Student Travel

Is Travel Unsafe for Students?

The images of the Japanese triple disaster recently played across the television screens and the world was collectively horrified. If people weren’t crushed by falling buildings during the earthquake and the numerous aftershocks, if they weren’t drowned by the ensuing tsunami that tore buildings from their foundations and tossed cars and boats upon crashing relentless waves, then they may have been forced to flee under the threat of nuclear fallout from the exploding reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. For 43 students from a private school in Toronto who were traveling to Japan for a 10-day excursion, the disaster was more excitement than they had expected on a school field trip. Their plane was in the air prepared to land in Tokyo when the disaster struck. Fortunately for them, time allowed for the plane to be safely diverted to a military base for landing.


It is not the first occasion that students have narrowly escaped death on a school trip. In February of 2010, 48 Canadian students expected to learn first hand how to sail a tall ship to an exotic port. Instead they struggled to survive the shipwreck of the Concordia off the coast of Brazil. Rescue did not arrive for nearly two days.

Schools offer travel packages hoping that students can be part of an exciting adventure that broadens their life experience, teaches them about different cultures, expands their knowledge of new places and helps them connect globally. Parents and guardians try to ensure that trips are safe; however, all the careful planning and preliminary precautions cannot guarantee that things won’t change in an instant. The weather can produce a storm powerful enough to sink a tall ship, or nature can unleash an earthquake that kills thousands within the space of a few minutes. Does that mean that schools should never allow students to explore their world? Is travel too unpredictable to trust our children to?

When the television show W5 interviewed the survivors of the Concordia, the producer Gary Dwyer-Joyce said, “As the interviews progressed, Sandie Rinaldo gently led the students through the stories of the worst moments in their lives. Off camera, even with tasks to take care of, the rest of us were mesmerized by the images these students dredged from memory. No pictures, no sound, no recreation could portray it more effectively than the intensity of their words.”


Of course if all things go well, a trip is equated with happy memories, but I believe that travel is constructive even under stressful circumstances. Perhaps a student’s greatest lesson is that life is unpredictable. Strength of character shines the brightest in moments of adversity and people often learn the most about themselves in situations that test their endurance. No one would choose to see young people subjected to the terrors like the tsunami in Japan, or the sinking of the Concordia, but what these students have come away with may be lessons that are more life-changing and valuable than those that any uneventful travel experience could ever teach.