Publish at May 02 2023 Updated May 03 2023
During my entire school career, I did not take any study trips. Yet, one trip allowed me to assimilate the lessons of several years. This trip taken during the vacations was not a study tour as defined in the Practical Guide to Fostering Peer Exchange as
"a trip of several people chosen to explore a topic in greater depth, to learn from another experience, to another part of the country or abroad in order to meet others concerned with a common issue. It is an activity whose main objective is to make participants reflect on the theme defined upstream" (Jamart, 2007).
It is therefore a well-organized exercise that requires a certain methodology and means.
Some countries, among them Sub-Saharan African countries, would benefit from introducing the study tour from primary or secondary school; especially since several lessons could be advantageously replaced by study tours, which are more effective.
My aforementioned trip allowed me to learn enough about Geography, Culture, Civic and Moral Education (CME), Social and Family Education (SFE), and several other courses.
Better integrate the SFE course
In the Cameroonian educational system, a course called Social and Family Education had been introduced. This course aims to train students to maintain an orderly life in the family and to integrate easily into society. In this course, usually taught by women, we were taught how to cook, sew fabrics, arrange our clothes.
But most of the time, everything remained theoretical. Yet if a field trip had been organized, I, as well as other students, would have known how to pack my bags with clothes and other items needed for a trip. This activity would have made practical sense...
Travel and the pragmatic dimension of language learning
Traveling as part of study can be an excellent catalyst in language learning. Foreign language students in Cameroon are almost the only ones who benefit from language placements. This is the case for students in the Department of Applied Foreign Letters (LEA) at the University of Dschang, who must validate a course based on a report written after a three-day language trip to a city other than Dschang.
Language courses in primary and secondary school would be better understood with the programming of study trips. A student improves vocabulary and easily learns the lexical field of words related to travel: suitcase, driver, car, road... In addition to travel-related language, places visited, people passed, reading plates, etc. will enrich vocabulary.
On my first trip to the city of Douala in Cameroon, words like "coconut", "grafted mangoes", "Bitacola" and many others stuck in my mind. For at every checkpoint on the road, vendors would come to the windows offering goods, shouting the names of the products being sold.
Geography summarized and assimilated in a few trips
During the entire secondary and primary school curriculum, we had lessons on forests, steppes, savannahs, rivers, etc., but the main occasion that allowed me to really assimilate certain species or plants was my first trip.
In fact, the road that connects the Western and Littoral regions of Cameroon offers a novel sight for travelers. Several plantations line these roads: cocoa trees, banana trees, papaya trees, rubber trees, and so on. Thus, even if the project of the study trip is not about fauna or flora, the landscapes on the road, the people who accompany us or our neighbors in the bus allow us to discover several species of plants at different places on the journey, therefore, facilitate the assimilation of Geography and Life and Earth Sciences (LSE) courses.
Beyond the flora, the various reliefs are crossed during some villages. For the case of Cameroon and between the two regions raised, you cross forests, mountains, plains. Moreover, I understood the nuances between the hot and cold climates while traveling from the West of Cameroon to the coast.
Life and Earth Sciences taught differently
I did not have the chance in my childhood, like many children elsewhere in Cameroon, to grow up in a purely forest area in order to touch the variety and wildlife of Cameroon. However, the trip that I took allowed me to move from the imaginary to the concrete. During the SVT and geography classes, there are chapters on the fauna. Animals are mentioned and often, through pictures in books, some are presented to the students. These images remain abstract. On the other hand, a trip in the middle of the day to several parts of Cameroon shows you a plethora of animals on the way.
In fact, on the roads, people present animals that are very often the fruit of hunting and sold as game. Even though one may feel distress when seeing these animals, one must still recognize that during the trip, one can touch with his finger, a wood snake, a hare, a pangolin, a caiman, etc.
What if civic and moral education was only taught through travel
The Civic and Moral Education (CME) course addressed several topics among which, the highway code or at least the behavior to adopt on the road.
This course, well thought out, allows students to learn the rules to respect on the lane: how to cross a lane, the interpretation of lights, the lanes reserved for pedestrians, the lanes reserved for cars etc. But many students recite these lessons but cannot actually cross a road where there is traffic. Yet, on a trip, an hour spent on these roads could give children a better understanding of all these concepts. Many children grow up in areas where there are no paved roads. As a result, when they travel, they are confronted with realities, often catastrophically.
Interculturality is also part of themes addressed in the ECM course. A study tour between two regions of Cameroon could serve many young people to understand the cultural facts of their compatriots and better fight against identity-based withdrawal.
Revisiting history through travel
Many children in Cameroon learn lessons about colonization and slavery and in these courses, the Atlantic Ocean and the Wouri River are cited as major gateways to Cameroon but very few know where these waterways are located , knowledge that is essential to understanding the history of Cameroon. It was through these places that the Portuguese, English, French, etc. entered.
A field trip to Douala or Limbe, coastal cities of Cameroon, would help assimilate several historical concepts such as the slave trading posts.
The benefits that a field trip brings to students are invaluable. This article admittedly does not present a study tour but parallels the possible benefits of a study tour for students in several places around the world.
I have dwelt on the case of Cameroon, but the reality is present in several countries. Six hours spent on the journey between two Cameroonian cities allowed me to integrate concepts seen over several years of class. The study trip can be considered an effective pedagogical approach to value.
Bibliography
Jamart, Clara, "AGTER's study tours. Definition, objectives and method. ", 2007, online,
https://www.agter.asso.fr/IMG/pdf/Jamart_voyages_d_etudes_fr.pdf
Study Tours, A Practical Guide to Fostering Peer Exchange, 2017, online,
https://www.fert.fr/v2/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/fert_guide-ve.pdf
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