Since our inception in 2000, Walter Payton College Prep’s students and staff have traveled to over 15 countries outside the United States, from Mexico to China, Italy to South Africa.



As the world becomes increasingly interconnected both economically and culturally, the global connections we create gain more and more importance. No matter where you travel, new customs, activity, people, places, and sensations await you. Travel is a learning experience; the world is a live laboratory for political, geographic, cultural, religious, historic, economic, and relationship growth. Travel opens the mind and the heart.

                      


At Payton, the global connections we forge epitomize and necessitate our school’s four guiding principles:

• curiosity to discover new cultures and peoples, and form lifelong friendships
• compassion to understand differences between one culture and another, one human and another
• courage to leave your neighborhood, your hometown, your country, your language, and above all, your comfort zone
• character to consider these opportunities a privilege, a chance to act as an ambassador of one’s community in the most constructive way possible

Some benefits of international travel and hosting:

• meet and get to know people from other places
• see places unlike others you have seen
• take your learning beyond the walls of the classroom
• get exposed to new people, rituals, social and religious practices, beliefs, foods, ceremonies, music, art, and languages
• see how people in varying political, social, and economic systems live
• gain perspective on your own life and community
• open up future educational and professional opportunities
• increase your self-confidence and sense of independence
• prepare for life away from home
• “bond with” Payton colleagues with similar interests

It is people who are the objects of globalization and at the same time its subjects. What also follows logically from this is that globalization is not a law of nature, but rather a process set in train by people.
-Tarja Halonen

                             

Since our inception in 2000, Walter Payton College Prep’s students and staff have traveled to over 15 countries outside the United States, from Mexico to China, Italy to South Africa.



As the world becomes increasingly interconnected both economically and culturally, the global connections we create gain more and more importance. No matter where you travel, new customs, activity, people, places, and sensations await you. Travel is a learning experience; the world is a live laboratory for political, geographic, cultural, religious, historic, economic, and relationship growth. Travel opens the mind and the heart.

                      


At Payton, the global connections we forge epitomize and necessitate our school’s four guiding principles:

• curiosity to discover new cultures and peoples, and form lifelong friendships
• compassion to understand differences between one culture and another, one human and another
• courage to leave your neighborhood, your hometown, your country, your language, and above all, your comfort zone
• character to consider these opportunities a privilege, a chance to act as an ambassador of one’s community in the most constructive way possible

Some benefits of international travel and hosting:

• meet and get to know people from other places
• see places unlike others you have seen
• take your learning beyond the walls of the classroom
• get exposed to new people, rituals, social and religious practices, beliefs, foods, ceremonies, music, art, and languages
• see how people in varying political, social, and economic systems live
• gain perspective on your own life and community
• open up future educational and professional opportunities
• increase your self-confidence and sense of independence
• prepare for life away from home
• “bond with” Payton colleagues with similar interests

It is people who are the objects of globalization and at the same time its subjects. What also follows logically from this is that globalization is not a law of nature, but rather a process set in train by people.
-Tarja Halonen