This, their teachers said, is the kind of learning that happens only when schools cut out the classroom and take learning on the road.
In late February, students from the independent, private Galloway School in Atlanta spent the entire school day inside the museum. It was closed to the public but wide open to Galloway’s 750 students, ages 3 to 18, for a day of “school without walls.”
This was no ordinary field trip, school leaders said. A museum visit typically means a bus ride, a few hours for students to observe the same exhibit, and a lot of reminders to stay quiet and not touch anything.
On this day, hundreds of students, teachers and staff members flooded the museum, wearing white T-shirts with red logos that read “HIGH Energy.” Movement and noise filled the wings as teachers and students explored lessons in art, music, history, geometry, physics — all of them designed by teachers in collaboration with the museum’s education department.
The experience pushed the boundaries of the usual field trip, Galloway Head of School Suzanna Jemsby said, even in an era when many schools are cutting trips entirely.
The school was “rethinking about it as a carnival of learning,” Jemsby said. “There will be chaos, and that belongs to experiential learning, and that is what we’re looking for. We’re looking for a hubbub of activity and student inquiry.”
Teaching from reality
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READ: How one teacher is innovating his classroom
Some high school students enjoyed the environment, but with their minds already geared toward college, a day in the museum didn’t always help much.
High school freshman Alexander Nieves said he saw some limitations to the event. He and his classmates are used to to the speed of laptops and other technology to move them efficiently through material, and with some students minds’ already on college, they struggled to connect with the offerings. Personally, he enjoyed the challenge.
“In school, you’re really just sitting down in a chair getting exercises drilled into your head, but this really allowed creative flow,” said Nieves, 15.
“The main idea of school is to prepare someone for life, and the best way to do that is to not have the same environment. Experimenting with different environments gives students a sense of a new area and working and learning in different ways.”
“Variety,” he said, “nourishes the learning process.”
Has your school cut back on field trips, or found new ways to give students hands-on experiences? Share your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter @CNNschools or on CNN Living’s Facebook page!
