Reflect – be – notice.   

Getting into the travel business from being an educator, designing learning journeys for young people, is part of the wondering I am doing. 

I am recognizing that as a teacher, my goal was to illicit curiosity and wonder from my students.  To allow them to make learning their own and not dictate what they are supposed to think.  I got to play and enjoy real time moments, the not knowing as invitations to discover.
I encouraged students to have an idea, to ask a question.  Many students who came to CELC  (CT Experiential Learning Center, a small by design middle school) from larger school settings were foreign to this concept of having and sharing one’s own ideas. We witnessed students who would sit in class waiting to be fed information – and when asked a question, reluctant to try, not sure of how …

 It took a while, longer for some than others but eventually, it was no longer an option – the try became the do and with this, self-competence and level of ownership of one’s learning.  From there, students began to soar.  

Having one’s own ideas and expressing them are where the discovery begins.  For middle school-aged students, it is the start to who they are becoming.

So much of school can be about to being told what to think or having to memorize information to know the answer for a test.  It is not that simple, yet lesson plans have an specific outcome in mind with not much wiggle room.  I am thinking about how this relates to designing travel experiences and where there is room or intentionally giving room, to wonder, to experience the unanticipated aspects and what relationship the traveler can have with the place and people.   

A “learning to learn” approach at CELC is about asking questions and considering what one does with that information?  How does it make meaning?  What new questions are asked? 

How does that relate to travel? What can be discovered from travel? 

Being away from the familiar brings an automatic newness; new thoughts, new sensations, smells, sights, sounds.  It awakens an ability to find a tap into new parts of oneself and that is a way to refresh, revitalize, come back to life!  I say, this is only part of the story. 

A practice I offer and can be nurtured is having travel mindset where each day is new, notice what can be noticed, whether awake to the usual surroundings at “home” or are on a journey to new places. 

A professor in my graduate studies once told our class, it is not about what you learn it is that you learn.  

More to explore here …  for now, go play!