Why I Travel With Students: Authenticity and Empathy
Jenna Prest
There are so many reasons
that it’s worthwhile to travel, but I think if I boil it down it its essence,
for me, the true value is in authenticity and empathy. There is something about
the power a place has on you, whether immersing you in culture or history when
you’re there that is hard to recreate in a classroom.
On our Europe trip, Academy
students travel to many sites that played important roles in the first and
second world wars; we visit cemetaries that are the final resting places of so
many who died for their countries, and we travel through towns and countrysides
once ravaged by the destruction of war. I have been fortunate to experience
first-hand and witness in my students how a place can inspire a visceral and
deep response that allows for a deeper understanding of history and
humanity.
We stand in places like
Beaumont Hamel, where the Newfoundland Regiment fought during the tragic first
day of the Battle of the Sommes in 1916, and Vimy Ridge, where the young nation
of Canada forged an identity as a formidable opponent less than a year later.
We stand on Juno Beach in Normandy, stormed by Canadian troops on D-Day, the
turning point of the war in 1944. And we visit the Third Reich’s first
concentration camp, Dachau, where Hitler’s “final solution” was first carried
out. Though I have been to these sites numerous times now, their power does not
seem to diminish. They invite contemplation, engage the imagination, inspire a
complex range of emotions, and stand as a testament to the high price paid for
peace.
Especially now, in a
fast-paced world, full of distraction and division, taking the time and
opportunity to explore the past is more important than ever if we truly wish to
learn the lessons of it. In this way, we gain a more authentic understanding
and empathy for a time and place that is not our own. To travel with students
and be able to facilitate and witness this development in them is a privilege
not to be taken for granted and a worthwhile pursuit to continue.
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