Educational Travel: Interview with Mayta Ryn

To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: DOWNLOAD

Mayta Ryn is a secondary school teacher who has taken students overseas on five educational tours. CTM asked her some questions about her trips.

CTM: Why do you take students on educational tours?

Mayta: It is a richly rewarding experience for me and the students, and the tours give me a focus for my interest in seeing the world.

CTM: How many overseas trips have you taken with students?

Mayta: I’ve done five trips in the past five years.

CTM: Where have you gone?

Mayta:
2001 – Paris and Southern France
2002 – Rome, Florence, Venice, Pompei
2003 – Spain from Madrid to Morocco
2004 – London, Paris and Barcelona
2005 – Rome, Greece and Greek Isles

CTM: Do you have criteria in mind when you choose a destination?

Mayta: The most important considerations are interest to students and an affordable package.

CTM: Do curriculum considerations influence destination choices or activities?

Mayta: We would like that to be a consideration, but students often have other interests than curricular—like shopping—and these interests have to be addressed or you will not attract enough students to make the trip viable. We have as many as five trips going on in one school year at Ladysmith Secondary School (school population 850).

CTM: How many students and teachers generally go on your trips?

Mayta: We take students, teachers, educational assistants and parents varying in number from 9 to 45.

CTM: Do you take parents as adult supervisors?

Mayta: No, because it would be impossible to choose which parents should get a free trip without creating feelings of jealousy. Because this is supposed to be an educational experience, it is better to have educators as supervisors. It also allows you to spread the educational experience to other educators in your school to enrich the breadth of their knowledge and experience. We welcome parents on a paying basis so that they can share the educational experience with their children.

CTM: What is the optimal student age group or possible age range for tours?

Mayta: Our school is a secondary school so the students come from that age group. Students form smaller groups within the tour group based on age, gender and interests. We have taken students from Grades 8 to 12.

CTM: How far in advance to you begin planning and recruiting students?

Mayta: We begin over a year in advance, e.g., December 2006 for Spring Break 2008.

CTM: Do you buy insurance or do the travel providers take care of that?

Mayta: We have students buy insurance from BCAA because it is cheaper than the insurance that the travel providers sell and more reliable. For example, you can access medical care by calling in your medical number and payment is taken care of. You can get trapped with demands for money up front and reimbursement when you get home with other insurance providers. Another group from our school had a student slam his thumb in a car door in Egypt and everyone had to scramble to find $2000 American in cash before the doctor would look at him even though the student had insurance.

CTM: What would you say to teachers contemplating taking students overseas?

Mayta: Careful planning is necessary to ensure that all travellers enjoy themselves. Fortunately, companies exist that do much of the planning for you. The key to a successful educational trip is communication—communication with your travel provider, your students, their parents, fellow staff members, and school and district administration.

Communication with the travel provider will help you to customize the following options to suit your group:

• An itinerary that takes into consideration the ages and interests of your students.
• Tour guides that work well with young people and provide neither too much nor too little information.
• Departure dates and times that take students out of school for the minimum number of days possible and maximize the time spent travelling by arriving and leaving your destination at times that do not cut into touring.
• Hotels that are in good locations and provide adequate facilities.

The Internet gives you the ability to check your itinerary in detail by going online and looking at maps of routes you will be taking and getting a look inside accommodations. However, in maintaining a good relationship with your travel provider, you have to remember that you are not a travel consultant—you are an educator. Most of the planning is best left in the hands of the professionals.

Good communication with your students and their parents will ensure that you provide a trip that meets their expectations while maintaining safety and observing school board policies.

Finally, it is absolutely vital for teachers who are traveling with students to communicate openly with the administration of their school and district. Principals need to be aware that most educational travel companies provide a free trip for a supervisor with every six students. Any teacher who doesn’t take advantage of this provision is missing out on sharing a great educational opportunity with fellow professionals, and is courting disaster if something goes wrong and lack of supervision could be proven to be a contributing factor.

CTM: What is the biggest or most recurring problem you’ve experienced?

Mayta: Alcohol is always a major issue, and students and parents often suffer from misinformation about the subject of alcohol in foreign countries. I will always remember my first trip to France when many of the parents asked their children to bring back a bottle of wine for them. I had no idea that all this liquor was hidden in the students’ luggage until we got to Canadian customs in Vancouver International Airport and they discovered that, although they could buy liquor in Europe, they could not bring it into Canada. The subject of customs and laws about the drinking age in foreign countries as well as expectations for a school trip should always be discussed before leaving and enforced while travelling. In the years since my first trip, attitudes have changed from “what happens in Europe stays in Europe” to “school trips must be drug and alcohol free.”

CTM: Any further advice to people considering taking students on tours?

Mayta: Provide students with a card with the address of the hotel where they are staying in every place that they stay so that they can find their way back if they get lost. We lost a student in Paris at the base of the Eiffel Tower and, with the help of the card and some pick pockets who were his own age, he was waiting for us when we got back to the hotel.