Exploring School Field Trips

Hannah Bonner

Johns Creek High School has a plethora of academic and extracurricular activities for students to get involved in, and almost everyone has an opportunity for field trips. The art department takes an annual excursion to the High Museum of Art, Model UN goes to their conferences, various teachers plan foreign trips with Education First tours every summer, and there are college fair trips open to all students annually. But what goes into these trips, and what can students get out of them? Sponsors need to take time planning both the trip and how the classes they leave behind will continue on days with substitute teachers. They must work out funding and logistics as well as ensure the safety of students day-of. There’s pressure involved in planning and executing a local day long field trip, doubly so when going out of state or leaving for longer than one day; foreign trips can carry even more pressure.  

Some teachers choose to stay in the classroom year-round for just that reason, because they’re deterred by everything involved in making a trip happen, not to mention making it great. Organizing a day to take off school, restructuring teaching schedules, arranging for a good substitute, securing transportation and excusing students from class is quite a bit of effort on the teacher’s part, and that’s just for a local trip during the school day. It takes a great deal of paperwork and working with third parties, like Education First Tours, to make a foreign trip work.  

The hassle, hustle and bustle of field trips are not all for naught, of course. Students get to have enriching experiences in several aspects of their school career, from art, literature, business and even politics. Without Model UN’s trips to conferences, without the experience utilizing the materials they’ve prepared and relying on their negotiation skills in a high-stakes environment, the club wouldn’t have much value to members. Traveling abroad opens students eyes to the nuances of other cultures, giving them inspiration and insight as fuel for their creative works. How to travel is also an important lesson learned by going on field trips: students practice patience on long drives or flights, have to exercise forethought and planning while packing or preparing, they’re forced to work while uncomfortable from travel and get to deal with the same small group of people for hours or days on end.  

Ms. Kim takes students in her art classes on a different foreign field trip every year. In 2023, she and Mr. Johnson went with about a dozen art students to Japan on a 10-day long excursion across the main island. They visited temples, rode the panoramic ropeway to see Mt. Fuji from an adjacent mountain, explored the side streets of Tokyo, saw the Great Buddha in Kamakura, ate sushi and even stayed in a hotel at the base of a mountain with access to onsen filled with mineral water from that mountain. They went with EF tours, who provided both a bus for transportation all 10 days and a lovely Japanese tour guide, complete with her own flag to hold up so nobody lost her in the crowd. Even on the bus rides between cities, students and chaperones alike were immersed in Japanese culture and being enriched with sights to see and stories to broaden their horizons. Students were instructed on how to be respectful while in public: always say “arigatō,” never be on your phone, speak at a normal volume and take off your shoes when sitting at the kotatsu. Ms. Kim continues this tradition of international expeditions every year because she sees the difference it makes in her students as artists and people, and to her, the hassle is worthwhile.  

School field trips can be magical experiences, but they build character even when it doesn’t feel ‘magical’ to forget a phone battery pack, to be seated next to a snorer or get lost going to the meet-up spot. Teachers and coordinators put lots of effort into making these trips run smoothly, and even if everything doesn’t go perfectly to plan, their time is not wasted. It’s spent giving students cherished memories along with worldview-expanding experiences, priceless and magical things.