The Class Trip

We’ve been back for a week and I’ve had time to reflect on the Klassenfahrt (what? A class fart? Are you paying attention now?), which is German for Class Trip. Over the years I’ve been involved in a lot of these adventures in US middle schools, and while this one was similar in its basic structure, in many ways it was an entirely different experience. Remember that these are 5th graders and that we took them for 4 days and 5 nights, which in itself is somewhat remarkable. But I think I need to tell more of the story…

The week began like many other class trip Mondays—whether it be Nature’s Classroom, KEEC, Sargent Camp, whatever—the kids gather at school with their various bags, parents mill about looking alternately proud of their grown-up kid, worried they’ve forgotten to pack Teddy, thrilled they have a week with one fewer kid to think about, and panicked that something might happen without them there to fix it. But as always, we managed to collect the various forms we still needed, get medications gathered, make a pile of the pocket knives (?see? I told you it was different) and, when the bus FINALLY arrived (OK, not so different from home) we herded everyone on.

The bus wound its way through the city streets for a remarkably long time—Berlin is amazing in how far it goes at a fairly high density—until we finally headed out into the Brandenburg countryside. Brandenburg, the German state to the west of Berlin, was part of the DDR (East Germany) and while Berlin is quite modern and cosmopolitan it remains quite conservative and has a reputation for harboring a significant neo-Nazi population. We didn’t experience any of this, but I suppose it’s sort of like driving an hour out of Boston and being in, say, Idaho. (PS I have since been reminded that while Brandenburg IS in fact to the west of Berlin, it is also to the East, North, and South. So I have revealed myself as painfully ignorant regarding German geography. Ouch!)

Anyway we arrived easily enough climbed off the bus to the first main difference. Those of you who have done some work in environmental education know that usually the staff greets the arriving campers immediately to begin establishing the expectations and showing kids where things were. In contrast, we milled about while one of the teachers (the ONE of us who speaks German) went to collect the room keys. Someone came by and dropped off a big wagon to carry our gear. We went off (on our own, mind you) to find our cabins. We gave the kids their cabin groups amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, passed out the sheets and pillowcases (another big difference—no sleeping bags!) and retreated to the adult cabin.

This bears repeating. We retreated to the adult cabin. That is to say, there were no adults in the kids’ cabins. You heard right. Each group of 5 kids had their own “bungalow” with two rooms and a bathroom. We three teachers had our own bungalow, separate from any kids at all. Whoa. You’ll see why that is REALLY different later on.

OK, back to our adventures. Lunch was pretty uneventful; essentially it was like a little cafeteria, but it was gradually becoming clear that we the teachers were really on our own. This theme really carried through the week—while some of the activities planned were “guided” (in a manner of speaking) we pretty much had to run things ourselves, as there wasn’t in fact any staff there. A few examples:

• An art activity in which kids made small animals from toilet paper tubes or painted pre-cast plaster molds. Um. This taught them what?
• A “grill night” which meant that we had to cook dinner. OK, granted that they provided the meats, but it was pretty much like Thursday night BBQ at camp with me slaving over a hot grill.
• A campfire (which, by the way, we paid for) for which we had to collect our own wood, build the fire, and provide the entertainment. Good thing I’ve done a few of these over the years…Keewaydin folks would have recognized most of it.
• A “fox hunt” in which one group went out and left a trail of little paper foxes so the other group could track them, then hid in the woods. This filled (if you can believe it) a whole hour! And (imagine my voice dripping with sarcasm) it took SO much planning!

I was really worried about the disco night but that turned out to be a blast—obviously the woman in charge had spent the whole week playing with her song list instead of taking care of activities. And in the end, the kids had a great time, learned a bunch of crazy new songs from yours truly, and came together as a team. Which is what the whole thing was for, anyway. What curriculum did we cover? None. What standards were we addressing? Only the ones that have to do with behavior towards peers and learning to get along. Are those important?