As I waded knee deep on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, NAHS students hopped and tiptoed straight into that frigid water.  They collected some of the smooth rocks, not sand, from the shoreline and stayed in the water till the sun went down.  This singular episode is representative of the entire trip.  The students embraced the opportunity to travel to a new country, speak a different language, and navigate a different culture and land with wide open arms.

Trevor Noah, the South African born comedian who now hosts The Daily Show, advises, “One thing you will never waste your money on is traveling the world.”  He goes on to say, “traveling is the antidote to ignorance.”  After returning from a long-awaited trip to Europe these words resonated with me in a way they would not have in years prior.

In June, I had the unique opportunity to do something that I had shied away from in my high school and college years: traveling abroad. In my younger days, I had justified my choices with lack of finances, but I failed to realize what I might have gained from a venture out of the familiar zone I knew as a Pennsylvania native.  All that I had failed to realize then, these sixteen students and their families have already recognized: traveling abroad expands one’s understanding of others and of themselves in ways that simply cannot be done on home soil.

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The ten days we spent traveling through France and Italy were full of more information than I could retain, but the most profound lessons I took away were not of historical facts and stories.  Instead it was what I observed in the students and fellow chaperones who accompanied me.  Upon meeting at the Philadelphia International Airport, most students seemed timid and postured with somewhat closed, nervous body language.  They stood feet away from each other with new passports in hand ready for their first stamps. They examined the sky, phone, fingernails, and luggage all in an effort to avoid eye contact with other students in our group.  Fast forward 24 hours to the Paris subway where our tour guide encouraged tight, close “European space” for the purposes of safety and hearing her directions, the students began to drop their guard and leave their sensitivities of “American space” behind.

By two days into the trip, these same students were animatedly talking together or sleeping on a new friend’s shoulder between tour stops.  Perhaps this comes from the fact that they were forced to be roommates with otherwise strangers for days at a time, or the realization that when navigating another culture and language in a foreign country it is helpful to have some comrades.  Whatever the case, they bonded in a way that could not have happened organically at home.

Our student travelers were more engaged over the course of ten days than some of the same students manage within a 43-minute class period.  As a teacher, I immediately started to analyze why but the answer was obvious: it is more difficult to ignore an environment which surrounds you than close a book or tune out a singular voice of a teacher.  While there was some free time, the students knew they had signed up for an educational trip and they showed enthusiasm and stamina that I wish I could bottle and inject when lassitude hits.  At times they were literally in the face of a tour guide trying to absorb the next story of why the Queen eventually closed her bedroom door at Versailles or the reason the Eiffel Tower was called “the Big Ear” during World War I. They lit up with questions for our tour guides and listened intently for the next nugget of knowledge they could look at, touch, or explore.

This trip was no easy feat either.  Madame Shahin, who has been planning trips abroad for students for approximately six years has taken three trips and around 45 students, plus some faculty and parents. During our trip Madame Sewell was learning the ropes of being head chaperone from Madame Shahin so she can start leading trips in coming summers.  

Not surprisingly, our Spanish teachers were on a venture of their own with another group. While we were visiting France and Italy Senorita Garman and Senorita Torres were escorting a slightly smaller group of students through Spain, France, and Italy.  This was the second planned trip for our Spanish-teacher duo over the past three years.  

Fortunately, the Language Department is currently recruiting students for more this summer’s trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua and another through France and Spain.  The teachers of the language department have been working with EF tours (www.eftours.com) consistently to plan adventures that will expand students’ knowledge of the world, strengthen their cultural proficiency skills, and enhance their self-confidence. For a department who has undergone a large transition in losing German a few years ago, to gaining six new teachers within the same amount of years, this is a somewhat unsung success at NAHS.   Still our world language teachers, fueled by their intrinsic love of traveling and learning, continue to present our students with these awesome opportunities.