Page 16 - American Girl (September - October 2018)

Here we are at Singapore’s Cloud Forest World in Maine
A beautiful sunset in
and Flower Dome.
Acadia National Park
Schooling

Sisters Elizabeth and Julianna explore the world
with their family for an entire year.

few years ago, my parents National Travel see that kids still go to school there today.
started talking about an (and Canada) We also visited Fort Sumter in South
idea that sounded pretty If you can believe it, over the next four Carolina, where the first shots of the
craz
A y. They called it “world months we drove more than 18,000 miles Civil War were fired.
schooling.” The idea was that our family across the United States and into Canada. My dad gives good history lessons.
would spend a year traveling the world and We did schoolwork in the mornings and Standing in those places, I started to like
learning about the people and places in it. explored new territory in the afternoons. learning about history more and more. It’s
My sister Julianna (she’s in third grade and At home, I would have been studying U.S. easier to respect and understand history
wants to be a marine biologist one day) history in my social studies class. On the when you’re actually in the locations where
loved the idea that we could visit a famous road, I visited places where history happened the events took place. Now I hope to be
aquarium in Florida. I thought spending and learned about events like the Salem a history teacher one day.
seventh grade traveling the world sounded witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. We After visiting an aquarium in Florida
cool, but I didn’t think we’d actually go— drove all over the United States: from our (Julianna loved it!), we drove north again.
at least not for an entire year! home in New Jersey up to Maine (we made a We made stops in Williamsburg, Virginia,
But then my parents made a plan. Last quick Canadian detour), across the Midwest, and in our nation’s capital, Washington, DC.
summer, we moved out of our home in then Badlands, Yellowstone, and Glacier Then we returned home to New Jersey for
New Jersey, packed up our minivan, and National Parks, and then along the West my bat mitzvah and Thanksgiving. It was
headed north. For the next year, the Coast. Take a look at the map for our route! exciting to see our friends after having
world was our school. After that, we drove back east through the been gone for four months. But it wasn’t
South. My sister and I learned about the Civil long before we were off again. We left the
War and desegregation. I spent my thirteenth cold weather (wearing only scarves and hats
birthday in Little Rock, Arkansas, touring a to the airport to save suitcase space) and
historic high school where a lot of turmoil flew to Hawaii. We enjoyed the sunny days,
and change happened after nine black ate fish with yummy sauces, and went
students first attended the school in 1957. swimming. Soon we grabbed our passports
14 americangirlmagazine.com It was incredible to stand in those halls and and flew to Australia.