Have you ever got roped into chaperoning a school field trip?
Like, you start off in your kid’s classroom dropping off his lunch when you get stopped by his teacher who “could really just use one more parent for the trip to the aquarium” (or wherever).
Suddenly, you find yourself on a bus with 50 screaming kids on your way to who knows where and you’re wondering what the heck happened.
Don’t get me wrong. If you can, you absolutely should be helping out your child’s teacher and volunteering in the classroom. After all, he or she is an asset in molding them into productive members of society and you should have a hand in that, but there’s something really daunting about chaperoning field trips.
And that’s why we find one dad’s series of live tweets during a fifth grade field trip to a museum so relatable.
In the tweets, which appear to have since been deleted, Simon Smith starts by delving into pre-trip prep, which included herding 60-plus fifth graders onto the bus. We’ll give you a hint: It’s a lot like, as Scary Mommy puts it, herding cats.
When he does finally get the kids on the bus, the real fun begins because he’s so clearly outnumbered. He watches, and tweets, in dismay as the 10-year-olds stink him out with their bodily functions (farts) and eat their lunches well before lunchtime.
At the museum he reveals the irony as the same kids that ate their lunches on the bus now have nothing to eat for lunch and the chaos of keeping the kids excited and engaged, but also museum-appropriate, because we all know that kids want to touch everything.
When the museum tour ends, he has to ride back two hours to the school with kids that talk too much (and probably too loud) and finally, the ordeal is over.
It might be a little over-dramatic but we can definitely see how Smith would be overwhelmed. One 10 year old can be a handful – heck, we could argue that a kid of any age can be a handful – but they’re just being kids and it’s totally worth it if one kid is inspired to do something great based on that field trip.
But what his play-by-play really made us realize is that teachers do so much for our kids. Sure, a field trip might have a little more action than the classroom but they’re still roping in and educating 30 kids by themselves – and lets face it they don’t get nearly enough recognition or, quite frankly, pay for it.
Smith got a little taste of what every teachers handle daily and they do it with smiles on their faces. Sure, chaperoning is a real struggle for parents but the teachers are the real champs in this case. Remember that the next time you’re on a screaming bus to somewhere.
Do you relate to Smith’s stories and have you thanked your child’s teacher lately? Let us know in the comments.
