The student who did not want to visit the zoo!

 Hi new teachers,

Many years ago, when I was working at an Indian school as a primary teacher, the school organised a visit to the zoo. The students had about 30 minutes with me before we went on the trip. I took the opportunity to speak to the students about why we should not have zoos where healthy animals are caged and don't have any space to move around, why freedom for animals to roam freely is important, the difference between national parks and zoos and how would the students feel if they are caged. I also spoke of conservation zoos, created explicitly for conservation of soon to-be extinct species which was not the case for the zoo we were visiting. It was eye-opening information for the students. One student asked if they should really continue with the trip knowing what they knew now and said that he preferred to not go. We thought about solutions...maybe the municipality could have life like sculptures of animals in the zoo without having the real animals themselves? 

So what kind of field trips are possible for students? 

1. After my primary school teaching, when I was working for a school in Guinea in West Africa, I worked with a middle school teacher who taught I&S and English. As part of English, the students read and discussed the book "The dark child" by Camara Laye, who was a Guinean. It was an autobiographical novel about the author's growing up in a village in Guinea.  In I&S, students learned about culture, cultural traditions, rituals, totems and their importance. In order for students to have a glimpse of drumming that was part of Guinean culture,  the teacher organised for local Guinean drummers to come to school and play the famous guinean drums. It was a fantastic performance. It brought Guinean culture to life. The teacher then planned a trip to two villages in the interior of Guinea - Mamou and Labe. It was a three nights and four days trip if I remember correctly. We stayed at decent lodges and hotels in the evening. During the day, after breakfast, we visited the villages. The villagers had been informed in advance of our visit. In both villages, the villagers prepared a sumptuous meal for us - an authentic Guinean lunch. They told us stories about their village, culture, traditions and customs. Camara Laye described his father's work as that of a goldsmith in the novel. The teacher had planned a visit to a local goldsmith for us to see the workshop and listen to the process. In the evening, there was Guinean dancing and drumming which was a treat to watch. 

When students came back, we all discussed what we saw and compared with what we read in the novel. It was such a great unit - the book, the culture, the trip, the dancing and drumming, the goldsmith's craft - it was all covered, with students witnessing this in real life and making connections to the book. The trip reinforced the learning multifold. 

I learned from this experience.

2. Back in Mumbai,  in an international school, I taught discrimination. In I&S, students  learned about the caste system and its repercussions. The English teacher and I coordinated so that in English, students read the book 'Bhimayana' which was about Dr.Ambedkar's experiences with untouchability. With the help of the Service Coordinator, we invited an NGO activist who worked with discriminated communities who showed us short films on discriminated communities in India and talked to students about her experiences. Through this NGO, we interviewed rag pickers. We learned so much about their lives and about systemic discrimination that we could not have normally learned. The field trip connected learning to real life and make the unit an unforgettable experience, thanks to the effort of the teachers involved who helped make this a successful.

3. In another school I worked for, a trip that was memorable was a trip to visit the Kohli community, Mumbai's original inhabitants. We were learning about sustainability and how it affected natives. As part of that, we watched documentaries about how overfishing is damaging the same communities that depend on it. We interviewed the Kohli community and undertook a survey as part of our investigation and  analysed the survey results. We compared the results with what we learned in the documentaries. We watched Anne Leonard videos about 'The Story of Stuff'. We invited a guest speaker who led a life of almost zero waste and she told us what she did and what we could do. As a culminating activity and part of our service, we created an installation out of discarded plastic (inspired by 'Plastic Ocean' by artist Tan Zi Xi from Singapore) and invited our school community to visit it.  It was a memorable unit.

All the trips were great experiences because they were part of a unit and connected learning to real life. Different subjects and guest speakers supported where possible. There were lots of activities planned to make learning meaningful. So no more zoos, unless the animals are sculpted look-alikes!!

Cheers!!

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