Canadian children (including a toddler) ordered to school for "socializaion"

I'm wondering if that's an ugly distortion of how most of us feel about the ... dog-eat-dog attitudes of ps kids and the school systems?

I don't personally have anything against ps kids, but I don't want my children being exposed to crazy drug-sex-violence peer pressure. I don't want them subjected to bullies, don't want them treated like numbers, don't want their education to be LESS important than their test scores.

That, too, could be seen as my 'worry' about contamination, I suppose... if someone really wanted to twist my words.

 

I actually do remember some of my field trips as a kid... I remember walking down the hill to the movie theatre to see films with my English class. We saw Polanski's Macbeth, when we were studying the play.

I also remember going to the local university for the science fair. And to a different university for an engineering day... my friend and I won in the audiovisual category. Then there was the time we got to go tromping around the park catching pond life for science class. And I remember learning about the Group of Seven at the National Gallery - that was fun!

Not to mention a class trip to Quebec City, and walking over the Plains of Abraham... lots of good memories associated with that one.

School was generally a horrible experience for me, but there were some pretty awesome field trips.

 

No, of course not! There's a difference between not wanting your kid in public school, and thinking that ALL of human society should be avoided like they're infected with the plague.

Plenty of people join home school groups or send their kids to private schools, so that their children will have peers with similar values. Some choose to have their children interact with a wide range of people older and younger, rather than restrict them to just kids their own age. I think that's awesome, too. In fact, it's a major advantage of home schooling over the public system!

I'm not defending the judge... I don't know how she defines "educational outings" and she could be completely off base. But I do know kids don't grow well inside of virtual hamster cages (and it does happen). One of the sad things about the lives of some girls in the Middle East is how they're kept house-bound, and never allowed to interact with anyone outside their family. I don't think anyone would argue that's healthy for them.

 

I completely agree with you. My point was: the idea of 'contamination' sounds like prosecuting attorney garbage.

As with everything, there are two sides to every story, so it's all speculation.

And you win hands-down on the field trips My poor kids.. their ps was so awful that their idea of a field trip was to walk, every year, to the firestation. That's it- the whole thing. Dd did get to go to the museum as well.. but that's local, too. In the four years they were in ps no one ever went on what I would consider a 'real' field trip (I went to the zoo with my K class, for instance).

 

By the time I finished teaching, there was no money to take a bus on field trips. So smaller classes would take private cars, but insurance put a stop to that!

 

Wow.

I remember going to various field trips in Pittsburgh, though I don't remember actually being there. Like, I know for a fact that we visited the science center every year, but I don't remember being there. We went to the museums a lot. And we went to the Ballet at the Benedum Center more than once (though the only visit I clearly remember was Romeo and Juliet in 8th grade... because the couple got completely naked when they danced their wedding night dance. :shock: ).

The drama kids went to see Phantom in Toronto one year of high school. And we went to Niagra Falls more than once (Canada side). Those I DO remember. But that was high school. You can do more with teenagers than you can with young children.

But if the point of any of those trips was socialization, the mark was missed. I don't remember who was even in my hotel room during our Canadian stays. I have pictures of people with whom I hang out, but I don't remember any of their names. 18 years later, I can tell you how many trap doors were in the stage of the Pantages Theatre, but I can't tell you who I sat near during the event.

 

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious about Romeo and Juliet! :lol:

In Quebec City, I stayed in a room with my friends Catherine and Camille and Pam. Alison and Alicia were next door. I remember we hung out the hotel room window throwing jelly beans at pedestrians on the sidewalk below. Alicia's shower head broke, spewing water all the way out into the hallway, which we thought was hysterical. Some girls (not us, we were geeks) were found in a boys' room with *alcohol*! Shocking. They were sent home early, on their parent's dime. :lol:

I definitely remember that trip! And others, too...

 

We took a trip to London when I was a teen (we payed for it, though.)

I do have vivid memories of that trip, but many of them have to do with a group of boys who found a 'dealer' the first day we were in the hotel. I was more sheltered than that.. and was HORRIFIED when I realized they were going on the ledge outside the window for... well, not for fresh air.

Again, though, it was through the school, but we had to pay $1600 to go. Not really a field trip in the normal sense, and kids with poorer parents (and less drive than I had) didn't get to go.

 

That's a good point. We paid quite a lot (I'm sure, though I don't remember how much) for our trips. I may be wrong, but I think we paid for our regular field trips, too. Now I'm going to have to ask my mom.. I'm curious.

 

We paid for our regular field trips when I was a kid, and also when I was teaching. But the school district provided the bus/driver.

 

I went to a lot of different schools as a kid. I know the cost of field trips was reduced or sometimes waived entirely for us, because my mother was a single parent.

In my children's school, day trips are generally less than 20 dollars, often free, and payment can be negotiated or waived.

It's more expensive for the bigger trips, like the upcoming band trip to Niagara Falls, but at the beginning of the year the school offered families the option of selling cookies, collecting pledges or paying in cash. So if you didn't have the money, there were ways your kid could earn it.

In general our school tries not to leave the poorer kids out of stuff. We even have a collection of instruments for them to borrow, if their parents can't afford to buy them one.