When Newtown Middle School technology education teacher Don Ramsey arrived at his summer vacation destination this summer, he had one agenda item: learn with moxie.

“I’m the type of person that likes to see new places and meet people I have never met before,“ said Mr Ramsey, roughly a week before school began for the 2015-16 school year. “And I had a particular interest in learning about Native Americans and their plight since that was an area I had never really learned about.”

He traveled July 7 to 11 and he chose his destination nearly “randomly.” He knew what he wanted to learn, and he had never seen the grasslands or prairies. He had also never been on a Native American reservation before.

“So I picked South Dakota because it seemed like a good place to go to see all that,” said Mr Ramsey. “I liked the fact that it was remote.”

The motivation behind trip and others he has taken was to set an example for his students.

“I’m trying to promote the message of learn with moxie,” Mr Ramsey said. “It’s a little motto I have now in my tech ed class. With the emphasis that they have now with test taking and rigor and things like that, I’m interested in supplementing that with passion for learning and learning with a sense of adventure.”

Mr Ramsey said he feels strongly that teachers have to be good students to do their job well, and students have to be good teachers in order to really learn.

When Mr Ramsey was in school, he said the plight of Native Americans and the cultures’ history was covered only “superficially” in the history books.

“I wanted to get more depth: Find out what happened, where they are now, and what the future is like for the Native Americans,”Mr Ramsey said.

He was also hoping to set up a partnership with a Native American school with his students at NMS.

During his trip, Mr Ramsey said he was “lucky.” Things fell into place.

By the end of his trip, Mr Ramsey had set up a relationship with the Crow Creek Tribal School, which serves kindergarten through twelfth grade students in Stephan, S.D., and he had compiled a binder full of information to share with his students at NMS.

“That can take a number of different forms, whether it is letter writing back and forth,” said Mr Ramsey.

Mr Ramsey said he was grateful Crow Creek Tribal School Superintendent Cody Russell spent time showing him around, despite the fact that he “just showed up.”

“If you want to learn with moxie, you have to take calculated risks,” said Mr Ramsey, noting that he traveled by himself and had no mapped out plans. “Basically what I did was I landed, and I talked to people.”

The first person he met was a town historian in Brule County who gave Mr Ramsey a tour of a church, filled with artifacts of the county.

“I got a really good flavor of the culture in South Dakota within about the first three hours that I landed,” said Mr Ramsey. “This is what learning with moxie is all about; it is allowing yourself to be free to be adventurous, to learn new things, and to follow your intuition.”

He had seen the church situated on a hill and decided to check it out. From there, Mr Ramsey, following the recommendation of the historian, visited Chamberlain, S.D.

“There I visited the Atka Lakota Museum,” said Mr Ramsey, explaining Lakota is part of the Sioux Nation.

At the museum, Mr Ramsey met another person with recommendations for his learning expedition.

“He recommended that I visit the Crow Creek reservation,” Mr Ramsey said.

By meeting all the people during his educational expedition, Mr Ramsey said he learned about historical events, people, and more that he had not known about before.

What he learned about the Native American culture also inspired Mr Ramsey to buy more research material.

“I think it is... important for different cultures to interact to have greater sensitivity to one another,“ said Mr Ramsey, about the opportunity his students will gain from interaction with students at Crow Creek Tribal School. Adding later, “I still think despite our best efforts we give a little bit of a varnished presentation about what really happened with the Native Americans. And they still go through a lot.”

Mr Ramsey said despite poverty and other obstacles there is enormous talent in the Native American cultures he learned about.

“It really is a plight. They are still trying their best to assimilate into a culture that is completely different from what they are used to,” said Mr Ramsey.

Overall, Mr Ramsey said his trip went beyond his original expectations.

“When you travel alone you have total freedom,” said Mr Ramsey. “If you want to go on an educational trip, there is a lot of value in knowing how to do that alone, and that is one of the things I really want to present to my students. When you get a little older, how do you take a trip alone, how is it that you can learn the maximum amount when you take a trip by yourself, how do you talk to people, how do you use your intuition... and to not be too rigid, not to overplan.”

Mr Ramsey said he used modern technology, like a GPS and weather instruments, during his trip. He also talked to many people and saw different types of geology during his journey.

From everything he brought back with him, Mr Ramsey said he plans to develop lesson plans for his students.

“To show kids how to learn with moxie,” said Mr Ramsey. “I love that term moxie. It means spirit and challenge, to be adventurous. Whenever you try something new you need a little bit of spunk to do that.”