By Kim McDarison
It’s not uncommon for high school students to organize through a club or teacher and travel abroad.
In July, 10 travelers from Fort Atkinson High School, including students of business education teacher Nate Daniels, organized and took a trip to Ireland.
A story by Miki Tanikawa, published in 2023 in U.S. News and World Report, addresses the topic of students traveling abroad and its associated benefits, albeit from a perspective of college-aged students.
Within the story, Nick Gozik, dean of global education at Elon University was quoted as saying: “It is difficult to imagine that a college graduate will not need the skills gained through study abroad and other global experiences.”
The story noted his citation of various professionals, from teachers to scientists, who would likely benefit from an ability to “navigate difference and work with people from other cultures and backgrounds.”
The full U.S. News and World Report story is here: https://www.usnews.com/education/articles/how-study-abroad-can-benefit-college-students.
Recently, Daniels offered an overview of the 10-day trip he and his students took, during which they visited such places as Dublin, Galway, Killarney, Cork, and Belfast, among others, he said.
In a news release, the teacher wrote: “While on the trip, (students) saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral, experienced the EPIC Emigration Museum, participated in an Irish song and dance, took in the beautiful Cliffs of Moher, and saw a sheepdog demonstration. Everyone even kissed the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle and climbed over the different levels of the Giant’s Causeway. It was truly beautiful and the food was amazing.”
The opportunity, he wrote, offered his students a chance to “experience things they never could back home. They pushed themselves as young adults, venturing out on their own without some of their parents. This group of students really came together to learn, and grew as a team.”
Elaborating on the value of the experience, Daniels wrote: “It is amazing seeing students’ eyes open wide when they take in a sight that they have only seen in their textbooks or movies. They learn so much about being self-reliant and independent, while still in a controlled environment. Some also come to love traveling. I’ve had travelers that have gone on multiple trips with me and some that are now going on their own. A few even plan to study abroad during college. Every year I’m super impressed with the students.”
Several of the students, too, wrote to Fort Atkinson Online about their experience abroad.
High school senior Mackenzie Cramlet said that following graduation, she plans to attend the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she will study secondary school education and biology, with an emphasis on environmental studies. She also will minor in technical theatre, she said, and seek a certification in LGBT studies.
“I chose to take the trip because I have always wanted to travel to Ireland. My ancestry comes from Ireland, as I am 27% Irish. There were so many places on the trip that looked interesting and that I wanted to visit. Ireland seems to be a place that is all green and that definitely was true. I also wanted to go because my mom wanted to go, and so we ended up going on the trip together,” Cramlet wrote.
While in Ireland, she said that one of the activities that impacted her was visiting the Cliffs of Moher.
“It has a special place in my heart as some of Harry Potter was filmed there and I am a huge ‘Potterhead.’ I also got to spend some family time with my mom there, who is also a huge Potterhead,” she stated.
She also enjoyed “getting to see where the Titanic was built,” she noted, adding: “It was cool to see a huge part of history that everyone knows and I got to stand there.”
When asked how she felt the trip most benefited her, she wrote: “I feel going abroad as a student shaped me by opening my eyes to the differences that other places in the world have. There are foods — like fish and chips — that are regular foods there, and how shops close at 6 p.m., which is weird for us in the U.S. I also really appreciated the scenery and how clean everything was there, which I would love to go see someday in other countries.”
Oisin Riedlinger, also a senior, said he plans, following graduation, to go to a four-year college to study English or theater. Whether that school will be in Wisconsin or out of state, he wrote, is still being determined, but he noted: “I look forward to expanding my horizon and broadening my experiences in the world.”
Riedlinger said he wanted to go on the trip to Ireland because he enjoyed a previous experience, traveling with classmates across England, and spending some time in France.
He wrote: “There is nothing equivalent to the experiences and bonds that you can make on a trip like this, as far as high school experiences go anyway. Not everyone gets the chance to travel to another country, let alone another continent, so being able to enrich myself with an opportunity that few people get is an experience that I simply couldn’t pass on. Plus, having ancestors that traveled to the U.S. from Ireland — along with the fact that I’m named after a character from Irish mythology — I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland and learn more about my family’s history.”
So many things impacted him on the trip, he noted, and while he found the country “incredibly beautiful,” he also said the long bus trips, driving from location to location, “made the trip a bit boring at times.”
Overall, he said, he liked best the opportunity to “make connections with people,” whom, he said, without the trip, “I likely would never have met, let alone knew existed.”
Further, he said, the trip drew him closer to his classmates who also made the trip.
Considering how the trip may have changed his world view, he said: “Traveling abroad, in general, helps shape my view of the world. It’s easy nowadays for people, myself included, to be so caught up in the news and just go: ‘They’re over in “X” country, that’s so far away,’ and we just leave it at that. But having gone abroad, it’s much easier to contextualize some of the things that I learn about both in a classroom setting and just over the news. This also helps me bring more depth when debating as part of the Fort Atkinson Debate Team that we have at the high school; the higher understanding of how the world works and how the world looks elsewhere definitely helps to inform my life and my ability to articulate different arguments about things that affect different people.”
High School sophomore Vianika Martinez said she one day hopes to go to school in another state, perhaps someplace warm. She plans on seeking a degree in medical sonography, she wrote.
She chose to go on the trip to Ireland, she stated, because she wanted to experience another country’s culture.
To that end, she wrote: “Just walking around the cities and exploring was personally my favorite way to get to see how people lived and overall just about their culture because I got to see what they did in their daily life.”
She added: “I believe traveling and seeing the way other countries run and how people live in these countries truly does shape you as a person. I say this because you get to compare the way you live back home to the way they live in their countries. Not only that, but you also get to come back home and share what you experienced with your family and friends.”
Another sophomore, Drake Pennell, summed it up this way: “I wanted to see another country as I’ve never been out of the USA. The thing that impacted me the most was being in a place where no one knew who I was and I wasn’t always worried about what people think,” and, he added: “It does change how I view the world because I’ve seen that the world is bigger than the USA.”
Daniels said he plans to continue to help organize trips for students who would like to go abroad.
This upcoming summer, he said, the high school will organize a trip to the Alps and the Mediterranean coast, and in 2026, plans call for a trip to Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Information, he said, will soon be made available to families.
Evan Jensen, from left, Autumn Harden, DJ Young, Drake Pennell, Oisin Riedlinger, Nikki Dingman, Mackenzie Cramlet, Jessica Turner, Nate Daniels, and Vianika Martinez gather in front of Castle Blarney in Ireland. The travelers made the journey in July. Students recently shared with Fort Atkinson Online their impressions of the trip. Daniels, who is a business education teacher at Fort Atkinson High School, said additional trips offering students a chance to travel abroad are in the planning stages. Contributed photo.
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