The Country Mice

Looking south to UBC

As the elder offspring of two devoted teachers I shamelessly support truancy. “If you can’t skip school when you’re *insert relevant age here* when can you skip?” So four provinces over that meant visits to the Royal Winter Fair, seeing the Rockettes, travelling by train from Winnipeg, staring awe-struck at the Lippizaner Stallions, and visiting the zoo, Efton Science Store, my Aunt Clara and Uncle Bob, Chapters, or just plain staying home.

However, in spite of my hard-held belief that there was lots of learning going on outside school walls — even tho I unequivocally attest my children attended the best Montessori school on the planet — I did feel always a not so little pang of guilt when I returned my clearly healthy, pock-free and eager-to-show&tell children to class.

Imagine my shivering delight to discover I’ve landed a world that grants me full complete utter and absolute support of doing something absolutely splendid within school hours and without school walls.

It’s called home-schooling, or home learning, or un-schooling (but most definitely not un-learning). It’s a bit complex — something I’ll save for a later post (or better, see Rickshaw Unschooling for a cogent discussion of non-traditional education).

But most importantly, it’s guilt-free. The Princess and I packed up first thing yesterday morning and headed to Cypress Mountain for a day of skiing. Get this: We live five minutes from the ferry. It took 20 minutes to cross the sound to Horseshoe Bay. Another 20 minutes and we were buckling on our boots. Addition is part of the curriculum: 5 + 20 + 20 = not a very long time from house to hill.

My little girl was so positively delighted to be out with her maman I don’t believe she stopped smiling once. What she did, however, was thank me — THANK me — several times for taking her to the mountain for the day.

Worth the price of the lift ticket.