During late October, all Grade 11 students from Nanyang Model Private High School went to the Dadonghai farming camp in Pudong district for a five-day visit. They experienced the common lives of farmers and they also learned agricultural knowledge that may help them throughout their lives. Recently, several Grade 11 students took a survey in which they talked about their previous experiences and the skills they learned. Let’s take a look at the stories they told!
Despite the fact that the farm camp experience only took them five days, the Grade 11s witnessed various kinds of activities and did most of them on their own. Activities that required teamwork, as several students pointed out, helped them a lot to develop communication skills and to practice their collaboration skills. According to Vicky Xu from 11B, when they were having a picnic outside, group members were asked to cook fried rice on their own. Three out of four people in their group had had previous cooking experiences, but they were still unsatisfied with the final result as the fried rice tasted like “the mixture of fried rice and soaked rice”. The reason for that was because of the complexity of the procedures such as gathering wood and lighting fire; the challenging processes made it harder for their team members to collaborate efficiently. As a result, Vicky learned the importance of cooperation when doing teamwork.
Many of the Grade 11s found it challenging about the living condition in the farming camp, and so did Kerensa Lu. The dormitory sometimes became a little bit cold at night and most people spent lots of time trying to deal with them. Unlike others, however, Kerensa accepted it, persevered and learned from it. She wrote in the survey that “For students who have lived in modern cities since they were born, the living conditions in the farming camp is challenging indeed. There were people who couldn’t stand it, but most of the students strived and didn’t give up. Next time, when I face similar situations, I will try my best to overcome the living condition instead of complaining about it because I know that I can only improve myself when I face adversities”.
When talking about the things that the farm camp taught the students, Eric Yao and David Gao gave a detailed explanation of that. During these five days, Eric and his classmates not only learned how to dig sweet potatoes and to grind soybean milk but also looked at the technology and the history of agriculture. “Although I had learned a lot of ancient Chinese poems that educates us on some old and true principles like ‘slow work yields fine products’, I didn’t have a chance to test it in real life. It was only during the farming camp when I realized the importance of practicing these principles.” For David, he depicted his experience of grinding soybean milk. “Although it wasn’t the first time for me to operate a mill, I was still astonished by the whole complex procedure of grinding soybeans. The soybean milk tasted a little bit sour at that time, but we still felt pleased by our achievements.”
The farm camp experience may not be super exciting for some Grade 11s, but all of them learned from various adversities and developed their own unique skills by solving problems one by one. This five-day trip has indeed become a precious memory for NANMO students. They learned to be resilient, to collaborate, and to persevere. Many of these life lessons aren’t something that can be easily learned from school. As a result, this trip educated the Grades 11s a lot and are meaningful to them.
By Andy Zhang