Field Trip

In the beginning of the year, the 1st and 2nd grade team wanted to go on one field trip per month. Our first field trip of the year came in May. We were scheduled to see the play, Knufflebunny: A Cautionary Tale, and despite our progress, I still feared my kids would be a spectacle. I imagined them in and out of their seats, yelling obnoxious things to the actors, and then security would ask us to leave. That actually happened last year. I had taken my kids to see the monuments in downtown, and there was an incident at the World War II Monument. It was a really hot day, and I hadn’t brought any water. We walked from the Washington Monument to the World War II monument because I thought there might be a water fountain there; there wasn’t. They took off their shoes and put their bare feet in the water to cool off, and then Randy pushed one of my girls in the water. I knew they weren’t supposed to be in the water anyway, but it took a park ranger to yell at them, “Hey kids, get out of the water, have some respect for the monument!”

So this time I had been talking to my kids about the field trip for a month. I kept on telling them I was only inviting the kids that deserved it, and this time I meant it. I only took 15 kids, and I left 6 kids behind. My class was on the bus with Price’s 2nd grade, and I finally got to hear her in action as a teacher. She was fierce, “If you want to go back to school, keep talking! Ms. T will walk you back. If you think I’m playing, try me.” Ms. T was the student teacher, and she didn’t have to walk anybody back, thankfully. Then Price sat next to one of her more difficult kids and fed him grapes each minute that he behaved. She smiled, “He loves grapes, only way he’ll behave.” It appeared my kids weren’t the crazy ones everyone looked at all of a sudden; I mean it was the one and only field trip of the year so they were just happy to have been invited.

When the bus pulled into the front of the Kennedy Center, each teacher lined up their class and did the headcounts. There were several buses from different schools, and it was obvious we were all from the same school because everyone was black, except for the teachers. We walked up the spiraling steps to our seats in the balcony, and I moved my eyes up and down the rows. I started from one kid and worked myself down, “Kevin, feet off the chair, Evan, stop the rocking.” After only a few reprimands the class had settled, and they were seated chatting quietly, waiting patiently for the show. Just as my class settled, I looked at the other teachers in the building. Two of them were texting, not noticing the two boys out of their seats, yelling across to each other. Two of them were talking to one another, letting their teacher assistants do the dirty work, and there was another teacher seated right behind me, hopelessly trying to quiet down her kids. It looked like a 2nd grade class, and it happened that all the kids were white. They were rocking in their chairs, feet up on our rows’ chairs, and obviously not listening to their teacher, but after a few tries, she gave up and turned to her cell phone. When the play started, my kids were silent during the quiet parts of the play, they laughed during the funny parts, and they sang when the actors sung; it was a completely normal class on a completely normal field trip. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel great.

The last two months flew. All of a sudden, it was June. I could not stop saying it, letting it roll of the tongue, savoring it, like an expensive wine, June.