Today I had the opportunity to accompany my daughter to the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky. This function was a Girl Scout event, yet we took the whole family. As I sat and watched the girls laugh, interact, and learn together, I begin to wonder: What happened to field trips in schools? In my children current district they took only one field trip last year. Do field trips still exist?
While attending school for my undergraduate degree in 2004, I worked in a school bookkeeping office. I remember ever year the accountant would speak off the lack of use of the field trip funds.(In the teachers defense, many teachers were elder and/or more concerned with being placed on academic probation due to students not passing the ISAT.) Well, after I graduated, I began teaching at this school and I remembered what the bookkeeper said. Boy did I take advantage of that fund and I planned 12 trips that year.
Let me explain, the district is housed in a rural area of 800 people and the nearest town is 30-45 minutes away, so field trips gave the students a chance to venture away from the norm of their quiet lifestyle. We went everywhere: to the zoo,college, post office, planetarium, grocery store, Shedd Aquarium, Pumpkin Patch, plays, book readings, etc. Just about everywhere! At the end of that school year, the students may not have scored the highest in all academic lessons but their communication skills, social skills, and geography skills were flourished.
Well, during my second year of teaching, I was told that I could only take two trips and that was only if the Purchase order was accompanied with a five subject lesson plan, assessment, and identification of specific state standards. I noticed a big difference in my students this year. We used a lot of virtual tours that year but it wasn't the same.
I understand that school districts have had to find ways to cut spending and that the curriculum and textbooks are more important than traveling to field trips, but instead of spending more money on technology and testing maybe we can spend a little of that money on good old fashion "field trips".
For information on the benefits of field trips visit:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5032200_benefits-school-field-trips.html
I totally agree that field trips are essential to learning experiences. When my children were younger, we spent our money on at least two vacations a year (within the U.S. because I believe that kids should know about the country they grew up in) and I planned "field trips" for them during the summer, such as visiting museums, nature centers and other low-cost activities. As a result, I think my children are very well-rounded and talk about their many experiences. The school district that my children attended stopped field trips because of safety and security reasons (post 9/11). Before that, the parents paid for all field trips in full.
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