Learning is a continuous process and so goes the phrase, ‘he who is tired of learning is tired of life’.
Every society believes in the power of knowledge, thus invests so much in the education of its members.
The level of development across different countries of the world is proportional to the volume of learned minds nurtured by the same.
The essence of learning most often is to gain knowledge that is useful in practical solutions to day-to-day problems.
Oftentimes, the rate at which learning takes place, or the depth of understanding of what is learned is dependent on factors like learning environment, how qualified and efficient the teacher is, the intelligence quotient of the student and the teaching methodology.
Bridging the gap between what is read in books, what is taught orally in classes, and what there is in the real world can be challenging, especially in developing countries, where educational systems are underdeveloped and ill-equipped.
As such, faced with the difficulty of relating classroom learning and its relevance or applications in the real world, young people easily lose interest in education and drop out of school.
One important tool for teaching, that can facilitate learning with ease, and make education appealing at such instance is the use of excursions.
What Does Excursion Entail?
Excursion provides a trip away from class into the real world, with the view of bringing students in contact with physical and visible realities of theoretical or abstract entities learned in class.
It provides an avenue to see a real-life and clearer picture of seemingly ambiguous classroom knowledge.
Benefits of Excursion
The use of excursion as a tool for teaching has numerous benefits.
It is an avenue to get an out-of-the-class fresh air
Rigorous, stereotyped class activities can be boring and make learning tedious and tiring. Students once in a while, need a break, not from learning, but from the confines of a classroom. Excursion provides that out of the class experience. It would be surprising to find students, especially the younger generation, thrilled at such.
It brings a “see what has been said” kind of learning to the forefront
You can with the most eloquent words or best kind of description, paint the picture of a computer to person, but no matter how brilliant they are, they will not get it clearer or remember it so easily.
Bringing students to see, for instance, in industries, firms or organizations, or nature parks, real life examples and applications of theories and concepts of theoretical learning, helps bridge the gap between theory and practical, and makes learning colorful.
Creating enthusiasm in students
Through excursion, students get to know that there is more to the world than the happenings within the four walls of the classroom.
They, by contact with experts and professionals across various fields, contact with new technologies and ideas, for instance, birth new aspirations, thirst for greatness and desire to learn to be fulfilled like these professionals.
They also get a picture of the benefits of learning, as it helps them to be relevant in life.
Furthermore, they want to nurture a feeling of what it is like to work in big organizations or be a practical real life problem solver.
Let us make learning colorful and appealing. A day out on excursion can pass great knowledge that several days of rigorous class lessons fail to do.
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