Travel Is About Learning

Welcome, June! It’s the beginning of summer and that means time off of school for my students. That also means that there is time for travel. Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

I like to encourage my students to travel. It opens their eyes and broadens their perspectives. Each year, I travel to New York City with my French Club students. We take the bus into the city bright and early on a Saturday morning. I plan some sort of excursion; a visit to a museum, a trip to Ground Zero. I believe that travel should be a learning experience.

But it’s the free-time events that offer the greatest learning experiences for my students. Typically we arrive in the city around 11:30 and my guided itinerary goes until about 2pm. It’s then that I totally lose my mind and offer them free time. Rules are they must be in groups of three or more and with a cell phone. On the bus ride to New York, I gather a list of who will be with whom and the number of a cell phone that will be with each group.

I instruct them about the numbered and lettered grid that is midtown Manhattan, and in Times Square, I set them free. Rules are no farther north than 52nd Street, no farther south than 40th Street. The eastern border is 5th Avenue and the border to the west is 8th Avenue. Then I sit and wait.

Sometimes there aren’t any calls at all. Sometimes I get a call that the group is lost. I tell them to walk to the next street corner and tell me what the road signs say. A short walk to the next intersection gives me a good idea of the direction in which they are headed, and I can guide them to the designated bus pick up.

During free time, they shop and eat. They watch the people and experience a city much larger than Thurmont! And they grow. My students learn that life outside their home town is different and exciting. Sometimes they will take souvenirs to family members, sometimes they’ll buy post cards. But they always take stories home. Stories about what they did and what they saw. They leave their little corner of the earth and return changed. Just like Mark Twain said.

Be sure to take some time this summer to travel and see how you will grow!


This blog post appeared as my June 3, 2012, column "The Empty Nest" in the Frederick News Post.