Colleen Crana
“Cultural immersion through experiential learning is a motivation for students to see firsthand how we use the language,” Field French teacher Ermira Elmazaj believes. Elmazaj, a seasoned international traveler and impressive polyglot, recently traveled to Spain with a group of advanced Spanish students as a part of the World Cultures in Spain travel Intersession group. The group visited famous museums such as El Museo Nacional del Prado, they cooked native foods like gazpacho, and toured historic cities and cathedrals, to name just a few of the cultural experiences they had abroad, capping off a semester-long elective dedicated to the cultural and religious history of the nation.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Field’s travel opportunities to take a pause. Yet, this lull in off campus learning provided time to evolve the program. “Before the pandemic I had to plan everything on my own,” Elmazaj remembers. The sheer number of details involved in domestic, let alone international, travel is just “too much for one teacher to handle,” she says. This year, however, Field has opted to utilize a third party travel planner: WorldStrides Educational Travel & Educational Tours Abroad. WorldStrides has offered international tours for high school groups for over 55 years, providing Elmazaj with some peace of mind knowing there was support for the detailed planning necessary for these trips.
The prospect of international travel was enticing for many students. However, there were a few stipulations to ensure a fulfilling experience for all involved. Students were required to be currently enrolled in Advanced Spanish IV or higher and commit to engaging in a semester long elective course to prepare. This provided a bit of frustration for students, particularly for those in the French and Latin programs.
“One of the main reasons I wanted to go to The Field School in the first place was the language trips,” Senior Emma Pardo says. “My freshman year I was understanding about the lack of trips because of the pandemic,” Pardo remembers, but even she grew tired of the lack of opportunities for the French students. Pardo herself is a native Spanish speaker and a lover of international travel, so faced with the notion of missing out on an international experience in all of her time at Field, she went to the language department to see if there could be an exception made. “I tried to ask my language teacher and administration if I could at least go on the Spanish trip as a native Spanish speaker,” Pardo shares, but the administration remained firm in their eligibility rules.
Elmazaj recognizes the importance of equitably offering language students opportunities to travel abroad, and ultimately she believes the new rotation of trips will best serve students: “we used to have a three year rotation of trips for the Latin, Spanish, and French departments, but now without Latin, and with a greater number of students in the Spanish department, it makes the most sense to offer two Spanish trips and one French trip every rotation,” she says.
The students who found themself eligible for the international offering this year reveled in the opportunity. Junior Ben Briggs remembers his particular excitement to apply for the trip, as he “wanted to expand on my spanish speaking capabilities, learn about a new culture, and see the art and beauty of Spain.”
El Palacio Real de Madrid captures the attention of tourists as a powerful symbol of the cultural, architectural, and artistic history of the city- a necessary stop for anyone looking to immerse themselves in the richness of Spanish culture.
One of Briggs’ favorite memories from the trip included a trip to El Museo Nacional del Prado where he had the opportunity to see a Diego Velazquez work entitled Las Meninas. This painting is of particular interest to him, as in his Advanced Spanish class he spent a large chunk of the first semester studying this very painting. Really, “it was just incredible to be able to actually see it in real life,” he exclaims.
Briggs is in a unique position to recount his experiences with this trip to Spain as he also took part in the service learning trip to Puerto Rico the year prior. “Last year was more service intensive work while this was more informative and a learning experience in a different way,” he notes about the main differences in the trip. While Spain offered an abundance of historic learning opportunities, Briggs is quick to note that “I felt like I really made an impact in Puerto Rico, while in Spain I was more of a student and tourist.”
Students often struggle with the Intersession process– deciding whether to embark on an internship or on a trip. There are few high schools in the area that allow all students, not just a particular grade, to have an opportunity to seek internships and begin establishing important connections and networks early on in their high school career. However, Briggs believes that “it is so important to travel the world when you can, especially when you’re young. I may never have an opportunity to travel abroad again, but I will be able to get an internship in the future, so it was really important to me to take this opportunity I had.”
International travel at Field has evolved significantly in the past few years, but the interest in opportunities to experience education outside of the classroom has not dwindled. Next year, the French department can look forward to their first trip since the pandemic, and the Spanish department can take advantage of this time to thoughtfully plan their next outing. Travel education is a pillar of any Field students education, so hopefully with the development of the new rotation of trip offerings each and every student at Field will have an opportunity to go abroad.