Excursions For Making Learning Entertaining

Amit Jain
Amit Jain, Founder, Rising Star Tours & Travels
Learning is a vast concept, and holistic learning is impossible without studying people, places, and cultures. The more a person travels, the more he learns. In fact, it is the experiential learning that makes education both practical and profitable. Educational tours play a significant part in students learning because there are many topics in science as well as non-science subjects that required exposure and interaction with living and non-living things. Such excursions to historical places, museums, landscapes, theatres, research institutions, and industries offer students a great opportunity to feel, observe, and learn by interacting with the things of interests. Learning becomes further interesting when teachers or tour administrators have sufficient knowledge about the place, and they immediately answer students' queries.

For Better Teacher-Students Bonding

Due to limited time and space, teachers in the classroom often focus on completing the syllabus on time. While pursuing this task, teachers assess students only on their performance in tests and exams. Mostly, they interact and feel comfortable only with the best performers in the class, and the rest of the students consider themselves neglected. Consequently, a huge communication gap develops and educational tours provide them with enough space to know each other better, especially the positive attributes of each other. Students who have a wrong perception of their teacher when realizing that their teacher is cooperative and humane, feel more comfortable while communicating with the teacher, and this strengthens the foundation of learning.

"Students who have a wrong perception of their teacher when realize that their teacher is cooperative and humane, feel more comfortable while communicating with the teacher, and this strengthens the foundation of learning"

For More Balanced Learning

Everything serious makes learning monotonous, so, an educational tour must be balanced by various fun activities like picnics, overnight camps, trekking, dance competitions, dumb charades, and many more. Moreover, an educational tour must be planned in such a way that it may offer many first-time learning opportunities to students. Things that cannot be imagined inside the walled classrooms when comes live before the eyes clear many doubts and that too in a highly conducive environment. Another advantage of experiential learning is easy memorization; things that people learn during travel seldom forget even in the long-run. Also, watching unique birds, animals, amphibians and observing their moments and activities create better bonding with nature, and make learning stress-free.

Self-Confidence and Team Spirit

In routine life, usually parents and siblings help a student in various academic and non-academic tasks, and at schools, teachers and other staff members always remain available to them. Although such protective environment keeps them safe from various challenges and risks, the over protection for longer duration makes them more dependent on elders, and this lowers their confidence level. When they are out in a group with peers and teachers on an educational tour, they have to do most of the things by themselves, and their teachers delegate each group and individual some specific responsibilities. There, they realize the importance of every member of a group and the benefits of team spirit. This helps them to grow as a responsible person of home and society.

From Pseudo-Social to Real Social

Learning is a social activity, and wholesome learning is not confined to books, computers, classrooms, and labs. The foremost purpose of educational tours is developing the overall personality of students by encouraging them to impart knowledge and ideas in a friendly and informal environment. And, when each one shares his/her perspective regarding the museum or art gallery before going to bed in the camp or hotel room, this improves bonding between them and make learning a friendly exercise. Even youths addicted to social media on their mobile devices enjoy more in sports and group activities when they become a part of an educational tour.

Unity in Cultural Diversity

Today, one of the major challenges before governments of various countries is disharmony or derogatory feelings of one group towards another on the basis of religion, caste, culture, or color. These cultural and racial differences can be minimized through intercultural dialogues, festivals, and sports events. The participation of students in such events helps them to know about other cultures and their values. This is a fruitful way to bust many myths and wrong perceptions about each other caused by lack of communication and understanding. Of course, the best education is one that promotes humanity and kindness, and traveling is an effective medium to integrate people.

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