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Agree with others that if you can afford it, it's worth it to go.
In 8th grade, my interest in Spanish was about a 2 out of 10. By the end of 9th, it was 15 out of 10 and I went on to go through Spanish 7 in my high school (which included both AP Spanish Language and AP Spanish Literature), spent a semester living in Mexico in college, and ended up fluent with a minor in Latin American studies. It all changed because of one teacher who really brought Hispanic culture to light in a way that still astounds me to this day. For instance, we couldn't go to Spain, so the teacher posted print outs of tons of paintings from the Prado Museum in Madrid and marched up up and down the halls speaking "Spanglish" in a Spanish accent (the teacher was from Tennessee).
I was lucky to have a teacher who did such a splendid job at inspiring his students - but that kind of infectiousness is rare. My life could have gone a very different, less colorful way had I not by happenstance been assigned this one teacher. A trip to a Spanish-speaking country absolutely would have jump-started my interest. In fact, I planned on going to Spain and France with this teacher before he had to cancel for personal reasons. I actually picked up French in addition to Spanish just for this trip.
Count me in with the "if you can afford it let her go"...My daughter went to Germany (on a trip offered to her German class and led by her German teacher) at that age and had a wonderful experience. Money is not unlimited in our family and she had a younger brother as well so we had to keep that in mind as well when deciding what to encourage/support. We too were concerned that she was on the younger side for such an extravagant (for our family) trip. We ended up telling her that she could choose to go on this trip but it would mean declining the same kind of trip if offered later in HS as we could only afford to send each child on one of this kinds of trip. She decided to go and was glad she did as the HS stopped offering German eventually (and the teacher wasn't very interested or effective) and no trip was ever offered.
I'd be interested in supervision, whether the teacher has made trips like this before, where exactly they'd be going and staying (whether it was reasonably safe), and would also look at my individual child. Has she traveled outside the country before? Traveled within the country extensively? Spent extended time without her parents and done fine with it? Is she mature enough to handle unexpected situations that may come up while overseas, or would this cause her a lot of anxiety?
If you feel all those factors are in favor, I'd let her go. At that age so much can form and shape opinions and interests they didn't realize they could have.
Thanks for everyone's answers. I'll show all your responses to everyone in the family and discuss. We travelled overseas a few times in the past and experienced different cultures, but went to a Spanish speaking country only once (Mexico, when my daughter was young so she barely remembers anything now). Anyway, all your opinions are appreciated. Thank you.
I'm surprised some people voted no and claimed that your daughter would be too young.
We took our children on their first trip abroad when they were only 1 - 2, and we went overseas just about every year, sometimes even two or three times in a year and no, it wasn't solely to a resort in the Caribbean but all over Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. We went to the great cultural centers of Europe and the slums of India and the plains of Africa.
Exposure to a different part of the world, different languages and different cultures is never a waste of money and is always educational. Our children have certainly benefited from being globetrotters from such a young age. Not only did the travels help them understand the greater world outside the US, it also helped them understand the US better.
I went on a 10 day trip to Italy through our Latin class (mainly using Sorrento & Rome as "home base") when I was in 10th grade and it was a wonderful experience.
All of our languages had clubs that would do the overseas thing every couple of years - the rule in our house was simple, you know the year the big trip would be available - if it's something you want to do then you need to be active in the club, post good marks in the class and participate in the club fundraisers ........ my brother chose not to do any of those and ended up missing out on a chance to go to France ........ I did all of those and ended up in Italy
Will the kid fully appreciate the trip? - I highly doubt it. We had a wide range of kids in our group and one of them is still one of my friends many years later and we'll joke a little bit about it. Here we are with all of this history, culture, etc and we were playing cards or breaking out a chess board ..... then again, how cool is it to be in the courtyard of a building that is thousands of years old playing with your classmates?
My experience as an adult would be completely different
However, the trip temporarily broke down all social cliques from back home - created a nice bonding experience, definitely opened up all of our eyes to some other cultures, improved our street smarts and really put into context some of the things we were studying - even at that age and even the younger people in our group got that - you may not be able to appreciate all the nuance, but some things hit so hard you take notice regardless
The points above are all very good. How big is the group, how many chaperones, what is the structure of the trip, is drinking allowed, etc.
Our Spanish club would use Costa Rica as their main destination and all those kids had a blast as it was very heavy on the eco-tourism angle.
I've heard great things about Equador and think that could be a really good trip for a Spanish class
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Maybe you and your husband could take a child-free cruise at the same time.
