For many years I’ve written about the key to getting the most out of miles and points is having some flexibility. If you can only take a certain flight on a specific day, you’ll take or leave what’s available. But if you can shift your plans and take advantage of the awards that are available, when they come up, you can get orders of magnitude greater value – business and first class for the same price as coach, international long haul for the same price as domestic.
That’s because airlines are often making seats available on points that they don’t expect to sell for cash. And these spare seats aren’t likely to be on offer when everyone else wants to travel. That’s one of the reasons I’m a huge fan of ‘shoulder season’ where it’s great to visit a destination but there aren’t as many people there. The visit is more enjoyable, and it’s much less expensive too.
We don’t talk enough about how much difficulty families with children have in making this happen. I have a daughter who is six now so it’s very much top of mind for me. Planning ahead, I can take time off from my day job. And as more or less a ‘knowledge worker’ I can work from anywhere. But schools have attendance requirements.
- Families should focus on programs that make award space available when their booking calendar opens, and especially airlines like British Airways which guarantee minimum availability at that time.
- And watch for availability ‘dumps’ and mistakes throughout the year, which are easier to take advantage of now that so many programs have eliminated change and cancel fees. When you see an award that might work with school holidays, grab it and think later if your points are in one of those programs. (Cancel fees really added up when multiplied out across a family.)
Many families just face the boot of the public school bureaucracy when they seek any flexibility at all for their travel.
The story of one father is being virally resurfaced in social media, for when he qualified for the Boston Marathon and let his kids’ school know months in advance that they were going to take the trip together as a family.
He received a nastygram back from the school after the trip that they do not “recognize family trips as an excused absence” and as such they’d be penalized for 3 unexcused absences and “accumulation of unexcused absences can result in a referral to our attendance officer and a subsequent notice of a violation of the compulsory school attendance law.”
The father wrote back:
Dear Madam Principal,
While I appreciate your concern for our children’s education, I can promise you they learned as much in the five days we were in Boston as they would in an entire year in school.
Our children had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one that can’t be duplicated in a classroom or read in a book.
In the three days of school they missed (which consisted of standardized testing that they could take any time), they learned about dedication, commitment, love, perseverance, overcoming adversity, civic pride, patriotism, American history, culinary arts, and physical education.
They watched their father overcome injury, bad weather, the death of a loved one, and many other obstacles to achieve an important personal goal. They also experienced first-hand the love and support of thousands of others cheering on people with a common goal.
At the marathon, they watched blind runners, runners, with prosthetic limbs and debilitating diseases, and people running to raise money for great causes run in the most prestigious and historic marathon in the world. They also paid tribute to the victims of senseless acts of terrorism and learned that no matter what evil may occur, terrorists cannot deter the American spirit.
These are things they won’t ever truly learn in the classroom.
In addition, our children walked the Freedom Trail, they visited the site of the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and the graves of several signers of the Declaration of Independence. These are things they WILL learn in school a year or more from now. So in actuality, our children are ahead of the game.
They also visited an aquarium, sampled great cuisine, and spent many hours of physical activity walking and swimming.
We appreciate the efforts of the wonderful teachers and staff and cherish the education they are receiving at Rydal Elementary School. We truly love our school. But I wouldn’t hesitate to pull them out of school again for an experience like the one they had this past week.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Michael Rossi
Father
The school district responded saying, though, that the most important thing for children to learn is rule-following.
I believe it is our job as parents to make sure that our children understand the importance of rules, that rules should be followed, and that there are consequences for breaking rules.
I suppose there’s some value in receiving the acculturation in rule-following necessary to become a salaryman: a loyal, white-collar employee of a big corporation (middle-class office worker). But this also has the school saying the quiet part out loud.
- One of the primary criticisms of public schools – and even many private schools – is the standardized curriculum. State curriculums have specific, uniform requirements, leaving little room for adaptation or innovation and that may not resonate with or represent the diverse student population, and that limits critical thinking and creativity. Indeed, here the school says that is the point, do not think for yourself follow the rules!
- The emphasis on conformity in public schools extends beyond the curriculum to the overall learning environment. Rigid classroom structures suppress individual expression and creativity. There’s too much “teaching to the test.” And public schools can also foster an environment of social conformity, leading to social exclusion and bullying.
- The truth is that the rules matter for the school. Since government funding for each school is usually based on an attendance formula, attendance is what matters. And what counts as attendance matters even more still.
- Meanwhile dumbing down the kids is a feature, not a bug. Kids who just sit there and are docile are easier for teachers to manage, and too many schools are run for the teachers rather than the kids (even as the teachers suffer from the conformity as well).
We need more travel where it’s possible, not less. And flexibility when you travel makes that possible, and makes that affordable, so that more people can do it.
We also need more families participating in life moments together, not fewer. From a public policy perspective, surely that’s an important goal that shouldn’t get lost in the funding formula – rules following rubric.
Build good relationships with your kids teachers, and their school administrators. Try to work with them to develop a plan that will allow travel beyond the school calendar’s explicit days off. Children will get more out of their social studies lessons if they’ve visited the places they’re ostensibly learning about. They’ll get more out of foreign language. They’ll have broader horizons that help them develop, and greater self-confidence. Surely that’s more valuable than the marginal day behind a desk in the classroom.