Ship School

Though it’s a summer voyage, ISE still offers “ship school” for the kids. While during the academic year most of the ship school time is devoted to keeping up with the school work the kids are missing back home, the summer school time for kids is an enrichment program. Today (Thursday June 17) was the first official day of the program, though they’ve had some informal activities for the kids since day one. Twice they’ve shown movies in the evening during times when the college students were engaged in other activities. For the first several days those of us traveling with children gathered at the pool each afternoon. Since arriving in Canada, it’s been a bit chilly for the pool, though Emma and a few of her friends did dip their feet in this afternoon for a few minutes. The DCC’s (dependent children coordinators) have arranged some wonderful programming for the kiddos on board. This morning Staff Captain Kostos came and talked to them about his job and about safety on board a moving vessel, and this afternoon the inter-port student from Spain (students travel between ports to help the voyagers learn about the life of college students in the various countries we visit) came and talked to the kids about life in Barcelona. Both speakers took questions from the students. School isn’t just lectures though, they also have craft time, healthy snacks, time for cards and board games, and time on the sport deck to run off some steam. I’m very grateful to Laura and Valerie, the DCC’s. I can’t imagine eight-days at sea without some organized activities for the children.