The Wallicks along on their adventures in homeschooling. Courtesy of Nate Wallick
When dad Nate Wallick had to choose between enrolling his three young kids in public school or leading them on adventures – cliff jumping, canyoneering, and carp shooting across America – it was a no-brainer. Adventures would be had, and there’d be no public schooling at all.
So Wallick, 40, a firefighter from Chicago with a phys-ed degree, and his wife, Sally, packed their furniture and fled the suburbs for a farm a few miles outside Peoria, Illinois. He got his captain’s license, bought a boat, and started leading extreme fishing tours to hunt the carp that teem and jump like crazy from the Illinois River. He takes clients out to shoot the fish from motorboats with bows and arrows tied to strings.
Sometimes they even do this on waterskis.
When their kids were old enough, the family pointed to places on a map where they’d never been and hit the road in the RV they got just for this purpose. The kids didn’t enroll in public school. Instead, they experienced homeschooling as few know it. Wallick and his wife had discussed this before they married. Continue reading →