I’d like to talk to you about a radical new homeschooling method called trampschooling. That’s right, education through trampoline.
Trampschooling is an alternative method to traditional homeschooling. Instead of using rigorous curricula, the child engages with the world through endless days spent bouncing on a trampoline. By bouncing, a child is learning all he needs to know about the real world. Trampschooling is excellent preparation for college and, most importantly, real life.
Leaping into the air is like leaping upwards into knowledge! Not only will your child learn important physical skills (what P.E. class could teach what a trampoline teaches about balance and core strength?), but s/he will learn basic principles of math and science through practical application. Physics taught through books and even fabricated lab kits is divorced from the true mechanics of the natural world. Trampschooled children learn about physics through self-directed experimentation. Nothing teaches a child more about force and trajectory than miscalculating a bounce and flying off into a fence. Not only that, but the subsequent emergency room visits will teach your child important information about modern medical science!
Trampschooling requires little financial investment, but full commitment to trust your child’s ability to direct his/her own bouncing. You can purchase a trampoline for as little as $150, though some savvy trampschooling parents have found them on Craig’s List or even Freecycle! As your child grows in trampschooling, you may want to replace your trampoline with a larger model, so s/he can better stretch, leap, and explore the world.
One of the most important aspects of trampschooling is respecting your child’s autonomous right to take risks. Pure trampschooling means eschewing the so-called safety enclosures — they’re little more than cages meant to oppress your child and minimize his/her learning experience! Give your children the gift of true knowledge and the freedom to fly!
If you’d like to learn more about trampschooling, check out the new trampschooling forums at Mothering.com.
Special thanks to Isarma for opening my eyes to this empowering new mode of homeschooling. We’re selling off all our curricula next week, buying a trampoline, and never looking back.
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[...] sitting at the table, others we’re hiking through the trees, and some involve lots of trampschooling and Twitter. Individually it looks like chaos, but all together it’s just how we homeschool. [...]
I thought tramp schooling would involve being schooled by either a homeless man with his luggage on a stick and handkerchief or a scantly clad classroom mistress. Good to be properly informed.
Trampschooling will properly prepare you for a career as a homeless man with his luggage on a stick and handkerchief or a scantily clad classroom mistress.
That’s what my husband says when the kids don’t want to learn math, etc. He works downtown and offers to introduce our children to the panhandlers so they can take lessons from them on how to be the best homeless person you can be.
Very funny post.
Is there a recommended “hours per day” my students should aim for with trampschooling?
Limiting or requiring a certain amount of time on the trampoline runs counter to the trampschooling philosophy. Only your child knows how much time s/he needs each day to trampschool. Follow him/her lead and resist the urge to ask them to come off the trampoline in tornado, hurricane conditions, below freezing temperatures, on in the even of killer bees.
I’m with deva. I immediately thought, “Yeah, if you were really radical, you and your children would take up the lives of wandering itinerants.”
I used to like you, but now I lurve you.
I’m just glad I could help enlighten the masses.
OMG, I don’t have a trampoline! I must run out now and jump on this latest homeschooling bandwagon. My poor children. How could I have been so misguided so caught up in books and essays? What they really needed, what they craved, was trampschooling. Sniff, thank you so much smrtmama for helping me see the light.
I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been turned on to trampschooling. Poor Captain Science was being so repressed through all the history and language arts. Now he can follow his natural learning inclinations while simultaneously giving himself spinal injuries!
is there a national curriculum for this? A forum maybe outlining a classical trampschooling scope and sequence?
anyone with experience convincing a reluctant dad to get with the program?
my boys will be so happy to throw out the handwriting books and begin bouncing instead. Thanks!
No curricula. This is radical trampschooling.
It sounded like you were pulling a parody on unschooling, and THAT my friends is FUNNY!!
Me? Satirize unschooling? Never! *gasps and clutches pearls*
Has anyone tried meshing trampschooling with classical curriculum? Because surely you can do both. Personally, I’ll be giving our trampschooling a Waldorf flavor.
Also, could you give us a separate forum to discuss how we combine these methods? I hate having to sift through posts that are about a different curriculum in order to find the ones I’m interested in. Or is there a way to block all posts that are NOT about trampschooling?