At every staff development day in my thirty years of teaching, we were asked to connect the curriculum to the students or the real world. Over the last few years, however, I believe we have lost focus and forcefully removed the backbone of these ideas, using words like frivolous, childish, silly, and trivial.
So what am I talking about with such passion? Field trips. In my early years of teaching, I was able to do a couple of them but was discouraged. I was told that students don’t need to go to a dairy or factory, that they take away from learning and waste time and money. Now, I realize that those who discouraged me did irreparable harm to my students. The removal of field trips was blamed on transportation and costs, but I saw thousands of dollars of waste in my school that could have been given to transportation to supplement costs.
Visiting places of business can provide a greater connection to the world. It gives students a sense of possible career opportunities, reinforces reading and math, and connects to the things in their homes. Those couple of trips in my teaching career were to the museum, and only because all of the teachers demanded it. While they were fun, they were not the full spectrum of what was possible. I am not diminishing the core classes, but just like any good well-balanced meal, there needs to be variety. The same applies to education. I am not advocating for everything being a shiny interactive toy and nothing but entertainment, but it adds to the experience of a good education.
As a student, I went on field trips to Keebler, Greenhouse, Annabelle’s Candy, Shasta Soft Drinks, and Morton Salt. I still have vivid memories of those experiences almost sixty years later. When we went to Keebler, they had just introduced the “elves” as mascots. I remember riding on a cart with a giant picture of Ernie the Elf and thinking how cool it was. We also walked down the street in Denver to the Nabisco factory on 40th and Steele Street. It’s gone now, but the smell is burned into my mind, and anytime I smell something similar, I am taken back to 4th grade and Miss Kenealy’s class. If you ask most adults over forty about school field trips, they will regale you with some great stories.
I do not advocate for the “in my day” belief that everything in schools should be like the 1950s. Times have changed and schools should keep up. Students are different, what they are exposed to daily is different, and schools should reflect that change. However, I do advocate for the return of a wide collection of field trips and hands-on opportunities outside the classroom. That part of school should see a return to earlier times and be a regular part of students’ lives and classrooms!