Field Trippin'

I finally did it. I went on my first field trip as a teacher. Last Thursday another teacher and I took 35 students and 4 other adults to a Mets game. While I would like to say that it wasn't stressful, it totally was!!

The initial plan was to take 2 classes - which both this other teacher and I have. One of the classes decided they just didn't want to get their crap together so they got kicked off the trip. We had to take 30 kids to go, so I just bought 35 tickets and spent a frantic week trying to get enough kids who could 1) come and 2) pay the $8.

The day of the trip, I ended up with 41 people - more students and more adults than I expected. It was crazy trying to gather everyone together from all over the building, collect money, collect permission slips, find missing students, etc...especially since the other teacher wasn't beeing much of a help.

Our school's principal has recently decided to reinstate the uniform "rules" at school and checks to make sure kids have them when they go on field trips. I told my kids that they had to wear it at school but I didn't care about after that. Thank God they all listened to me! They were trying to take them off before we left and I told them that I just knew our Gutless Leader would be outside and we wouldn't be able to go. They all begrudgingly obliged me and pull their uniforms out of the bottoms of their backpacks and put them on. As a potential twist of fate, Mercedes (the principal) was just parking his car and walking into the building as we walked out. My students seamlessly pushed the few non-uniformed kids to the inside of the group and surrounded them in their white and blue 390 t-shirts. We were all smiles and "Good Morning Mr. Mercedes", "Have a great day Mr. Mercedes".... It was glorious.
Of course, by the time we got to the subway, most of the shirts were gone, but oh well. I was amazed at how these crazy little people could be so different once they were out of the building. I would have never imagined how scared some of them could be about riding the subway. Granted our subway ride was long and we had to transfer at a busy station, but we survived.

We were supposed to arrive at 11 for an hour long educational program but we came late, along with most of the other schools by the looks of it. Bygones really as we were there for the game or more likely to get out of school.
The game was great too and I am no huge fan of baseball. The Mets were trailing the Cubs 5 to 1 in the bottom of the 9th and out of nowhere they got 3 runs in a row, then another run, and then a home run. It was beautiful! My kids were so glad that we didn't duck out in the 7th inning like most of the stadium.

At any rate, it was a great experience. It made me realize that I might actually like my students. Heck, I might actually like being their teacher. Go figure.

Mets Field Trip