As a kid, I would always look forward to our class field trips. Didn't matter where we went: a science museum, a historic farm land, even the local park was great. Field trips meant that we didn't have to stay cooped up in classes all day and we got to hang out with our friends in a fresh new environment.
Now that I'm a teacher, I can totally understand why they always end up looking like crap after our trips. Field trips sap the energy right out of you! Today I had to help take the entire 7th grade class to the local park for 5 hours (since the 8th graders were taking standardized tests). Imagine being one of 10 chaperones in charge of 200+ kids making sure they don't hurt themselves, get lost, break anything, or any of hundreds of possible worst-case scenarios.
Unfortunately, I was shafted into taking the 7th grade field trip instead of the 6th graders cuz my coworker didn't want to deal with some of our kids who were in 7th grade so I said it'd be OK if we switched(I know, nice guy syndrome). So instead of getting to chill w/ teachers and students I was tight with, I was w/ teachers I had no real interaction with and 3 of the more troublesome kids.
In my head I kept telling myself that I should just use this as an opportunity to meet some of the rest of the staff and kids, but in the end I wussed out. I was cold and wet (it was misting and windy) and my allergies were making me miserable so I just wandered around by myself watching the kids.
It was pretty sad how easily I end up psyching myself out of new opportunities to meet people. Something I need to really look into...
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