Ski vacation or grandparents? School principal who goes on free trips with students: “It gives them courage and a different perspective”
Students in several counties of the country are already on “ski vacation”, others are due to enter next week, so that the last week of February closes the series. For many children, however, practicing winter sports remains a dream.
Vacation on the slopes, the dream achieved by few students PHOTO: Shutterstock
The “ski holiday”, a week-long “mobile” holiday, the period being left to the discretion of the county school inspectorates, has caused controversy and continues to do so. There are voices that claim that breaking up the school year throws students out of rhythm, and others that claim that shorter but more frequent vacations help kids.
“It's a sport that improves their self-esteem”
Practicing winter sports during the holidays – hence the name given to the holiday from this period – for most students remains a dream, although it would help the children enormously, explains Loredana Stroiuleasa, school counselor and director of a rural secondary school.
For students whose parents can afford to give their children a few days of relaxation on the slopes, the impact is indeed positive. “First of all, they exercise outdoors, they go to the snow, they don't sit on their phones anymore. Skiing is a sport that improves their self-esteem, it teaches them to control their emotions, because when you learn a new sport – and this is an extreme sport somewhat – you have some emotions that you have to learn to control, you have to push your limits. It is a good sport and the idea is good, but if we lived in a country where accessible or even free camps would be organized, so that children from the countryside could also go and learn this sport”believes Stroiuleasa.
Scheduling the February school vacation, by county PHOTO: Facebook/MEC
Even for families who manage to save money for a vacation during this period, skiing remains an unattainable goal if the service does not allow them to enjoy a few days off.
“Probably in city schools students go on vacation somewhere during this period, but not in rural areas. It's a holiday and that's it. A break from school. (…) Most of the students from our school will be at home or with their grandparents”, the director of the Milcov Deal Secondary School also specified.
When children tell their stories, after the holiday, about similar experiences, there is no room for frustration. However, where in the same class there are colleagues from families with a high financial level, for whom supporting the expenses for several vacations a year is not a problem, with children from families with low incomes, everything depends on how the parents manage to explain to them at home why they cannot have the same type of experiences.
“And after the summer vacation, many children tell that they have been to places where others cannot afford to go. That depends a lot on how the parents at home manage the situation and how they explain to them that they don't have the financial potential that their bank colleague has. This is up to the parent to discuss at home, but also to the teacher at school, when they talk about what they did on vacation. In general, in leadership class we discuss what we did on vacation. Let's put the problem that the visit to the grandparents is as beautiful as the one in Dubai, we are talking about the emotional charge. The time spent with the grandparents was beautiful and the experiences matter, not the money invested”emphasizes Stroiuleasa. Even if such explanations are given by the parents, they will have much more importance if they come from the teacher or the director, confirms Stroiuleasa.
Free trip with the school, with money from PNRAS
Loredana Stroiuleasa spoke, on the other hand, about how important experiences outside of school are in students' lives, even more so when families cannot support such expenses. He runs a school with just under 100 students (kindergarten, primary and secondary), and most of the children have never been to camp or on a trip with their parents.
Through a project accessed through the National Program for the Reduction of School Dropouts (PNRAS), worth over 82,000 euros, the school made several purchases to be able to carry out various activities, reserved a part of the budget for remedial courses, provided hot meals to students for the past school year and for the current year (the project ends in June), organized courses on various topics of interest to teachers and parents and reserved an important part of the budget to give students the experience of field trips. 55 students, from middle school and high school, spent three memorable days together at the end of the last school year. They went to an adventure park, visited the Polovragi cave, sat for stories by the campfire, collected many other memories.
Students from Milcov, Olt county, on a trip to Polovragi PHOTO: Milcov Deal High School website
“He keeps asking me when we go on trips again. Now we have another trip scheduled in the spring, to Bucharest. We calculated the budget so that we could also afford the experience of a creative workshop. We will visit the Parliament Palace, we have several things planned”, Stroiuleasa also specified.
Loredana Stroiuleasa has been leading the school in Milcov Deal for four years, having been appointed to the position after the previous director resigned. He says that at first he felt hopeless, finding the building in a bad state and a lot to fix. In a short time things started to change. The necessary repairs were made, and the first trip was organized for the children, at that time with money from sponsorships, several tens of kilometers away from the house, in Vâlcea, the neighboring county.
“I received messages from parents who wrote to me that I took them where they will never be able to take them, under the conditions in which we arrived in Vâlcea and Călimănești, that is, almost”the director explained.
They visited there, among other things, the zoo, and the reaction of a child when he noticed the peacock, saying in amazement that he saw “a blooming hen”remained in everyone's memory.
While for other children a vacation in the country is sometimes too little, for the students from the school in Milcov and a visit of several hours, carried out on another occasion, in the School Otherwise, to institutions in the county seat municipality (located only 10 km from the house) was overwhelming. The visit ended with a stop at McDonalds, which the students really wanted. For certain children, however, it was an expense beyond the family budget.
“I've had a few kids say they go and wait in the park. At one point a little girl expressed herself – What, madam, how much does a menu cost here, we buy a salami and we all eat at home! -. We were ready, the teachers had lined up, we took menus for all the children. Or a little girl would ask me where she could buy pretzels, because she had 5 lei. She was very angry that I didn't agree to give me the 5 lei and I told her that she will pay off the debt when she takes her own children to the restaurant and tells them how her first experience was.” said the teacher from the moments she sometimes experiences, together with her colleagues, in the relationship with the students.
Students from Milcov ask about the upcoming trip PHOTO: Milcov Deal Secondary School website
Stroiuleasa also said that the teachers are looking for any opportunity to take the children out of the world they know, to show them that they have something to strive for at school.
“We try to show them new things, new experiences and explain to them that they need to learn, get a job, and in turn afford to take their children to these places. This is what we tell them:
