Pathways World School, Aravali is a wonderful IB school nestled in the foothills of the Aravali hills. For the past 11 years it has inspired students to learn, work, play, think and LIVE. Pathways believes in experiential learning. Recently, we, the students of Grade 8, went on a field trip to get a first-hand experience of ‘Development’ - an issue that we were enquiring into. We explored the villages on the Aravali ridge. Each student was expected to create a hypothesis beforehand, on the impact of development and urbanisation on these villages. To this end we prepared questionnaires for interviewing the people and then testing our findings with our hypothesis. At Village Palada our school guides showed us around their village. The local people embraced us with open arms and gave us insights to their society. They were open-minded towards development. Then, at the government school some of us rested and enjoyed connecting with our new friends, while the rest played games. The boys relished playing kabaddi while the girls, and were overwhelmed when learning a new game called kho-kho! We really appreciated the hospitality and considerate nature of the villagers. As ours is an international school, many of the students had never seen an Indian village before. Elisa Sandhu, who has spent all her childhood in the U.K., said, “What was most interesting to discover was how people cope with rodents and snakes in their homes and are still happy! I was expecting the village to be less developed, but unexpectedly saw a mansion of 7 floors, with a fleet of cars parked outside.” Another student, Margarita Ridzhal, who was born and raised in Russia, said, “I was disappointed to see how underdeveloped some of the areas are. I am glad that I study in Pathways, which has adopted so many village schools. As students we are getting the opportunity of serving and being with the children who are less privileged that we are.” Satyam Pratap Singh, who is originally from a rural area in Bihar, stated, “Overall, the experience was refreshing because it reminded me of my native place. It made me aware that not all children are as privileged as us. I am proud to be a Pathwayzian and would like to carry out service activities in these areas and work towards the upliftment of our counterparts in villages.” In this field trip, not only did we learn about the changing faces of our villages, due to urbanisation, but also made great friends at the village school. Though it takes a lot of hard work preparing for the actual study, we have twice as much fun on the trip each time. Our patent statement on all our geography field trips is, “We don’t want to go back home!”
Yoshaan Fernandez and Kritee Mahato (Grade 8)
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