day, which washard.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
There's a few homeschooling dads in the groups
that we run in.
So, yeah, I give you props.
I've had a couple of them onthe podcast too, actually, which
makes it a lot of fun.
But what made you decide let'stake this on the road?
And how did you do that?
Well, we'll get into that howyou did that with your career,
since you were in the office.
What made you decide like,let's break out of these four
(05:09):
walls, even from our home, andtake it on the road?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, we, we've always loved to travel, even
before we had kids, and we wereactually at a homeschool event
and we heard a child talking tosomeone about this, this world
schooling program.
And then we're like, what, whatdoes it?
What do you mean?
A world schooling program, whatis that?
So we started to look into it,um, and then it just started
(05:34):
looking better and better andit's like, well, you know, we
can, let's, let's give this atry.
We're we're kind of like stuckhere.
We love the state of New York,but we don't love the state of
new york.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm sure you understand what I mean there, I
totally understand and Iwouldn't mind getting out of
here right now especially infebruary, where it's like ice,
just sheets of ice everywhereyes, it wasn't an easy decision.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, both of our families are new york and so
it's definitely wasn't easy.
I'm one of six kids, so, andmost all of my brothers and
sisters are right in the samearea where we, where we left,
you know.
So all the cousins and otherkids, cousins and stuff like
that are there.
So it definitely was not alight decision.
It was definitely a.
Are we doing?
Speaker 1 (06:20):
this Are we going to try it?
Were you thinking like we're?
We're really selling everything, or we're just going to go for
a couple of months and Airbnbthe house?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
We thought about that .
It just financially it was itmade the most sense to just get
out from underneath everythingand then just kind of start from
scratch when we come back.
If we decide to come back toNew York, we're still we're
still up in the air on wherewe're going to, where we're
going to land after you knowwe'll get.
We're still up in the air onwhere we're going to land after
we get done with the program.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Okay, so the program there's an actual program that
exists that says hey,homeschooling families join us,
are you?
Speaker 3 (06:58):
traveling with them, or are they just giving you
ideas of where to go and whereto stay?
So the program is calledBoundless Life and they have
locations called Boundless Lifeand they have locations.
They have locations in Portugal, italy, greece, montenegro,
bali.
They're opening up a locationin Uruguay in the fall and they
also have one in Spain.
So we actually, in September,we were living on the island of
(07:19):
Syros, greece, with this programfor three months.
Then they have three-monthcohorts, as they call them, and
then in the summer, in July andAugust, they have one-month ones
that people do at the samelocations, but they have the
three-month ones during theactual school year, september to
June, at all these locations.
So the kids actually go into aschool, but it's based off of
(07:41):
the Finnish school system andMontessori-style schooling and
the classes are a lot smaller,and so, example, in the fall we
had, there were 24 otherfamilies in this program with us
.
So we also gained an incrediblecommunity.
So we now have, you know,people that we know from all
around.
There were people there fromNew Zealand, australia,
(08:03):
argentina, canada, america.
You know, it was all over.
And so now we actually inbetween after in November we
left, we went to Cyprus for themonth of December and now we are
actually in the MontenegroCouture Montenegro location for
January, february and Marchright now.
(08:24):
So the kids are back in theschool system and actually
there's a couple of familiesthat we were with in Cirrus that
are here as well, that the kidsare really and we're also as
well as the adults are superclose with.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So that's so cool, all right, so I have a plethora
of questions.
So well, first of all, when youtold me, when we were setting
this up and you were like, wewere in Montenegro and I went to
public school, so I had to lookthat up.
I've never heard of it before.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I challenged my husband to find it on the globe.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
None of us.
Neither of us.
I don't know if it was on theglobe, we couldn't find it, but
I Googled it.
So you're near Greece, serbia,that sort of area, croatia.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
So Serbia, that sort of area, croatia, so it borders
Bosnia.
Croatia and Albania are the twolike, are the three that are
kind of surrounding it?
What language do they speak?
Montenegrin, and then alsoSerbian as well.
Croatian kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
So do you have to know the language, or is that
part of your schooling islearning the native language?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So the kids will start learning some basic words.
You know they learn to count to10 in Montenegro and they'll
you know good morning, dobrojutro, is good morning here.
So they'll learn like the basicstuff, but most people will.
When you go into shops orrestaurants, most everyone will
speak English.
(09:45):
So I'm not so clear, but mostit's you can communicate.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Okay, okay.
Oh, that's cool, all right, sothey're in a school, but you
have people, you have kids inthis school that are from all
over the world.
So what language are theyteaching the school in?
English, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And then actually of us to just assume.
Oh, they are going to startincorporating a little more
Spanish into the program, Ithink, starting in the fall to
um, just because they have um.
They're going to have threeSpanish locations here soon, so
they're going to startincorporating a little more
Spanish in them, but everythingelse is English.
(10:20):
Basically, the program isEnglish.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
So so you joined the program and they do you pick
where you go for the threemonths or the one month you pick
.
Okay, and you're going to liketheir spots, like we have a
school here and housing andyou're just signing out of that.
Now, what do you guys do allday?
The kids are in school.
What are you doing?
Kicking your feet up?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
We explore the country, we work.
Brittany has a remote job.
I have a small company that Irun, so we are constantly doing
that kind of stuff, and there'salso as part of this community,
(11:10):
there's several things for theparents to do, such as organized
hikes, yoga, lunches, all sortsof things that you can sign up
for to do as kind of likeextracurricular activities for
for parents.
This is a, this is awellness-based cohort, this so
there's some folks here that arebig into the wellness space,
and every morning there'smeditation, there's a workout
one or two days a week, there'syoga one day a week that they
facilitate.
Here you can.
You can go if you want to read,and if you don't, you don't
(11:32):
have to.
So there's it's, and then wejust hang out with the other
parents a lot of the times ifwe're not working and parents
have all different kinds of jobs.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
there are people that are in I'm a virtual assistant,
so I have a couple clients andthings like that and you know
there are other people that havefull time nine to five jobs
that were in the hub and somehours that are crazy.
We had they have a co workinghub for the parents and it's
open 24 seven.
You can go down.
(12:00):
It has cubicles, like for moreprivacy and then a more open
workspace for the parents.
You know there's parents thatown their own businesses.
There's parents that docommercial and residential real
estate investing.
There's, you know, there werepeople that were lawyers.
There were all differentbusiness coaching.
You know every parent has adifferent career, so that's cool
(12:23):
.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Now how will your children like graduate?
Are they graduating from justhomeschool, where you guys do
have to report, like still toNew York?
I know we have pretty strictreporting requirements in New
York.
Is that how you're managingthat?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, so the teachers will actually each after each
cohort or the quarterly reportsthat we need to do.
We have someone that we need tosubmit them to and the teachers
help write it because they'rethe ones that are doing the
teaching and stuff like that.
So, but yep, still same.
Whatever the new york requires,we're still completing that and
stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So yeah, our lovely quarterly reports and I am at
the beginning of the yearstatement of intent and
attendance.
All right, right, so that'sreally cool.
So are they learning everythingin school?
Like, do you guys add on any?
Is it Monday through Friday,nine to three, or what does it
look like for the kids?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So it is actually drop off is at 845 and pickup is
at 330.
So it's a pretty robust, robustschool day and they are
learning pretty much everysubject, every cohort.
There is also a they call it aquest, and that's basically the
meat of the curriculum for thatcohort.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
So when we were in Greece it was Biodiversity, like
ocean pollution, and you knowjust everything dealing with the
water and the animals in thewater and stuff and so, um, they
do math and english, have theirquest, they have the quest,
they have the, they have recess,they have pretty much
(13:56):
everything.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Art science, yep, different, not every single day,
but they do them in different.
And then there's different, um,age groups.
So there's like a one to three,an eight to nine, and then like
a ten to twelve, I think.
Once you get, uh, twelve, Ithink once you become a teenager
, you age out of the program.
They don't have a.
I think it stops at twelve no,I'm 14, it's a 14.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Oh, excuse me, the pathfinders, or the trailblazers
, are 14, 13, 14 year old okay,so they, when I had posted this
earlier today, when I was hopingto get our instagram live going
, we're on youtube but, um,someone had mentioned, oh well,
I could never home or worldschool because the kids are not
forming relationship likefriendships and that sort of
(14:40):
thing.
You might have seen the comment.
Um, what do you have to sayabout that?
Obviously, people make commentsabout things that they really
haven't looked into and and thisis the first time I've even
heard about having a formalprogram to be a part of so
they're obviously with the samekids every day, forming these
friendships, correct, yeah, whatelse do you have to say?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
you know, kind of about the socialization aspect
there, our kids are forgingfriendships that are going to
last a lifetime.
They have the friends they madein Greece, and the friends they
made here in Montenegro.
So far have just have been likeamazing.
This is in here in Montenegro.
This is a very unique situationwhere pretty much everything is
(15:22):
in the same building.
Unique situation where prettymuch everything is in the same
building.
So there's six families livingin this building and then the
school is down below us and thework hub is down below us as
well.
So basically, school drop offis just walk down the stairs and
you're at school.
So it's almost like collegedorm education kind of
experience with kids.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's this education in Latin Negro.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So from the moment they wake up they're like
running out the door to go seewho's outside in the hallway
running around playing, and thenas soon as they come home from
school, they come up the stairs,they take their stuff, they
chuck it in the doorway and thenthey're gone or they're here
with the other kids.
So it's a very much a verytight knit community.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
When it comes to teaching my kids, I choose the
Tuttle Twins curriculum becauseit's not just for them.
I'm learning so much rightalongside them.
What I love is how engaging itis for kids.
They take real-world conceptsand weave them into stories that
kids can actually understandand relate to.
Whether it's US history,critical thinking or even the
Tuttle Twins Guide to TrueConspiracies, it's all presented
in a way that sticks.
(16:26):
I especially love learning aboutgovernment, because I never
learned this stuff in school howthe government is supposed to
work versus how it actuallyworks and it's so cool that I
get to have these conversationswith my son about it and he gets
it.
They've got books for toddlers,a fantastic series for ages
five through 11, and so muchmore.
They even have a Tuttle TwinsAcademy.
I can't wait to get started onthat, because they have classes
(16:47):
for business andentrepreneurship.
You can get 40% off selectitems using code Cheryl40.
That's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0.
Just grab the link in theshow's description and start
learning together as a family.
Trust me, you'll love whatyou're going to learn, because
they never taught this to you inschool.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Especially in this location, and the kids are just
thriving playing with kids thatare five-year-olds.
One of his best friends is a10-year-old boy, so they're
forming those relationships.
That's one of the things forhomeschool is co-ops with all
the range of the kids.
That helps kids progressinstead of being around just
(17:27):
their age group all day long.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Sure yeah, which you never think about again because
it's just you do what everybodyexpects you to do and send your
kid to kindergarten and youdon't really think about it.
But yes, when you read bookslike I think it was Free to
Learn where they really talkabout the beauty of the younger
kids learning from the olderkids and and it's not in this
(17:50):
authoritative way where it wouldbe, you know mom or dad showing
you how to do something, it'ssomeone they're like, really you
know think is cool and theywant to be like, and then the
older kids take on thisresponsibility of, oh, I get to
show the younger kids how to dosomething.
Does it always work out likethat?
No, but generally that's whatI've seen and it is hard.
(18:10):
My kids, the youngest boy out oflike kind of one group that we
hang out with and you know I'mconstantly having to kind of
like talk them through thingsand yeah, you know you're being
the youngest is hard, but alsowhen you're six and some of the
other ones gap but I see thebeauty in it and overall it's a
(18:33):
fantastic experience where hewouldn't be getting otherwise,
you know he'd just be aroundother crazy six-year-olds like
himself not learning like, like,oh, that's how you fish.
Huh, well, let me try.
Could you show me that sort ofthing?
So that's really cool, allright.
So does this program costanything?
Like if I just want to sell myhouse tomorrow and join this
(18:54):
program, do do I have to pay theprogram or pay for the room and
board?
Like, what do you guys eat?
How does that all work?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah.
So there's a tuition cost,there's a housing cost and then
there's a cost for the hub andthen if you want to do any of
the extracurriculars, they costas well.
So honestly, up front, it's notthe cheapest option there.
So honestly, up front, it's notthe cheapest option.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
There are more expensive options.
There are definitely cheaperoptions there's you actually
research into it.
There are quite a few worldschooling programs out there.
There's a lot of people Alsoone of our friends from Cirrus
they're actually in aninternational.
They put their kids in aninternet trying an international
(19:33):
school in Spain for the nexthowever many months.
There's so many differentoptions that you people don't
realize, like we didn't evenrealize until we started you
know, really researching it andlooking into it and stuff like
that.
So there's definitely cheaperoptions, but there's also
definitely more expensiveoptions as well.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So okay, so what?
So I've had a world schooler onbefore, jen, and you know they
kind of picked where they weregoing to go.
They've they just went as afamily.
They were on some sort of raftin the Amazon for like six or
nine months out there, and soyou know she said like I think
they Airbnb their house and theypick just cheap tickets.
(20:10):
This is where there was a cheapticket to, because there was a
war going on in the area thatthey flew into.
However, when you went to theoutskirts, you know, when you're
in the Amazon, they're prettysafe out there it's more like
scorpions, I would imaginealligators, but but.
And then I had a road schoolaround to which she was from
Canada and she was roadschooling in the US.
(20:32):
So I guess to her that is worldschooling, where she was in an
RV.
But yeah, this is a differentapproach.
What made you take thisapproach versus doing it on your
own?
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We were just kind of stagnant in in life and what we
were doing.
It was kind of becoming mundane.
It was becoming the same thingover and over again.
Yeah, we, we love to travel andwe wanted to kind of instill
that in our kids.
I saw a quote that.
It was something along thelines if you, you know, teach
your kids to travel, they'llnever have enough money to do
(21:02):
drugs.
That's why we do it.
Yeah, well, we just wanted todo something different that was
a little more off the cuff.
I mean, we got a lot ofpushback when we decided to
homeschool so that, you know,maybe that wasn't enough for us
to get out to do.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So what was the pushback when you told your
family we're selling the houseand leaving?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
We're not even just putting it up for rent, we are
selling it and going.
Those were fun conversations.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
What part of New York were you from?
Upstate Rochester area?
Okay, yeah, I'm like Albanyarea.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, yeah, I'm from Cobuskill.
My folks live in that generalarea.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
No way.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, so we're from, we do the, you know the thruway.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Quite a bit, quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I'm more closer to Vermont now but I grew up in
Schenectady and I've been toCobleskill many times because of
just people that went to SUNYCobleskill or friends that are
from there.
I'm 40.
How old are you guys?
No, I'm 41.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I just turned 40 in December.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Really Okay.
Yeah, I had my friend Liza Geez.
I don't remember her last name.
Oh Ham, the Hams are out thereand Gottliebs It'd be so funny
if you oh, I think I know someGottliebs yeah.
Huh, you do know them.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
I think I might know some Gottliebs.
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
That's so funny Small world, and yet here, you are in
Montenegro right now 2.30 inthe morning talking to me.
All right, so are you going tostick with the program or like?
What are your next steps?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Great question.
We're currently debating that.
I'm trying to figure out whatour next move is going to be,
because we're halfway throughthis three-month cohort right
now.
So it's the end of March iswhen this one will be over.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So then what?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Are you like homeless after that?
Well, we are technicallyhomeless, which is which is wild
.
But we may try to do anothercohort somewhere else.
To finish out the year, maybejust do kind of a gap year kind
of thing with this program andthen go back to New York and the
nice part of New York in thisin the summertime.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Visit family and stuff the kids are.
You know that there isn't.
There's hard parts and there'seasy parts of this.
You know we all miss the family.
The kids miss, you know, theircousins and their friends and
stuff like that.
And also we all have ourmoments.
There's ups and downs of ofdoing this.
Um, you know, we had, um, youknow, an acre and a half of land
where we were, so we wereconstantly outside playing and
(23:34):
just exploring and stuff likethat.
So it's, we miss, uh, we domiss, our home back that we sold
, but um, you know it's.
Then we have days where we justare walking down the street
here or in old town and aretalking about history with the
kids.
And it was carnival this thispast weekend here in Couture and
(23:56):
there's a parade and the kidshad a blast and it's.
You know it has the ups anddowns.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, I wouldn't go to any parades in Albany.
Probably at the moment Cold ofskill.
You might get a few like cowparades going down, which are
probably fun too.
But yeah, you know you'll neverregret doing this experience.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
You know you can always buy another house and,
yeah, that was.
That was kind of a big part ofthe process and my dad was very
supportive.
He said some people live aboring life.
Your life will not be boring.
So that was like awesome, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, you know my um, a girlfriend of mine in our
homeschooling clique here.
She just wrote a book and sheasked me to read it, mary she's,
she was on the podcast a coupleof weeks ago actually, and she
was a teacher who left and uh,she kind of wrote this book.
At first she titled it takingback my life and I said, mary,
you know people are going tolook at this and think you were
in an abusive relationship orsomething you should think.
(24:51):
You know you want people toknow that this is about you kind
of separating from society.
And as I'm reading her book Iwas started to think, geez, it
is a book about leaving anabusive relationship, it's about
leaving the society.
It's abusive to tell you this iswhere you have to be every day.
I mean not even just as anadult going to school, but our
(25:11):
little ones, from the time wesend them to daycare and they
want that to be at six weeks oreight weeks.
Send them off to daycare andget back to work.
Mom, you know their day isstructured every day.
It's breakfast and playtime andoutside time and lunchtime and
da, da, da, and then it goesright into school.
Younger and younger too, youknow now we have them in school
in New York, or your universalpreschool is age four, so that's
(25:36):
a full day All the way up to 18and then college, and like your
whole day is structured for you, even telling you down to what
you have to learn, which is, Ithink, one of the biggest
realizations for me that, likewe don't have to learn this,
nobody says we have to learnthis, but Cuomo, maybe in his
common core.
But that is such a made upthing and so, yeah, reading her
(25:56):
book, I was really like, well,this is true, I think I've been
going through the breakup forlike five years now, which I'm
still not fully there.
You know, I love to be able togrow all my own food and not
have to live on the grid orwhatever and I know people that
do.
But you know, the time mightcome where we'll have to learn
that.
I don't know.
But I think it's so importantto teach our kids nonetheless
(26:17):
how to do that, cause we don'tknow what the future will bring.
Uh, but yeah, it is.
It's like anything you can dothese days to break from the
norm of that monotony.
It's just you look at it likewhy am I here If all I do every
day is get up and go wheresomeone else told me to go?
And I worked for the governmentfor 16 years, so it was just
sit here while someone elseraises your kid and you're
(26:39):
pushing an email here and there.
And if I had a better way tothink of doing something, they
were like yeah, that's cute,just do what we told you.
You know, nobody wanted to heargood ideas or make changes.
And yeah, you really getdepressed because it's it's just
groundhog day over and over.
And so I commend you for takingthat leap.
I mean, it's amazing and Ithink more people, if it felt
(27:01):
within our grasp, we would do it.
But society just makes you feelso pigeonholed and I think it
really starts out from likeeverybody's got to go to college
, because it's like, okay, nowyou have all this debt.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So now you gotta work , yeah they.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
So now you got to work.
Yeah, they raise teachers.
School school teaches to beworkers, not entrepreneurs Not
saying that no one from publicschools or whatever school
system you're in, you're not anentrepreneur and stuff like that
but they're training you.
You sit at a desk eight hours aday, go to school, you eat
lunch in a cafeteria or this ata certain time, and that's
(27:35):
literally what you do in anoffice.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
They're training you for that office life and before
it was the industrial revolution.
Let's train them to be this way.
Yes, I've done a lot ofresearch on the history of our
education system and it's mindblowing because everything is
tied up in a pretty bow forequality and you know, little
Johnny in New York should knowthe same thing as you know
little Billy in Wyoming.
(28:00):
But there's so many differentthings to do.
Even today I was my son'sreally obsessed with that really
old video game, oregon Trail,mostly because it's like one of
the only ones we'll let him playand he's trying to learn how to
read.
So we're kind of trying to useit as a way to get him to read.
But I put into chat GPT today Iprobably shouldn't say this
because I should like sell thisas a product, but I put into
(28:20):
chat GPT.
Can you give me like a 10 dayunit study?
You know, include reading,writing, math, geography,
history on the Oregon Trail, on,you know, the westward
expansion.
So I can just bring it to hislevel, something that he's
curious about now and grab holdof it and then he can learn the
other subjects within that.
You can learn math, yeah, andrelate it to the Oregon Trail.
(28:43):
How far did they go?
Let's look at the map and see.
It's just.
There's so many more beautifulways to learn.
And you guys, you said it's offof the Finnish model that you
do, and the Montessori, and Iknow now in Finland they don't
even do any formal educationtill like age seven or 10, right
?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Correct.
I think it's seven is when forfor that.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
So they're not teaching letters or reading
before that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So they use here.
They use what's called JollyPhonics.
It's a really incredibleprogram and they teach the
phonics of letters before theyteach what the actual letter is.
So when a kid sees the letter Bhe may not know that it's the
letter B, but they know thesound, which has helped.
Our son didn't really know hisletters, you know.
(29:32):
He knew some here and therebefore we went to Cirrus and the
amount that he had learned inthat three months with this one
program that they use, jollyPhonics, was we were absolutely
blown away.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
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Speaker 3 (30:35):
Like, so they.
They definitely have thedifferent methods.
It's not.
You need to learn your ABCs,you need to learn this.
You need to learn this.
You got to learn your sightwords at this age.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You got to do this Like it's they work with, where
the kid is, where your child isat and go from there.
Well, and if 24 families are inthe program, how many are
actually like the ratio ofstudent to teacher where your
kids go to school?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
So zero is because it was a bigger one, levi's class,
our youngest.
He was in a class of six with ateacher and an aide, so he had
a lot, of, a lot of one on onestuff with in math and in
phonics.
Addison was in a class that hadsix kids as well that had a
teacher and an aide that'sawesome yeah, the class is here
(31:22):
levi has.
It's just two kids here becauseit's a smaller cohort.
There's only eight familieshere for this one, but addison's
in a class of it.
Worked out, it's all girls thatare seven to eight years old
and there are four of them inthere, so it's one teacher plus.
There's an aide that goesaround to the older kids class
10 to 12 year old class and thenit'll go into addison's class.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So there's four boys in the older class and four
girls in the in the younger,eight year old class so they can
really get that one-on-one yeahextra help when needed or can
move them along if needed sothey don't get bored.
That's really cool, and whatare some of the coolest things
that you guys have done sinceyou started world schooling?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Geez, we went ziplining.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You can zipline and cobble skill.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
No, we actually last week was our mid-cohort break
for the week, and another familyand us we actually went to
Bosnia and explored Bosnia forthe week, and another family and
us we actually went to Bosniafor an explored Bosnia for the
week.
We did a couple nights inMostar and a couple nights in
Sarajevo, and then a couplenights in a city, dermator, in
(32:34):
the mountains here in Montenegro.
It was the.
Bosnia is about two hour drive,hour and a half drive from from
here for us.
So we actually did that and itwas.
We were still teaching the kidswhen we were traveling to.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Bosnia.
So Sarajevo has a lot ofhistory um with the war back in
the 90s we went to.
We took them to the LatinBridge, which is where, uh,
franz Ferdinand was assassinatedto kick off World War One, and
we actually were standing rightthere at the spot.
I mean, they have a littlemuseum there.
So we went in the meeting, tookthe kids in the museum.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
They asked to go in there.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, the kids wanted to do it, let's go in here, so
let's go.
So when the kids want to go inthe museum, you say, yes, you
just go.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You always say yes, and so they got to get a little
bit of World War I history andthat was awesome.
I mean, that was just verysurreal to stand there and think
this.
That was and we've, in Greece.
We island hopped a couple ofthe week.
We had some long weekends andwe were able to get on ferries
(33:39):
and go to Santorini and Parosthose are some bucket list items
for us and get to go and takethe kids and see different
things.
We've been on crazy hikes withparents.
We've taken the kids on hikeswith us on the weekends, just
getting outside, getting qualityfamily time, exploring,
(34:01):
exploring new countries.
This place, this Gator, is likea fairy tale.
Here there's what they call theold town and it's just this old
city that just has walls builtaround it like a fortress and
surrounded by water, and it'sjust stunning.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
That's Montenegro, or a place in Montenegro.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Mountains Everywhere you look there's a giant
mountain.
It's wild.
So we're not lacking for thingsto do and it's always.
You know, when you go to a newplace it's always exciting
because it's new, and then youkind of see what you can see in
three months, and then you moveon.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
But we're really able to kind of immerse into the
cultures, though here as well,we're not here just for 10 days
and then we have to go backbecause we have to get back to
work.
We're actually able to, youknow, become friends with.
You know locals.
You know the gentleman at thefruit stand in Syros.
We'd walk by, we'd say hello,we'd say hello to the kids, like
(34:55):
you know, the kids would sayKalimera, good morning is
Kalimera in Greek and goodmorning in Greek.
And it was really cool to seeyou know the relationships that
they have built with locals aswell.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
What do the locals think of Americans?
Speaker 2 (35:12):
It depends.
The kids go every other Fridaywith this program.
They have a field trip, sothey're always out and about in
the community.
It's funny, they're alwayswearing their little vests so
they don't get lost, which isnice.
But they do tours of everythingand they see a lot of the stuff
that the parents see, just atdifferent times, and it's
brought down to their level sothey can learn what it's about.
(35:34):
And most of the locals, oncethey realize that you're kind of
like a local, they kind of openup to you and they're nice to
you.
And you know, like Brittany wassaying, we form relationships
with some of the vendors, likethe butcher lady here.
She's, she's great, it'shilarious and it's just there's
so many options to.
(35:55):
There's workers that work withthe parents to to facilitate
community activities.
So that's their job in life isto you know a community advisor
and they set up all these thingsfor us to do and we can do them
if we want to.
And then it's you just talk tothem and say, hey, I need this
and this and this, and they'relike, okay, we'll go here, we
(36:16):
can get you a doctor'sappointment or a dentist
appointment.
You go here.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
We have a dentist appointment today.
Today in a couple hours becauseit's 2 30 am.
There are you guys.
We found out she needed glassesand we got, went to a doctor in
greece and got glasses, and wecheaper than in the states well.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
So that yeah, that brings up another good point
they don't take like mv, right?
So are you guys just paying outof pocket for things like
doctors and dentists yeah, wejust pay out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
The three months is set up so you don't have to like
get a visa or passport oranything like that.
So we're in the we're out of.
In Europe there's a Schengenunion, which is basically a
union inside of the EuropeanUnion, and for those countries
you can only be in thosecountries for 90 days out of 180
day period.
(37:10):
So Greece is one of thosecountries.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Imagine that, having rules around, your border.
Immigrants and peopleemigrating to your country.
Bizarre immigrants, and, yes,people immigrating to your, to
your country, bizarre, so somontenegro is strategically
placed with this program becausethey are not a shengen country
so we go to greece and tomontenegro and not have to worry
(37:35):
about a visa or passport yeah,I had a friend that just went to
mexico to get all this dentalwork done and and she's from
Poland but lives here now andshe couldn't believe the prices
in America, what things cost.
So yeah, it was cheaper for herto fly from New York to Mexico,
have an Airbnb there the wholetime.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
People don't realize that Mexico has very good health
care.
People go down there,especially families to give
birth, because their system is.
And it was amazing, wow, theeye doctor for Addison it was.
We got in.
What the next day after?
We said we needed anappointment and it was 40 bucks,
(38:16):
40 euros to get an eye examdone for Addison.
We got a copay.
That's just what it costs.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Wow, that's something All right as we round out the
hour.
What else did you guys want tomake sure that we talked about?
I know you guys have a page forpeople to follow you kind of
journey.
You know what you guys, orjournal what you guys are doing
along your journey there, which,yeah, I shared one today.
I couldn't get it to work justthe way I wanted to, so I kind
(38:45):
of like pirated it.
Screenshot it but, I,collaborated with you on it.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Loved it.
That's fine.
Just, I don't know.
Maybe just do what feels right.
Do what feels right for yourfamily and follow your dreams.
It's not easy, it's not alwayssun shining rainbows.
It takes work and you do missout on some things.
But if you know, if you want totravel, travel.
If you want to stay home, stayhome.
(39:12):
If you want to do your thing,do your thing.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Someone's always going to have a comment, but you
got to do what's best for youand your family.
Yeah, brittany, did you have toleave the job that you?
Had to do this and get a newjob.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
I was there.
It was a wonderful company thatI worked for for almost eight
years, but it just wasn't aposition.
I was an executive assistantand it just wasn't one that I
could go remote with.
They needed someone that couldcome into the office a couple of
days a week, so I did have toleave position, which being the
only income at the time.
Like it was, it was not an easychoice.
(39:44):
There were a lot of late nightconversations of do we do this?
Do we not Do we?
What if we try this?
What if we don't do this?
What if we do this optioninstead of this option?
Like there was?
It was months of discussion.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, it wasn't a one day thing to make this decision
and it came down to.
You know, when we look back atour life, are we going to regret
not doing it, and kind of so wedid it.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, that's exactly how I went about leaving
government work.
It was like, oh, am I reallygoing to leave a pension?
You know they tell you for solong.
Oh, nobody has pensions anymore, you can't leave a pension, you
just can't leave a pension.
(40:29):
And finally I had to look at itand say, well, by the time I
get my pension, my kids aren'tgoing to need me anymore.
So, on my deathbed, where am Igoing to be?
And at the time too, I had afriend whose mother just retired
from the state because she gotcancer and she died a couple of
years later.
So, having cancer, the wholeretirement.
So, even that is not guaranteed.
What we have now is our kidsare young, we're healthy.
(40:52):
So if you can make somethingelse work and and even with the
podcast, I get, you know, tiedup and you know spending extra
time on this and extra time onthat and trying to grow the
Instagram page, and that's likeI have to take a step back and
say why we're doing with lessfor a reason, but then, at the
same time, it is it's not aneasy road by any means.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
We've sacrificed a lot, Even before we decided to
sell everything when it was justone income.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It was homeschool.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
We wanted to homeschool the kids and it was
not easy by any means.
There were very hard days wherehe's like we got to send her to
school.
I can't do this.
It's been a week.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
We've all been there.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Yeah, a lot, and so it's not easy, but in our hearts
it's been a week.
We've all been there.
Yeah, a lot, and so it's noteasy, but in our hearts it's
been worth it and for our kidsit's been worth it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
The overall is definitely worth it.
Well, chad and Brittany, thankyou so much for coming on today
at 2.30 in the morning, yourtime in Montenegro, people can
follow you.
Why don't you let them knowwhere they can follow you, and I
will also put that in theshow's description yeah, uh,
we're on pretty much all socialmedia channels at the traveling
(42:13):
slaters awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
We do most most of our stuff's on instagram.
That's our, that's our favoriteplatform.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
It looks pretty life's not always that way
though and the live streams workout.
Yeah, oh, oh guys, thank you somuch.
Yes, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Thank you and if anyone has any questions, they
can reach out to you and you canreach out to us or connect us
or reach out to us with anyquestions.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
I have one comment here from Keith that said I love
the Traveling Slater videos.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No questions, but a nice comment.
Appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Appreciate that very much.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
We'll keep up your good work and spread the spread
the word that we can take thatleap.
Leave the groundhog day.
Love your podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Yeah, thanks guys thank you for tuning in to this
week's episode of the homeschoolhow-to.
If you've enjoyed what youheard and you'd like to
contribute to the show, pleaseconsider leaving a small tip
using the link in my show'sdescription.
Or, if you'd rather, please usethe link in the description to
(43:11):
share this podcast with a friendor on your favorite homeschool
group Facebook page.
Any effort to help us keep thepodcast going is greatly
appreciated.
Thank you for tuning in and foryour love of the next
generation.
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