Travel by Emma

Travel by Emma - July 2020 Scholarship Essay

I've spent 17 years in classrooms and not one of them was inspirational. A classroom doesn't necessarily need to be a room with four walls, it most certainly can be an idea that can be thought of abstractly. For true inspiration in education you need to get outside the classroom and see what is beyond the white walls and generic poster boards.
In a perfect world, students would travel to different states, landmarks and even countries to see about what they are learning about. I believe that when you see where something happened hundreds of years, or even a few decades ago, it makes much more of an impact on you. From study abroad experiences to field trips I believe people learn best through seeing and talking with people that have lived through certain experiences.
For example, if you are able to go to Mt. Etna in Sicily and learn about the worlds largest active volcano, I'm going to bet you are going to be more interested when you are standing right in front of it rather than reading similar information out of a textbook in your 11th grade science class.
No classroom will be perfect and fit the standards of everybody. However, I'm a strong believer in experiences out of the classroom and believe that it will allow students to retain information much better that out of a standardized classroom with four walls.