As a teacher, I often feel that sometimes we just need to get out of school. The trick is to think of a field trip that makes senese, that is entertaining and educational... and that is not always easy to do. Last week I chose for our classes to vist a Revolution Train, it is an Anti-Drug campaign. I, myself, didn't know what to expect. I heard great reviews and recommendations but a huge part of me was terrified that this will yet another "Don't do drugs" lecture which students are not very fond of nor do they think of this as "fun." Boy, was I surprised. A fantastic educational program that should be required for schools and students.
Instead of describing it myself, I will let the words of Rashad from our 9th class to the work :-)
Revolution Train, an
anti-drug campaign.
The other day, a few classes from my school went to an anti-drug program
that was held in a fully functional train. It was about 150m long and weighed
over 300 tons! The silver colour was clearly a giveaway that this was no
ordinary train.
We arrived at the train station in Dejvice and were split up into three
groups. As we entered, we were welcomed by a nice lady who instructed us to
leave our bags at the entrance and have some water or use the bathroom if
needed. The entire exhibition took about one and a half hours. Certainly, I
expected yet another boring lecture about how drugs are bad. The first task we were given was to fill out
a questionnaire about ourselves. The questions were mainly asking if we have
ever used drugs, smoked, drank alcohol or something along that line. Once that
was done, we entered one out of four theater rooms. I immediately assumed that
we will watch a boring documentary. We were played a short movie, which was
divided into several pieces throughout the train. An ear catching fact was when
at the beginning of the film we learned that the narrator of the film is
already dead and perhaps the scariest thing about this movie was, that this
mini-movie was based on a true story and not a typical documentary. It was
about a mistake made by two teenage girls who chose the wrong path in life.
Their lives changed when they got into a car (after a night of drinking and
dancing) with two drunk and drugged men. While in the car, driven by one of
those men, they crashed into a
motorcyclist who died instantly. Not only was this tragic, but one of the girls
lost her eye and the driver consequently went to prison. Long story short, the
main character ended up doing pervitin and other drugs while still in a
relationship with one of those men. Their relationship turned worse as he
continued to sell drugs and use stronger and stronger types of drugs. Towards
the end, the girl had a baby with him and attempted several times to go through
a recovery program. At the end, we did learn that she had managed to get her
life back to normal but were aware of how unusual and difficult that was.
I must also add, that in addition to watching this mini movies, in
between the short films there were very interactive settings such as a jail
cell, hospital room, interrogation room and even a real life squatter room to
show us the realistic and dirty life style of a drug user.
In my opinion, it was very hard hitting. You realize that if you ever do
something like this, you are pretty much screwed for the rest of your life. I
myself found it interesting and very true. Surely, this was a great way, very
interactive way to get us to pay attention and learn a valuable lesson. My classmates had the same feeling about this
program as I did. This generation is almost an identical example to the
mini-movie and certainly can force kids to think about the choices they will
one day have to make. I absolutely recommend visiting this antidrug campaign train.
Rashad , EDUCAnet Praha, Grade 9.
