It wasn't long ago that I was told homeschooling wasn't as good as sending your kids to regular schools. I was given a whole list of reasons, most of them easy to dispute. However, the one that made me want to laugh the most was "kids in school get to go on field trips". Does that mean homeschool kids don't go on field trips? So, they do nothing but work from home all day and never see the outside world? I know it may seem that way with the way things have been in my family over the past few months, but that's really not the case.
Kids in school go on field trips, what? Once or twice a year? Maybe not even that much? How educational are these trips anyways? What do they see? I can tell you this much, I don't even remember most of the field trips I went to in school. Only a few of them were memorable. One was a trip to the East Cambridge Court House, which was incredible. There was also a trip to Old Sturbridge Village. That was 8th grade. Another was the forensic lab in 11th grade. There was the aquarium trip in 10th grade where my boyfriend was found kissing his ex-girlfriend and my best friend, which was memorable for all the wrong reasons. I don't even remember the educational value of that trip. For the most part, the rest of them are all a wash, or I think they were school, but in truth, they were with Girl Scouts.
Thinking about my plans for the fall alone, I'm thinking my kids have far more opportunities for field trips. There's a trip to Silo Farm, which is a Christmas tree farm. There's something about the Waco Mammoth. There's another field trip to the zoo. This is all happening between now and November. Do I have to go to all of them? No, but the opportunities are there. These are opportunities for my kids to learn and socialize with other kids. That combined with other events with the local homeschoolers and I'm thinking that this may just be a better opportunity for my kids to learn than simply sticking to the books and school. I mean, honestly, what school gets to go on three field trips in the fall alone?
That being said, I can go on so many more "field trips" that are just my family. We can go down to the Inner Space Caverns, a short drive from here, and call that a "field trip" because it's educational. We can make an educational trip out of going to the "bat bridge" in Austin. There are countless things we can do that will easily qualify as "field trips" because they're educational opportunities that take place outside our usual homeschooling environment.
Honestly, I don't get it. I don't see how sending your kids to school provides for so many more field trip opportunities. I don't see how I'm doing such a disservice to my kids because they get to go experience more things and learn in a face-to-face, hands-on way so much more often. It's not all about books and facts. It's about getting there and learning that history, science, math, art, and all the rest can be so much fun!
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