Packing learning into a trip
Jayanthi Sachitanand
Travel is often associated with leisure. Going on a vacation implies travelling with friends and family to de-stress and take a break from daily work routines. Travel is also to visit one’s children in a world where there are geographical boundaries between parents and children. These days people travel for medical treatments to different parts of the world. Pilgrimages are also an essential part of travel. However, travel for education is still to be recognized as an excellent tool to transact learning and also to build life skills.
In Poorna, travelling is factored into the annual calendar. It is a school where learning is part of the natural growth and development of every child and fosters a holistic, child-centred, collaborative learning in an atmosphere of fun and freedom. It is an inclusive school where children from diverse socio-economic backgrounds are enrolled with the goal that education should be equitable and equally available to all.
Besides fieldtrips throughout the year and teachers’ trips, every year all the children, ranging from 5-14 go on annual trips for a week or 10 days. Teachers and support staff are also part of these annual trips. The children go to different places which are chosen according to the budget available and the viability of reaching the place.
All children, regardless of financial abilities, go on these trips. This means that all children do not pay for the trip but those who can afford pay and this amount is used for all the children in the class to go on the trip.
Annual trips
These trips are usually undertaken in the month of October and are for a period of a week or 10 days depending on the place to be visited. Children and teachers together decide the place of visit.
I will base this article on the trips the children went on this year. One group of children aged 5-7 went to Wayanad and Kanyakumari, another aged 8-9 went to Goa to Natures Nest at Verlem Village and were hosted by a group of villagers who ran homestays. 11-12 year olds went to Dallapalli to live with the Kondh tribes and the 16 year-olds went to Honnemaradu, the backwaters of the Linganmakki dam.
Travel necessitates sharing of resources, starting from packing bags to going to the railway station, sharing toiletries, clothes and food.The whole journey teaches children to live together. In one instance, a child had brought a torn bag to pack his clothes in, which was not adequate for the journey. “How can you bring this bag? Do you have a jacket, socks and shoes?” asked the others. Immediately the children, amongst themselves, decided who could spare an extra bag, jacket and shoes and ensured that the child was properly equipped.
School trips teach children to appreciate and learn about diversity. In living with the Kondh tribe, children learnt that they spoke the Kui language which has no script. They learnt what the Kondh grew and how they bartered their wares. They found out that unlike their own school, the tribal children had a school where the teacher came once a month because he was unhappy to be posted in such a remote place. The tribal children were eager to learn and so they went to school every day despite not having a single class. They had no transport to school and had to walk long distances. They had no entertainment and in the evening the whole community did a Dhimsa dance to end the day.
In Goa, the children learnt that the local employment was to milk and feed cows and when the children had to do this for a day they realized how difficult this job was.
All children got an insight into the local cuisine. There were new experiences like eating millets in lieu of rice, different tubers, drinking fresh cow milk and learning new words like Sol Kadhi and Kocum juice.
The children learnt to live with each other and with the tribal community. They shared knowledge and skills with each other. The children taught the Kondh Origami and to make paper beads and friendship bands. The Kondh in turn taught the children to make friendship bands with grass. Our children painted the walls of the tribal huts, learnt about their musical instruments and dances and came to appreciate their uninhibited lifestyle. They learnt about how these tribes were set to lose their land because of the government’s decision to convert their land into a tourist resort.
In Goa, the children shared the seeds of Ragi they had brought from the harvest of the school’s “Seed to Plate” project with their hosts (villagers) and the women who ran the SHG and cooked for them. The children in turn received chilly seeds. They learnt to live with scorpions, frogs and spiders and survive as a group.
The older children realized that there was no limit to what they could do. “The wilderness school” taught them trekking, camping, swimming, coracling and rafting and in the process critical survival and teamwork skills. The outdoors helped them learn what they could not learn inside a classroom. In the words of one of the children, “We learnt how to survive with minimum resources and spent the night all alone on an island. I also realized how dependent we are on other people for our survival.”
In tangible learning outcomes, children saw the confluence of oceans at Kanyakumari and learnt about the sea, different types of shells and life of the fisherfolk. This reinforced the thematic topic ‘water’, which the children had learnt in school. They saw wind turbines and learnt the local history of the place.
The children who went to Goa learnt about local streams, river systems and social makeup. They learnt about bracket fungi in the forest during their treks and observed a dragon fly, especially its wings and compound eyes, through the microscope and saw videos on environmental challenges. They performed skits on water shortage, urbanization and plastic pollution for the villagers.
Teachers learnt to multitask and be patient. They gained an insight into each child’s personality, character, behaviour and had to review their own expectations of each child and reject some assumptions. Teachers of the older children realized that the children could manage themselves and that the teachers only had to be facilitators.
Fieldtrips
Children in Poorna routinely go on fieldtrips.
An interesting fieldtrip they had been to recently was Mandur, which is the local garbage dump for Bangalore. It was part of a project of composting and segregating garbage at school. The children had prepared a questionnaire in Kannada to interview the local villagers. They had read about the protests of the villagers against dumping garbage and the visit helped them understand why the villagers were protesting. They learnt about how the ground water was affected and about water borne diseases. They also learnt how the community had changed from an agricultural economy to a dumping yard. They saw how the machines installed for processing garbage were not being used.
As part of the physiology class there are annual field visits to the medical hospital where children interact with doctors and are able to touch the various organs of the body and learn about them. The children also visit a forensic science lab to learn how samples are collected from the scene of crime.
A visit to the herbarium at the Institute of Alternate Medicine in Bangalore is a must. Children learn about flora, roots and stems, the current environment situation and herbs.
Another visit is to the local weaving centre as part of a science project. It is called Warp to Weft and children see the process of weaving (on power looms); how thread turns into fabric. They interview the weavers and ascertain how they tolerate the constant noise, their lifestyles and earnings. (These visits vary every year depending on the teacher’s discretion, availability of resources and the topic being taught.)
Other fieldtrips include visits to the panchayat office, post office, police station, local brick factories and farms.
Teachers’ trips
Every year the teachers go on a trip to places of interest and sometimes to other schools as well. This helps in team building and also learning about different school systems and organizations besides giving teachers a much needed break. Among the interesting places visited over the years are the Kalkeri school near Dharwad where music is the main focus of education; Agasthya Foudation, a creativity lab in Kuppam and Navadarshanam, an organization which explores sustainable agricultural alternatives.
Travel teaches a community to coexist besides having tangible learning outcomes. Its ability to foster caring relationships between children, teachers and parents of a school knows no bounds. It is vital to education in the true sense of the term.
The author made a conscious decision to move from a banking career to Education. She trained to be a Special Educator and worked in Poorna in that capacity moving on to become the Principal. Currently she is the Director at Poorna. She can be reached at jayanthisachi@gmail.com.