I teach in an inner city school with students who live in a very narrow territory. Each year, we try to broaden their horizons by taking them to as many places as possible. These are the fieldtrips we have planned for the students this year:
September
local college, yearbook printing plant, major department store
October
bottling plant, UC campus, local water treatment plant, various job shadowing locations
November
students will spend a day working for a local department store, wholesale buying trip
December
city hall, federal court house, corporate office of major department store, trade fair
January
San Francisco
February
GAP distribution center, local baseball stadium, printing firm, surveillance camera factory
March
San Jose, trade fair, ropes course
April
Sacramento, Monterey, NYC (depending on cost)
Not all students attend each trip each year, but by the time they finish their senior year, the majority of the students have taken all these trips. The San Francisco trip is for those who earn a 3.0 gpa or higher in the first semester, and some students go all three years they are in our career academy, some never get to go.
We get to know a lot of bus drivers throughout the years, and one turned out to be the parent of one of our graduates this year. He approached me, introduced himself, at graduation and reminded me that he had taken us on many of our local trips. I know how hard bus drivers work, especially when they have to deal with a bus full of teenagers and negotiate the roads. My students are usually professionally dressed for the trips we take, and they behave well. I have taught them to say hello to the driver, and to thank the driver when we are done. This father had remembered all of this, and he told me that he always went home at night, after one of our trips, and told his wife how nice I was. It made me glad to know that we weren’t a burden on a driver, but rather, made his day a little better. Sometimes, maybe, the fieldtrips help more than just my students.
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