Why Travel Should Be Part of Any Curriculum

Teachers spend much of their time considering how they can make learning fun, memorable and impactful. Gone are the days of lecturing in front of a classroom of students who are falling asleep or passing notes. Today’s teachers spend hours—make that years—dreaming up ways to capture their students’ attention and show them the real-life applications of what they’re learning in class. They spend years at university learning how to help hard-to-reach students learn and studying in detail different pedagogies that have known success, as well as new research that seems promising.

Because, despite the difficulty and experiential nature of this often-thankless job, teachers are dedicated. It’s in their very nature to strive to have a lasting impact on their students.

So what if we told you that we know a sure-fire way to reach your students? What if we told you that we know a way to have an impact on every single one of your students? 

It is in fact a magical solution, because travel is a magical experience. As a student travel agency, we know firsthand how educational travel works. We’re experienced travelers ourselves; we’ve put together hundreds of thousands of itineraries; and, most importantly, we hear every day from adventurous teachers how their trip changed their students’ lives.

Consider this:

Scenario 1: You project a slide of the toucan. You talk about how the tropical forests of Central and South America are home to the toucan. You tell your students how the toucan beaks are unique, especially when playfully throwing fruit at each other. You ask them to get into groups and pick another exotic bird to do a report on, which they will present to the class in two weeks.

Scenario 2: After experiencing Costa Rica's glorious Poas volcano, you and your students make your way down to the La Paz Waterfall Gardens to experience more of nature's hidden treasures. This national park is home to much of Costa Rica's rich biodiversity and your students are excitingly shouting the names of each mammal, insect and bird they pass by. Once at the World Class Aviary, your students frolic around to gaze at the tropical birds they first saw in their textbooks, that are now right before their eyes. Years later, they will still remember this moment; in fact, they’ll write a college entrance essay about it that will demonstrate how much this particular learning experience impacted their lives.

That’s the amazing thing about educational travel: its multi-faceted approach is guaranteed to reach every student, at the right time and in the right place. It brings your students together like no other “group work” can. 

And the best part? All the advantages of educational travel, the investment of your time and dedication, are repaid many times over in what your students bring back to their classroom learning. All because you took the time to organize and lead an educational tour.

 

So while we hear every day from teachers who are so happy that they decided to travel with Prométour, we know that the “thanks” really belongs to them, and specifically to their dedication to having a lasting impact on their students’ lives.

 

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Vincent Guerineau

Vincent is a digital marketing specialist at Prométour. He loves all things travel - especially tasting local food - and strives to help teachers making the world their classroom.