FIELD SCHOOLS TO LET CHILDREN SEE THE SEA
When I started teaching I went with the grade 6 group to the field school every year. I am not sure that you have this in other countries but we take the grade 6 kids on a camping trip firstly to determine who will be good leaders and secondly we taught them a little about nature. We have many of these schools but the one I loved the most was the one at Glenmore. Years ago this belonged to the Department of Education and was one of their field schools. The reason I loved this, is that many of the children had never even seen the sea as it was very far from where they grew up, and the children’s parents did not always have time or the money to take them there. So this was my favourite spot to take the children. We all went by bus for 10 days and the kids made food and learnt about nature as well as the animals living in the sea. We showed them some films at night about dolphins as well as whales and sharks just to stimulate their interest.
But for me the best part use to be to take the children who had never seen the sea down to the beach, their mouths were literary hanging open in awe surprise that I saw warmed the cockles of my heart, they always said we have not seen so much water in one place and enjoyed it tremendously. Sometimes we were lucky enough to see dolphins and whales jump. This they could not believe. Is it not the most wonderful feeling to make children happy, and even surprised as I said most of them had not been down to the coast before and I love children so much that nothing could make me happier.
They were a bit scared in the beginning going in deeper than their knees but that changed in time. We really did identify good leaders here and that meant that the following year it was not too difficult to determine who the leaders would be the next year.
The first three days it was always impossible to get them to sleep so I made them play volley ball, run a lot and work hard until after about three days they were really tired and ready to sleep. I went to other field schools as well but none of them compared to being down at the coast. When I retired, about 12 years ago my wife said lets sell everything and go and live at the coast. Believe it or not I only live 20 km from this Glenmore beach and every time I pass it, I think of those wonderful children. I never thought it would be possible for me to live at the coast, but it worked out.
Thank you for reading my story and have a good day here from the Wild Coast.
ty for posting
good post
Thank you so much.
Great post, I went to Amsterdam when I was at school, did not like it!!