Textbooks vs. The Great Outdoors...?

“All learning should take place outside the classroom.”

I believe that this statement contains both a right and wrong opinion. I agree with the idea that we can learn things outside the classroom, that we don’t have to be sat in the same chair for an hour pouring over some thick textbook that contains the secrets of the past, present and predictions of the future to learn about the world. I believe we can also step into the outside… or unknown, depending on where you go… and learn about what makes us interact with other people and how we need to and do respect other people.

Respecting others and gaining new friendships can be done both inside and outside of the classroom, but I believe that being outside is more beneficial to show this. We are able to show what we have learnt within the classroom and make more of an effort to engage with people. Being around other people, both within and without the classroom, helps us to develop interpersonal skills that help us to understand the feelings of others and how we should respect and view the others around us. These things we learn by socialising outside of school help us when we return to gain a better understanding of how our world works and how we fit into it.

Being around others on a boat trip in Holland (Here is the website that gave us this fabulous expierence -- http://www.rederij-vooruit.com/) made me realise how to understand the feelings of my peers better and how to stay calm in the situations and problems that we faced. When cooking, cleaning and navigating as was able to communicate with my group, organise and get this done with the help of other people. The many challenges we faced were made easier by the help of other people and I believe if we had not communicated (or lived (which we did for a whole week)) with each other then we would have not been able to overcome these challenges.

All in all, I believe that being outside the classroom can help you gain another set of skills while being in the classroom can help you gain knowledge. This trip has taught me how to interact better with other students but has also helped me to understand that being in the classroom is also important. We should learn both inside and outside the classroom in order to learn the maximum that we can! PDW opened my eyes to new adventures and help me to develop more interpersonal skills and gain new friendships.

I would like to know what your opinion on this quote is. Do you think it's more beneficial to learn in the classroom or do you think that everyone should be taught outside the class and in the "real" world?