Some of the most affecting and memorable experiences of a child’s school years happen on school trips and days spent outside of the classroom. Teachers are similarly aware of the educational value of these outings that allow pupils to not only experience some of the things described in their textbooks first-hand, but also to retain information in a fun, interactive and interesting way.
This is particularly true for a subject like History, which can easily become nothing more than a dry, rote list of facts and dates. Taking students on school trips and allowing them to look at some of the locations mentioned in their History books might help them get a feel for the location and mood of the events in question, helping with visualisation and subsequently absorption of the desired knowledge.
One of the fields of History in which this effect is more noticeable is, undoubtedly, that of wars and battles. Reading about these skirmishes in History books can, for some, already be exciting enough, but gazing upon the actual battlefields in which thousands, if not millions of men lost their lives is likely to have an impact on a whole different level, as far as experiences are concerned. Pupils are encouraged to gain an entirely new appreciation for the horrors of war.
Fortunately, teachers wishing to present their students with the opportunity to look upon an actual, historically famous battlefield have plenty of options to choose from, and most of which do not even require the class to leave Europe at all.
That is the case, for instance, with a number of World War I battlefields scattered around France and Belgium. Foremost among these is the spot on the shores of the river Somme where roughly one million men lost their lives in one of the bloodiest battles of that war. Paeschendale, in Belgium, is another historic WWI battlefield that teachers might want to touch upon when taking school trips to that region of Europe.
The First Great War is not, however, the only time period to have provided History with interesting and visit-worthy battlefields. Hastings, in England, was the setting of one of the most defining moments in British history, when William I successfully defeated the Normans in 1066 and invaded the country. Waterloo was the stage of another British triumph whereupon Napoleon surrendered, allowing for an extended period of peace in Europe. Overseas, the Alamo is another major tourist attraction, remembering an important date in early American history.
Any of these battlefields constitute excellent destinations to which teachers can take pupils on History-related school trips.