Travel as Teacher
School is out for the summer, and there is a massive movement of people heading out on vacations all over the world…especially teachers!
Travel is one of the greatest teachers there is.
I never traveled until I was eighteen-years-old, which is hard to believe in this day and age.
No, I didn’t grow up in the Stone Age when travel consisted of putting one foot in front of the other. Ha!
However, I did travel the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which was one of the greatest and most life changing experiences of my life.
It was basically putting one foot in front of the other.
BUT…it was also about getting out of my head, out of fear and into faith and believing in myself….that I could figure things out and overcome all obstacles.
I once read that travel does that, and that is why so many people love to travel and do so often.
It makes us use all our senses to live in the present moment in order to take in all the sights, sounds, sensations, emotions, etc. and to experience life to its fullest.
So, how does that work? AND more importantly, do I have to travel far or internationally or even physically to have this life experience?
Of course, as a language teacher, I am a big fan of travel internationally in order to experience and learn more about culture and language.
That kind of travel has taught me a lot, both personally and professionally.
But it is costly, and I have been fortunate enough to take student groups abroad and share this travel with them as a sort of second line of “teacher”.
They learn so much more from these experiences than I could ever have taught them in the classroom and from a book.
A lot of teachers travel during the summer in order to learn and gain more experiences that they can then use as resources and as inspiration for lessons in order to pass this knowledge on to their students and broaden their horizons, so to speak.
But what if one can’t afford to travel far or have no one to go with or no resources to do so?
We can travel in other ways, which clearly is not as effective.
However, and more importantly, perhaps taking advantage of the opportunity to travel in our minds and in our souls…to experience and learn more about ourselves…is the more important lesson and the real teacher.
For example, on the Camino, I met a lady who was really lost in life and miserable.
One night, in the middle of the night, she came across the movie The Way, which is about the experiences and both the inner and outer landscapes of four pilgrims walking the Camino.
She felt the connection. She longed for similar experiences…to get out into Nature. To walk more. To meet more people. To find herself again.
So, she saved and saved until she was able to finally TRAVEL to Spain and start walking the Camino. It was life-changing, as it was for me.
What about books, especially adventure books that travel to faraway lands or even just travel to our inner dimension and get us in touch with our feelings?
LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow encouraged children to do this:
Butterfly in the sky
I can go twice as high
Take a look
It’s in a book
A reading rainbow
I can go anywhere
Friends to know
And ways to grow
A reading rainbow
I can be anything
Take a look
It’s in a book
A reading rainbow (A reading rainbow)
A reading rainbow (A reading rainbow, a reading rainbow) (credit Reading Rainbow)
We can travel in our minds through meditation or yoga or tai chi or forest sound baths and visualizations. I actually do this with students and teachers in workshops using a scenic picture and asking them to close their eyes and imagine they are there.
Next, I ask them to describe what they see in the picture and how that makes them feel. Then, we go bigger picture, and we talk about where that place is, how to get there, what would we say when we get there, who would we meet, what would we do?
Check out some of the resources I have here for these kinds of “spirit/soul” travel experiences.
So, this summer, I hope you are able to travel somewhere and somehow in order to tap into your inner and outer landscape of life experiences and grow from there because travel truly is the greatest teacher!
Perhaps you would like to travel to Spain on the Camino by reading my book, Learning Lessons.
It is available on Amazon, B&N, BAM and all other major booksellers. I hope you check it out!
Image credit:
“Globe-Map-Suitcase-Travel-1800×2880” by Will Spark is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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