Teacher Tuesday: An Educational Tour Experience to Remember

Guest Post by Ingrid B.

In the summer of 2000, my husband Bob and I took a group of my students on an educational tour with Passports to England and France.  There had been several Passports tours before and since, but an event at the Hatfield House outside of London during the 2000 trip is a memory worth sharing.  At the Hatfield House, we were treated to a Medieval Banquet, complete with a queen, storytelling troubadours, ballad-singing minstrels, knaves and damsels, serving wenches and jesters. The jesters were pleased to converse with guests at the long banquet tables in the expansive wood-beamed and tapestried hall. At our table, flanked on all sides by my exuberant students, Bob and I were quickly singled out by a cunning jester. The ensuing conversation went something like this: 

Jester: Well, what have we here?

Me: My husband and I are on an educational tour with my students.

Jester: So! These are all your children? How many are there? Quite a few more than a dozen!  My, you must have been awfully busy! (with a smirk for Bob and a gleam in his eyes) 

At this point, Bob and I want to crawl under the table and my students are thoroughly enjoying our discomfiture. The jester then gleefully announces to the entire hall of two or three hundred other guests that Sir Robert is the father of numerous children. The queen is intrigued and summons Sir Robert to come forward.  After consulting with her courtiers, it is decided that Sir Robert should henceforth be known as “Sir Robert, Lord of the Bedchamber,” whereupon he is cloaked in a velvet cape and given some sort of headpiece and a scepter. The queen summarily knights him Sir Robert, Lord of the Bedchamber, and the great hall erupts with cheers and applause. 

Passports is an educational travel company that understands the importance of providing opportunities for students to explore a place in its cultural, and in this example, historical context. Whether you are looking to enhance your students’ experience in language, the arts, or history, Passports can help you design an educational tour to meet your objectives.

A final note: in addition to our amazing tour guide, we were accompanied that evening by one of the Passports representatives from the Spencer, MA office. She related the entire story to my coordinator at Passports, and from then on, in subsequent conversations, the two of them never failed to refer to Bob as “Sir Robert.”

Ingrid B. is a recently retired French teacher of 32 years and a recipient of the 2015 Kent County, Michigan, High School Teacher of the Year award.