MEMBER SPOTLIGHT:
Natalie Buhl
West De Pere EA President, Natalie Buhl, embarked on a fantastic trip that took her high school students to Ireland and we got to chat with her about it!
You took 16 high school students from West De Pere to Ireland for 7 days! How did you do it!?!
I travel with EF Tours, a travel company that focuses on educational trips for high school (and middle school) students. They plan everything! The itinerary, the hotel bookings, the local tours, the coach bus, the flight -- all I have to do is bring the students. EF has a 6:1 ratio for students to chaperones, so for a group of 16 students, I had two extra chaperones from my school to help.
Do you plan international trips for students often?
This was my second trip with EF. In 2019, I took students to Iceland. That was amazing! Now that international travel is open again, I'm aiming for every other summer. Another teacher in my district is doing the opposite summers so that we can offer a trip every year. She's taking students to Italy in 2023.
Why Ireland?
EF Tours has trips in so many countries -- some trips focus on STEM, some on language immersion, some on agriculture, some on culinary arts -- I'm an active person, so I look for trips that have a lot of outdoor adventuring. And the price for the Ireland trip was something I figured families could afford; the trips to Australia and Asian countries are a bit more, probably because of the flights.
What was your takeaway of immersing yourself in Irish culture?
I learned so much about Irish history and the political issues in Northern Ireland, specifically. Our local guides in Derry and Belfast did an amazing job of putting the conflict in perspective. Many of the adults living in Northern Ireland today experienced those conflicts personally, so they still carry some emotional baggage from that. But the younger generation has only known peace in their country, so the hope in moving beyond the pain comes from them. Isn't that true everywhere? We put our hope in the children.
What were your destinations?
We flew into Dublin, then traveled west to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, up to the Castlebar region, to Derry, the Giant's Causeway, to Belfast, and then back to Dublin. Seven days was just long enough!
What do you feel meant the most to students?
I love watching the students on these trips. They begin a little anxious, clinging a bit to me and the other adults. But slowly, they begin to gain confidence, and they wander off during our free time (always with a buddy!) to explore on their own. That sense of independence and confidence -- that they can navigate foreign places on their own -- that is so powerful! On the way home, I made them lead us through the airports, reading their tickets and finding our gates. My hope is that they begin to see themselves as world travelers, capable of doing a trip like this on their own some day.
What is your favorite memory from the trip?
Aside from moments where I watched the students gain confidence and start to trek out on their own, one of my favorite places was the Giant's Causeway. On its own, it's just a beautiful place, and I love learning the geology of how it came to be: ancient volcanic fissures that cooled into hexagonal basalt columns. There are similar columns in California, in Scotland, in Iceland, and in several other places on the planet. That's really powerful, to me, in a symbolic way: that even though we are miles and miles apart from other countries, we are all together on this big, beautiful planet.
