After the career panel last Friday (see the video of the event in the post below!), the folks at Google Hyderabad invited the girls at Railway High School to visit their office in Hi-Tech City. Since the day we announced the field trip, the girls couldn’t stop talking about it and prepared for days… The day before, a lot of the girls didn’t even wear their uniform to school because they were washing it in anticipation of the trip!

On Wednesday at 11 am sharp, all 20 girls – together with Danny, Vidya, myself and 2 other teachers as chaperones – were waiting anxiously in the school yard, waiting to get into the 6 cars that were taking us from Lallaguda to Hi-Tech City. While I expected that they would have a lot of fun once we reached our destination, I had not realized how exciting the car trip itself was going to be for our girls – it turned out a lot of them had never ridden in cars before, and most had never left Secunderabad, the side of the city where their school is located. The trip started noisily, with the girls singing songs and playing games in the cars, but once we left Secunderabad behind, they all fell quiet and were completely absorbed by the sights around them, looking out the windows in awe and asking us and the drivers questions: “Uncle, uncle, what’s this big building?”, “Where does the chief minister live?”, “Ooooh, I saw this mall on TV!”… One girl in my car even concluded that the stray dogs in Hi-Tec City are cuter than the ones in Lallaguda!

Once we arrived, we were greeted by familiar faces: the wonderful Google volunteers who took part in the career panel last week were waiting for the girls, and gave each of them visitor tags with their names written on them. The girls were very excited to see them again and felt quite special walking into the impressive Google building with their very own name tags, and being greeted so nicely by everybody in the hallways.

We then headed straight to the cafeteria, as it was time for lunch. The girls took one step inside and paused, intimidated: continental food, South Indian food, North Indian food, salad bar, pasta bar, sandwich counter, pizzas, wraps, and so much more! Not to mention the dessert counter, which was an obvious hit with the girls! And seeing them take their food and sit down at the tables, I couldn’t help but marvel at their modesty: in the midst of this culinary paradise, they all took such small portions! Portions that barely covered a fifth of their plates! I had eaten with them at school before, and I knew how much they generally eat (their parents pack 2 or 3 rice bowls for each of them!), so I realized they felt bad for taking more. But we encouraged them to take as much as they wanted, and in the end we could barely lead them away from the cafeteria: ultimately, we had to compromise and allow them to take their ice-creams upstairs, so we could start the planned activities for the day!

During lunch, I was happy to see that the girls sat at various random tables and interacted with so many Google employees, instead of just keeping to themselves and sitting down as a group. In the cafeteria, while everyone was eating, we also had a small presentation on TMS, and we showed some clips from past video projects done by the students. Everybody really enjoyed seeing the students’ work and our videos were met by applause and enthusiasm from the Google crew!

Upstairs, we met the 18 Googlers that had volunteered to take care of the girls for the day, and we were all so pleasantly surprised to see how many people took an interest in this and were kind enough to give us their time! The volunteers then made some presentations on educational Google products that would be interesting for the girls, like Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Books, Picassa, Google Documents and, of course, the famous search engine. The students listened carefully and were very impressed that all this information was out there, and completely free! In the coming months, we would love to work with the TMS schools and brainstorm how they could better integrate such learning tools into the classroom.

The volunteers also organized some fun activities for the girls, including a scavenger hunt which ended with lots and lots of chocolates! The students then took a tour of the entire Google office and got to learn more about the professional environment and the job responsibilities associated with working in such a company. Before they left, the girls also received presents from the Googlers, and this gesture seriously brought them – and me! – to the verge of tears!

The entire field trip was such a powerful and moving experience for everybody involved, and the girls are still talking about it! Their parents were also impressed by the stories the girls told them upon their return, and the parents themselves called the school to convey their gratitude and enthusiasm! All in all, it was just one of those days that stays with you forever… And on the hour-long trip there and back, I learned enough games and songs to last me at least until the end of the semester! My favorite? “Caterpillar, caterpillar, can you please/ tell me a secret for each of your legs!”