Richard Turen
From time to time, I drop in at the local Apple Store to see what I don't know, to look over new products and to be inspired by clandestine customer service offered by a vast array of employees representing nearly every fragment of our society.
But this time, something was different. The store was packed, despite the fact that down here in Florida it is off-season and the snowbirds are all gone, leaving only the lifers to drive the empty roads and enter the empty stores.
But, as always, Apple was an exception, and it took a while to find a parking space. Once inside, I noticed that the long center table in the store was occupied by more than a dozen kids paying rapt attention to what was being said by a "teacher" with multicolored hair and a lovely collection of tats. I had walked in on a session of Apple Camp, a program offered during the summer over a three-day period for 90 minutes each day.
I asked some questions and immediately enrolled my daughter, Bree, for the next session, which would begin in a week. There are two courses. Interactive Storytelling teaches campers how to create their own interactive books. I chose the other course, Stories in Motion with iMovie, which, the description promised, would teach campers everything they need to know to make their own movies using a soundtrack they create while editing the movie on a Mac.
Bree was thrilled with the gift and eagerly looked forward to it. She is an Apple true believer, and I can only wonder what kind of travel planning she will be doing on her wristwatch when she hits 20.
The rules were that parents had to remain in the store during camp, free to roam and shop. The kids were warmly welcomed by the store's employees, who sat at the long table and issued gifts of Apple T-shirts and a pair of earphones. The kids were also given Macs to use for their class.
As a former headmaster, I was fascinated by the level of attention these young Apple employees were getting from their 8- to 12-year-old students.
At the end of the third and final session, the parents were asked to wait outside the store's entrance just after the graduation ceremony. Each student's final film had been shown, and many of the dozens of waiting Apple customers paused to watch them, along with the doting parents. When the kids came outside in their Apple shirts, the kids and staff were both beaming as they knelt down in front of the Apple logo for group photos.
It was at about that point that it hit me. I turned to my wife and said, "Angela, can you ever imagine any one of these kids or their parents ever purchasing a PC product in the future?" She smiled, knowing somehow where my mind was taking me.
Apple charges nothing for this camp. The goodwill it generates and the product loyalty can't be measured. I started thinking about our product: the countries of the world and the notion that we need to see and share some parts of this planet if we are to survive together.
Why, I thought, can't our industry take on the daunting task of increasing young people's awareness of world geography by offering weekend, evening or summer fun "travel camps" for kids? Do I really need to point out what a crucial need this is in our country? Aren't we -- the traveled, the sellers of dreams, the destination differentiators -- in the best position to encourage geographic education among the young? If not us, who?
A decade ago, a geography instructor from our local high school came to see me in my office to ask for my help in alerting the community to the fact that the state of Illinois was not requiring geography classes. It was an "elective" in most districts, a nonessential course to be struck down along with language studies by the school budget cutters.
He teared up in my office as he described what the future might hold for young Americans who know nothing about other societies and their achievements or about the challenges they face. I wrote about our meeting, but nothing much came of it. Geography is still not a required course in most high school curriculums.
In a report issued in 2010 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only one out of five 12th-grade students achieved the (rather low) proficiency level, a decline since the previous report.
In a survey completed for National Geographic by Roper Public Affairs, it was revealed that 70% of young Americans could not find Iran or Israel on a map of the world. One out of six could not locate the United States. More than half of all adults are unaware that Sudan is a country; three-quarters of those tested did not know that a majority of Indonesia's population is Muslim or that it is the largest Muslim country in the world.
Of the test respondents, 74% said English was the most commonly spoken language in the world, perhaps forgetting that many more people speak Mandarin Chinese.
But our lack of geographic education applied to our own country as well. Half of those in the 18-to-24 age group could not find New York on a U.S. map.
So I've been dreaming about how we as an industry might help create an awareness of geography among our children. Wouldn't it be wonderful if some hotel chain decided to take this on and open short summer travel camps at some of their properties? Couldn't one of our large, multifaceted top 50 travel agencies adopt geography education as a corporate goal, providing the outlines and materials to their sales force throughout the U.S.?
Remember, Apple requires that parents stay with their children while they are in "camp" in the store. Who knows what benefits might accrue from the goodwill and physical presence of existing and potential clients at your property, in your offices, at the airport or in your agency?
Could this be a win/win for an international airline that wishes to demonstrate its support and interest in creating interest and knowledge of worldwide travel destinations? Wouldn't the members of some of our leading consortia benefit from their involvement in a geography reawakening in this country spearheaded by fun travel camps in which kids learn, use their computers and graduate to be "travel agents" for their own families?
This can be a low-cost commitment. It really would take minimum materials and not very much time. Think of the edge an agency in your community would have if it were known as the place that devotes some effort to teaching kids some wonderful ways to learn about the world. Think about the support you would receive from the public school system and of the local and national corporate sponsorships you could attract.
We, as an industry, are starting to feel really good about ourselves. Hotel occupancy rates are among the highest in years, airline profits are soaring and the better travel consultants can barely keep up with the flow of business.
But we need to give back in some coordinated way. The legacy of helping the schools educate our kids about the world's geography seems to me to fall clearly into our collective laps. We've done too little to ensure that future generations will inherit a curiosity about this planet of ours that motivates them to see some of it.
Judith Zacek, the former president of the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (now the Travel Institute), has spoken often on this subject. She points out, "We've done a terrible job of educating America's young people over the past three decades, but I happen to think that there is enough ignorance of geography for nearly all of us to share."
In putting our collective minds together to create and implement a plan to offer Apple-inspired travel camps, our industry could motivate our children to look at geography in new and exciting ways. It is a worthy goal, it is a noble goal, but it is also, if I may suggest, a potentially valuable marketing strategy.