Revolution Train, an anti-drug campaign

http://www.revolutiontrain.cz/v2/

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.