Field trips
On Friday, I went on a site visit for work (which took place at the Jersey Shore, which was fabulous, because a Friday at the beach in the summer?! Woohoo! Only it rained the whole day, so boo), which was a nice opportunity to be out of the office, and to learn in a way that I just don't in meetings when we're just sort of navel-gazing and/or talking to ourselves without inserting any sort of real-world perspective into the discussion.
I'd been thinking that, really, "site visit" is just a grown-up word for a field trip, although there was not the requisite singing and group transportation that one finds on a proper field trip. I realize that although I remember some random, obscure details from my schools' field trips, it's the travel time I remember most.
My last field trip that actually admitted to being a field trip was senior year in college, when my Total Institutions class piled into a van to visit what our professor called "the mad and the bad" -- a psychiatric prison in New York State. It was incredibly depressing and scary and sad, and then we went to Wendy's afterward, and we all sang Cher's "Believe" along to the radio on the way home.
When my brother, who's a science geek, chaperoned my 12th grade physics class's trip to Great Adventure, he took the bravest group who'd tackle assignments on the scary rides (and he told us the right answers for all of our worksheets when our velocity-measuring devices weren't functioning on the roller coasters). So everyone just loved him, and we watched Forrest Gump and sang 10,000 Maniacs' "These are Days" on the bus ride.
My sister Kathy took us on a 5th grade field trip (I know most people have their parents chaperone, but when you're the way-youngest of five kids, it's much cooler to bring your older sibling). This was Catholic school in Jersey in the '80s, and this particular trip was a walk to the library, the grocery store and the park. It seems completely absurd, but I guess it encompassed a number of subjects: (1) phys ed with the walking and running around at the park; (2) geography, because we were required to make a map of the route we took to each place (I remember that we passed a Breast Center on the way to the grocery store, and we were all mortified to have to write it as a landmark on the map); (3) math, because we had to budget and figure out sales tax and crap at the grocery store; (4) English, library sciences and current events at the town library, where there was a big scandal at the time about homeless people's right to spend their days there; and, of course, (5) music in the park, where 5 or 6 of us brought boom boxes to play mix tapes of '80s hair band power ballads.
Do kids still sing on field trips or on the bus ride home from away games? Or is that a total artifact because everyone has an iPod and a cell phone? (If I were in high school today, I'm sure I'd have neither, but 95% of my classmates would, I'm guessing.) That would be so sad, and it makes me feel so old.
I'd been thinking that, really, "site visit" is just a grown-up word for a field trip, although there was not the requisite singing and group transportation that one finds on a proper field trip. I realize that although I remember some random, obscure details from my schools' field trips, it's the travel time I remember most.
My last field trip that actually admitted to being a field trip was senior year in college, when my Total Institutions class piled into a van to visit what our professor called "the mad and the bad" -- a psychiatric prison in New York State. It was incredibly depressing and scary and sad, and then we went to Wendy's afterward, and we all sang Cher's "Believe" along to the radio on the way home.
When my brother, who's a science geek, chaperoned my 12th grade physics class's trip to Great Adventure, he took the bravest group who'd tackle assignments on the scary rides (and he told us the right answers for all of our worksheets when our velocity-measuring devices weren't functioning on the roller coasters). So everyone just loved him, and we watched Forrest Gump and sang 10,000 Maniacs' "These are Days" on the bus ride.
My sister Kathy took us on a 5th grade field trip (I know most people have their parents chaperone, but when you're the way-youngest of five kids, it's much cooler to bring your older sibling). This was Catholic school in Jersey in the '80s, and this particular trip was a walk to the library, the grocery store and the park. It seems completely absurd, but I guess it encompassed a number of subjects: (1) phys ed with the walking and running around at the park; (2) geography, because we were required to make a map of the route we took to each place (I remember that we passed a Breast Center on the way to the grocery store, and we were all mortified to have to write it as a landmark on the map); (3) math, because we had to budget and figure out sales tax and crap at the grocery store; (4) English, library sciences and current events at the town library, where there was a big scandal at the time about homeless people's right to spend their days there; and, of course, (5) music in the park, where 5 or 6 of us brought boom boxes to play mix tapes of '80s hair band power ballads.
Do kids still sing on field trips or on the bus ride home from away games? Or is that a total artifact because everyone has an iPod and a cell phone? (If I were in high school today, I'm sure I'd have neither, but 95% of my classmates would, I'm guessing.) That would be so sad, and it makes me feel so old.
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