Are Field Trips Good or Bad?
In the modern sphere of education, there is a lot of disagreement on the subject of field-trips, and whether they’re a beneficial part of students’ education, or a detriment to it. On one side of the fence there are those who claim that field-trips are a distraction; an ‘authorized’ day-off from the curriculum that does nothing but hinder students’ learning experience by making them miss other crucial classes. Inversely, there are those who argue that field-trips are excellent for furthering the learning of students in a given subject. The latter is correct, although the former makes many valid arguments.
“Being in the same building and classroom all the time can get old really fast. It’s nice to have a change of environment, and to see how whatever you’re learning in class applies to the real world,” said junior Alyssa Paul.
Opponents to field-trips in secondary education are correct: Field-trips are often viewed by students as a means of getting out of classes that they’re not interested in. But they ignore that field-trips are also a means of students to experience what they’re learning outside of the school walls; it’s an opportunity for students to go somewhere where all of the elements they’ve been learning throughout the semester are combined.
“I loved taking my students on the trips to Europe. They could make connections between literature, history, and art, and how their culmination, along with their learning all coming together, affects the world,” said Fallahi.
Students in high-school are beginning to form an idea of what they want to major in throughout college. By junior and senior year, it’s no longer as important to take every subject, but for students to start playing to their strengths; that’s why so many juniors and seniors can be found taking several classes in the same department, and none in others.
“Next year, I don’t plan on taking any history classes because that’s not a subject I’m very interested in. I’ll probably be taking more classes in the Science or Family and Consumer Sciences departments,” said Paul.
While field-trips can be very beneficial and help students further explore their passions, there are obvious downsides to leaving the campus. Some field-trips are unnecessary, serving as entertainment, rather than as enrichment.
“An example of a bad field-trip would be a math class going to the theatre to see a movie. But field-trips aren’t automatically bad. An art class going to the Art Museum in the city would be a great field-trip, for an example,” said Paul.
In recent years, Parkway has made efforts to weed out the unnecessary field-trips, making the approval process stricter. The concern many teachers have about field-trips is very real; a student who is failing a class should not be able to skip it, as they need to take every opportunity they have to learn the subject matter.
“[Parkway] wants to make sure that field-trips connect with the curriculum and [the district’s] mission. It has to clearly help students learn and understand [what they’re learning]. [Administrators and teachers have to decide:] Is [the field-trip] truly important?” said Fallahi.
Field-trips are an essential part of every student’s learning. Applying what is being learned in the classroom is common approach students take to learning difficult material, and a field-trip does that. The connections that students can make through field-trips are the kind that create long-life passions, and turn today’s students into tomorrow’s mathematicians, physicists, writers, and historians.
by Steven Chaffin