“110 Days Prior To Departure” Deadline

Preparing for a tour (and teaching) involves carefully planning and following all deadlines. In my high school history classroom, I train my students to pay attention to their deadlines. All of my assignments have a deadline. If a student misses a deadline even by one day, the penalty is an automatic 30 points deducted from the grade. I know this seems to be a bit Draconian, (and there are times when I extend mercy for one reason or another), but I believe in teaching my students to follow deadlines and to suffer the penalties if they don’t. Consider it a lesson in “real life.”

This coming weekend marks an important deadline for my tour group. We are finally going to be at “110 Days Prior to Departure”! For all of my tour participants who are not on the monthly payment plan, their tour balance (all fees excluding the departure fees) must be received by EF by this deadline or a late fee of $125 will be charged. Also, EF must have their final name confirmation (all three names exactly as they appear on their passports) or the airlines will charge $250 for a name change. Follow the deadlines and you won’t have to suffer the penalties.

I have been sending my tour participants monthly tour letters for my 2012 spring break tour since January 2011. Every letter has mentioned the “110 Days Prior to Departure” deadline. Group leaders should make every effort to remind their groups of the upcoming deadlines, especially this important one.

Every school year, I introduce my students to the historical origin of the word, “deadline,” in 1864. It gives me the opportunity to discuss an American Civil War topic of great interest to my students, the notorious Confederate prison in Georgia called Andersonville. According to James A. Percoco in his excellent article, “Encountering the Complicated Legacy of Andersonville,” in the November/December 2011 issue of Social Education, “the Confederacy was forced by its war time situation and the failure of a Union-Confederate Exchange program to relegate Andersonville to a kind of dumping ground that held over 45,000 prisoners, peaking in August 1864 to 32,000 people of which an average of 125 men died per day.”

At Andersonville, a real line, whether it was dug in the dirt or marked by wooden stakes or posts, was used to restrict the movements of the Union prisoners. Any prisoner who tried to go beyond the line was assumed to be making an attempt to escape. During the war crimes trial of Captain Henry Wirz, the camp commandant, a witness testified prison guards were ordered to fire and kill any prisoner who crossed the “deadline.”

Deadlines are a part of history and of life. Too many students arrive in my classroom each August with lax attitudes about deadlines. Teaching your students how to meet deadlines should be a goal for all teachers (and group leaders). My classroom and my tours are organized with well-established routines. That’s because my students and I always strive to meet our deadlines.

Readers, how do you make your students aware of their tour deadlines?

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(Editor’s note: If you have a question about for EF Group Leader Gail Ingram, or an idea for a blog post topic, you can email Gail here, and she will answer readers’ questions in future blog posts.)