Eurotrip23 is Twelve Days Away

 

I was probably 17 when I first visited Europe. It was an exchange program organized by Saugus High School French Teacher, Madame Fitch. We spent two weeks outside of Paris and then three of us traveled to the German border for one more week.  The trip was transformative.  I learned a lot about myself walking the streets of Paris, but I also realized how much history I was experiencing.  That trip, among a few other things, really influenced my love of history.  It also made me realize that I had wasted some of my time at SHS. I hadn't really applied myself as much as I should have...I became a much better student when I returned to school for my senior year. 

When I started teaching at SHS, I had no idea that international travel, with students, might even be a possibility.  Our exchange program was a one off and, from what I remember, the School Committee was reluctant to endorse the trip.  Fast forward to the early 2000s and Mr. Fontanella decided to take kids to England. Senora Morando was taking kids to Italy.  I eventually hopped on to Font's Italy trip and then we went to Central Europe.  I think 2009 was the year I first led a trip...again to Central Europe. I was hooked.

This blog started in 2013...I can't believe that was a decade ago.  I wanted to find a way to communicate back home and let the parents and guardians of our kids know what we had been experiencing.  It stems from my own travels, where I would find an internet cafe and write to loved ones rather than finding a way to call home.  It was in the development of that 2013 trip that I first stumbled upon a moniker for my travel program. "One must travel to learn" is a quote from Mark Twain.  Kate Payne (now Cox) was our librarian at the time and she recommended it.  It was perfect. It spoke to how travel changed me and it inspires those who cannot physically travel to dream about their own experiences through ours.  I have no idea how many times I've written those words out, usually following a hashtag, but they are as true today as they were back ten years ago.

It is surreal to reflect back upon all of the different trips I've taken with Saugus High School students. We've shared so many amazing memories and have bonded in ways that are hard to describe.  Ten years ago, we were away when the Boston Marathon bombings took place. That same trip, our beloved drama teacher, Nancy Lemoine passed away.  The chaperons and I had to inform the kids, many of whom were Nancy's students.  We've crossed over the Mediterranean, climbed through the Alps, and survived the English Channel all more than once.  We've tried some amazingly delicious local cuisine and gagged on some local dishes that shall not be named.  In every experience, we learn.

The ability to travel on a trip like this is a privilege. I don't take that for granted.  We, as a school, have almost lost that ability several times over, but each time we've been confronted with the possibility of these trips ending, the community has risen to show that they also don't take the trips for granted.  In 2016, there was pressure to cancel our trip and end these trips for perpetuity.  Former travelers came in droves to speak their minds at several school committee meetings.  Their testimonies reaffirmed my belief that one must travel to learn. Many of those students had incorporated some type of travel into their post graduate professional life. I see many of them globetrotting still today through various social media posts.

Again, we almost lost this unique characteristic of our school when Covid-19 shut down the world. Sadly, more than a few Sachems lost that chance when we sheltered in place and restricted our movement. It pains me still that those kids were deprived of their chance to see the world, but our stories didn't end there.  Nope, not even in the least.

Two years ago, in the spring of 2021, when mask mandates were still in place and meetings were exclusively on Zoom, nearly thirty kids kept this program alive.  Their parents put their faith in me to lead us back overseas and into the world again. We had no idea if the world would be back open a year later, but it did.

While we masked more than we wanted to, we still made it happen.  We took Rome by storm on Easter weekend and walked the the streets of Paris during their national election.  We learned quick phrases in Italian and French...mostly asking for Gelato and other sweet treats. We smiled to those who couldn't understand us...and many of the kids inexplicably started speaking with a British accent as if that would make it easier for the French UberEats guy to understand where the hotel was located.  

In twelve days, we do it all again.  We are a group of 25 students and 4 teachers. We are headed back to Rome, but then we head to Florence, Austria, Munich, and Prague. I hope that this blog captures a fraction of the fun that we will have...that its readers feel as though they are learning while we travel. I hope to write many more entries into "Where in the World is Mr. Lavoie," but I know this for sure...in twelve days, I will be starting a whole new thread of memories with some familiar faces and some new...our smiles will tell the tale and so will this blog.

Thanks for reading for the past 10 years!!!

Mr. Lavoie, currently trying to figure out when is too early to start packing one's bags!!!