Latest / Live in the Lab Schools / Ep #19: Kids, Go Outside and Play - Experiential Learning & Field Trips

Transcript

Ep #19: Kids, Go Outside and Play - Experiential Learning & Field Trips · Live in the Lab Schools

• 0:09
  Ben Webb: Welcome to the pod.
• 0:11
  Ben Webb: This week we're talking about field trips.
• 0:13
  Ben Webb: You know, that thing you went to college for and you learned a whole lot about, or you'd spend an entire unit learning about the pedagogy behind it.
• 0:19
  Ben Webb: You know, going to Navy Pier, going out of the woods, taking an entire group overnight.
• 0:24
  Ben Webb: Yeah, they didn't teach you that in college.
• 0:26
  Ben Webb: So stick around.
• 0:27
  Ben Webb: This is live in the lab schools.
• 0:39
  Ben Webb: Hello?
• 0:41
  Ben Webb: We haven't gotten canceled yet.
• 0:43
  Ben Webb: They haven't canceled us yet.
• 0:46
  Ben Webb: I know the theme is uniqueness, but you know, it's also like, all right, let's see how long we can land.
• 0:51
  Ben Webb: At some point, I want someone to walk in on a recording and just shut it down.
• 1:01
  Ben Webb: Doing good.
• 1:02
  Ben Webb: I'm in the throes of grading and also getting my TCH's ready for their first few lessons.
• 1:09
  Ben Webb: And also getting the fall show up and running.
• 1:12
  Ben Webb: So it's just been a all of the stuff is landing at the same time.
• 1:15
  Ben Webb: And I'm like, okay, I need a bigger desk.
• 1:21
  Ben Webb: Really good deal when you try it.
• 1:25
  unknown: Try getting the bigger desk and see if it helps.
• 1:29
  Ben Webb: I just feel like it would become mega desk.
• 1:31
  Ben Webb: And then it would be what it is.
• 1:33
  Ben Webb: Yeah.
• 1:33
  unknown: I have piles everywhere now.
• 1:35
  unknown: Instead of a small amount of piles, I have even more piles.
• 1:37
  Ben Webb: Here's your Seinfeld reference for this episode.
• 1:40
  Ben Webb: Levels.
• 1:41
  Ben Webb: All about the levels.
• 1:46
  unknown: But I don't think mega desk would be, it might take up too much space.
• 1:49
  unknown: Mega desk.
• 1:50
  Ben Webb: Yeah.
• 1:50
  unknown: We've found that.
• 1:52
  Andy Goveia: So this week, we're talking about field trips.
• 1:55
  Ben Webb: Which always feels weird for me to talk about, but at the same time, like I joke.
• 2:01
  Ben Webb: I'm a theater teacher, I'm an English teacher.
• 2:05
  Ben Webb: Experiential learning.
• 2:07
  Ben Webb: That's what I want to talk about, and not just like field trip.
• 2:11
  Ben Webb: Because field trip has a connotation of you're going on vacation.
• 2:15
  Ben Webb: And these are definitely not vacations.
• 2:18
  unknown: And I think with that tag of experiential learning, to speak to our theme of the season uniqueness, we are in a very unique situation where those experiences we try to find for our students are supported and encouraged.
• 2:30
  Ben Webb: Yes.
• 2:31
  Ben Webb: We are rarely told, don't try to figure it out.
• 2:33
  Andy Goveia: We're usually told try to figure it out and then we'll see if we can make it happen.
• 2:37
  Andy Goveia: Which is very different from why are you asking.
• 2:40
  Andy Goveia: And so we will acknowledge right off the bat there is a certain level of privilege in this conversation that we are able to talk about the different ways experiential learning has enriched the work that we do.
• 2:52
  unknown: Yep.
• 2:53
  Ben Webb: So in total, I think we can probably talk a little bit about the trips that we have gone on, simple ones, and then also the big one that you go on twice a year outdoor ed.
• 3:06
  Ben Webb: Okay.
• 3:06
  Ben Webb: So uh if I can kind of start with one simple one.
• 3:09
  Ben Webb: So there are going to be those trips that you go on that are curated for you, and then there are the ones that you are you are the one in charge of setting it all up.
• 3:19
  Ben Webb: Um, I think a lot of pre-service teachers, if they're listening, curated ones are great for you to get your bearings on, and it's already set up for you.
• 3:27
  Ben Webb: So, like going to Navy Pier to see some theater, it's you got to just get the bus arranged, your office helps you with that.
• 3:35
  Ben Webb: You go up, you see theater, you m do workshops, you come back.
• 3:38
  Andy Goveia: A lot of museums are the same way for my people in the humanities side of things, uh, or the sciences, even if you're going to a museum, a laboratory, any of those kinds of spaces are probably going to have built-in experiences you select from their menu when you schedule.
• 3:52
  Ben Webb: So those curated ones are great for you to get started.
• 3:56
  Ben Webb: And I think I think the thing to mention with that is some of those, depending on the organization you go through, which I'm not going to plug any necessarily, because you've been to DC on those kind of trips.
• 4:05
  Ben Webb: I've gone uh overseas on those kinds of trips.
• 4:08
  Ben Webb: A lot of those trips, the workshops, the hands-on piece, that is probably the thing that the kids talk about the most or they they remember the most.
• 4:18
  Ben Webb: Um, was very very lucky to take kids to the fringe festival to perform a number of years ago.
• 4:24
  Ben Webb: It doing the show at the festival was almost secondary to then being in Scotland on the Royal Mile, getting that experience of just soaking in the environment.
• 4:35
  Ben Webb: So I I think similar with DC, it's like it's and I use a a tour company that handles 95% of everything for me.
• 4:45
  Andy Goveia: Um the 5% is the communication I do with families and students and the actual management of the students while we're there.
• 4:50
  Andy Goveia: Um but because of it being a planned trip, the memories are the interaction.
• 4:56
  Andy Goveia: It's that one weird song we started singing to us, right?
• 5:05
  Andy Goveia: And so the the the great thing about curated trips where the pieces of the learning are playing still have to try to Christmas Carol is draining the test in the case of Christmas Carol, we're lucky at Debevex, the restaurant, if you're familiar with it at all, to our listeners, is two mile a mile down the road.
• 5:41
  Andy Goveia: And so we're gonna stop at Edbex and do lunch after the show.
• 5:44
  Andy Goveia: So you can curate and create.
• 5:46
  Andy Goveia: Yes, the learning can be curated, but there's spaces for you to make it the experience as well.
• 5:53
  Ben Webb: Yep.
• 5:53
  Ben Webb: My big three things one is your communication trip.
• 5:57
  Ben Webb: So like patient tool when I'm on trips.
• 6:00
  Ben Webb: This is what time I'm typically messaging you to say, hey, we're gonna be gonna be on the bus at this time, or I need you to meet me at this location.
• 6:07
  Ben Webb: I start getting them primed for that style of communication two weeks before we actually leave.
• 6:12
  Ben Webb: And similarly, then I continue that while we're at the trip.
• 6:15
  Ben Webb: And I usually give them like two days after the trip afterwards, where I'm still sending them things like, Hey, if you haven't, if you got a picture of this thing, please make sure you put it in the group chat so everyone has that picture.
• 6:26
  Ben Webb: Um, the second thing on my on my list is make sure that the kids get the lay of the land as soon as you land.
• 6:34
  Ben Webb: Um, one of the first things that I'm often doing is I'm I'm basically being the tour guide on those trips.
• 6:40
  Ben Webb: Even if there is a curated trip, I'm typically the one showing them this is the route we're gonna go for like if they get lost, if they just need to know where to get later on in the trip, or even just kind of know, okay, this is geographically how do I get back to where I started?
• 6:57
  Ben Webb: I typically do that the first thing, first thing when I land.
• 7:00
  Ben Webb: Uh, I think theater festival is a good example for me.
• 7:04
  Ben Webb: When we go to Champion Urbana, several of those kids don't know U of I.
• 7:08
  Ben Webb: They know the quad at ISU, but U of I is a completely different campus.
• 7:13
  Ben Webb: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Ben Webb: And so really kind of just making sure that the route we keep we keep taking is consistent.
• 7:19
  Ben Webb: But also, I typically, with my other chaperones, I might drop them in one spot and then I work ahead to the next spot so that I can always be at the end of the street, ready to then say, okay, now we're going that way.
• 7:32
  Ben Webb: Now we're going up this way.
• 7:33
  Ben Webb: Hey, this is you know, and then making sure they get acclimated to those different waypoints along the way.
• 7:41
  Ben Webb: Um, before I say my third thing, do you have any of those like teacher tricks that you use on trips?
• 7:46
  Ben Webb: Yeah, I was actually thinking of both of the points you said, communication.
• 7:48
  Andy Goveia: When you scale it down to middle school or even for our younger students, most of our communication ahead of time to families.
• 7:55
  Andy Goveia: So I always draft up whenever I'm coordinating a field trip, I always draft up a letter that explains the who, what, when, where, why, cost, logistics, communication.
• 8:06
  Andy Goveia: That goes on.
• 8:08
  Andy Goveia: I try to do no more than that before uh when I have sometimes things come together together.
• 8:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 8:15
  Andy Goveia: Um if I'm ahead of the game, I need to have a lot of here's a skill trip, here's my this, here's a question list, here's the DL, here's the cost associated, here's the incidentals that they have that you might not be aware of.
• 8:28
  Andy Goveia: Like, for example, when you go to Press Carol, there's a bunch available, but like so we're not necessarily saying anything like number, we're saying it's available at something like that.
• 8:42
  Andy Goveia: So communicating those things, I always also for our families and a lot of my colleagues at the other levels work on the sample extra.
• 8:50
  Andy Goveia: So, like for example, when you take the kids to I'm gonna just say when we take the same quest, we're gonna say part of it, the same as two target, or at this room here for dinner.
• 9:05
  Andy Goveia: Saying, hey, we'll use it this time, we anticipate this time, we'll need to zoom at this time, it's the same exam here, or the same exam to five, we'll get this by three, we'll be on there by six point, we'll have this one.
• 9:20
  Andy Goveia: That level of change serves you well in two.
• 9:26
  Andy Goveia: Number one, it lets you answer all of the questions about the kids, parents, everybody goes, Hey, when I'm looking at this, is this what this means?
• 9:32
  Andy Goveia: You can clarify almost all of that.
• 9:34
  Andy Goveia: So your data of questions that show up are very specific, very contextual.
• 9:40
  Andy Goveia: The second the other thing you're saying with uh guidance, we don't at younger levels have as much of that screen story of the teacher out.
• 9:51
  Andy Goveia: So what we often do is uh uh we use uh we have dropped off that capital and walked from the capital to other buildings, and we also walked more.
• 10:08
  Andy Goveia: And so what I did with students for that is left.
• 10:13
  Andy Goveia: I said, Hey, I'm gonna change them a little geography.
• 10:16
  Andy Goveia: I showed them the capital building, or I start more, here's the next place we're gonna go, and then we're gonna get there's gonna be adults at the front, adults at the back, and these things together as some of that screen navigation works really well by the other students just to give them a sense of where they are, where they're going, but also and I'll also do more feed because a lot of times we'll perimeter an area plant and go ahead and check 10 minutes to experience this, or I can back here in 10 minutes and then we're next to that.
• 10:54
  Andy Goveia: And I think like the Washington Monument's a great example of that.
• 10:58
  Andy Goveia: Around Washington Monument, I'll plant here, tour guide will plant somewhere else, and we let them go and walk by taking out 10 minutes around that space, and then you come back to the rest of the next done.
• 11:10
  Andy Goveia: And so we're the next thing that's so when you have younger students, middle schoolers can handle some of that plant text.
• 11:18
  Andy Goveia: High school students clearly have to be able to learn some.
• 11:22
  Andy Goveia: Um and younger students often, for my colleagues who teach everything, oftentimes they go on parent chapters and they have small groups.
• 11:29
  Andy Goveia: And so as you're building these field trips or thinking about field trips, um, for whoever's listening to this, if you're just exploring the idea or how to do it, structure is contingent on your context, structure is contingent on your age, uh, but you have to also figure out what works with your style as well.
• 11:45
  unknown: So please continue.
• 11:47
  Ben Webb: Well, and that was when you talked about perimeter, like the the last of my three things is so you are gonna go, you're gonna be that head chaperone, you are gonna go and you're gonna have parents or colleagues as additional adult chaperones there.
• 11:59
  Ben Webb: But my third, my third thing that I always do is I make sure that my upperclassmen they leave no freshmen behind.
• 12:07
  Ben Webb: So there's always that buddy system that they know about that the freshmen don't need to know about.
• 12:13
  Ben Webb: But every single person who's that upperclassman who is that leader, they know you've got this person who they need to make sure along this journey, along this day at U of I or at the zoo or wherever we're at, don't let them have a day where they're by themselves.
• 12:32
  Ben Webb: Not because they can't navigate because they can't read a map, not because they want to do their own thing.
• 12:39
  Ben Webb: You need to take this opportunity to be a good leader, to be a good mentor, and make sure that they have a friend on this entire day.
• 12:47
  Ben Webb: And I do that a bunch when we're in like when we do that perimeter where it's like the senior, the junior who's gonna be maybe uh uh you know a thespian president the next year, make sure that those individuals have someone that they can look up to, that they can follow along, that they can model the right behaviors because you are a mentor in this instance.
• 13:07
  Ben Webb: And then of course we then replicate that for the as the adult chaperones.
• 13:14
  Andy Goveia: So like if we go to a place and I'm gonna use I'm gonna use six flags because we've taken kids there through the years for different reasons.
• 13:20
  Andy Goveia: Um, six flag places where we see you by yourself today, and we ask you why are you by yourself?
• 13:26
  Andy Goveia: If your answer isn't, oh, my friend is in the bathroom, I'm trying to find my friend, and here's who I've been hanging out with, or I don't know, I got lost.
• 13:35
  Andy Goveia: I'm trying to find it if you're hanging with us because you shouldn't be by yourself.
• 13:40
  Andy Goveia: Yes, kids can especially have some freedom, like it's six legs.
• 13:45
  Andy Goveia: I know they're apart, they're in the park.
• 13:47
  Andy Goveia: I have an accessible, or so they're they got my phone regularly on those days, and you can wherever you are in park, you can walk around six legs.
• 14:04
  Andy Goveia: But like don't let uh we don't let us think by ourselves.
• 14:11
  Andy Goveia: Accountability could also just say, hey, human connection also matters on these things.
• 14:16
  Andy Goveia: And yes, we might be here to learn or do X or Y or Z, but don't experience it alone.
• 14:21
  Andy Goveia: Right because the memory you can get from being with someone else is also powerful.
• 14:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Ben Webb: So you just came back from a big experiential learning thing.
• 14:30
  Ben Webb: How did you survive being in the woods?
• 14:33
  unknown: Well, lots of caffeine, number one.
• 14:36
  Andy Goveia: Um so for our listeners, Metcalf has had for 50 years now, we think.
• 14:40
  Andy Goveia: We're trying to get an exact year, but we're calling it about 50 years.
• 14:44
  Andy Goveia: Um a normalized outdoor education program.
• 14:48
  Andy Goveia: And so 50 years ago, a couple teachers who were out at outdoors are instrumental teaching over they all kids built a program just to go out to chance to work.
• 15:19
  Andy Goveia: And that then turned into a multi-grade generalized program that takes generally six-grade three grade students on a grain, six-grade, three-day, two-day experience, or seven grade grade, four days, three-day experience, where you essentially treat the outdoors as your classroom or independent collaboration, application.
• 15:54
  Andy Goveia: And so I'm a member of our program, so I got 40 minutes.
• 15:59
  Andy Goveia: Um and so that program is a multifaceted thing of experiential learning.
• 16:08
  Andy Goveia: There's a ton of prep work, there's work out there, there's post work that occurs, um, and it is like just essentially a gigantic field trip.
• 16:16
  Andy Goveia: So, Mr.
• 16:17
  Andy Goveia: Webb, back to you a little bit.
• 16:18
  Andy Goveia: What do you want me to explain of that?
• 16:21
  Ben Webb: That is beneficial.
• 16:23
  Ben Webb: I guess so.
• 16:24
  Ben Webb: You explain what outdoor ed is, you talk about it in such a positive, loving way, but it sounds like the thing of nightmares.
• 16:34
  Ben Webb: So why why do you love it so much?
• 16:38
  Ben Webb: Because I'm like, I'm just gonna late it.
• 16:40
  Ben Webb: Well, because I'm just like, okay, my trips, I'm in a house, I'm in a hotel, I've got breakfast in the morning.
• 16:47
  Ben Webb: This is like that's my that's my thing.
• 16:49
  Ben Webb: Yeah, little breakfast.
• 16:51
  Andy Goveia: Um, you know, it's really interesting that why I have grown to be such a passionate advocate of it.
• 17:00
  Andy Goveia: Is I in college worked in a summer camp.
• 17:04
  Andy Goveia: I was a camp counselor, and that was my summer job.
• 17:06
  Andy Goveia: And so being outside in the outdoors is never bothering me.
• 17:09
  Andy Goveia: I did that work.
• 17:16
  Andy Goveia: And so I was always like six.
• 17:23
  Andy Goveia: So I got this job for a target.
• 17:29
  Andy Goveia: My first trip was I was coming in with a tablet program with the number of people with different characters.
• 17:39
  Andy Goveia: Their understanding that they had clear instruction.
• 17:51
  Andy Goveia: That was my struggle with that first trick.
• 17:54
  Andy Goveia: Balancing oh, I'm going to sell it with and so I've come to become the advocate for the program.
• 18:08
  Andy Goveia: Remember when I drank the Kool A.
• 18:11
  Andy Goveia: I fully bought it.
• 18:13
  Andy Goveia: This is why we do it, and this is why it matters.
• 18:33
  Andy Goveia: So it is a lot.
• 18:35
  Andy Goveia: And I would be lying to say that hey, taking kids on a four-day, three-night camping experience is easy.
• 18:40
  Andy Goveia: It's not.
• 18:41
  Andy Goveia: But because we have a program and a system that's built, it's a machine that can almost run itself as long as someone starts out.
• 18:50
  Andy Goveia: So I love it because I've come to love it.
• 18:54
  Ben Webb: That makes sense.
• 18:55
  Ben Webb: And I the thing that I instead of like, okay, I'm not going to call it a nightmare, but like the thing that I think about is some of the best parts of trips that I've gone on, whether I'm going to U of I or I'm here at ISU for Theater Fest, the thing that they talk about, like you were saying, it's like the thing that we did on the car ride up, or it's the thing that they did at breakfast the next morning.
• 19:18
  Ben Webb: It's never like the show.
• 19:20
  Ben Webb: And it's it's always the things that happened along the way, which it's that's like almost like saying, All right, what was your favorite memory of school?
• 19:28
  Ben Webb: And it's not the lesson I'm doing, it's what happens in between the lessons I'm doing, or what happened during lunch, or happened during the we just finished homecoming.
• 19:38
  Ben Webb: Like it's the thing that we did during the Pep assembly that I was a part of or they were a part of.
• 19:44
  Ben Webb: And so that part I get.
• 19:47
  Ben Webb: Makes sense to me a little bit more now.
• 19:50
  Andy Goveia: So I think the other piece of it too that I think is important, if you're thinking about doing some sort of longer-term, big thing you want to become a thing over time, is you've got to create a system that works.
• 20:01
  Andy Goveia: And so, like, we have a job list.
• 20:03
  Andy Goveia: There's seven teachers that do that, so we have a job list.
• 20:06
  Andy Goveia: And so if you were to take that into other areas of experiential, let's say you've got every year to do a local community-based experience area, right?
• 20:16
  Andy Goveia: Downtown area, six hours.
• 20:20
  Andy Goveia: What do you need to do?
• 20:21
  Andy Goveia: Six weeks hours.
• 20:23
  Andy Goveia: What do you need to do in this four year old?
• 20:29
  Andy Goveia: Six weeks outward.
• 20:31
  Andy Goveia: Four weeks outwards.
• 20:33
  Andy Goveia: Three weeks outward.
• 20:37
  Andy Goveia: What the kids can't do.
• 20:40
  Andy Goveia: What do you need to do right now?
• 20:45
  Andy Goveia: What is the first thing you can like outdoor edge have all the like I have my job that says we all have our jobs and we know the thing we are supposed to do so that when we all show up on that Tuesday leave, and we get the kids in the room and we go, here's our old thing.
• 21:06
  Andy Goveia: That happens over and over and over.
• 21:08
  Andy Goveia: Having clear job timelines, clear expectations, clear responsibilities helps make it that much more manageable.
• 21:16
  Ben Webb: And I like how you're offloading it to the kids.
• 21:19
  Ben Webb: It doesn't it doesn't make sense if you're the one making breakfast for everybody that they should be learning how to do the breakfast.
• 21:25
  Andy Goveia: They're setting up their tents, they're helping us set up shelters, they're helping us get other pieces set up, they're setting up their little baking table and cooking area, and they're rolling up their air mattresses, and we create a program that the kids of LiveWins experiential trips are, and the bus will be okay.
• 21:46
  Ben Webb: Usually, usually.
• 21:47
  Ben Webb: I and I think the caveat or the asterisk that I would put with that part of that everyone's got a job, everyone's got a task, is there's also backup plans for just about every possible thing.
• 22:00
  Ben Webb: I think about uh a couple of years ago we went to festival, and the festival's in January.
• 22:05
  Ben Webb: We stopped doing uh our trip to Navy Pier in January because of winter weather.
• 22:12
  Ben Webb: Yeah.
• 22:13
  Ben Webb: So that festival trip is always going to be in January, and we got snowed in.
• 22:18
  Ben Webb: So you you're always planning for okay, what what else could happen?
• 22:23
  Ben Webb: And so we had to stay for an extra day.
• 22:25
  Ben Webb: And honestly, the kids loved it.
• 22:29
  Ben Webb: I mean, we had to go get more groceries, but we enjoyed having that extra time and we didn't see any extra shows, but we were together.
• 22:37
  Ben Webb: So it emphasizes that community that you're trying to build and cultivate.
• 22:41
  Andy Goveia: And when you're trying to create these moments of experiential learning, whether it's a lengthier trip, like I've described about the red, or it's shorter field trips, like some of in our building, for example, kindergarten is going to a very far.
• 22:54
  Andy Goveia: No, just kidding.
• 22:55
  Andy Goveia: Kindergarten is going to have larger, first grade is going to go very far.
• 22:58
  Andy Goveia: Um third grade every year.
• 23:16
  Andy Goveia: Created these products and set them up to the last thing you're here because of the way they look at so an under, for example, is an exceptional thing, but it's also like yes, there are social settings exceptional.
• 23:36
  Andy Goveia: Like this kids research, right?
• 23:38
  Andy Goveia: I took two kids out there in the middle of nowhere, and you have to figure out how my teaching was walking out.
• 23:55
  Andy Goveia: And the power kids will say me yelling at them, yelling, don't go in and go.
• 24:18
  Andy Goveia: So it's if you're listening to this and go, okay, I I think I can do this, how do you intentionally make what you're gonna do matter in the context of what you're teaching and how you're how you even exist within your own.
• 24:30
  Ben Webb: Are you saying I can't just watch a movie in class and that's my curriculum connection?
• 24:35
  Ben Webb: It has to have a deeper connection.
• 24:38
  Andy Goveia: And like if you struggle to get support from above for your field trip, the more you tie it into it, the better off your Christmas Carol because the case was made by our LA teacher this is the only place without a two-hour radio that's doing the show.
• 25:01
  Andy Goveia: This is gonna meaningfully enrich their understanding of literature and of life.
• 25:07
  Andy Goveia: Because just by going to a new city or a new place, you also enrich kids' lives.
• 25:13
  Ben Webb: It's like when kids see you at the grocery store and it's like, what are you doing here?
• 25:16
  Ben Webb: Like, I'm getting milk.
• 25:17
  Ben Webb: Like, they need to see that yes, we are teachers, yes, we are the people who are supervising them on these trips, but we also exist out in the real world the same way that these things, canoeing, pitching a tent, these things exist out in the real world.
• 25:33
  Ben Webb: And so it's almost like you're I mean, in my case, I'm my trips are almost like, hey, you're gonna go out into the real world, you're probably gonna have to have a house and you're gonna have to have chores, and people are gonna have certain things to do, and make sure the dinner's on the table by this time so we can make our call time over at this space at this time, and we don't just teleport there.
• 25:54
  Ben Webb: We got to make sure we are all in the car and we gotta make sure we're all ready to go.
• 25:57
  Ben Webb: And and so you're you're teaching those lessons.
• 26:00
  Ben Webb: Hopefully, those lessons then are reinforced by the classroom environment that you have in the four walls of your school.
• 26:07
  Andy Goveia: And let's say you're just trying to get something off the ground and you're wanting to go somewhere and do something.
• 26:12
  Andy Goveia: The easiest case you're ever going to be able to make is if there's a specific thing you're learning, a specific thing you're doing, finding something out there in the real world that you can get kids to or bring in.
• 26:22
  Andy Goveia: That's the other side of the experience learning.
• 26:24
  Andy Goveia: There are so many more supposed to say what's supposed to be teaching.
• 26:38
  Andy Goveia: If you can go, oh my gosh, there's this guest speaker at the museum that will come in.
• 26:41
  Andy Goveia: Hey, is this all right that I do this?
• 26:43
  Andy Goveia: Here's exactly the standard it connects to, here's the curriculum it connects to.
• 26:48
  Andy Goveia: Starting there and building out, I think will do me more good than anything else in the way.
• 26:54
  Ben Webb: It really forces you to know your community in where you teach, because that's where then you're gonna say, here are the experts in my area, these are the community communicators are the organizations in my area that I can tap into.
• 27:05
  Ben Webb: Or I think especially when you think like locally, this is where then the funding is to bring in those guest speakers, to bring in authors, to bring in that grant money that allows these things to then happen if cost is an issue.
• 27:18
  Ben Webb: Going out into the woods, I imagine that's a little bit easier than going up and seeing Hamilton in Chicago.
• 27:23
  Andy Goveia: You know, cost-wise, it's it's kind of a wash.
• 27:28
  Ben Webb: Really?
• 27:29
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:29
  Andy Goveia: So like I think the thing too, when you think about field trips, I think this is the one one of the things I'd say is cost of living right now is a challenge for everybody.
• 27:37
  Andy Goveia: And like a ticket to a student ticket to Hamilton up in the balcony balcony is gonna probably run you somewhere between when we go into the woods, we're gonna be charged by we also then have that like$400.
• 27:58
  Andy Goveia: So that's about$100.
• 28:00
  Andy Goveia: That's all that's right.
• 28:08
  Andy Goveia: So if we translate that to Chicago,$55 for the ticket,$30 something for your share of the charter bus, the school bus, or an 80 already.
• 28:21
  Ben Webb: Plus food.
• 28:22
  unknown: Plus food if there's a food component.
• 28:23
  unknown: I mean, there's only a twenty dollar difference between a week in the woods and one visit to one show at one time.
• 28:31
  Ben Webb: Right.
• 28:31
  Ben Webb: And I guess the other thing too is it's yeah, it's one one evening where you're seeing one thing versus an entire week.
• 28:37
  unknown: Exactly.
• 28:37
  Andy Goveia: So that's where yes, on balance, it looks to be one way, and not it isn't always that way though.
• 28:44
  Ben Webb: And and I guess the other thing too, going back to money, like grant money, fundraising, those are the things that you might do as the chaperone to make sure that cost isn't a thing for your students.
• 28:56
  Ben Webb: Uh, number a number of times where we've brought Shakespeare in or we've gone up to see Shakespeare, the only thing that students are being charged is that transportation because it might be a charter because of how large our group is.
• 29:07
  Ben Webb: Like tickets are covered by us.
• 29:09
  Ben Webb: We've actually found transportation as one of the more driving costs right now of field trips than anything due to the price of gas and oil.
• 29:16
  Andy Goveia: So, like, for example, our we went to Christmas Carol last year.
• 29:19
  unknown: It's about ten dollars more this year because of plus costs.
• 29:24
  Ben Webb: And I'm dealing with that right now, we're getting organized for going to um the festival in January.
• 29:30
  Ben Webb: Hotels for us right now.
• 29:31
  Ben Webb: Hotels are high too right now.
• 29:33
  Ben Webb: Yeah.
• 29:33
  Ben Webb: So it's it's almost cheaper for me to do my old system where I get two houses and then we go to the grocery store, we make our meals instead of doing a hotel where all we're gonna do is walk in, fall asleep, get up, go to the continental breakfast, go to campus.
• 29:51
  Ben Webb: I can do more of that experience now, this other way, the older way that I would do things, but in the planning phases for that right now.
• 29:59
  Andy Goveia: So if you're listening to this episode and we're like, okay, this is great that you guys have done these things.
• 30:04
  Andy Goveia: How do I actually do this?
• 30:07
  Andy Goveia: Number one, find someone in your building that you can thought partner with to make it a reality.
• 30:13
  Andy Goveia: Like, I it took me four or five years to get our DC training because I just had to wait for the right person to go sure I'm willing to find the and then I got the approval, and I've been willing ever since.
• 30:25
  Andy Goveia: Um, I haven't asked anybody else since I've had one.
• 30:28
  Andy Goveia: Um find the right people that can help you get some momentum is my first big piece of advice.
• 30:37
  Ben Webb: I like that.
• 30:38
  Ben Webb: I would say a second piece of advice, as much as you want to have those people on your team, you also have to challenge those people to make sure that they are challenging your preconceived notions, challenging you, checking your math.
• 30:55
  Ben Webb: Like just because you might be on the same in the same headspace, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be playing devil's advocate with you every step of the way.
• 31:06
  Ben Webb: Because the same way that you and your family might be planning for a trip, yes, trust them and trust that they've packed everything, but you can also check their work.
• 31:16
  Ben Webb: There's nothing wrong with making sure that, oh yeah, the shampoo is packed.
• 31:21
  Ben Webb: Both of you will be happy the next day if that is in fact packed.
• 31:26
  unknown: My next advice is start small.
• 31:28
  Andy Goveia: If you're gonna try to get something going, you can't always, like I said with my first example, DC, you can't always jump to the big thing.
• 31:34
  Andy Goveia: Maybe the first thing is you're just gonna walk a quarter mile between your building and a cool area, and that's where you're gonna do some activity for exploration.
• 31:41
  Andy Goveia: And then once you build that trust and build that support of what you're doing, then you can take that success and take it to our photo from that starting point.
• 31:51
  Ben Webb: I mean, I I I feel a little I almost did the opposite.
• 31:54
  Ben Webb: My trips were either state or out of country.
• 31:58
  Ben Webb: But I think the only reason why I was successful for those was because it was more of that curated trip where I had an agency that was helping me.
• 32:06
  Ben Webb: They they would take me to the locations ahead of time, and I actually got professional development before I brought kids.
• 32:14
  Ben Webb: And I think that was that was helpful.
• 32:15
  Ben Webb: It was like I'm not necessarily I knew the lay of the land, I knew what to expect, as opposed to me seeing it for the first time and me then having to also be the teacher at that same time.
• 32:28
  Ben Webb: So I feel like a hypocrite, but also like know that there are cases where you don't have to reinvent the wheel, it is it is ready for you.
• 32:37
  Andy Goveia: We one of my first trips I actually organized that wasn't just local was we went to Springfield, uh, Illinois for just a tour of Springfield.
• 32:45
  Andy Goveia: Um, and I actually just worked with the Springfield Visitor Bureau.
• 32:48
  Andy Goveia: I told them where I wanted to go, they scheduled it for me, told me where to go.
• 32:51
  Andy Goveia: I just had to like we talked about at the very beginning, curated trips.
• 32:54
  Andy Goveia: I told them where I wanted to go.
• 32:56
  Andy Goveia: I contacted the statehouse to get 4%.
• 33:05
  Andy Goveia: Uh just by having that interaction with the convention zero, zero three got it all figured out.
• 33:15
  Andy Goveia: And so that was by selling that we're gonna write training training track, track it back, and it was$40 for a little trip to do all those things.
• 33:30
  Andy Goveia: And I can say all of that because it sounds really cool and really fancy, but it took two, maybe two hours more to put it all together, and it was actually more stressful doing the trip because man, a hundred we took a hundred kids on the camera.
• 33:43
  unknown: That was stressful.
• 33:44
  Andy Goveia: But it was amazing.
• 33:47
  Andy Goveia: So start small, find places.
• 33:52
  unknown: Sometimes all it takes is a phone call, though, to get it to all put together.
• 33:56
  Ben Webb: I guess the last thing I would throw out there is yes, start small, but know that you have to dream it first, and you have to think about what are those things that can come from it.
• 34:10
  Ben Webb: And you have to kind of think outside the box in terms of what are those experiences going to be.
• 34:16
  Ben Webb: What makes it experiential learning is not what we do on the trip that's on the schedule or on the itinerary, it's it's how you interconnect all of those pieces into one experience that everybody then can then say, this is what we've gained.
• 34:35
  Ben Webb: We gained this thing.
• 34:36
  Ben Webb: And with that comes actually like going on that journey, being a part of this environment.
• 34:43
  Ben Webb: It's gonna be uncomfortable because for it's not our routine.
• 34:47
  Ben Webb: That deviation from routine is the best part.
• 34:50
  Ben Webb: And getting to see kids in a different light, once we're off that routine, you have to be ready.
• 34:56
  Ben Webb: One of my one of my my my trip I was mentioning going overseas.
• 35:00
  Ben Webb: That was a for one kid, that was their first time away from home.
• 35:04
  Ben Webb: They had not even had a sleepover at a friend's house before, and they were then going overseas.
• 35:10
  Ben Webb: So it's gonna be different.
• 35:12
  Ben Webb: It's gonna be a TSA as a teacher.
• 35:16
  unknown: There's a whole episode I could do on walking children.
• 35:19
  unknown: We should just do a PSA on getting a children's TSA.
• 35:22
  Ben Webb: That's less of an episode and more of a PSA, exactly.
• 35:27
  unknown: No, there's yeah, we sometimes if you're doing field trips or experiential opportunities, you are often breaking them open at a door for a kid that they may have never walked before.
• 35:38
  Ben Webb: Closing thoughts to you.
• 35:40
  Andy Goveia: I think I don't think if we take anything away from this episode, A, we are both in one situation where this has been encouraged for us to bring it from present as something that's covered together.
• 36:02
  Ben Webb: I like it.
• 36:03
  Ben Webb: All right, folks, we'll see you in about two weeks.