3 Ginger Snaps

Ruby’s cousin Anna is a bendy strong and agile wonder of a human being who has recently developed a passion for gymnastics. Ruby admires this pursuit of Anna’s a great deal and has done at least 1000 practice cartwheels since our trip began. 

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​Hil and I often find ourselves wondering just what exactly the kids are learning on this sojourn. We have talked at length about the fact that, in all likelihood there is very little that Arden, at 5 years old, will actually remember from the experience. At the same time, we know there is something sticky about what we are experiencing. Something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. We just don’t know what it is yet. 

When I was in teachers college I took a philosophy of education course where we often discussed the “unintended curriculum”. This is the stuff that kids learn Because they are such careful and astute observers of human behaviour. So now I know that my kids know how to freak out when you have lost your back pack somewhere in airport security. And they know how to have an argument with your spouse when you are deciding whether or not to walk the 1500m in the morning Sri Lankan heat to the start of the bike trip or take a tuk tuk. And they know how to give their spouse the gears after she has lost her third pair of sun glasses. And in addition to all the quality lessons they are learning from me they are learning more – much much more no doubt – from the many other people we have met along the way. Like how to make new friends even when you don’t speak much of the same language (thanks Nederlanders family with 3 daughters) And how to be passionately invested in and committed to something even when day after day you see more negative results than positive outcomes (thanks Izzati). And how to get involved when you see someone who needs help (thanks Germans who shared bandages and clean water when we had our scooter scrape). And on and on and on. 

I also know that their own choices teach them a lot and that when Hil and I choose not to get involved in their own efforts that teaches them a lot as well. And here is ruby proving that point. She set out to learn how to do a cartwheel. She did many that weren’t exactly well done. Then someone suggested she look up “how to do a cartwheel” on you tube and improved results started to come to her pretty quickly. It’s a cartwheel. Maybe the seed of a future interest and passion for gymnastics. Maybe not. It’s not the entire list of grade 2 sight words read and spelled with proficiency. It’s not not her addition facts to 20 memorized. It is definitely hers to own. Something she wanted to do that she taught herself to do. Could she have achieved this if we hadn’t come in this trip? More than likely, yes. Did she achieve this because she had the time and space and lack of interference to do so? Maybe. I do know that for the rest of her learning we as parents will be able to remind her of the time she was 7 and traveling the world and taught herself to do a cartwheel because that is what she set as her goal.