I have never understood the lack of safety restraints in school buses, even when I was a kid. In third grade, I went so far as to write the then newly-elected President Reagan (shut up) asking him why there weren't any seat belts on them. Six weeks later I got an official "pat on the head" form letter from The White House thanking me for writing. Enclosed with it was some literature about coping with childhood fears about nuclear war. Uhhhh, thanks Ronnie. Good to know your staff was in touch with the youth of America.
Now I'm a mom, and I get a different perspective of field trips as a chaperone. Don't get me wrong, I looooove having these experiences with my kids and making memories out of them. I am also very blessed to be a SAHM so I can go on the field trips. If there is a sign up sent home, I am all over it, and woo hoo, let's go!
When you and the other chaperones arrive for the pre-field trip ops meeting with the teacher, you're usually given a list with a group of kids that you are assigned to herd, uh, lead. As the PTA prez at my kids' school, I have come to know the other kiddos in each of their respective grades pretty darn well. Most of the other PTA moms know them too. We listen to the teacher's spiel, and as soon as her back is turned, we get down to comparing groups. Sometimes this leads to negotiations as intense and shrewd as those of Arab traders. Example:
"Look, I cannot handle having Johnny Smith in my group. When we went on the theater field trip, he kept taking old gum from under the seats and chewing it. Seriously grossed me out. If you will take him, I'll take Tommy Thompson from yours. I know he gets carsick and threw up on you on the bus last time"
"Okay, I will trade you Tommy for Johnny but raise you Susie Simmons. She talks in-cess-ant-ly, and I ended up with a migraine on the pumpkin patch field trip"
"Aw, sheesh. Alright, I will take Susie. But you're emptying the recycle bin in the staff lounge for a month"
"Deal"
*fist bump*
Since I know the kids well and the teacher knows this, I usually end up with a couple of the more "behaviorally challenged" kids in my group. But no problem, it's cool. I am here to help! I put on my super hero cloak of optimism and start out by high five-ing my kiddos and letting them pick out a kick butt name for our group, like "The Cheetahs" and give themselves all awesome nicknames. This shows them I am WAY more fun and hip than the other chaperones, and hey, aren't you glad you're in my group? Cuz I'm sure glad you're in mine! Woo hoo!
Yeah okay, fantasy, meet reality. By the end of the field trip, I'm so sick of saying things like, "Cheetahs, hands at your sides!", "Indiana Jones, eyes on me!", "Black Knight, the sign says 'Restricted Area' for a reason!" x 200 that I voluntarily take a vow of silence for the rest of the day.
Plus I have a pounding headache from trying to keep four kids who all want to go in four separate directions together for three hours. Seriously, take a box of four cats, dump them out in the middle of Grand Central Station, and then try and keep track of all of them. This is what chaperoning four eight-year-old boys at a museum is like.
Public school teachers are the most underpaid group of people in the history of civilization since the Jews built the Pyramids in Egypt. After three hours of field trip mania, I am ready to treat all the chaperones to a liquid lunch at the local bar. (I don't because: a) I'm not much of a drinker, and b) I'm too cheap. But still, you get my point.)
While we chaperones can sprint from the bus as soon as it hits the curb at school and into the nearest sound deprivation chamber, the teachers still have half a day of instruction to complete. They have to take twenty plus over-stimulated kids into the classroom and get them to FOCUS and LEARN. Wow. That's amazing. I can barely get the Boy Child to FOCUS and LEARN for fifteen minutes worth of homework each night. And he usually ends up not speaking to me, and I usually end up looking like this:
That would be why I don't home school and why I will tell any legislator who will give me fifteen seconds of their time that spending for public education and educators' salaries needs to be increased exponentially. But that's another whole other blog post!
The bottom line is that I love my kids to death, and I really am very enamored of their fellow students as well. Every field trip is an adventure, and my kids and I are making memories to last for their life time. As one of my Cheetahs said to me on the last field trip, "You always come with us. You are always here at school. Why do you do that?" I told him it's because, for me, the whole reason why I became a mom was not to have my child say, "I wish you were there", but instead to say, "I'm so glad you were with me".
I know every parent can't be there for everything their child wants them to, but I will move mountains to try to be there for mine. If it's important to them, it's important to me. Some day they will have their own kids, and I hope they move mountains to be there for theirs as well. By then I will have been officially retired for many years from cat herding duty, er, field trip chaperoning, and enjoying the fruits of my labor by being the kookiest granny ever to my grandbabies. Just you wait! ;-)
Sparkly Kisses,
D
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