Fostering Social and Emotional Learning through Travel

Fostering Social and Emotional Learning through Travel

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The internet and social media present us with a multitude of travel opportunities. There are so many beautiful countries and places around the world you can visit. Traveling is an enriching experience, one that everyone should go through. Apart from discovering new places, new cuisines, new people, and new cultures, traveling teaches you some valuable lessons. As a college student, you might feel the drive to travel around the world. You can learn a lot of things while traveling, among which are about your social and emotional life.

Knowing Who You Are

If you were asked when you learned things about yourself, what would you say? Most people prefer to stay in their comfort zone. It is comfortable, it is familiar, and it is peaceful and quiet. Going out of it is terrifying, it is scary, and it might seem horrible.

However, learning things about yourself and the world that surrounds you is something we all should do. Traveling is one of the ways you can do this. You can discover the world and see how distinct cultures see the same thing. Perspectives are different all over the world as people have distinct beliefs and thoughts.

While traveling, a lot of questions might come to your head. You may see homeless people on the streets and you may ask yourself how governments and people could help them. You can find fascinating essays on homelessness online that could share more light on this subject. A homeless essay can be found online. A mental illness and homelessness essay can shed more light on what these people go through. It might be a painful topic to approach, but analyzing your reactions and opinions on it helps you learn more about yourself. It can help you learn new things about yourself, and about who you are.

Social-Emotional Learning

We hear talking about social-emotional learning and development, but it is rather an umbrella term. It explores the skills and things people need to be successful in life, and aspects related to their social and emotional development. You need to be aware of yourself, your needs, and your expectations. You need good relationship and communication skills to make friends and keep them near you. You need to know how to make responsible decisions.

Social-emotional learning is essential for healthy lives and relationships. But how do you learn these? How do you learn that others could have distinct perspectives and that this is normal and natural? How do you learn that emotions are part of everyone’s lives? How do you learn how to manage them?

Well, one of the answers is through traveling. Traveling transports you to distinct places. It transports you to distinct cultures. Each culture has its history that formed the way people behave and see certain things. Spirituality and religion play an essential role too. Social-emotional development is essential as it helps you live a fulfilling and healthy life. However, learning how to manage your emotions, and how to cope with the challenging ones can be done through traveling too.

Traveling opens new knowledge doors. You can travel with friends and family or you can start your solo traveling adventure. More and more people choose the latter one as it forces you to face some situations you might not have met until now. In college you learn theory, you read books, and you study for exams.

And indeed, you develop some of these skills while working on college assignments too. But while traveling, you face new situations. Some of these might trigger negative emotions, which are not bad, but natural. During traveling, you learn about emotions, managing them, about making responsible decisions. Indeed, it is essential to learn the theory, but your social-emotional development is boosted through experiences. And traveling offers the exact experience you need. It fosters social and emotional learning.

Final Thoughts

Traveling is one of the most enriching experiences you can actively choose to engage in. It comes with many opportunities of discovering the world, of unleashing your inner force, of getting to know yourself. It helps you learn about emotions, responsible decision-making, about other perspectives. Traveling teaches you a lot as it is an experience that helps you face new situations and make sense of them. It is an experience that fosters social and emotional learning.

Bio lines: Karl Bowman is a content writer and blogger. He loves traveling around the world and discovering new countries. Karl is currently solo traveling in Asia.

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