Opinion: Teaching kids real world lessons

LEARNING: Visiting a kindergarten in Fiji was a real world learning experience.

Confession time - my child is one of those who skipped school for a family holiday.

As his Year 2 class was going about their lessons last week, he was on a family trip to Fiji.

And I don't regret it.

There's no doubt education is important. In two and a half years of school he's missed only a couple of days when he was really sick. We don't just let him stay at home for no good reason.

But I'd also argue that while he wasn't classroom bound last week, he learnt lessons that couldn't have been taught through traditional methods.

Standing in a local village kindergarten gifting items he takes for granted - pens, paper, felts and stickers - taught him more about poverty than I ever could have at home.

Seeing how the schools manage to get by with so few resources will give him an extra appreciation of just how privileged he is.

No book could have given him quite the same experience of the cultural differences. Watching kids sing the same songs as he learnt, albeit in a different language, highlighted the links, despite the great difference.

Every day presented learning opportunities - from hunting starfish and crabs to holding snakes and iguanas and watching bats in the trees- and fostered a real thirst to learn more.

For a week, I see little harm in his math lessons being focused around adding and subtracting the cost of menu items, grouping different types of shells or learning the different values of currency or his writing taking the form of a diary.