I don’t know about you, but when I think back to elementary school, I remember the field trips most of all. Denver kids, like me, visited the Natural History Museum, the Denver Mint, and Red Rocks Amphitheater (where we would return several years later with concert tickets in hand!).
I was also part of a small group of kids that went on overnight field trips to the Wind River Indian Reservation and The Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind. Those trips were incredibly influential on my 10 year-old psyche.
Field trips are the stay-cation version of travel, and they similarly increase our awareness and understanding. I’ve taken myself on six field trips in the past two weeks, and I’ve got nine more on the books, the biggest of which includes schools and sites in Sydney and Melbourne Australia (whoop, whoop).
In no particular order, I’ll share a bit about the field trips I’ve taken to schools and organizations lately.
I recently spent a morning visiting The Family Partnership and Baby’s Space at Little Earth in Minneapolis. These child and after-school care programs offer kids in the Native American community Dakota and Ojibwe language immersion, speech, occupational, and play therapists for kids who meet the criteria (20% developmental delay in one area), a 7:1 ratio of children to adults, and surround them with books. Their work was inspiring. I then spent the afternoon reading and shopping at Birch Bark Books. My interest was centered on the history and experience of Native American people, the store’s specialty for all ages, but they have a wide range of books in general. You have to go if you haven’t been yet; independent bookstores are the best.
Along these indigenous lines, I’ve visited galleries within the Franklin Corridor (a.k.a. The American Indian Cultural Corridor) and the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Native American art collection, as well as an exhibit of modern Minnesota, Somali-born artists titled “I Am Somali” And here’s a shout-out to my field trip buddy Jen for that fun day that included an amazing lunch at Midtown Global Market.
Another day I drove over to the Pillsbury House + Theater to meet with Siddeeqah, who is an actor and Teen Program Coordinator for Power of Our Voices after-school program. Her students identify the issues that matter most to them and spend weeks learning more in order to convey what they feel and learned artistically. Their experience culminates with a mid-January performance. High on my list of field trips yet-to-schedule is the middle school program connected with Pillsbury United called Crew, which focuses on service learning.
I’ll make this post a true “Part One” about field trip exploration by simply listing a couple of schools I’ve visited to date without elaboration: The Minnesota New Country School in Henderson (a project-based, teacher-led school) and Global Academy in Columbia Heights, an early and middle years International Baccalaureate-based program where most students’ home languages are Arabic or Somali. In short, both schools were places of creativity, purpose, and inclusion, and it was a joy to observe their students in action. I left with several ideas to carry back to Blake.
To wrap things up, I’m excited that these field trips are on my calendar for the coming days: a Sacred Sites Tour with Our People, Our Stories and visits to The John Burroughs School (St. Louis, MO), Clara Barton Open School (Mpls), St Paul Academy & Summit School, Tish Jones at Tru Arts Speaks, and four schools in Australia, dedicated to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
One more quick note about a recent serendipitous moment. As I was in the midst of emailing the Executive Director at Melbourne Indigenous Transition School, I received a text message that he was actually IN MINNEAPOLIS (what are the odds?!). We met for coffee on the Nicollet Mall, and had a really interesting conversation about our schools and countries’ educational and political situations. I can’t wait to visit MITS (and Melbourne) in November!
Beyond Bells 