Field Trip!!

If you've seen my pictures and posts up 'til now, you would probably have noticed that I have become enamored with teaching science to a first-year class of high schoolers these past 8 or 10 months. Several projects and ideas, for one reason or another, have not gone as I had planned during service. However, I offered to teach this class since the usual teacher was unavailable, and I have developed a real affinity for all of the students. I know where many of them live, I have fished with some of their parents, and have taught environmental education to many of their siblings in other schools where I have gone. While teaching science, I have also discovered the incredible lack of opportunities that hinders the students' educations. Many of the students literally walk up to 5 kilometers through the rain just to come to school. Several of those who live further away have to cut out a day or two a week so that they will have fare to ride the jeep to school. After they have arrived to school, the students don't even have the basic assurance that their teachers will make the effort to come and teach them. So I decided that we would take a field trip.

Within the large municipality of Babatngon, about 20 kilometers away from the high school, there is a regional Agricultural Research Station. Many of the students have driven by the facility on their way to town on special occasions, but none knew what the facility is there for. I started going around town, trying to find out who would be willing to rent out their jeepney and driver for half a day so that we could take the kids on a field trip. I went to the Research Center to schedule the date and see about some sort of tour or presentation. I bargained with a driver I met one day until he agreed to take us, for 4 hours, to and from the Agricultural Research Station for 1000 pesos($22). When I told the kids we were going on a field trip on Wednesday in 2 weeks and how they had to get signed permission slips, they were ecstatic, begging to know what we would do and where we were going. For a couple days, it was the talk of the class. Then, as days wore on towards the trip date, excitement waned, kids stopped talking about it, sure it wouldn't happen, that I had forgotten and things would fall through. On the Tuesday before the trip though, I reminded the students to bring their permission slips, still excitement was low, but the kids treated the permission slips like an assignment, not something that would really be happening. I was even unsure of how the whole thing would pan out.

On Wednesday, I walked to school like every day, and saw a small jeep sitting beside the road, driver standing with a big smile, ready to go on the field trip. I went into the classroom, and started checking off names of students who had their permission slips and 5 pesos as their contribution. 35 of the students turned in everything and we went out to the small jeepney sitting beside the road. I hesitated, seeing how we could never fit all of the kids inside, but the kids rushed to the jeep, girls jumping inside and filling it up, and boys, as is the culture, clamoring up the ladder of the jeep and piling on top. I was horrified to think how quick a teacher in my position in the states, taking a jeep full of kids, half of whom were riding on the top, would get fired. But, the apprehension went away when the principal piled in right beside us, eager to go along, oblivious to the safety hazard. Selena, free from classes for the day, climbed in the back with the girls serving as chaperone #3.

We arrived at the agricultural station at 9:00 am. We played simon says and talked about rice fields until our tour guide came and fetched us 30 minutes later. The students all were invited into the main conference room of the Eastern Visayas Agricultural Research Station and sat down in swivel chairs in an air conditioned room with a powerpoint slideshow playing in front. They were blown away, shivering from what was the first air conditioning many of them had ever felt, watching a series of pictures on a piece of technology none of them had ever seen before. It was a really big moment for many of them, and as the manager of the research center spoke, many of them were in such a new environment, it was a little to much to be taking in. (Before giving each of the students a banana for snack, I gave everybody a squirt off purell which really threw them off. )

After a short presentation, we went to see rice fields planted with different hybrid strains for higher germination and faster growth. They showed us ornamental plants, genetically modified fruit trees, and one man even showed everyone how trees are grafted. Boys in class who I have never been able to reach suddenly were alert, intensely watching as people were working with their hands, employing new scientific ideas and techniques to make agricultural production more efficient. I realize activities like the field trip are unsustainable and last for only a short while, but they were learning things about their community, its potential, and professional life that I could never have shown them in the classroom. It was a huge day for 35 kids who don't have many opportunities and it cost about $26, bananas included.