E. Dominic Black

Mr. E. Dominic Black is an art teacher at San Dimas High School in San Dimas, California. Every summer, Dominic takes anywhere from 10 to 30+ people abroad, to visit European cities and also Japan. He has toured over a dozen countries with students and adult travelers since 2011. Dominic encourages his students to think globally, and advertises his trips for two years before going, encouraging as many students to go as possible, while keeping the prices low, and being available for questions and advice about the trips.

Why are you passionate about student travel?
Travel is the greatest teacher, and sharing the world’s treasures with young people has been a continuously life-affirming adventure. Travel can be exciting and invigorating for anyone, and being with young people when they see something new, like when we make the hike to see Sacré-Cœur in Paris, or when we walk into the Colosseum in Rome and they realize just how vast it is…when I get to experience those moments with students, again and again, it makes me believe in everything that I’m doing in creating travel opportunities for students. It’s all worth it to see their minds exploding with the newness.

What is a major highlight from any of your student travel experiences?

I like to utilize free time to get more experiences for my students. When we were in Madrid, the tour director planned to give us quite a bit of free time, so I took us out of the city, to nearby Segovia. We saw the aqueduct, the cathedral and the alcazar. When we were in Amsterdam, I hired a small van to drive us out of the city, to De Hoge Veluwe National Park. We rode free bikes, we had hot chocolate, and we went to the beautiful Kröller-Müller art museum, located within the Park. Some other tour highlights would be renewing our wedding vows in Greece with a bunch of awesome students who were the best wedding party ever, going to a sheep farm in Ireland, and seeing rich cultural shows that get the students up onstage, like in the Greek tavernas, and the Irish and flamenco shows…I love feeling that kind of energy. Hiking across beautiful bridges during misty mornings in Japan…and that beautiful fresh smell in the morning…I don’t know if we have that here. Sketching on location all over the world has been extremely enjoyable and memorable, as we created our own postcards. Painting in Plancoet, France, in a little public park complete with Lily pads and small stone cottages, and painting the Eiffel Tower in watercolors with students, while under the Eiffel Tower; all great memories.

What is the greatest lesson you or your students have learned from your trips?

I think the greatest lessons we’ve learned from the trips are about flexibility, understanding, cooperation and empathy. Seeing how people do things all over the world, we realize that the American way isn’t the only way. Once we figure out their system, it’s fine, and it’s great to live like a local. It is humbling to see that people do the same things all over the world, but maybe in slightly different ways. I think students also learn a great deal about flexibility and cooperation while on tour. They have to share rooms, often with people who might not be their closest friends, but they become friends very quickly. One of the great things about taking people on these trips, (I know it sounds cliché), is that we really do become like a family, because we’ve done that “crazy family vacation” together. I also have a lot of repeat travelers on these trips. I have some former travelers coming with us to Spain this summer, one of whom traveled with us to Spain in 2012 as a high school student. And now she’s bringing her husband with her. So it’s quite an adventure, and it goes on and on forever.

How do you try to tie your travel experiences back into the classroom?

I bring my travel experiences with students into my lessons quite a bit. For example, in talking about art from all over the world, it’s really easy to pull up pictures from actual museums in places that we’ve visited, to look at artwork where it was actually made. I also cover a lot about architecture and art styles using my images of world monuments as examples. I teach perspective using images from the tours, because it’s really easy to explain very complicated lessons in perspective drawing if you have some appealing photos to look at, and especially if your teacher has some kind of story for each one. To introduce many lessons about cultures of the world, I’ll put together a collection of images from a tour in a Google folder and share them. I use a lot of visual thinking strategies with these assignments: no right or wrong answers, just write three questions, or freewrite about something that you’ve found appealing from the images, which always include landscape vistas, people on tour, food, and culturally important moments.

Above all, I believe in the transformative ability of travel to inspire, educate, and empower students, shaping them into informed global citizens who are empathetic and equipped to make a positive impact on the world.

From the nominator:

What qualities make this nominee, both as an educator and travel leader, deserving of this award?

Dominic is always looking out for the safety and security of his student travelers, while continually making sure that they are enjoying themselves and learning a lot. When we were in London, a student realized she had lost her passport. After arranging it with the tour director, Dominic had the bus drop us off close to the American embassy there. Dominic had already researched its location, and also had the embassy phone number already stored in his phone. He had the TD drop us off to tour the Old Globe Theater area and have lunch, while he walked with the student to the embassy. Extra people are not allowed to enter, so after arranging for her to speak with someone and get a replacement passport, he waited for the student at a nearby café. When she was ready, he navigated both of them to the National Gallery in London, where we all met up again in front of some Impressionist works. He also got a haircut while he was waiting for the student at the embassy!