As a person who had never been to Barkerville before I must say I had no idea what to expect really, and with that I went on the trip with very little expectations and simply an open mind. I was expected to have the Elementary and Secondary cohorts mixing and going on this over night filed trip together. Mostly because I was looking forward to interacting with classmates in a new setting, a more relaxed less school “heavy” setting, with the hope to get to know people more on a people level. Upon reflection of all these goals and low expectations I had going into this trip, success came from it. I made so many new connections with different classmates I hadn’t talked much with previously, I felt like I got to know people on a deeper level and beyond just the school aspect of things. A lot of these deeper connections came from this unstructured time that was worked into our day schedules, I discussed unstructured vs structured plans more in a previous blog, and my thoughts and opinions on its place in the classroom. I was also so very pleasantly surprised with Barkerville, again I did not know what to expect at all and what I can say about it now is just wow, what a cool place to visit. I felt like I had gone back in time, into the simpler times before technology, and heavy industry, and massive buildings took over the landscape. I noticed myself does not use my phone hardly at all while I was in Barkerville, and it was not because there was no service! It was because it almost felt authentic to even have a phone on you. So strange and an odd thing to point out but it really is how I felt and what I reflected on a lot when I got home from the trip. I loved the feeling, the organic, old timey, nostalgia of the good ole days when life just seemed to be a little simpler. I would love love love to bring my future class of students on a trip like this and I think I would focus in on this feeling of “before technology”, I think it would be something cool for this generation of students to feel and experience along with all the cool histories and stories that lay within a place like Barkerville. All in all, such a successful trip in so many areas, I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to go and grateful to my professors for setting it up for us.
