When talking about foreign trips, most people tend to think of the foreign language department with their exchange student programs and visits. However, history teacher Stephen Scully is looking to change that.  School trips abroad can be a great opportunity to make classroom material relevant as they allow one to experience things that most people just sit an talk about in class. It can expand a student’s view of culture, and in doing so, increases their motivation and understanding of concepts.

Scully is no stranger to such foreign trips. In fact, he has been on multiple trips both in the the past four years at WA, but also back in his old school.

The first trip was to France and England, and that, Scully says was “moderately successful.” However, he says, the next year he brought a group of about 43 students to Poland, Germany and France. He believes that these trips really help bring the curriculum to life and into perspective. It’s one thing to be sitting in a classroom learning about the brutality of the world wars but it’s another thing to learn by actually visiting the battlefield and standing where our nations protectors once stood.

Scully believes that these trips can only enhance students’ learning and thus should be open to all, not only his classes.

Scully feels that continuing these trips will “provide opportunities for Westford kids.”

As far as planning and organization, Scully says that he has mostly gotten it down after running about 12 international trips. He tries to avoid major cities and places that have a recent history of terrorist attacks or danger in general. Scully also tries to focus more away from central Europe to other countries.

For example, looking ahead, Scully is planning to offer trips to places like Ireland and is especially looking forward to the upcoming Australia and New Zealand trip in June of 2018 to explore the idea of imperialism.

“While we are in each country we are going to look at the impact colonialism had on those countries,” he said.

When asked about the future of these trips, he says that as long as the trips continue to be successful and there is still student interest, they will keep going.