Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Make Our Teens Travel

One of the challenges in a country as large as Canada is that often people in different parts of the country have little or no understanding of the rest of the country. WHile it is easy to believe that there are some people who never leave their home town or province, it is an oddity that many Canadians have been to other countries more often than to other provinces in Canada.

With that in mind I posted this thread on WonderCafe

I have a theory. I propose that the country would be healthier if EVERY student in every province were required to travel from Atlantic to Pacific (or vice versa) by land as a part of their high school diploma. The trip should take long enough that they get out at various places to get a sense of the physical and/or cultural geography. And as a base requirement for graduation it needs to be funded to a certain base level by the province (with the ability for students to fundraise/bring money for extras).

THink it would fly???

I suspect the same could be said for the US.

3 comments:

  1. this sounds great! i took two round country/cross country trips (actually the first time including saskatchewan to bc in my loop) in late college and in seminary years. it opened my mind in so many powerful ways. i think it's pretty sweet that by the age of 30 i have been to all of the 48 continental u.s. states and 5 Canadian provinces. and i feel that way not just for all the refrigerator magnets i've accumulated, but for the realization i came to that states/regions i had written off as not being worth attention or care held true beauty and real people, and deserved love and respect.

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  2. Katimavik and the CYC were efforts to do that very thing.

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  3. what a great idea- us Europeans would benefit from a similar exercise I think- even England and Scotland are different... it is easy to become insular, this would stretch boundaries.

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