Field Trips

Field trips can be rewarding excursions or nightmares, depending on the teacher and his or her students. It is always desirable to travel at least somewhere new with your class each year because the kids need to learn that education does not just happen in the classroom. Try to plan your field trip so it complements your units in the classroom and so that it suits your students’ interests and ages.

Recently my husband took his grade 9 to OAC classes to Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario. He said that the trip was unreal. The principal accompanied him and he traveled by bus to Toronto. His students were all so well-behaved and quiet that the principal slept the whole way home. They were all on time and they all went to the places he had specified on his list.

Another teacher at his school took her classes to Toronto and she too had an unreal experience. Her students were very very poorly behaved. A whole group of them never showed up for the bus. The rest of the students waited two hours. Finally the group of grade 10 boys was found hiding in the washroom smoking marijuana. They had wanted the bus to leave them in Toronto so that they could go up the CN tower. The whole way home the bus driver had to keep stopping the bus. The kids were so noisy that she couldn’t concentrate on the road. Needless to say, the kids were charged and the teacher vowed never to take another field trip.

Let these two examples be a lesson for you. If you are planning a trip, take time to talk to your students. Tell them a field trip is a privilege and not a right. Make sure your students are willing to go and pay for the trip. If they all back out at the last moment, you’ll either be stuck paying the costs yourself, or you’ll have to recruit other students. The students who go will end up being the ones who just want to get out of class for the day and who will ruin your trip. Also, try to get some parent volunteers, especially with the younger students. The smaller the group, te less likely it will be that one of them will get lost. And finally, if you plan an all-nighter, don’t plan on getting any sleep!

Field trips can be extremely rewarding for everyone involved if you plan ahead and make your students excited and enthusiastic. If you don’t put the work into it, however, you are sowing the seeds

Go To Page: 1 2