Class Trip: Day 5

We spent Day 5 with Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures. They got the kids going and organized with some goofy games and hand shakes. Once we were split up they got us geared up and we walked to the rocks. My group was 8 kids and they were paired into groups with each group having a guide. One student would climb, the other would belay and the guide would spot the belay just in case. It was fun to see which kids were naturally talented and how easy they made it look. There was one girl in our group who was the first to make it up 3 of the 4 walls. I asked here if she liked climbing and she told me, "Not really." It was crazy to see someone that was just naturally so good be so ambivalent to climbing. The kids were great and really pushed themselves.

After lunch we were taught how to repel. We hiked up the mountain to our first repel which was about 10-15ft tall. I could not help myself and sang "Secret agent man" to them as the descended. Some of them found it funny... Next we hiked up even higher into a natural cavern that was in the shape of a cylinder. It was 15ft across and 100 ft deep. Our guides had ropes stretched across the cavern that we zip lined over and then, hanging in mid air, we switched to a repelling line and repelled down 100 ft to the bottom. Some kids must have really been sweating it. I was oddly at ease. Ziplining so much the day before made this feel normal. I actually had the ease of mind to be able to look around and enjoy this activity that should have terrified me... Amazing.

Learning to repel

In the cavern 100ft up zipping over to repel down.

 

Repelling down.

I felt like I was in good hands and they really knew what they were doing. There was a high level of redundant safety equipment just in case. It is that which gives the students and I confidence enough to do all the activities of the day. All the students accepted all the challenges today; it was great to see every one try. While we were waiting at the bottom a group of young tourist hiked into the cavern. They started asking questions about where we were from and I got to brag about my job. They were really surprised to hear about AISD and asked how I got the job. Yeah, its pretty sweet!

Class Trip: Day 4

This was a great day! We all woke up early, ate and then took vans up into the mountains. Cool drive (unless you get car sick) with some amazing views. We were on our way to the Flight of the Gibbon which is a huge network of ziplines through the trees. They claim 7 km of ziplines which is hard to conceptualize. I went into it expecting 4-5 ziplines... I was way off! We were outfitted with the latest in gear and then bused to the start. We were split into groups of 7 with two guides to a group. We were tethered in at all times and really felt safe. The guides were methodical in their approach to safety for the kids and even for themselves. They gave us the basic safety instructions and then hooked in a kid and sent them on their first ride. The first one was short and then there were two more before we had to hike for a quarter mile up a switch backing trail. The next one was the longest at 800 meters and then it was zipline after zipline. Nonstop for the next two hours! It was an incredible network of bridges platforms, stairs and ziplines (a total of 39 stations). I never felt like I was in danger or doing anything dangerous. Lots of good fun and now I totally believe the 7 km number, here are some pictures.

I was also very impressed with their construction methods. The trees were protected from the cables and there were no direct attachment to the trees. There is evidence that they loosen and move the attachment points as the trees grow. This is, of course, in their best interest because the longer the trees stay alive the less work they need to do but I was not really expecting it. Great experience!

Class Trip: Day 3

Day 3 was spent doing team building exercises on the grounds of the hotel. The company that we contracted to organize our trip and facilitate the team building was called Into The Wild. They were a group of about 4-5 guys that were with us for the entire trip. The owner met us at the airport and I knew right away we were in good hands. He introduced us to our guide team which had a huge amount of experience working with kids and corporate tours too. They started day 3 with stories to set the stage for the transformation they were nurturing.

Next they had the kids do some warm up exercises really emphasizing the connection between the partners. Small trust falls, activities that required them to work as a team and greetings.

Next we moved on to bigger challenges. The trust fall was the hard one for me and some of the more introverted students. So we all hold onto this net made of webbing, and one student stands on the top of a 5 foot tall platform. The student on top then calls out their name and asks if the catchers are ready, to which we all yell ready and then the student on the platform falls backward; arms crossed in front of them. I can't imagine going without seeing some one be caught first. Falling backward went against my every instinct. Some kids found this really difficult but it resulted in the best part of the team building. All the students that were holding the net started giving words of encouragement to the jumper and talked them into it. Everyone that got up on the platform and decided to fall which is a good indication of how much they trusted their fellow students. I went last and I was nervous. I was almost twice what some of these kids weigh and they were getting tired from catching people. It really was hard to give in and let your brain override its instinct to not fall backward. So they caught me... kind of! I ended up on the ground pulling one student into the net with me! They had broken my fall enough so I just tapped the ground and we all got a good laugh. Here is a picture of the setting.

Another good one was what the guides called "Seabiscuit" in reference to the persistence of Seabiscuit and his trainer. The idea is to go from hanging from all fours from a log to be on top of the log. They had a bunch of kids try and no one could get it done. Had all the students spot from underneath and give words of encouragement until someone got it. It was an exercise in method, if you used the right method most students were able to do it. So the first student to persist until they figured out how to do it made it easy for the others.

The kids had a different attitude after the day's activities. It was easy to see the change in them. They had a confidence and a comradery that was not there before. I have been part of team building activities before and never really bought in. Maybe it was me and my attitude that made this experience different but I think it was the guides. Sometimes these team building things seem so cheesy; I mean really, how is falling of a platform supposed to change your view or attitude? The Into the Wild guides were great at pre-loading and explaining how the activities were going to affect you. Our kids also made a huge contribution. If they had not bought in and really cared for their fellow students and their teacher then the activities would not have been quite as meaningful. Good day!

Class Trip!

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.

• 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.