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At the end of the school year (no, I haven't really substantively posted since then), I chaperoned my fourth-grader's field trip. We went to Camp Guyasuta, a boy scout camp improbably close to the city.
I've been privileged to chaperone several field trips over my boys' school years. Some in the group I chaperoned last month, I've known since kindergarten. It struck me, though, how different it feels to chaperone fourth graders than kindergarteners. On my first field trip's those kindergarteners were so interested in me and hung off me and asked me all kinds of questions. When I took a picture of my son, they all wanted me to take a picture of them. On this fourth grade trip, I was invisible. They behaved pretty well, and they listened when I tried to help the trip leaders enforce rules, but they had no interest in me or even in knowing whose dad I was.
Of course, the rock star treatment is fun, but that's not why I chaperone field trips. As long as I keep them safe and take some burden off the teachers, I don't need the kids to clamor around me. It did show me how my son and his classmates have developed into a different stage of life. As much as I hate to say it, the "tween years" start at nine. Between the affinity toward adults of the young years and the hostility of the early teen years comes the distinct indifference of the current stage.
The experience of chaperoning my third-grader's school field trip last Friday solved two mysteries for me. When I mentioned this epiphany to my wife, she said "well, duh", and maybe you will, too. But maybe you're like me and had always wondered:
1. Why do school field trips leave the school at, like 9:30 and come back to the school at, say, 2:00, when the school day runs 9 am to 3:40?
2. Just what do school bus drivers do between the morning and afternoon runs?
It turns out the two mysteries and their solutions intertwine. Maybe this only applies in districts like ours that contract out every single bus trip; the district does not own buses. You've picked up on it, right? The buses can only be rented out for field trip runs at times that don't conflict with the morning and afternoon runs. So, to be safe, the bus company won't guarantee they can leave my son's school until 9:30, after their drivers have dropped off their morning kids and driven to the school from wherever. The buses that drove for the field trip are different and come from different companies than the buses that drive my son and his classmates to school.
Of course, solving one or two mysteries sometimes opens up many more. I'm still wondering:
a. where the buses/drivers go during the field trip time? other shorter field trips nested within the field trips?
b. what crossing guards do in the middle of the day?
c. why the field trips from my kid's school always leave the school 30 minutes later than they say they will? I walked into the museum on Friday and saw two parents waiting there. I heard one tell the other that she'd been there since 9:30, the time the kids were supposed to leave the school. I asked "first time chaperoning a field trip?" They sighed that it was. I shared my wisdom about not rushing to field trip locations and then proceeded to wait another 30 minutes with them until the buses rolled up.
