Roadschooling Ryan: Learn As We Go

by Mary Lois Sennewald

What do you get when you combine an independent-minded, sixty-year-old mother with her adventurous seventeen-year-old son who hit the road together for his junior year? Consider the offbeat year when Mary Lois Sennewald and Ryan Costello left home to pursue learning in the wider world. Throwing conformity to the winds, the pair set out in August 2002 in a 1987 Volkswagen campervan, wandering up the Mississippi, across Canada to Newfoundland, down through New England, farther down into southern Mexico, concluding in Colorado high country. In this provocative memoir of foibles and family, astonishment, missteps, and magical moments, they share what they learned. In so doing, they challenge preconceptions about education, freedom and the necessities for a good life. By turns funny, poignant, and heart-warming, Roadschooling Ryan: Learn as We Go is about a young man on the brink of adulthood peering into the world, and a mother insisting on doing his schooling her way. It is also about survival, relative sanity, and compassion in very close quarters. Most of all, it is about laughing at fear, seeking wisdom and knowledge wherever one lands, and having a great time no matter where the road leads.

Genres: Travel

238 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Lauren Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Did I really think a seventeen-year-old could learn more camping across the continent with his mom than fidgeting in a classroom? That we could stay on good terms for months on end? " (Xiii)

I would like to thank Iuniverse for providing me a copy of this book!

I found this book lacking a lot of plot and missing key events for their road schooling year. I wont recommend this book to anyone who's activity doing research for home schooling, but if you're looking for new ideas, this book would be a great resource. I found it too choppy and hard to follow.

This book was was a medium read, as I read it in about 2 days!

I would recommend it to anyone considering a home schooling year or traveling logs.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be really boring, basically nothing but a travel log --- an interesting way to homeschool a kid and great for both the kid and the mom but, extremely boring reading.