I grew up in the UK and I didn’t cross borders into another country until I was fourteen, on a school trip to France. Education has an important part to play in broadening the perspectives of young people. Many schools (including where I work) promote themselves on their international activities and relationships. Exchanges, trips and cross border projects and activities are all part of the packages that are offered. Internationalization in education is as important as it has ever been to broaden understanding and appreciation between different cultures and traditions.
Yet in this Covid influenced world (and in my own Anglo/Dutch Brexit influenced context) the challenge is just how to do this. We have school trips from the Netherlands over to the UK lightly pencilled in again for this school year. Whether these plans come to fruition remains to be seen. I’ve just made my own first trip across the North Sea for twenty months. The preparation and research of how to do the journey took me the best part of two days to finalize and has involved multiple forms and declarations and the booking of no fewer than three Covid tests for a four day visit. If things are still so complex when the time comes for our school trip, I can’t see how we will be able to organize things, not for the staff, and less still for the pupils.
Logistically, international school trips have always been complicated, but what is now required is of a completely new order, the travel landscape has changed. Where and how educational internationalization fits in to this, at a time when international cooperation and understanding is as important as it has ever been, is unclear and a massive challenge.
How can we give our pupils real international experiences and firsthand relationships when it is such a struggle to do it for ourselves as adults? The days of traveling with whole classes will surely return, but in the meantime can we afford to let the international component of our education slide amidst the rush to get our general education back up to speed after all the interruptions of the last 18 months?
There’s no quick fix here, but surely there are possibilities. Smaller, less ambition steps that, given time and the right structure, could develop real educational value. A few years ago, I worked on a modest border crossing photographic project that linked my pupils with a group in Finland to produce some collaborative work. I’m hoping to run a similar activity with others schools this year in a language/writing/painting and drawing project. I’m also pondering other creative projects that might link pupils’ drawings together and result in an internationally touring (amongst the schools involved) art exhibition.
These are in comparison with a full-blown week long exchange with a return visit later quite small gestures. But with the right framing they aren’t meaningless or without consequence. Our pupils need to see, understand and engage with the world beyond their own safe and familiar environments. We must find ways or edging them beyond their own little worlds, even in these Covid restricted days.
Peter Sansom 