The more I'm out in the field with students, the more I realize that field trip anxiety (in all of its manifestations) is a very real phenomenon. Field experiences are full of unknowns for students and teachers alike. People are often - and understandably - preoccupied with logistics: will everything go according to plan? Will we be on time? How will we get there? Teachers have further questions about content and student engagement: will the students enjoy the trip? Will they learn? Will the experience be authentic?
Reading all the available scholarship on the importance of field trips yields surprisingly few answers. Jones and Myers, in their article "Effective Use of Field Trips in Educational Programming" briefly discuss the teacher's role in pre-trip instruction. They write about "vicarious exposure" to destinations and reviewing safety and behavior expectations. But what does this all mean, and how does it look in the classroom? How can teachers and students work together to create real-world strategies for demystifying trip anxiety?
For me, pre-trip instruction has been hit and miss: at first I tried to visit the classroom the day before, but that seemed to excite the students and make the day of the trip too chaotic. I've found that short presentations on the day of the trip are most effective. That way, the trip reminder stays fresh without taking over other classroom instruction. As Jones and Myers suggest, I usually bring a visual - a Google map, a subway layout, a blueprint - to help demystify our transportation and our destination. The teachers and I then share the trip's content. We tell the students what we will be doing - taking a tour, doing a worksheet, sketching our observations. I sometimes bring worksheet facsimiles (when we visit restaurants, I bring an authentic menu) to familiarize the students with the interactions between destination and activity. But what I consider the most important aspect of pre-trip instruction, the interactive Q and A, is really student-driven. And believe me, they often ask wonderful, probing questions that keep the trip organizers on their toes: "How will we get there?" "Is the place big?" "Who are we going to meet when we get there?" If the question is observational - "What will the store look like?" - then I ask the student to hold onto it until we're in the field. I then ask her her own question, and her answer is far more accurate and meaningful than any of my canned responses.
I'm curious to hear other experiences with pre-trip instruction. What visual organizers help remind your students about trip expectations? How do you conduct your question and answer component? Even though a successful field trip pivots on effect pre-trip communication, the dialog about overcoming trip anxiety remains mum. Hopefully we can start to share more and more strategies that will help other educators breathe a little easier the next time they bring students out into the field.
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