The Teacher as Tour Guide

WorldStrides calls their tour guides/directors "course leaders." At first I thought that was a bit presumptuous, but after completing a number of tours for them I appreciate the moniker. The more I use my teaching skills as a tour director, the better the experience.

Lesson One: Children need recess. What senior, let alone 8th grader, wants to listen to commentary and walk through memorials and museums all day for three to six days? They need to run around and play. There is always a place to play -- Mount Vernon (peek-a-boo at the Ha Ha wall and rolling down the lawn), climbing on Einstein (even if the guards at the National Academy of Science wishes you didn't), taking pictures with Alice in Central Park. Bring a frisbee on the bus and let the kids play on the mall. The few minutes of recess, just like in school, will allow the kids to enjoy the tour and help them focus.

Lesson Two: Students learn more when they are involved. Touring is the ultimate experiential education, but when we get them on the coach we can't stop involving them in the learning process. What do they know? What do they want to know? I was anxious about the ride up Embassy Row. I know the main embassies -- Great Britain, Japan, and the glass house that Finland built -- but, unlike Tim, I cannot name them all. I tell the students I don't know them all, so we are going to make it a contest. When they recognize a flag or can read the plaque they should call out the name of the embassy. Now, everyone is looking! Of course, understanding what an embassy is and hearing stories or legends such as the one about the gold hidden in the side portal of the former Walsh residence, now home to the Indonesian Embassy, is more important than naming each and every building, however impressive that is!

Lesson Three: Good tour directors, like good teachers, share and steal. On my last tour I was working with another DC guide with a background in military history, something I know very little about. I was quite impressed watching him do a lesson on the Tuskegee airmen using his students as models of airmen to demonstrate how successful these flyers were. I also stole an idea: at the Supreme Court we chose four students to argue a case; I chose to have them argue for or against year-round schooling. (Be sure to chose something that interests students.) Three students served as Supreme Court Justices. For one minute, each student argued his or her case, and the court made a decision. Now these students could go home and say they argued in front of the Supreme Court! (Thank you, John McCaskill!)

Of course, we still have to make sure the coach driver knows where he or she is going. (I sure do appreciate the local drivers.) We have to wait on line for tickets, and we have to make phone calls to get extra tickets when we don't have enough for all of the students. We need to make sure we have the same number of students at the end of each visit as we did when we started. We have to make sure that the students leave room for others to pass, and we do want to share the essential knowledge of the sites. But, the most important lesson I have learned is that if I focus on the kids and making sure they are involved and having a good time the students will learn. The tour director becomes a "course leader."