When Teachers Travel

Despite teaching summer school till the end of July, I think it is important for teachers to experience other cultures as part of our initiatives in Diversity and Multiculturalism and also our push to include more global education and global perspectives. Even Los Angeles offers so many global experiences in our backyard. 

But traveling in 2012 to the village in Nepal where I had taught in the Peace Corps right out of college reconnected me to my world perspective of living and teaching in a developing country. 

This summer in a whirlwind, I finished the last day of teaching summer school Chemistry and my daughter drove  me from Buckley to LAX so I could join my wife in walking around Dublin, seeing the James Joyce Museum and live Irish music (and a lot of Johnny Cash!). Afterwards, I visited my sister in Hannover, Germany then toured Berlin, Dresden, and the Moselle River.

Teachers traveling expands the perspective from the classroom and helps students see the world less as an object of study but more as a place to be explored. Immersive travel allows teachers to tell students about "perspective taking," meaning seeing the world from a different point of view, which both travel and education promote. Teachers see the world differently, communicate that to students, and travel or other out-of-the-box experiences are a catalyst to close the loop.