Field Trip Blues

Several weeks ago I was ranting IRL about homeschoolers' field trips. It’s taken me a while to blog about it, which is probably just as well. I think I’ve calmed down a bit since then.

Field trips with homeschoolers can be wonderful. But they can also be hell. I live on the West Coast of Canada. We’re a pretty relaxed bunch here, especially when you live reasonably close to the ocean. (In my part of the world, the farther away you get from the ocean, the more conservative people get. Is this some deep meaningful anthropological/historical insight? Oh you get lots of small groups of hippie communes in the interior of BC, but generally speaking, the really relaxed people are close to the sea.) I like to think of myself as a relaxed person (I said I like to think that... we all have our delusions.) But field trips have been really bugging me lately.

After one dismal field trip, I moaned to R that there is a shortage of normal homeschoolers. Most are either bible-thumping, child smacking fundamentalists, or anarchist libertarians with obnoxious children. And of the two groups, I’d rather go on field trips with the first because even though I might disagree with them about everything under the sun, at least their kids are generally polite and well behaved in public.

Barbara Frank wrote an article called Preventing Rudeness in Homeschooled Children which addresses the biggies: the Know-it-all, the Star, and the Drone. Some freethinking, libertarian parents on the West Coast appear to be trying hard to raise children who are all three, with a healthy dose of arrogance & self-entitlement thrown in. Of course they’re unschooling so they’ll tell you adamantly that they’re not trying to mold their children in any particular way; nevertheless, the result is rude, obnoxious children.

• Children who interrupt the people we have come to listen to so that they can drone on about their boring lives. (“Excuse me, I take a dance class & blah, blah, blah, blah……” Yeah, well, you organize a time for you to talk, post it on the events calendar and see if anyone will come to listen.)
• Children who get on stage during performances. (Really. And it was not during an audience participation session.)
• Children who constantly raise their hands but have nothing to say or ask when called on. (“Um. Um. Well. Um.” Second later, up goes the hand again. Repeat. This is not cute. Especially not after the 4th or 5th time.)
• Children who disregard the field trip leader’s rules regarding safety. (Leader asks children to please stay on this trail as the lake bank is eroding. Child runs right to the water’s edge and needs to be escorted back because he ignores the leader’s verbal requests to move off the dangerous part.)
• Children who are downright rude to a field trip leader. (Same child “Why are you so darned mean?”)

The baffling thing is that these field trips are homeschoolers' outings. That means the parents are almost always somewhere around. And what are they doing? They’re either oblivious or they’re beaming proudly at their disruptive darlings.