Field Trip

When I was younger I always looked forward to a couple of word pairings that made my heart sing. Some examples are:

Snow Day
Milk and Cookies
Half Day
Field Trip

I’ll have to talk about the rest some other time but right now let me focus on the field trip pairing. It was very exciting from the outset. The teacher would mention that we were going on a field trip soon and already the anticipation started to brew. As we got closer to the date, we would have to get permissions slips signed by our parents. On some occasion it would be a chaperone slip, if one of the kid’s parents would be accompanying us.

I remember always rushing home the day the permission slips were given begging my mom to sign it immediately. On a couple of occasions my mom would check the box saying she would like to be a ‘grown up’ joining us on the trip. I almost couldn’t sleep that night out of anxiety that some awful thing would happen to my permission slip while I was sleeping (even though I didn’t have a dog at the time, I worried that some random dog would eat my permission slip).

Finally the day would arrive and we would be out and about. Getting yelled at to stay in lines or cross the street quickly or stay together. I didn’t mind the yelling. It was kind of exciting – the danger of being out in the open, unprotected without our safe chalkboard.

Honestly I don’t remember too much of what we saw when we went on those field trips. I know we went to the Museum of Natural History and I loved the big whale. I’m also certain we went to the top of the Statue of Liberty and that we had to climb a lot of stairs. But other than that, I don’t remember much else.

I began to think about field trip day recently when I saw a school group at a museum. The museum guide, teacher and chaperones had a group sit in front of a painting. While they settled down, one child was picking his nose. Another child was taunting a girl and she slapped him. While watching them, I wondered what they were really getting out this visit. Is it just the excitement of being out of the classroom that they were enjoying? The energy emanating off those kids was contagious. Or was it just a potential for an adventure?

Regardless, it was awfully cute to see those kids not paying attention to this wonderful art around them. It would be nice to have a field trip every so often at work too. Just a chance to get out and experience school or work in a different way.