Anonymous
Post 03/08/2024 07:05     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
California in the 1980s, our field trip was that we went to the theater and saw Labyrinth.

In HS, we had a cool program where every other year there was a week long elective led by a regular teacher. My choice was a walking tour of SF led by a teacher who lived there. We took public transportation from the school and then saw a different part of the city every day on foot.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2024 06:34     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
My kid is going with her HS Chinese language class to visit an Asian supermarket in Maryland. She and her classmates are super excited.

Our 6th grade class did an overnight field trip to a kind of gold rush-era living history museum. Everyone dressed up like it was 1850 and we learned to dip candles, card wool, etc.
Anonymous
Post 03/08/2024 06:32     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:In the last 10 years I’ve been a chaperone on my kids’ field trips in the DMV and the three most colorful ones were: 1) going to a Krispy Kreme and getting a behind the scenes tour of how they make the donuts, 2) going to a Five Guys (because one of classmates had a parent who started the first one) and they had the kids running all around the kitchen, touching everything and all I could think about was the health department and 3) the Argentina Embassy in DC which treated the second graders like they were VIPs it was amazing, they had a HUGE spread of catered food, allowed them to touch autographed Messi items, gave them a tour of everything they did there, and gave each kid a gift bag (they were 8 years old).


Love the last one! So DC.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 21:05     Subject: Re:Oddest school field trips?
Senior year in high school our English teacher took us to the movies to see Hamlet one night and then took us all to a cafe. Another teacher that year had a trip to her house where the whole Spanish class made paella with her. And every semester we were supposed to have lunch with our advisor. So teachers would just take students off campus to a restaurant for lunch one on one. I can’t even imagine that now.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 21:03     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Thought of another one (I'm laser floyd above). When I was a senior in high school, somehow I convinced the French teacher to let me go on a field trip with the Advanced French class to see a movie and go to a French restaurant. I took Spanish for four years. My parents also signed off on the permission slip. My friends were in the class but I can't remember what made me ask and how I connived my way into going on someone else's field trip.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 18:10     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:Raised in a small town, one field trip was to a local business that had a train set up in the basement, the business was a funeral home….


Hahahaha! Love this.

My K class went to a grocery store, and the butcher showed us different cuts of meat.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 18:08     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
In the last 10 years I’ve been a chaperone on my kids’ field trips in the DMV and the three most colorful ones were: 1) going to a Krispy Kreme and getting a behind the scenes tour of how they make the donuts, 2) going to a Five Guys (because one of classmates had a parent who started the first one) and they had the kids running all around the kitchen, touching everything and all I could think about was the health department and 3) the Argentina Embassy in DC which treated the second graders like they were VIPs it was amazing, they had a HUGE spread of catered food, allowed them to touch autographed Messi items, gave them a tour of everything they did there, and gave each kid a gift bag (they were 8 years old).
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 17:57     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:Pittsburgh, a nun took my fifth grade class to a private tour of the old Three Rivers Stadium followed by Laser Pink Floyd at the Planetarium. Thank you Sr. Alexis!


Awww. I lived in da Burgh for several years and both of those places were faves (even saw Laser Floyd there).
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 17:56     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:My family was discussing school field trips, and I mentioned that we went to the Philip Morris cigarette factory in high school. Students who were over 16 and teachers received a free pack, while the rest of us got oversized pens covered in brand labels. Until I saw the incredulous stares of my kids, it never occurred to me what an inappropriate place that was to take high schoolers.
Surely I'm not the only one. What field trips did you or your kids take that make you wonder what on earth the adults-in-charge were thinking?


Rust Belt in the late 80’s and we toured the (now defunct) ball bearings factory that employed a good bit of my town and the surrounding area. We got to take a ball bearing home as a souvenir.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 17:52     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Oklahoma, 1980s — we went to a horse-breeding farm as part of a sex education field trip.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 16:30     Subject: Re:Oddest school field trips?
FCPS, late 80s. The pinnacle of the field trip was sitting in a classroom like room (somewhere in DC) to watch an underwater camera on a sub like thing explore the bottom of the ocean. And we saw...nothing, just the plain bottom of the ocean. The teacher apologized later, she was embarrassed.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 16:21     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:My family was discussing school field trips, and I mentioned that we went to the Philip Morris cigarette factory in high school. Students who were over 16 and teachers received a free pack, while the rest of us got oversized pens covered in brand labels. Until I saw the incredulous stares of my kids, it never occurred to me what an inappropriate place that was to take high schoolers.
Surely I'm not the only one. What field trips did you or your kids take that make you wonder what on earth the adults-in-charge were thinking?


I remember about 1990 or so a bunch of Phillip Morris employees had a march down Constitution Ave where I worked chanting "Smoke Up, Smoke Up".
They were protesting government warnings enacted and health restrictions/ sales to minors.
No brain stuff.
I worked at 14th and Constitution and was standing outside.
I shook my head at them and two of their goon leaders ran over and tried to obnoxiously start a fight with me.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 16:12     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
When I was in high school our calculus teacher started dating the manager of a local rock quarry. We went on a field trip to a rock quarry. When we got there, her boyfriend played the guitar for our class. And we looked at a big hole. And then went back to school.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 16:10     Subject: Re:Oddest school field trips?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Fairfax county kid.

All the DC museums/Smithsonian (Natural History, Art, Air & space, etc.), Mt Vernon, Gunston Hall, Jamestown, Gettysburg, etc.

Can't recall anything strange.



FCPS girl, 22152, grades 2-12, 1976-1987:

- Boarded school bus (I think) to visit a classmate’s working farm! We got to see the barn, the old outhouse and feed chickens. 1976

- my mom hosted the last day of school 6th grade party in 1976 in our backyard - all 4 or 5 classes and teachers walked to and from the school for an all-day picnic! No buses, no chaperones. This was for my older sibling.

- My own 6th grade party/field trip 1980 was walking across the street to the swim club where all 6th graders and teachers (and principal) hung out for a day of fun in the sun! Our teacher wore a black string bikini!

- In HS, I had some scheduling snafu and missed the bus for my elective class field trip to the DC Convention Center. I remember somehow finding my male teacher and being upset to distraught that I’d missed the bus. He ended up driving me downtown in his sedan - yep, just the two of us - but I returned with my classmates on the bus. No phone call home, no checking in with anyone, we just walked out together to the parking lot and away we went!

When I was in fifth grade, my public school classmate hosted an end of year pool party at her house. I don’t remember how we got there, but it was nearly thirty 10 and 11 year olds, our male teacher, classmate’s bikini clad mom, and zero lifeguards. Can you imagine the liability issues?? I don’t even remember how we changed clothes. Crazy.


Our (male) calculus teacher hosted an end of the year pool party in his back yard senior year in high school. Kids were bikini clad, he and his wife kept their clothes on thank God. I remember him working the grill but in retrospect this entire thing was a little odd.

I remember he had these huge photos of his son, who was our age and went to the neighboring high school, playing soccer. His son was super hot and my friends and I took a photo (with film) next to the photo of his son.
Anonymous
Post 03/07/2024 16:08     Subject: Oddest school field trips?
Pittsburgh, a nun took my fifth grade class to a private tour of the old Three Rivers Stadium followed by Laser Pink Floyd at the Planetarium. Thank you Sr. Alexis!