Spoiler alert: I’m a teacher. To be more specific, I’m an 8th grade History teacher. It’s pretty awesome. Most of the time. 90% of the time. Whenever I tell people what grade I teach, I’m always met with one of the following reactions:
I mean, on the one hand, yes. Yes it is crazy. On the other hand, it really isn’t that bad. I love the awkward, quirky middle school age. I can still laugh and have fun with them, I can have serious, intellectual conversations with (most) of them, and they’re still young enough that I don’t feel like it’s too late to help steer them in the right direction. It’s a fun age. I love it.
And one goal I’ve always had as a teacher is to take students to Washington, D.C. It’s my favorite city. It’s so full of history, culture, politics, everything. You could spend a month in D.C. and still not even come close to seeing all there is to see. So, after two years of planning, I finally got to fulfill a dream last week by taking a group of students to Washington, D.C. We made a side trip to Gettysburg and Valley Forge to round out the trip.
A few things I learned while on this first adventure with students:
- Never, and I mean never, try to take a group of students by yourself without an official chaperone. Even if there are parents on the trip, make sure you have at least one other official chaperone. Because kids get sick. And in really odd places, like the US Capitol building.
- The food is not good. It never was, and it never will be. But you eat it anyway, because sustenance.
- You will not have any free time for five solid days. And with the free time you do have, you are sleeping.
- You become full-time mom. To however many children are with you. In my case, I suddenly found myself the “mother” of twelve 14- and 15-year-olds. For a 29-year-old who’s on the fence about the whole children thing, that becomes terrifying.
- You will walk, on average, about 5 or 6 miles per day. Make sure you’re somewhat in shape…at least decently in shape.
- Kids are still kids, even in the middle of a Civil War battlefield. Learn to laugh about it.
- You will cry. This is not necessarily because the trip is going terribly, horribly wrong. Just remember you’re running on fumes, you’re responsible for multiple children in a strange place, and everyone is exhausted and out of their comfort zone. It’s okay to cry, just don’t lose sight of why you’re there and the ultimate outcome (that kids have a life-changing, worthwhile experience, NBD).
- Always pack every essential, over-the-counter type of medication/first aid item you can think of. Ibuprofen, Pepto Bismol, Benadryl, hand sanitizer, bandaids, all of it. You’ll need it. And if you pack a lot of it, maybe the travel gods will smile down on you at a job well done and you won’t need these items.
- It will be way too hot, it will pour down rain on you at famous monuments, it will take too long to get into a museum leaving you not enough time to see things like the Hope Diamond, planes will be delayed, luggage will be lost, people will be mean, things will go wrong. Keep your sights on all the things that go right, like seeing a kid’s eyes light up the first time they see the US Capitol, Arlington Cemetery, or the Lincoln Memorial.
- I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Or at least two years from now.
I leave you with some of the few artsy photographs I was able to take while on this amazing trip with some pretty amazing kids:
Arlington National Cemetery, May 30, 2018
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, May 31, 2018
Washington National Cathedral, May 31, 2018
Mount Vernon, June 1, 2018
United States Capitol, June 1, 2018
Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, June 1, 2018
Gettysburg National Military Park, atop the Pennsylvania State Memorial, June 2, 2018
Gettysburg National Military Park, June 2, 2018
Marine Corps War Memorial, May 30, 2018
Valley Forge National Historic Park, June 3, 2018