I just returned from six days in Thailand and before you all roll your eyes and think that Nick is super lucky, realize that I went as the caretaker of 50!!!! 7th graders. While I will not whine and complain and say it was horrible, I will say that it was no vacation. 50 kids and five teachers: basically means we were always on so it was a tiring trip. On the plus side, we had some cool activities and the kids had some free time to run wild so for the most part it was... well, it was fun. Not exactly a vacation but it was fun. I got to see new parts of Thailand and do some things that I never would have signed up to do. Enough chatter, here is the basic trip.
After 6 days with the 7th grade I feel like I witnessed some kids mature before my eyes. I got to see students break out of their shells and trust other students. I got to see how giving some students can be. I got to see how well behaved our kids are even though we are sometimes hard on them to be even better. I got to see just how sensitive and innocent the kids are. It was really amazing to see that this trip really does make a difference in students lives; they really do grow from the experiences and it is too bad that the schools in the US no longer have the funding to be able to do trips like this. I am glad that it is over though; 6 days was the perfect amount of time! Over the next couple of days I will be uploading pictures of each day and a brief review of each of the groups we worked with so enjoy.
- Day 1: this was all travel. We left the school at 10:30 am, flew out of Dhaka to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and finally to our hotel and dinner at 10:00pm that night.
- Day 2: the 50 were split into two groups of 25 and half went to the School for Life orphanage to do some service and half stayed at the hotel to do some team building by a company called Into the Wild. Day 3: the groups traded places from day 2.
- Day 4: half went zip-lining on the Flight of the Gibbon and half went climbing with the Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures.
- Day 5: The groups traded places again.
- Day 6: another full day of travel home.
After 6 days with the 7th grade I feel like I witnessed some kids mature before my eyes. I got to see students break out of their shells and trust other students. I got to see how giving some students can be. I got to see how well behaved our kids are even though we are sometimes hard on them to be even better. I got to see just how sensitive and innocent the kids are. It was really amazing to see that this trip really does make a difference in students lives; they really do grow from the experiences and it is too bad that the schools in the US no longer have the funding to be able to do trips like this. I am glad that it is over though; 6 days was the perfect amount of time! Over the next couple of days I will be uploading pictures of each day and a brief review of each of the groups we worked with so enjoy.
What a beautiful uplifting post Nick! Thanks for sharing! And it really is too bad that we don't have public funding to take kids to places like Yosemite, Lassen, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon....wherever! We have so many places to explore in America and every child deserves a taste of that.
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