Welcome Back!

Teachers can always follow directions to the letter, so thank you for reading the February 12 blog, and I know you did your homework!!

In the first part, we talked about some field trips that you can do in the immediate area of your school, as well as some “monster trips” like heading out to Disney or the local zoo. Today we will talk about several other options that might work for your students, as well as how to effectively “sell” these ideas to your administration. 

Before we begin, though, a review of your homework:

1. Make a list of good places for field trips within one mile of your school
2. Make a list of good places for field trips within a 20 mile radius
3. Find some super fun area within driving distance you could visit with students
4. Think about a need or two in your community that could be served by your students within one day
5. Look around your classrooms for potential Interns next year who can plan your field trips

The Power Of Field Trips

I strive to make every day interesting for my students. I work hard to make sure they are participating in various activities throughout the 80 minute class, and try to engage each learner where they are—playing to their strengths and interests as much as possible. 

It’s still just school.

The truth of it is this: We are preaching workplace readiness skills and 21st century learning on the daily, but we are doing it from the pulpit in our classrooms with examples and visions of the working environment.

We need to take them out of that academic environment, and surround them with the real world. Business is everywhere, people, and that is where we should teach from. 

Do Something Really Cool

We had our recent DECA State Conference. If you recall, I’m in Las Vegas, which means that our conference of 1,000 students was held on the very famous Las Vegas Strip. In a huge casino resort in the middle of the action. 

Imagine you’re a fourteen-year-old kid from a small town in Nevada. Going to the famous Las Vegas Strip for a three-day field trip. There isn’t anything cooler this side of Disneyland. 

Find a way, in your own area, to create this amazing experience. Perhaps for you it will be a backstage tour of your local stadium venue, or getting to see a Broadway show when it visits your area. No matter where you live, I guarantee there is something in your immediate area that will inspire your students to step outside their comfort zone and attend your field trip. 

You just have to think creatively. You know, step out of your own box, Boo Boo.

Do Something To Help Others

There is definitely nothing better to expose your students to than community service activities. The best part of this very broad category is that you can design something very small for your first effort, helping your students grow to be more and more involved based on these positive experiences.

• Visiting schools – If you’re lucky, there is a lower-grade school in walking distance to your school. Maybe it’s the local elementary school, or maybe it’s the middle school that gets out two hours later than you. No matter what, I can virtually guarantee that you would be welcome to visit these schools. Whether you visit one time to do a clean-up of their campus, or visit weekly to help read to younger students, it will be a great experience for all of your students. 
• Visiting others – You are already very familiar with my “other life” as the caregiver for my Mom if you’re a regular reader. So, in the spirit of teaching compassion and empathy to our youth, I need to throw in a suggestion to partner with a local senior center or eldercare facility. Over the past two years, my students have done various projects to support Mom’s facility. From creating holiday cards that I deliver, to sending over baked goods for both the residents and the workers, it has helped my students understand me more as a person by enveloping Mom’s facility into their field trips. As a result, we have numerous students who are creating their own personal “field trips” to senior centers and facilities.
• Doing community service – Along those lines, we have done several different field trips that center on community service. In addition to the senior care facility, my students love to do community clean up as a group. Often, these mini-trips are over the weekend, and we simply meet at the location. After they spend a few hours cleaning a park, we will have lunch and some games in the afternoon, making it a fun and productive outing. Other things have been pretty cool, like volunteering as a group at the annual Nascar race, or handing out water and oranges at the Rock n Roll Marathon. 

Can They Use It In DECA/FBLA?

You know how some people like to “cook once and eat twice” to save time and effort in the kitchen? Yeah, well, I’m kinda like that with field trips! As we discussed above, we can combine interesting field trips with community service, and, if we play our cards right, they can turn into competitive events or national programs with CTSOs!

• Competitive events – Not only the skills and things they learn, but also the actual locations themselves, can support our students in their competitive events. For example, a recent field trip to the world champion WNBA team the Las Vegas Aces gave our students the opportunity to speak with the owner of the team, as well as some players. The ability to approach and interact with people at that level has helped to make our students significantly more competitive in front of judges, since they are learning workplace readiness skills and networking through our field trips.
• Community service – Remember above when we were talking about visiting schools? That is just one example of how we turned a field trip into community service into a winning competitive event. By developing an ongoing relationship with a local middle school, my students were able to improve their own professional skills, and leverage that into an event they swept in FBLA. While it wasn’t what initially drew them to the elementary school, it did propel them to international competition!
• Written reports – Along those same lines, it is possible for our students to take the opportunities presented to them in field trips and submit their results and findings in some of the written report categories. One of my students secured a job during a field trip last year—the BOSS one described in part one—and then used her new part-time job to create a marketing plan that she submitted in DECA. Yeah, she won. 

Crosswalks With Standards

I don’t know what state you are in, and I don’t know crap about your state standards.

But, I guarantee they focus heavily on “workplace readiness skills”, because that’s who we are at our core. There is not a field trip, community service activity or internship that doesn’t speak directly to workplace readiness, making it possible to justify a visit absolutely anywhere. 

We are Business Education, Boo Boo. We are everywhere.

Choosing The Right Intern

Getting back to part one of this series—and really the beginning of my blogs two years ago—I remind you that I don’t do any of this work myself. As I’ve preached for years now, you need to build up your pool of interns for the continuity of your program. When I retire, my internship program will continue to function and will support whoever takes my place, so the students will continue to enjoy everything we have a reputation for doing. 

I am asked consistently about how to choose the right intern, and the simple answer is that they are all good. Like everything else, it’s all about how you train them.

The Initial Planning Stage

Hopefully I have sparked your interest, and maybe given you a new idea or two of field trips you and your intern team can start to plan. I encourage you to think big and shoot for the skies when it comes to field trips. Use everything you have learned about handling the district paperwork through DECA and FBLA, and make it work for you. Search out those loopholes in your standards—and in your school rules—and devise a plan your students can get excited about. 

Then, please, drop me an email and let me know your cool ideas—I’m always looking to extend learning outside the classroom.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING THIS FAR!!!

Wow, thank you for reading about the ultimate field trip!

Hey, since you’re here! You may as well check out part one, here, and learn about project based learning, here! Check out our other topics here! Either way, I appreciate you!

Please leave a COMMENT about any tips you may have!! Or comment what your favorite lesson of mine was! How’s your student organization operating?

Feel free to contact me or leave a COMMENT with anything you would like to hear more about! Or reach out with any unrelated questions, comments, concerns, or random outbursts of excitement by clicking here.

Oh! And don’t forget to check out my video series by CLICKING HERE!!!