EDUCATED
ON THE ROAD
Hi, I am Julia, a 21 year old nomad student from Brazil
Since 2018 I have been doing an experiment to challenge education the way we know it and discover new possibilities: I am designing and testing a system that combines travel with online, self-directed and experiential learning.
I have always perceived the educational system as being too much about absorbing knowledge that is disconnected from one’s individual reality rather than creating one's own understanding. But as Paulo Freire states, “Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information”. It’s about reinvention, not mechanical reproduction. Reproduction makes us fit for a society of no changes, for mechanical jobs we are expected to perform without questioning their purpose and ultimately the purpose of our lives.
And that is where I found myself at in 2017. Tired of studying as a means to and end and struggling to see meaning in anything I was doing, I chose to leave Duke University, where I was doing my undergraduate studies at the time. With a handful of things that bothered me in the traditional system, a few philosophies of education that inspired me, a passion for learning and a big desire for something new, adventurous and above all that would fill my life with more purpose, I decided to take a leap of faith.
And so what started as the question "what if I traveled while studying online and learning from the world?" became and still is a journey in which I am experimenting with different education formats, trying to find resources and possibilities where one usually doesn't look for and ultimately creating a system in which I can finally acquire the type of understanding and growth I have been yearning for. Click here to understand the whats, hows and whys of my project.
I invite you on that journey with me by looking at it they way I do - not as the suggestion of any ideal format, but as a case study. As a chance to look at education from a radical and new perspective and leave behind any assumptions. And ultimately as an invitation to rethink the meaning of learning, growth and live itself. I am excited to share these ideas, connect with and learn from more people who believe education can be different. You can follow my reflections or sign up to be notified for location updates and reach out to me with your ideas. I have also put together some interesting content about alternative education perspectives which can be found here.
