The James Logan Courier

By Emily Low, Courier Opinion Editor

Perhaps, on a certain Friday, you may have noticed quite a few empty holes in the usually dense population of your classroom. There’s just a person missing here or there, just three, but out of thirty…that’s one tenth. Dimly, you might recall them bringing up slips of paper to be initialed with a quick flourish by the teacher, then a complaint that half the class is disappearing for their lesson. Ah ha. They’re off on a field trip. Lucky blokes.


Field trips, for most of Logan’s student body, are few and far between. If you’re engaged in a particularly active extracurricular, you might leave class more than most, attending festivals for band, tournaments for forensics, or competitions for choir. Maybe you were one of the few who went to that assembly that one day. But there aren’t too many classes that leave the campus for a day spent for just fun…and a tiny bit of learning attached to it too, of course. Other else, it’s not a field trip, is it?

Regardless, for all trips, educationally related or not, they require organization. You can believe me when I say it’s horridly frustrating to have no clue as to what is going on. This year, I’ve had quite a variety: I’ve attended a completely well-managed field trip, been a part of a somewhat confusing one, and attempted to direct a largely disappointing one. You can take a guess at which one I enjoyed more.

A sense of control is a great way to not gain that extra frustration, I’ve found. It’s more than just keeping away needless worrying that might accumulate and be a factor as to why our hair has turned gray earlier than we might have expected. It’s also not having to feel that sense of helpless impatience because nobody knows what we’re all standing outside for, waiting for what appears to be nothing. The sense of being left out of the loop or being a third wheel is never comfortable—it certainly doesn’t get any better when you feel like the one-hundred-and-fifty-second wheel, either. But that’s definitely what if feels like to attend a large field trip and be milling around as a part of that mass of confusion when only three people know what’s going on.

I’ll admit, I’m a worrier. I also like to micromanage, to an extent. When a friend isn’t here (or, rather, she is here but I just don’t see her) I find myself hissing to everybody else, “Where’s she? Why isn’t she here? Don’t tell me she left again!” Most people would put the problem to the back of their mind for the meanwhile, have fun, then call them a bit later to meet up at some other location. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. But you can’t tell me that you don’t fret a little.

It is a part, I think, of the multitude of things that leave people tired at the end of trips. Of course, there’s all the excitement and mind-blowing fun that took up about 99% of your energy before you even noticed it, despite all of the sugar you loaded upon just an hour ago. However, there’s always that moment when somebody has to crane his or her head to make sure everybody is there. The teacher did say to watch out for them, right? And, well, I don’t exactly want to leave them behind either. Just count and add up all those miniscule actions, and it does sound a bit like an energy sapper. Don’t forget all the crankiness of the moment too, when you’ve finally found the person who’s really been missing the whole time. I think it kills the momentum of all the fun you’ve been having, when you don’t know where to go or what to do, wasting time that you could be productive (in other words, having fun).

If I ever have negative feedback about a field trip, more often than not, the thing at the top of my list is that about organization. I didn’t know where to go, I’ll complain, or when to be there. You didn’t make sure we were all there and we couldn’t find you and nobody knew what time and so we all just assumed and then we got here too early and had to wait in the burning sun and wilt for three hours…could that anxious nagging be any worse?

I’ll be certain to try and get all the information straight next time, and to find it all myself. But really, try and make a move to tell me too? I’m sure we’ll all be a bit happier for it.