Meet the Author - Presentation and Book Signing

The author of seven books, her newest being, The World is Our Classroom- How One Family Used Nature and Travel to Shape an Extraordinary Education, Skyhorse Publishing, NYC, will join the Towns County Chamber of Commerce and the Towns County Public Library for a presentation and book signing. Her book was released last fall and she is touring to share the book’s important and very inspirational messages- how she alternatively raised and educated her children using the whole and natural world.

Author  Cindy Ross says:
I have developed a unique and hugely successful learning style based on experiential education. While raising the poster children of “No Child Left Inside,” we have found a proven way to create lifelong learners, who possess the tools to not only successfully design a rewarding way to live and work but cultivate a deep desire to make the world a better place. For the past twenty-five years, I have penned over 1,000 magazine articles, many of them showing families how to get outdoors, (many of them on bikes), and learn from it. 

Families are being challenged like never before to raise happy, healthy children, and are competing with over-structured time, addiction to screens, childhood depression, opioid addiction, and on and on. The World is Our Classroom offers not only hope and inspiration for raising and educating a better way, but concrete examples of how to do it. 

In this age of world connection, it is important to raise broad-minded and empathetic children who are knowledgeable about other cultures. To accomplish this goal, we chose an unorthodox approach: we orchestrated learning opportunities for our children, Sierra and Bryce, in twelve countries. Our family traveled the world, moving about on foot and bicycle, living simply and intimately.

But just as important, and more accessible for many parents, were the opportunities for learning closer to home, as well as those provided by the natural world. These adventures brought intangible gifts: values such as compassion, empathy, self-reliance and appreciation, among others that are not always fostered in a traditional curriculum but crucially important to raising children.

Another important message is how time spent in the natural world away from screens, fosters creativity, as well as stewards for the planet. Our son, Bryce has become a successful freelance illustrator and shares his talents by illustrating The World is Our Classroom. Our daughter, Sierra, is a geographer/anthropologist, the winner of the National Science Foundation Grant and a Fulbright Fellow, who recently returned from the Indian Himalayas where she was doing research on climate change and artificial glaciers. She is employed by the Sierra Club in Virginia. 

By sharing my story, I aim to empower parents and grandparents to believe they can be their children’s best and most important educators and use cycling as a “classroom!”