Craig Howat is a hotel, restaurant and tourism teacher at the Satellite Center in Luling, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans.
Howat has been teaching for more than 25 years, giving his students a hands-on experience by traveling to hotels, restaurants, performing arts centers, and beyond. That’s why three of his former students nominated him for the inaugural Traveling Teacher of the Year Award.
His unique class is all about travel and tourism, offering hands-on activities like catering events, or spending a day in the French Quarter acting as tour guides for younger students. This means high school seniors doing “on-site” research, developing their own four-hour tours, and then presenting them to a group of 4th graders. Howat says the students are often scared at first, but getting over that is just part of the growth they experience (not to mention the fact it looks good on a college app).
For a larger trip, he was hoping to take his class to Guadalupe for a cultural exchange, but natural disasters put that plan on hold momentarily, and they instead shifted to an exchange in Quebec. We asked Howat to tell us more about this special trip.
Why did you decide to do a cultural exchange?
The beauty of an exchange is you’re living in the house with the families, taking those memories and experiences. It was just beautiful. It was a 10-day trip so it’s not like they were learning to speak French fluently, but the households they’re staying at are fluent, and you have to be able to learn and communicate. So, we tied that into the curriculum, and every day they had 15 or so minutes of Duolingo time to work on their French.
Aside from students experiencing snow for the very first time, what was a highlight?
Here in Louisiana, we have some families that struggle with generational poverty and don’t always get these experiences. Our district said, “Look, if you’re gonna take these kids, you gotta take everybody. It doesn’t matter who it is, it doesn’t matter how.” So, we did some class fundraising to be able to do this, and two of the kids, in the houses that they stayed in, their family had meals every night, and that was their greatest takeaway.
We had them present in front of other students at the school, faculty and parents as part of their reflection. Some of their greatest memories were sitting down and having that daily discipline of having a meal together. They’d never had that. And they said it was almost like a dream, like living in a fairy tale world. It made me appreciate, we might sit down and have a meal every day, but not everybody has that opportunity, or even knows about it, right?
That, to me, is more than just a curriculum. It’s an impact on the way you live and possibly on the way that you raise your own children, and the way your own family may do things when you get to that age.
How else did you see this trip affect students?
I think it sparked a curiosity of the world. I know three of the 10 students, now in college, are planning to do an exchange year. Once you start, man, it lights that fire inside you, and that wanderlust just kind of takes over. One of them’s already been twice outside of the country since. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful way to see a young adult blossom into who they can possibly be.
As seen in the November issue of Teach & Travel.
Photo courtesy of Craig Howat.
