Today I found a little note in Em's school folder asking if there were any parents interested in attending the one and only kindergarten field trip in May. I'll assume they will be swamped with replies from parents, like myself, who are chomping at the bit to do anything at all with kindergarten. We've had almost not opportunities to volunteer in the classrooms, are given little information about anything that is happening on a daily basis and field trips? They are almost a thing of the past at our school. Why is that, I wonder?
When I was teaching in a private school, we actually planned and executed one field trip a month. This gave all parents ample opportunity to join us, expanded our horizons and utilized an area of the country that is prime field trip stomping ground. The DC area is a treasure trove of excellent educational trip opportunities. All the Smithsonean museums are free, the National Aquarium at Baltimore offers multiple programs at a cost of $1/MD student, National Monuments abound and if you are willing to put out a bit of $$, the opportunities are really endless. So why, with all these options right at the end of our bus routes, do teachers not take better advantage of these amazing sites?
I am asking this question honestly, because I really don't understand. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and suggest a few possibilities. One, maybe, that field trips are a pain in the neck to organize. We did it because we felt that they were an awesome opportunity for the children, not because we liked setting dates, collecting money, making millions of phone calls, getting a bus driver, dealing with parents who refuse to discipline their own children while chaperoning and being completely exhausted for a week after the trip! I have horror story after horror story about field trips, but I would still support them because I know they create experiences and memories for children that can never be duplicated in a classroom.
Secondly, maybe the county has just made the field trip thing a miserable blob of red tape. I know they have banned some in-school field trips, such as the ZooMobile, because of insurance risks. I also know from experience that many expensive field trip destinations are unwilling to work with schools when there are cancellations dues to inclement weather. Just this year, a middle school field trip to the Hippodrome happened to fall on our Valentine's Day storm, when the entire state shut down. The Hippodrome basically collected hundreds of dollars for a performance that was never watched. With policies like that, planning field trips becomes a costly and risky business! The county has also limited the teachers to specific bus companies, which can get very costly. It was a great benefit to us in our planning to be able to find competitive transportation costs that were willing to come down in price to get a job. Not so in our county!
Finally, maybe there just isn't enough interest, either by administrators or parents, to support trips. Kt has had only two field trips this year and I have not been "chosen" to chaperone either. This is Em's first and only field trip and I'm guessing there's a good chance I won't be "chosen" for this one either. I'd have to say that from my experience, parents are quite supportive of trips. I can only assume, then, that somewhere in the administration there has been a moratorium of sorts on trips. Maybe safety issues? Possibly cost? It's really too bad that we have come to a place in education where experience outside of school is not valued very highly or is viewed as unsafe for our children.
As a child, field trip days topped the list of favorite things at school. I can remember many of them, like our trip to see P.T. Barnum on Broadway, taking our unicycling/juggling/clowning show on the road to other elementary schools, going to Mill River to learn about the marsh and estuaries, and the boat trip we all took in 6th grade on the Long Island Sound. When I imagine what my own children could be doing around DC - free zoo, free history museums, free art museums - I'm just amazed unfortunately by what they are missing. Luckily, we take them to these things because we feel they are important. The number of kids around here who never step foot on the mall in DC is staggering, so field trips would definitely be warranted.
This trip in May for kindergarten is to a theater that is literally 5 minutes from the school to see The Ugly Duckling. Of course I would love to go, mostly so that I can engage my child in a meaningful conversation about what we've seen. If there was anything better than going on a field trip it was going on a field trip that your mom went on! I may just have a year with no chaperoning, then again I may just have a year where my children are my only students on our family field trips!
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