Not All Classrooms Have Four Walls

As the school year begins again and classrooms fill with fresh notebooks, eager minds, and familiar routines, I’m reminded of something I’ve long believed: some of the most powerful learning happens outside the traditional classroom.

In May, I led a group of university students through a faculty-led study abroad program in the United Kingdom. In July, I facilitated, along with my co-lead, Jerry, Off the Beaten Path —a custom small group travel experience, this year traveling to Northumbria. Though very different in structure and audience, both programs were grounded in the same principle: learning comes alive when it’s embodied, immersive, and real.

You can explain cultural nuance in a classroom—but it lands differently when you’re navigating unfamiliar customs firsthand. You can study communication theory in a textbook—but it resonates more deeply when you’re deciphering accents, body language, and expectations in another country. You can teach leadership—but when participants must make decisions mid-journey, support each other in the unexpected, and reflect on what they’ve discovered about themselves—it’s no longer a lesson. It’s transformation.

That’s the power of experiential learning. And it’s why I believe not all classrooms have four walls.

Sometimes, the most impactful growth happens walking down a cobbled street in Berwick-upon-Tweed, sharing a meal with strangers-turned-friends, or sitting in quiet reflection in a medieval ruin. These moments teach presence, adaptability, empathy, and confidence in ways that no test or lecture ever could.

As an educator and facilitator, I’ve seen the magic that unfolds when students and travelers alike are invited to engage with the world around them—with intention and curiosity. My role, whether in a university course or a curated travel experience, is to build a framework for learning—and then get out of the way so discovery can happen.

Because real learning isn’t always neat or linear. Sometimes, it shows up in jet lag, in miscommunication, in awe. Sometimes, it arrives not as a concept—but as a change in who we are.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

 – W. B. Yeats

So, as September brings a return to schedules and syllabi, I invite you to hold space for the learning that happens in the in-between—in travel, in discomfort, in connection, in reflection. The classroom is wherever curiosity meets experience.

And that classroom? It has no walls at all.