The program is organized to provide an opportunity for students to experience nature and learn from its immediate environment. It was also to encourage sustainable mindful actions and to recognize nature as a learning laboratory in achieving greater goals of environmental conservation and inculcating stewardship towards nature.
At the base, along the river bed, we have gathered and started reciting prayers and do smoke offering puja. We did meditation, listened to Lopon Tshering’s talk about nature, cooked our own food, picked garbage, went for bird watching, and played in the river. In particular, our young monks enjoyed playing in the river. For many of them, it was their first time experiencing a river. The program was an opportunity for both teachers and students to follow up on many of the lessons we had learned in the class such as how nature and beings are interdependent, how bird watching can be contemplation, the use of binoculars, and identifying many plants.
There were three simple observations made on the day that was awe-inspiring for teachers. First, almost all the students did not use single plastic-wrapped food (junk food) including a water bottle, except for one student of 70 plus, who bought a bottle of Mango juice. Second, one of our students saw an earthworm crawling on the footpath, immediately he picked it with a stick and displaced it from the footpath. He protected the earthworm from stepping on to it by other people walking behind him. The third observation, there were several gravels arranged in lines on a motor road. On close examination we found hundreds of tiny ants moving up and down on the road. Later, we learned that those students who walked in the front had arranged those gravels to signal us about the presence of ants with a motive to protect them from stepping on them. These are the manifestation of the student’s compassion and kindness. Thus, these observations taught us the importance of creating an avenue for the development and practice of kindness and a compassionate mind through such field trips.
Few students saw hornbills and other birds. Few students said that they were happy because they were able to do smoke offering puja, meditation practice, and karma yoga practice. From the reflection session with students, I learned that most of the students enjoyed water play and swim with their friends. Another thing they really liked was their food (almost all the food we cooked was organic) which was cooked by themselves. Many of them expressed that they were happy because they picked some garbage along the river and on their way back home.
However, some students shared that it was very tiring to walk up the hill after a playful day. Few students admitted that the tiring climb was in fact heavy exercise for them. Later that evening I went around the hostel and saw almost all the students were in deep sleep. They had a good early rest.
Since education is all about brainwashing all we tried to do was to brainwash our students with humility and good intention in the context of the Natural ecosystem/Nature field trip. Our role in this program was to create opportunities for students to see the interdependent reality of coexistence between humans, animals, the natural world and the river system. Most importantly, it was to make them see the connection between their internal world (the mind) and the external world (the environment). Besides, it was to create a connection between classroom learning and outside learning opportunity.
In essence, it was to create a conducive social environment that will foster teaching and learning that is fun, joyful, interactive, interdependent, cooperative, experiential, contextual, contemplative, comfortable, useful, and valuable in shaping an individual into a decent human being.
