New Lanark Field Trip
So first off I want to say I know this is supposed to be about Clifton and I but Clifton does not work for the Internation School so he did not go on the field trip so he is not in this blog entry. He is doing great and kicking butt and taking names at his job!! :)
Last Thursday and Friday I went on a field trip with my 5th grade class. I have to say this was the coolest field trip I have ever been able to take part in as a teacher. We travelled to all these amazing museums and monuments all over Scotland for two days. We set out on our little journey on Thursday morning at 7am and headed to Dundee where we were taken on a tour of the ship Discovery. This ship was specially built for Antartica exploration in the early 1900's for Great Britain. It was an amazing ship with an amazing story. Antartica was unknown at this point in time and this ship was lived on for three years by 47 men who wanted to be some of the first to explore the unknown land. After Dundee, we headed towards Bannockburn which is where the Robert the Bruce monument is located. Robert the Bruce lead the Scottish army to victory in 1314 against the English in the Battle of Bannockburn so we visited the battlefield and the monument. There was also a presentation by an actor acting as one of the Scottish soldiers who showed all the different weapons and customary Scottish uniforms at the time of the Battle of Bannockburn. No the men did not where Kilts at this time, the actor told us that was a rumor started by a man named Mel Gibson. Ha! The Scottish are not fans of the movie Braveheart due to its lack of factual information. After Bannockburn we went to Blantyre to visit the home of David Livingstone. Livingstone was a Scottish missionary and one of the greatest European explorers of Africa, whose opening up the interior of the continent contributed to the 'Scramble for Africa'. This was my least favorite musuem but we had a dud for a tour guide. I had some problems keeping my kids in order during the hour long snoozer of a tour. Blantyre was our last musuem visit of the day and then we headed to an indoor water park and pizza hut and lastly made it to our hostel where we stayed over night in New Lanark. This hostel we stayed in used to be an old cotton mill in the 1800's. New Lanark is a World Heritage Site. Here we learned about Robert Owen who owned the four cotton mills in New Lanark but had a vision of providing education for the children who worked in the cotton mills. He also worked to make the mill workers have less hours and gave them one day off a week. In the 1800's in the cotton mills the children were starting to work at 6 years old from 6 till 8 everyday and only two days off a year at Christmas. Robert Owen decided children should not work until they are 10 and they should attend school until that point and every one should have one day off a week and work less hours in a day. The entire city is a museum to his vision. They showed you what a typical home would look like for a mill family, the grocery store, the school, the mills and it is still a working cotton mill today. Friday, we also walked to the Falls of Clyde which is a stunning waterfall. After leaving New Lanark we headed towards Stirling to see the William Wallace monument. There they have Wallace's actual sword. It is a massive sword but it is said that William Wallace was 6'6 so this would explain why his sword was so big. As you can see my class and I saw a ton of stuff throughout Scotland. Needless to say it was exhausting but how lucky are those kids and myself to get to take a field trip through that much history. Again I am so thankful and feel like I am in such an experience because its not like we did your usual field trip to an aquarium or zoo, we toured Scotland!
So this was probably one of my favorite moments of the field trip was when my class went up against Mr. Kajiwara's class at the Robert the Bruce monument. We had our kids memorize the Robert Burns poem 'Scots Wha Hae' and they had to perform it in front of the monument. The teachers who were helping chaperone had to judge which class performed it better. Mine won!! Of course!!
Here are the Scots lyrics and the video of my kiddies performing it is below. I was so proud!
'Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome tae yer gory bed,
Or tæ Victory.
'Now's the day, and now's the hour:
See the front o' battle lour,
See approach proud Edward's power -
Chains and Slavery.
'Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha will fill a coward's grave?
Wha sæ base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee.
'Wha, for Scotland's king and law,
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or Freeman fa',
Let him follow me.
'By Oppression's woes and pains,
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free.
'Lay the proud usurpers low,
Tyrants fall in every foe,
Liberty's in every blow! -
Let us do or dee.
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