Fieldtrips

What is it about field trips that make them so special, so exciting? Is it getting outside of the classroom, the halls, bells, the smells and seeing everyone from your class out in the real world. The conversations that are sparked seem different. The teacher is more real than before. All of a sudden, opportunities bubble and mesh with your own personal experience, with the rules of school.

In Berkeley not so long ago my daughter's class took a fieldtrip to see a musical performance at Zellerbach Hall on UC Berkeley's campus. As they walked together, some rules transformed into the real world. Walk on the sidewalk of course, don’t disturb residences lawns, if there are on-coming walkers veer to the right as folks do driving on the road. Basic things all children should know and do anyways. But still there is a searing anticipation of what is in store once they arrive. Just like birthdays, Halloween and particular holidays. It’s as if going out into the “field” or real world with the teacher and classmates intact extends an extraordinary journey of education. In the classroom, things are predictable, organized, structured, and scheduled. Outside the classroom, on a field trip anything can happen.

Last year, my little girl's fieldtrip had an event upon an event when they traveled by bus to Martinez to visit the old John Muir house. The day was planned and followed through accordingly but what wasn’t in the itinerary was the bus breaking down. It was all that my little one could talk about when she returned home safely. It was an unexpected problem that happened to them and added to the thrill of venturing out with teacher and classmates. And that is what is so spectacular about field trips. The taste for adventure within the confines of an educator’s eye and a curriculum which supports broadening the mind, stimulating the soul and proving through repetition that one can be an active participant in life and still be okay.

Naturally, many unexpected events can and do occur on school campus but there is a profound familiarity ingrained in them just like being at home. It’s all too easy to take their environment for granted. School is a very influential place. Friends are formed. Ideas are inspired. Behaviors are modified. Everyone is growing. It may be an institution but the children, teachers and community alike make it whatever it may be. When field trips happen it’s likened to taking a much needed vacation. The learning doesn’t stop in fact it speeds up the discovery in an effervescent way. Upon returning, energy is brought back into the classroom; brought back into them.