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| Ok kids, look at the camera, look at the camera kids, look at the camer...ok then, don't look at the camera! |
The grades 4,7, and 8 classes at our school recently went on a field trip, and I decided to accompany them and mark this trip as my last school field trip. The trip was planned as a cultural as well as historical study trip, and our destination suited very well the learning outcomes and goals targeted by the teachers. We were going to Ayutthaya, a popular day-trip destination from Bangkok. Remnants of temples, palaces and Buddha statues still exist for tourists to get a glimpse of the glorious past of the city. UNESCO formally recognizes the great cultural value of the ancient city’s ruins when it named Ayutthaya as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. This was not my first time visiting Ayutthaya, but it was the first time that I visited it accompanied by 37, 10-14 years olds. Last time was with Madeleine and a friend. We were there for two days, one day visiting the ruins, the second day in our hotel room recovering from heat stroke. Ayutthaya is located in the central plains of Thailand, so it gets hot there...like 'over the top' hot. When it comes to climate, the Thai's say that there are three seasons: hot, rainy, cool. For Canadians living in Thailand, forget the 'cool', there are two seasons, hot and crazy hot. 
Along with extra caps and shade umbrellas, as well as lots of cases of bottled water, we brought along our own in-house tour guide, that is a Grade 12 student who acted as our guide around the ruins, giving us cultural and historical interpretation of the four main sites that we had selected to explore. This kid was amazing! 17 going on 32, an articulate and impressive young man, not to mention one of the most proud and knowledgeable of one's heritage young person that I have ever come across. Although the kids had been thoroughly briefed by their teachers before the trip, it was amazing to see how all of them were all ears whenever we stopped in front of some ruin for the run down of what we were looking at by this 'senior' boy. Having already been to Ayutthaya, I have to admit that at times, seeing how the kids were engaged and captivated by their young compatriot tour guide's every words outshone the ruins themselves. As a teacher, I have always been impressed by kids teaching kids.
Ayutthaya was founded in the 13th century and was the second capital of Siam (ancient name for Thailand). The ideal location made it a financial powerhouse in Asia during its glory days in the 17th century. Records have it that in the 1700s, the population of the city had swelled to a million; this made Ayutthaya the largest city in the world in terms of people. All of this glory and grandeur came to a halt when the Burmese invaded the city in 1767 and subsequently burned it down. The name Ayutthaya derives from the Sanskrit word Ayodhyā of the Ramayana epic. Literally, the name translates as "A city that cannot be fought and won over in a war". Wow, with a dare like that, how could the Burmese not be challenged or provoked into pillaging and plundering the city for all it's gold? I shall keep that subject in mind for the next time I wish to dazzle people with light conversation at the dinner table.
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| Buddha head in the tree |
Anyways, the city was abandoned after it was destroyed and the residents migrated away from the city. Being that holy sites and monasteries were the only ones built with stones, the ruins offer an insight to the religious landscape of the Siam Kingdom, which makes the ruins a must for Buddha admirers and devotees. We loved the colours and contrasts of this site, the orange, teal and grey shades of the stone ruins, enough Buddhas to let you know she got you covered, and a sense of submerging into another important axis of World history. The surviving remnants of the Ayutthaya offer a glimpse into its past glory. Today, the main attractions are the towering prangs and stupas surviving in scattered clusters around the island, and of course the centrepiece of the fallen city, the Wat Mahathat Monastery that hosts the mythical and uber famous Buddha head in the tree.
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| Trying not to look like a pervert |
Other than the usual hiccups that plague all field trips, like the inevitable long waits at washroom doors, trying not to look like some pervert while waiting for kids to pee, or getting really annoyed when seeing kids getting ripped off by vulture-like vendors selling their junky trinkets, and of course the dealing with kids getting nausea in the van after consuming 6 tubes of shrimp flavoured Pringles, it turned out to be a good trip. Come to think of it, the biggest crisis of the day was Vincent's Snikers Bar catastrophe. Let me explain. Vincent is a good kid, at times a bit unconventional (as in quirky in a geekily sort of way), but nevertheless an all around good kid...a bit like me when I was his age. I guess the best way to describe Vincent would be... the kind of kid that would bring chocolate to the hottest place on the planet.
So, on our journey back in the van, good old Vincent, upon searching in his back pack for his doomed Snikers Bar, found a squishy clump of gooey melted chocolate and peanuts. He proceeded to unwrap the squishy mess, dropped half of it on himself (yowsa!) and, the other half on the girl sitting next to him (double yowsa!!) and then, tried to clean up the mess on the girl next to him (triple yowsa!!!). Then it really got interesting. Things started to quickly unravel when the other 9 year old girls got involved in the clean up. As anyone who has ever been involved in the complex undertaking of cleaning up a chocolate coated 9 year old girl can vouch, the whole process can easily deteriorate into major bedlam of the 9 year old girl kind.
But then, Vincent's young teacher saved the day by calmly stepping in the melee of emotional 9-year-old-girl distraughtness, instructed everyone to chill, and inquired if anyone had Handi-Wipes (as if he didn't know that 9 years olds would not be caught dead carrying Handi-Wipes with them). Nope, no Handi-Wipes. But like all respectable teachers-on-field-trips and doting mothers on the face of planet Earth, Mr. Came-Prepared teacher had Handi-Wipes on stand by in his backpack. While passing out the Handi-Wipes to Vincent and all who had been in contact with the chocolate ladened 9 year old girl, he reminded the kids of their recent Science lesson in which they had experimented with the six phase transitions by which matter undergoes a change in state, and that their confrère Vincent's chocolate bar had changed from a solid to a liquid. Needless to say, I was impressed. This young master teacher in waiting had capitalized on Vincent's unfortunate quasi catastrophic chocolate episode as a teachable moment to reinforce a concept that had perhaps escaped some of the kids previously, but was now understood by everyone in that van. And that's when it dawned on me. I have perhaps reached my expiration date as a schoolteacher.
This whole episode accentuated the fact that I was no longer there, that I no longer had the essential patience that this young teacher had. The most important quality that a teacher should have is patience. I believe I still have what is needed to be a good teacher, I am still a caring, enthusiastic, and accessible teacher, but my patience battery seems to be draining more and more quickly as time goes by. My reaction to Vincent's chocolate meltdown would have been to stop the van and have Vincent roll in some water filled mosquito infested ditch on the side of the road. Forget the Handi-Wipes. But then I was never a Handi-Wipes type of guy anyways. Oh well, so be it. In any case, my 'last' field trip turned out to be a great 'last' field trip: a fantastic and most interesting destination, fantastic and most endearing kids, and fantastic and most patient teachers. What else could I ask for?
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