I love themes, don’t you? When I decorate a room in my house I like it carry a theme. My family room has a game board theme. I just redid my son’s bedroom with primitive black crows. See what I mean? Themes…
Let’s travel down the right-of-passage field trip highway. What kid doesn’t enjoy a field trip? There is something intoxicating about being given permission to leave the prison yard (OOPS, I meant school building) for an entire day and follow his or her teacher around like ducklings at the pond. I love the idea of a field trip. Let’s take learning out of the classroom and into the great, big world. To that end, I am not the least bit interested in mindless activities just to satisfy some notion that kids should go on field trips.
Last spring the kindergarten teacher and I threw together (I meant to say CAREFULLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY ORGANIZED) a transportation themed field trip. I must say, it totally rocked. We visited an airport hanger and climbed in and out of single engine airplanes, we visited the Greyhound bus station, we went for a spin in a limo, we rode the city bus across town, and we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the city airport. We even ate lunch at a McDonald’s that features vintage cars. Wow, we are good! It was fun, adventurous, and best of all, educational (tricky, tricky, Mrs. Dahl snuck some learning in there. Hee-hee. SO devious).
At some point during the summer months, as the teacher section of my brain percolated ideas for the coming year, I had the idea that a media communications themed field trip might also be fun. The Bismarck Tribune had featured my class in a series of ads over the summer promoting its Newspapers In Education program. Three ads ran at various times for a total of nine ads during June, July, and August. I felt they owed my class a tour fit for William and Kate. I was going to cash in as soon as I could make it happen. While we’re at it, why not add a television station? Hey, this was turning into the field trip of the century. I would probably be nominated for some national award or something. Yeah, I could feel it coming together. The kindergarten teacher was on-board. The second grade teacher added her assent after a bit of thought, and now we were a party! Call the TV station – check. Call the newspaper – check. Arrange for a bus and driver – check. Note for home with permission slip – check. Ask the cook to prepare sack lunches for us – check, (wow, this is more complicated than I thought…). Talk to my students about the importance of the media in keeping us informed – check. Talk to my students about proper field trip behavior – check. Do it again – check. Did you hear me, class? Listen respectfully and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!
OK, I think we’re ready.
The day dawned bright and clear, and WINDY. The weather forecast had predicted winds in the 20-30 mph range. Just a bit of a zephyr in good old North Dakota. Ha! We laugh at high wind warnings, and then we spend half-a-day searching for our lawn furniture.
We began our day of Learning Adventure at the television station. Our tour guide, Lee, was awesome with the kids and had them in the palm of his hand the moment they met. As he warmed the crowd up with his humor and easy approachability, one of my blond Finns pointed to me and informed our tour guide, “She’s forty-nine.” Thanks for sharing that, Blondie…
We barely escaped the Room of Terror (I had had nightmares about this one). I am referring to the station control room with its bright, twinkly lights and buttons covering every available space. Were they INSANE letting us in here? I had to control my own urge to push buttons, it was nearly impossible for our students to resist. But inexplicably, they did and we were now in the news studio. The kids were enthralled! We took turns standing in front of the blue screen to do the weather using the monitor showing the weather map. We all got the giggles when one of my first graders, who had worn blue that day, disappeared into the weather map, save for his head and hands. He looked like a floating phantom (another one of my recurring nightmares).
Next was the newspaper tour. Poor, poor tour guide! Lisa was in for it. By the time we disembarked from the bus, our kids were done touring. They were tired, bored, and ready to do some exploring on the scale of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. They would not stay close to our tour guide. They would not. Reprimands and cautions thrown at them by we three teachers seemed to fall on deaf ears. They were tired of being well-behaved, angelic beings. They were ready to touch buttons and walk through some “employees only” doors. I finally stationed myself at the outer edge of each stopping point of the tour so that they at least couldn’t migrate any further than me. One swift karate chop would stop them cold (and leave me unemployed). I remarked at one point that I felt like I was herding sheep. When we had sheep on the farm, and wanted to contain them for whatever reason, we would walk slowly towards them with our arms spread out wide. Sheep are so amazingly brilliant that they would see the human “wall” coming towards them and assume that our ability to move them was much greater than it actually was.
Kids are like that too. The adult sometimes has to assert dominance even when none is felt. I used to say to my children, “Who is the boss, you or me?” I said it as much for my benefit as for theirs. I didn’t always feel like the one in charge.
So being the brilliant, observant teacher that I am, I realized with genius clarity, “These kids are not having fun.” Oh, I am so very intuitive and discerning. Back-to-back tours for primary age kids is asking too much. OK, lesson learned and tucked away for future reference.
All was not lost, however. We had also built into the day a stop at the Pumpkin Patch and the kids were stoked about that. STOKED.
Unfortunately for us, it was also the perfect storm of billions of bales of straw and the gale force winds of Hurricane Xavier (I just wanted an excuse to type Xavier. Is that a great name, or what??) Wow, it was WINDY. I should have titled this post Straw In My Bra. There were itchy little bits of golden stuff flying everywhere. It got into our eyes and hair and other unmentionable places. We could taste grit filling our mouths and crunching between our teeth. I was not having fun. Thankfully, the kids were. Finally released on parole, they were running and jumping and hooping and hollering like little monkeys on caffeine. It was fun to watch, that is, when I could open my eyes against the Saharan sand storm.
That was on Thursday.
On Friday, I asked my students to make homemade thank you cards for our respective tour guides. The detail was amazing. I guess they were listening after all. Their art reflected the enormous printing press we had gawked at, the four colors used in color printing, the conveyor belt for transporting printed papers, the weather map, the cameras and monitors, Lee, our tour guide at KFYR, and the one that touched me the most, a pink card with hearts that simply read, “I like Lisa.”
My next field trip will reflect lessons learned by this rookie teacher.
And take place in a dome.
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