What happens when students move beyond reading about history and actually stand in the places where it unfolded?
In the final episode of our three-part series on teaching history biblically, Roger and Maggie talk with Joe Walton, former Director of Education at American Christian Tours (ACTS), about the formative power of educational travel. Joe explains how visiting historical and cultural sites can engage students’ senses, stir their curiosity, and create opportunities for reflection that are difficult to reproduce in the classroom.
But a meaningful educational tour must be more than sightseeing. Whether students are walking the battlefield at Gettysburg, standing among the graves at Arlington National Cemetery, encountering competing accounts of human origins at a natural history museum, or serving people in the Bronx, Christian educators can help them interpret what they experience through the biblical story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.
The conversation explores how thoughtfully designed experiences can help students recognize competing worldviews, wrestle with difficult questions, and connect history with what is good, true, right, and beautiful. Joe also shares why skilled guides rely on questions, reflection, stories, and guided processing—not simply information—to help students develop the ability to think biblically for themselves.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
*Why experiencing a historical site can affect students differently than studying it in a classroom
*How educators can move students from merely seeing a site to interpreting its meaning
*Why Christian schools should approach educational travel with biblical intentionality
*How the Creation–Fall–Redemption–Restoration framework brings historical places and events into a larger story
*Ways sites such as Arlington Cemetery, the 9/11 Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial can reveal contrasting worldviews
*Why students need safe, guided opportunities to encounter and process ideas that challenge their faith
*How educational travel can inspire curiosity, imagination, compassion, service, and even a student’s future vocation
*How the same principles of questioning, reflection, storytelling, and processing can strengthen classroom teaching