ARiM - Artist Residency in Motherhood #5

When Lieve is 5 years old we will sail into world with the Atlas. That’s also the age from were compulsory education takes effect. Living a nomadic life with a school age child is harder to arrange than I thought. Because of the compulsory education Lieve must literally go to a school building every day. Homeschooling is not allowed in The Netherlands. There are exemptions for registration at a school but they aren’t suitable for us. Exemptions from registration are:

• Psychological- or physical disease.
• Objection to philosophical direction of community schools.
• Education abroad: when you can prove that your child is being taught abroad and really goes to school there.
• A nomadic existence because of the profession of parents: you lead a nomadic existence. In this case you can apply for an exemption for a part of the year.

I extensively researched all these options. The last one is the most likely one but this exemption is just valid for a part of the year, with a maximum of 8 months. ‘Education abroad’ is difficult to realize when having a nomadic existence. Still, there are possibilities in this exemption. Some attendance officers recognize De Wereldschool as a school abroad. When you have a ‘go’ of the attendance officer you’re allowed to teach your child by yourself with the teaching packages of De Wereldschool. For example, Laura Dekker taught herself at an age of 15 with the these packages while she was sailing around the world. The costs of a teaching package for one year primary school is about €4.000. Far too expensive for us! Especially when we want to travel for a long time.

But there is an another option left. We could deregister from the ‘Basisregistratie Personen’ (BRP), but this has consequences for us as Dutch. Our Dutch citizenship will retained, but we would lose some of our rights, such as:

• Request a benefit.
• Receive rent- and care allowance.
• Be insured for healthcare in the Netherlands.
• Loss of 2% AOW per year.
• Registered with your company at ‘Kamer van Koophandel’.
• Opening a bank account in NL.

In fact, we would distance ourselves from the Dutch system, thereby we will lose some of our rights, but therefore we could give Lieve home education. In the end we find it very important that Lieve will be educated properly, the quality of education is important to us. We are thinking about getting in touch with a primary school teacher who can advise us year by year about what a child should learn and which competences and skills a child should have at what age. Each year I want to write a school program for Lieve. Partly with traditional lesson- and practice books and teaching materials for subjects such as language and math. For other subjects and skills such as world knowledge, geography, biology, history, sports, social interaction etc. I want to make short projects or exercises for her, inspired and based on the area we are at that moment. She will learn directly from all different kind of cultures, nature and people around the world. I find that a interesting and exciting idea.

This are just my first findings about road / world schooling, the research continues…