3. Let's Get Started
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3.2 A Trip Tailor-Made for You
The two-week educational/cultural trip seems to be the most popular length with schools. Given a total of twelve days in Japan (two days lost for travel to Japan and back), the students will have enough time to sample traditional Japanese culture, visit historic, commercial and geographic sites, as well as visit schools and take part in a short-term home stay if arranged early enough. The itinerary will evolve once a school planning committee has been established and a reputable travel agency has been identified. Most itineraries tend to be organic and will evolve at the beginning of the planning stage, but it is important for the sake of the parents that a close approximation of the travel costs be determined earlier rather than later.
The short-term trip may provide the opportunity for the establishment of sister school relationships, which may lead to reciprocal one year student or teacher exchange programmes. Canadian students interested in the one-year exchange should consult with their guidance counselor to determine if some of the courses taken in the Japanese school will be granted a matching credit upon return. The home school usually has the latitude to issue open credits, although mandatory subjects may not have the same flexibility. Some students may opt to take a summer credit course prior to leaving to reduce the number of courses that they will need to make up upon return. Many boards of education offer Distance Education credits, but students are warned that this may be a heavy workload on top of the course demands of their host school.
Summer teacher study tours for educators are enjoyable and highly recommended. There is comfort in traveling with peers, and the time together allows for the sharing of classroom resources, discussion of pedagogy and exchange of observations. An additional project for consideration is the intensive summer credit courses. Some Canadian travel agents, in co-operation with local boards of education, offer a system-wide intensive summer credit course abroad that is usually of a three-week duration. Students will be gathered from within and outside the sponsoring board jurisdiction. In exchange for teaching the course, the teacher's flight and room and board are covered. Many teachers organize a series of pre-departure classes in order to free up more time for daily excursions. If there are no travel agents with such a summer programme available, perhaps you can take the initiative. You will require board approval to run the off-campus course and a host school that will allow you to use a classroom for three weeks.