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Jessica Grace Coleman

Welcome to the Travel Transformation Podcast with me, Jessica Grace Coleman, the podcast where we talk all things travel and all things transformation. Today I have a special guest on the podcast, Joahna Tupas, who is the founder of School in a Backpack, and we have a great conversation. 

We talk about world schooling, her new company, School in a Backpack, and the upcoming event she's got going on, and we talk about the new book, World Schoolers by Nomad Publishing, that she is a part of that is coming out in December. And she shares her own magical movie moment – which we love on this podcast – of her time spent in Hawaii. I had a great time talking to Joahna, so let's get straight to it. 

Okay. So, Joanna, welcome to the Travel Transformation Podcast. Thank you so much for coming on! How are you today?

Joahna Tupas 

Great. Thank you for having me, this is amazing!

Jessica Grace Coleman

No problem. Okay, so for our listeners, could you please just start with a little bit of background info about yourself, what you do, and where you are in the world today?

Joahna Tupas 

Awesome. Yes, this is Joahna Tupas. I am a world-schooling parent. Actually, I've been a world-schooling parent since my son was five months old in my womb.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Oh, wow.

Joahna Tupas 

He's been to more places than I had at his age. Now, I am also an educator. I have just actually finished my job as a special education teacher at the district in a Native American reservation here in the United States. I am also an entrepreneur, so I have just launched my company called School in a Backpack here in the US. It started as a learning journey between me and my son, so I would journal it as a blog, and then it turned into a community in 2017, and now it's here in the US. 

Jessica Grace Coleman

And whereabouts in the US are you?

Joahna Tupas 

Yes. So I am currently in Arizona.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Nice. I've been to Phoenix and Tempe. Is that how you say that, yes? I've been in Arizona, and yeah, I liked it, but I wasn't prepared for the intense heat when I went there.

Joahna Tupas 

Yes, we actually live in northern Arizona, where all the skiing and the snowboarding and all those resorts are – snow is here, what, ten months of the year. So you should come up here.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Okay, I was going to say that sounds like somewhere I could deal with, because I'm not great with heat, but I really did like the states.

Joahna Tupas 

That's awesome. Have you been to any other parts of the US? Any other states?

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, I lived in Colorado for a year because I did a study abroad year when I was in university. So I was in Boulder, which I loved. It's one of my favourite places in the world, and I've been back there a couple of times just to visit the old campus and stuff. My favourite place I've been to… a few around Utah, New Mexico, and that kind of thing when I was younger with my family. But a few years ago, I did a road trip with my friends ¬– three weeks around New England in the fall, around Halloween, and we did as many Halloween things as we could and as many autumnal things, and it was amazing. So, yeah, I love the US.

Joahna Tupas 

That's cool. Well, hopefully I get to visit your country.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah! Have you been? Are you hoping to do a Euro trip soon? 

Joahna Tupas 

No, I haven't, but hopefully I’ll get to take my son there and we can go around, maybe visit you!

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, definitely! That'd be awesome. Okay, cool. So I'm going to ask you about School in a Backpack in a second, but something you said in the intro made me go, ‘wait!’ What you said about your son having been being world schooled since he was five months?

Joahna Tupas 

Yeah!

Jessica Grace Coleman

How does that work?

Joahna Tupas 

Okay, well, I used to be a consultant. I owned a multimedia arts company back in the Philippines, where I'm from – I'm Filipino – before we moved up here. And so I was working as a marketing and communications director for a company in Sydney, Australia. And my son was five months womb old. So, in my second term of pregnancy, the company had to fly me over to do some work with them in person. And so I was just lucky. I would always have his books with me, his kind of music with me. That kind of earphone that you wear, just kind of like a wider one where I would put it on my tummy, so listening to classical music and different kinds of genres while I'm working. 

I think it's really important that even while they're in the womb – our children are in the womb – they're developing physically. They're already absorbing. That's one of the things that I truly believe. So giving them these sensory things from the outside world while they are safely tucked into your tummy, you're kind of already educating them, so to speak. So my son came out, and he's already an eclectic audiophile. He really loves music that suits him. So I think that has got a lot to do with the time that he was in the womb. We were already engaging with him.

Jessica Grace Coleman

So you started him off early. That's great. How old is he now?

Joahna Tupas 

He's eleven now. Well, he's turning twelve in like two weeks.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Cool. Okay. So, for people who don't know the term – because I'm not a mom, and until recently I hadn't actually heard the term world schooling, and now I seem to hear it everywhere… it seems to have sort of blown up recently – but for people who don't know, what does that actually mean?

Joahna Tupas 

World schooling is really making the entire world, or pockets of the world, your world, physically, environmentally, the classroom, the learning environment. So you intentionally take your kids out there and you make every opportunity an experiential learning moment. 

I can give you examples. When my son was six, we went to Ilocos Norte, one of the provinces in my country – the exact city there was Pagudpud – and there's this Kabigan Falls, is what it's called. It's this huge waterfall and you have to hike up to get to it. So my son and I, we hiked up and that's how I taught him the five senses. So we would stop and I would have him close his eyes, and I would take his hand and we would feel some of the leaves and the grasses, and I would tell him, touch, touch. These are your hands and you touch. That's the sense of touch. Or we would stop at a stream, I would have him close his eyes and I would have him listen. What do you hear? Your ears can hear. That's the sense of hearing. So all throughout just one hike up, about 30 minutes, we've already nailed down the five senses because, oh, what's that? What sense are we using? What part of the body are we using? Every opportunity really is a learning experience. So that's basically in a nutshell, I think, what world schooling is – at least for us.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, I love that, because a kid who learns that way is going to remember – it's going to stick so much quicker, and they're going to remember it so much, and they're going to remember when they learned it. If you're learning everything from a textbook in a classroom, like everything melds together, or at least it did for me. I can see how your way is a lot more effective and a lot more fun as well for the child.

Joahna Tupas 

Yeah. So when you go back to those places, or when you visit it years after, when you're older, you kind of remember some of the memories and it's part of the memory already, and it becomes more… I think learning that way makes it stick more because you're not just teaching concepts, you're making the child experience those concepts. It becomes a part of them so much so that they're learning so organically that they don't even notice it because it's fun. Learning should be fun.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Exactly. I think that's the key, isn't it? That you're not even noticing that you're learning, so you're not sort of stressed out about it, or you're not thinking, ‘oh, this is boring,’ to start with. It just happens naturally. That's great. Okay, so can you tell me a bit about School in a Backpack? Because this sounds really cool.

Joahna Tupas 

Okay, awesome. School in a Backpack. Like I mentioned, when I got pregnant with… well, me and my husband got pregnant with our son… I was blogging as a single person. And then, in 2010, we found out that we were pregnant, and so I switched blogs, and I called it the Son, Sun and Sand Blog, because I really was envisioning my son to be a part of nature. And I love the ocean. Who doesn't, right? Everything should flow organically, and so that's what I called it. 

And so I would just journal through blogging, sharing my pregnancy, and then giving birth. And then, once he came out, I said, you know what? I want to take ownership of my son's education. I believe that every parent is the primary educator of their children. Teachers are very important, because I'm also a teacher by profession, at some point. And, for me, the parent is partnering with a teacher in educating their child. But the parent is the one that should take ownership of their child's education until such a time that they get to gift that education to the child and the child gets to embrace it. 

So I said, you know what? For me, everything that me and my son absorb, everything that we learn, that we experience, we have this internal backpack that we carry with us everywhere. We should just store it in there. That's when School in a Backpack came about. So I switched when we started home schooling; I switched blogs, and I'm just telling everybody how we're learning, where we're going. And so School in a Backpack from a personal blog became a community. By 2017, we were up to 183 families in my country.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Wow.

Joahna Tupas 

So some of the parents would ask: Where are you guys going? Can you give me tips? And stuff like that. I think the thing about School in a Backpack… it's an inclusive community. It doesn't isolate all the methodologies or choices of educating their children. You can be sending your child to a brick-and-mortar school, but you still have your school in the backpack because that backpack is a part of you. Every learning experience goes into that, and it becomes a part of you. You bring it wherever you are. And so we have families that actually go to brick-and-mortar schools. We have families that are earth schooling, world schooling, home schooling, all of those kinds of schooling. There are so many terms now. 

In 2017, we had our formal event. It's called School by the Shore, where we were for three days. One weekend, we brought a couple of families with us, and we had a learning program called Environmental Play. We use the environment to learn, and some of the things that we did were called Artstical Course. So, in that resort, there's this obstacle course. Like, the military uses it when they're training in that area, and we turn it into, like, an art obstacle course where there are flags and there are teams, and each team would have to go to each flag, and they get to read. So you're hitting the reading, and then you write about what it's requiring… you make what it's requiring… before you get to the next flag. So you're actually hitting different academic standards, but it's provided to you in a different way, and you're utilising the environment. 

We also had this thing called Slide-shore. We were right by the shore, and so me and the facilitators, we buried some pieces under the sand. Then all of the students were taught how to use a compass. Each group were given a compass, so they knew how to understand what longitude is and latitude is, and it doesn't matter what age you are… they're all grouped together. And so they were given pieces of paper, and they had to use the compass and measurements to find all these pieces. And they put it together, and they were microscopes. And then we gave them slides and they looked around, and they got to look under their microscopes. 

So there are different kinds of standards put together, but using the environment to make the learning more meaningful. So, School in a Backpack really is just putting together all these families that want to take ownership of their child's education, and want them to experience education. 

One of the things that's really important about School in a Backpack is that you're developing the character of the child. At the end of the day, you want a child that is independent and that is confident, that is sure of him or herself, that has a voice, that participates and contributes to society. So, in 2017, I did migrate to the US. I got a job as an educator. Five years later, School in a Backpack – I have revived it, and it's now a company. So I'm pretty excited to bring back all the programs.

Jessica Grace Coleman

That's great – congratulations for bringing it back. You mentioned School by the Shore. Is this an annual thing now? You're doing it every year?

Joahna Tupas 

Well, that is the plan. We are having a School by the Shore comeback this 2023. We had a pioneering one in 2017, and then I moved up here. So now that School in the Backpack is now my company, we are planning to bring back School by the Shore. 

The first School by the Shore after 2017 will be in June and July of 2023. It will be two months, with five destinations in the Philippines. The original location of the pioneering School by the Shore, which is Zamboanga, will be one of the five. Pagudpud, which is the one that I mentioned, where the waterfalls are, will be one of the five. That's where we're going to start, actually. It's a digital detox. It's one whole week of digital detox for families. And then we're going to Zamboanga, where the first School by the Shore happened. So we'll have those programs available. And then we are going to Baguio, Cordillera. We will utilise coffee farming as part of our learning, so we're going to contribute to society there. We're going to be working alongside farmers and really just getting down to it and learning different concepts. Have you heard of Palawan?

Jessica Grace Coleman

I'm not sure.

Joahna Tupas 

Oh, my gosh. After this, you have to look it up. Palawan, Philippines. Specifically, El Nido and Coron. El space N-I-D-O. Research it and just look at the beaches. Like, we're going to El Nido, and then we're going to Palawan, and then we're going to end at Boracay. You've heard of Boracay?

Jessica Grace Coleman

No, I'm terrible! I haven't been to the Philippines. It is on my list, though.

Joahna Tupas 

Maybe you should join us! That's two months. Five destinations. Again, if anybody's willing to join… you don't have to go to all five. You can choose just specific destinations. You can choose just one. We'll give you the schedule, or you can do all five. It's really up to you and your families. But each destination has its own experiences that come with it.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Right, so is that something that people can book soon, or is there a mailing list or something they can join so they can hear when it's out?

Joahna Tupas 

Yes. So if you go to www.schoolinabackpack.com and the event page, it should be available by December 1.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Okay, great.

Joahna Tupas 

So December 1 to 4 is a travelling teachers summit. I don't know if you've heard of it. I am one of the presenters there as well. And so we are officially announcing… well, this is official already… we’re also launching School by the Shore by December 1 through the website. So you don't have to really register, but you can sign up so that we can give you the information when it's ready.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Right, okay, brilliant. And we have a mutual acquaintance – or, at least, it's a virtual mutual acquaintance, in my case – Sarah Tyler, founder of Nomad Publishing. I know you've contributed to her most recent multi-authored book, which is World Schoolers. Can you tell me a bit about the book and about the part you've written specifically for it?

Joahna Tupas 

Okay, so ‘World Schoolers: innovative parents turning countries into classrooms’ is what the book is. I'm really hoping that you guys check it out. It's written by 22 fabulous authors. It'll be my first authoring of a book, or co-authoring in this case. And it's 22 different chapters. Some of them are narratives, some of them are really exciting stories. Some of them are really informational, especially to those that are interested in world schooling, like the how-to's and stuff like that. They're all available. 

Like I mentioned, it's 22 chapters written by 22 authors. So they have this huge, rich, vast wealth of experience all packed up in that book. I think I am the third chapter, and my chapter is called School in a Backpack. I have some stories there of how I started, where my roots of love for travelling came from, and also some beliefs, principles, and a few tips. If you are a teacher in a brick-and-mortar, I have information on how you can incorporate concepts of world schooling into your classrooms within the traditional schooling system. It is possible. So that information is all in that chapter. 

I'm very excited, and the launch of the book is on December 9. And so I join Sarah and the rest of my co-authors in inviting you guys to check out the book through Nomad Publishing. 

Jessica Grace Coleman

Congratulations for being in the book – that's awesome. And it sounds like you've got a really busy December coming up. Busy end of the year, that's great.

Joahna Tupas 

That's a good thing. Yeah.

Jessica Grace Coleman

So you mentioned brick-and-mortar classrooms and things like that. So, world schooling, does that always involve travelling? Because if people don't know, they might be picturing… is it basically home schooling but travelling around, or can it just be in different countries? How much does travel have to do with it rather than sort of going out in nature? And you mentioned Earth schooling as well. Is that something else?

Joahna Tupas 

It's another form of schooling. There's a lot of schooling, I think. So I actually have my own term. My own term, which I mentioned in the chapter of the book, is own schooling, as it's really important to take ownership of the education of your child. So whatever method you choose, whatever term it is, the important thing is that you have ownership of your child's education until such a time that it becomes their inheritance. Knowledge and wisdom and everything, and all that experience, is bottled up into the richness of who they are, it becomes a part of them. And that's an inheritance that you're really gifting to them into adulthood. 

So Earth schooling, that's your question, right? Okay. That's using nature around you and the organic nature. So you use sticks as toys, those kinds of things. One example maybe is when my son and I learned… when I think he was two… and I was teaching him counting. So we used sticks and we were fishing those leaves in a body of water. So just scooping that out and counting, and that repetition. So that's kind of the foundation of Earth schooling.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Okay, so do you travel a lot? Is that part of your world schooling?

Joahna Tupas 

Yes, travelling is… how do you define it? It's subjective. Travelling is subjective. For some people, travelling is really just… okay, we're home buddies kind of people, but just going to the national park that's nearby or taking our kids every weekend somewhere close by, or even just a park that constitutes as travelling to that person. Because travelling has such a subjective definition in a world schooling perspective. 

It's really crossing borders. So one of the statements I used in the book as well is called Education Without Borders. So, really, world schooling is opening up the whole world because the whole world is not just a playground, and we hear that a lot. The world is my playground. The world is our classroom. So, in that essence, it challenges the parents or the caregivers of the child to become more intentional with the travelling that they are doing. 

Because you can go to one of the things that I did for my students in the brick-and-mortar school. We went to the nearby grocery store and each group of students were given a list of items to look for. And I just wanted to say – take note that my students are exceptional students. That term was previously known as special education students. So they do have learning difficulties and they have physical disabilities that make it more challenging for them, but it’s allowing them to navigate in that different world system or classroom. They have lists, they have to read through the list. They have to look for the items, they have to count the items. They have to make sure that the prices are right. They have to add, subtract… bringing all these academic standards into one activity is already meaningful. And making it experiential as part of their learning makes that concept of world schooling a part of the brick-and-mortar way of teaching. 

We just hopped onto the bus and went to the nearest grocery store, they were given an assignment, they had the test done. And you help them. You help these children become more confident and independent. Hey, I can do this. I don't believe that it's bounded completely. It's just making sure that education does not have borders.

Jessica Grace Coleman

I love that. I love the going out to the shop and that kind of thing, because again, it can be just… it doesn't mean anything if you're learning maths or whatever, looking at a textbook and not applying it to real-world things. And also, I like shopping, so that would have been really fun for me! You sound like a fun teacher. I would have loved lessons like that, honestly. Yeah, but you're right. It's such a confidence booster, especially if kids have anxiety or if they're not very confident in themselves, or if they've never been around a shop and had to ask for things or had to do things themselves. I can see how that would really help a lot of children when they're younger, and I think I could have done with that when I was younger myself. That's really cool.

Joahna Tupas 

I think you would enjoy one of the programs that we did have. I would partner with community establishments, and that's one of the things that's really important, especially if you are within the school system – a brick-and-mortar, traditional school system – if you're able to partner with community establishments, just the ones that are close by, at least. So there are two things that we did. 

One of them is called career transition. So there are some periods that I would take my seniors to this establishment and they would do some work there for 60 minutes, and then I'd pick them up and, before you know it, the year ended. And that person, mind you, like I said, they're exceptional students. Special education, learning disabilities, and difficulties physically… He got a job offer.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Oh, wow.

Joahna Tupas 

Because he was doing so well. He found his routine in it. He found his part. You don't really know what you're contributing for the child. At the end of the day, they can have so much competence. They're learning so much competence. But if they're not confident people, then that's a different story. If you're teaching confidence and you're teaching independence as the bottom line, you're basically giving them the world.

Jessica Grace Coleman

That's so cool, I love that. I love the job offer. That's amazing because, without that class, they might never have put themselves out there or even thought to go to this place, and it just never would have happened. They wouldn't have done that. So that's really cool. I love that. 

So, however you think of travel – because, you're right, it is so subjective, and I completely agree that you can travel half an hour away from your house and have a transformative travel experience… you don't have to go halfway around the world if you don't want to, or if you can't physically do it, or if you don't have the money or the time or whatever – so however you see travel, why do you think it can be so transformative? And how has travel transformed you personally, do you think?

Joahna Tupas 

That's a really good question. I think travel is not just nourishing; it revitalises not just your mind, but also your soul. There's something about being in a new place. You're discovering this place, the culture, and the surroundings, and what's available. There is also… you're discovering a part of yourself. I think all of us have in us a child that continues to be curious, that continues to desire to explore and discover and that continues to want to have experiences that mould and behold them. And travel does that. Even if it's just going to the nearby lake and sitting there for an hour, just quieting yourself and taking in all these majestic surroundings around you. It has a way of revitalising your mind and your soul and nourishing you in a way that when you come back into your world, you're just a different person. You're new, you've been renewed. I think that's a better term. And that in itself is transformative because it's just a refreshing thing to do. 

And, like I said, there's a child in each of us that is always curious, that is always exploring and discovering, and that always is thirsty for experiences that would mould and behold them. And that's the belief system of School in a Backpack. We wander. We're always curious. We wander with the A. We're always exploring and discovering and we wonder with the O, we're always experiencing, grand or small, these things that behold us. For me, how that's transformed me, I really love travel because it brings a form of newness. You realise that you're not this huge giant in your society or your world, that bubble. You're this very minuscule part of a vast universe that just completely amazes you and it brings you back down to Earth. It's such a humbling experience.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, obviously, there are people who are not into travelling at all and have no desire to do it, and they might never leave their hometown, and I just don't get how they can. You can't picture where you are in the world or how you relate to any of it if you have never seen outside your hometown. And I always think about that and how everyone says travel broadens your horizons and it's so true. But it does so much more than that in terms of how you relate to yourself and how you relate to yourself in the world. So, yeah, I think that's great. And I really like the term renew that you said about travel as well. I think that's such a good word to describe it. That's how I feel when I go travelling. I've been somewhere totally different, doing something totally, totally different to the norm. Renewed. It's a really good term.

Joahna Tupas 

Yeah. It's funny how in some places you participate in all these activities. You go to all these events and, for some reason, you come home and you feel spent. When you travel, you come home and you're like, oh, I can't wait for my next one. There was a time that I didn't even unpack my luggage. Like, oh, I'll bring the same luggage.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah! Okay. So I ask all my guests where their favourite place in the world is, and I usually say pick three, if they can't choose. But you were straight in there, when I asked you, with Hawaii. I’ve never been there, sadly, but it's definitely on my bucket list. It looks so beautiful. But why is Hawaii so amazing? And why do you love it so much?

Joahna Tupas 

Okay, so my country, the Philippines, is made up of 7107 plus islands. I mean, they've identified 7107, but there are more out there that need to be explored and discovered. And so we have a lot of islands, and our country is such a tropical country. And each island has their own identity. And so, migrating here in the US – and I haven't been home since 2017 – I miss home, and Hawaii reminds me so much of the Philippines. The culture, like, everybody's so warm and they're vibrant. The luaus are great. I mean, the food, the music, performances… and it's so chill. I just love how chill it is. The weather is almost similar. It's the humidity, terrain, and sunny, that kind of weather, that climate… it just brings me back home. And I had this really wonderful moment there… we're going through that question, right?

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, sure. You beat me to it! So, I talk about magical movie moments because I love that idea, and I think that the more you travel, the more you have and the more opportunity you have to experience them. So… I know you do, because you just said it… but what is your magical movie moment?

Joahna Tupas 

Oh, my gosh, I have a lot. Each travel, each destination, and each experience just has this moment where you are just completely amazed and it leaves you speechless and you're just trying to absorb it and the magnificence of it. But there's this particular moment in Hawaii. 

So, we spent 32 days in Hawaii – well, 30 days in Honolulu, and then we were going to fly back through with a layover in Maui, but by the grace of the Almighty, our flight was cancelled. So I had to be rebooked by the flight people, and they checked me into this wonderful hotel where the food is grown in their own garden. And they have this lawn and it's overlooking the ocean and it's on top of the hill, but it's overlooking the ocean and there's just this one chair. You know the movie Forrest Gump, right? Where he sits in a chair and he has his box of chocolates and he's absorbing the world. There's just this one bench. 

So, it was the day before we were flying. We stayed there for two days and we had lots of activities. And Sam and I went School in a Backpacking. We were waiting for our bus to arrive – it was going to arrive in an hour or two, so we were all packed up; we were checked out and all our stuff was at the front desk. And so I went towards the back, I sat on the bench. And I was playing music. My son is an audiophile, since he was in the womb. And so he laid his head on my thighs and he fell asleep with the music playing. And, just at that moment, everything was like movie magic. Like, I have this vast expanse overlooking the ocean and the trees, and the wind is just behind me, and this soft lullabyish kind of song – it was by The Beatles, by the way. Blackbird – so that was playing, it’s the instrumental version, and my son was sleeping there and I just wanted to stay there. It was wonderful. So I keep it in my heart, that moment.

Jessica Grace Coleman

That sounds so nice. I mean, you're totally selling Hawaii to me – not that I needed to be sold. But that moment sounds like you can just imagine it in a movie, like widescreen, with the music getting louder and the trees going…. oh my gosh. That's amazing. You painted a lovely picture there. That was so nice, thank you. 

So do you have anywhere left on your travel bucket list? Anywhere that you'd really like to go to that you've not been to yet?

Joahna Tupas 

I have a lot. Like I mentioned, I want to do a Euro trip, so that's one of the goals, to be able to go to Europe with my son and hit the places. I think we do have one planned in Greece pretty soon. I think in May also, I am speaking in some of the summits and conferences and tours. So I am looking forward to the one in UK. I already checked Hawaii because that's the one that’s been on my bucket list since I was a kid – I had this little poster that has the surfer girl and Hawaii. I do want to go to Japan.

Jessica Grace Coleman

That's high on my list as well.

Joahna Tupas 

Oh, and South Korea, too. Yes.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Nice. Yeah, I think we've got similar bucket lists!

Joahna Tupas 

Awesome. I mean, there are always so many places left to go, aren't there? I don't think we'll ever run out. Well, the world is our classroom.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so just quickly going back to the world schooling bit, do you have any tips or advice for any parents who maybe have not tried home schooling, world schooling, anything like that, and they want to, but then they're maybe doubting their ability or they don't know how to do it? Do you have any advice for them?

Joahna Tupas 

Oh, gosh, yes. Learning is fun. I think the best way to do it is to harness that child in you and just go out there. Go out there, pick a place. Or maybe if you have family members, put in places within your area. It could be as small as you want it to be. Put it in the jar. Pick a place for a weekend. Just go out there and explore and discover. Like I said, wander. Wander and wonder. Be curious. Explore and discover and let the experience behold and mould you.

Jessica Grace Coleman

I love that. And it can be, I imagine, as fun for the parents as it is for the children, if you're doing it right. Okay, so you mentioned schoolinabackpack.com. Where else can people find out about you? Do you have social media that you'd like to plug? I'll put everything in the show notes as well. But yeah, are there any particular places people should go?

Joahna Tupas 

Yes, so Facebook, we do have a Facebook page, School in a Backpack. We have Instagram, School in a Backpack. But, if you want to follow me, I also do have an Instagram, it's Jana E Tupas. So J-A-N-A-E-T-U-P-A-S. I also have a YouTube channel. So we have some of our curriculum from when we went virtual, I taped some of my stuff and just put it on there. So it's also J-A-N-A-E-T-U-P-A-S. So Jana E Tupas, that's on Instagram. That's on YouTube. And then on Instagram and Facebook, it’s School in a Backpack.

Jessica Grace Coleman

And is there anything else you'd like to talk about or plug or discuss before we go? Are there any other messages you have?

Joahna Tupas 

I did mention that we have the 2022 Traveling Teachers Summit. That's December 1 to 4. So if you can just google ‘2022 Traveling Teachers Summit’, that should take you to it.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Is that a virtual online summit?

Joahna Tupas 

Yes, it is a four-day virtual summit. You have amazing teachers over there. I am one of the presenters, but it's going to open your eyes to a whole new world of learning and teaching experiences. So, if you're an educator or parent that is curious about world schooling, home schooling, unschooling, earth schooling, road schooling, all these schoolings… and even if your child is attending a brick-and-mortar traditional school, there are just a lot of resources. There's also the World Schoolers book. Again, it’s Nomad Publishing. It'll be out by December 9, so you can go ahead and go to that website and make your order. It'll be really cool. We have a digital version and we have a paperback version. And then, if you are interested to join the School by the Shore comeback in 2023 – two months, five destinations in the Philippines – please visit schoolinabackpack.com. And, yeah, make sure to educate without borders.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Awesome. I love that you've got so many things going on and they all sound really fun, which, like you say, is what learning should all be about. So that's great. Okay, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot. So you did a great job, if that's the message you're spreading. 

Thank you so much and good luck with the book and everything else you're doing because it all sounds really great. And I'm not a parent, but I'm definitely going to be reading that book because it sounds so cool; I think it's great how you have perspectives from so many different people, I imagine, from different backgrounds and different countries and different things like that. So I think, even if you're not a parent, you'll be able to learn a lot. So everyone look out for that. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on!

Joahna Tupas 

Thank you, Jessica. It's been awesome.

Jessica Grace Coleman

Until next time, bye everyone – I'll catch you on the flip side.

Joahna Tupas 

Bye bye. 

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