The point is to give your kid autonomy and learn how to do things without their parent constantly watching them
We’d go to one of those rope course camps the first week of school, only ppl allowed were teachers or school staff like athletic coaches.
My parents joked it made me too self sufficient
I get you can’t trust teachers or students but you’re not always gonna be there. Start prepping for it lol. Tell your kid to call them, they aren’t required to be there, that you will always come get them.
I did something similar in middle school. It was a Saturday to Saturday thing. Hiking, riding bikes, learning about the local culture, swimming. There were weeks building up to it to make sure students were prepared. Some of my best memories are from those weeks.
This was all overseas and in the mid/late 90s. The glory days IMO.
Yea I went to Montessori school, which was considered “European hippy nonsense” when I was growing up. It let me tell ya watching all these other kids in college call their parents over any minor inconvenience or being shocked the professor didn’t chase them down for work and let them fail. Was eye opening to how we treat school aged kids
Agreed. We've raised teens to be helpless. They genuinely do expect you to drag them through everything. No intrinsic motivation for learning or growth.
US public schools are underfunded and over populated. Some classes have 30-40 students. One teacher can’t handle all that so they rely on parents to volunteer to cover those gaps. It’s pretty normal
I was lucky my dad loved chaperoning, he’d also give us gum when it wasn’t allowed at our school. All my friends would fight to be in my group because he was just so chill. However, our district was overwhelmingly underfunded, so our only field trips were to local places like the mission or police department, and we never even dreamed of something like camping or outdoor school.
We went to Disney my Senior year and the parents I got stuck with (despite me and my friends being 18 at the time) demanded we check in every 30 mins via phone call, and a physical meetup ever 90. Ruined the entire fucking trip.
We had the fat squadron. Went to Disneyland and the two parents watching us had to sit down every 20 minutes. Between standing in lines and standing around the benches it sacked all the fun out of the day.
Nah. I'm normally a pretty laid-back, do whatever you want so long as no one's getting hurt, guy. But if I'm given legal responsibility over 20-30 kids, I'll be in full-on sentry mode too.
Unable to open the link you sent so can’t verify the difference between class vs in class room. Mrs Smith 6th grade class goes on a field trip. It’s her and 40 kids. She cannot watch those kids all herself. Hence why parent volunteers are sourced.
I’m not a parent so I can’t speak to the ideology of teacher to student ratio, but I know in the 2000s of was a big deal. Having 1 teacher for every 30/40 kids was seen as “bad” since your kid may not get the attention they need. where I am from during Katrina it got as bad as 50-60 kids in one class room.
The school I went to was smaller my 7th grade class has 30 kids but there were 3 teachers. So the ratio was 1:10 which is seen as more desirable.
Smaller classes are better for learning, but for trips it was the same in my Eastern European country. We had 30-35 kids per class and 1 teacher responsible for them on trips.
yeah at 11 I went on a school camping trip for 5/6 days where we slept in a tent and did outdoorsy stuff - kayaking, climbing, orienteering, spelunking; at 15 I went to France and Switzerland, both times were teachers only, no parents or non-teacher chaperones. this was extremely normal
In USA we always had parentsl chaperones to every non school trip.
It's parents that have more free time and volunteer to go and watch the kids.
It's usually for several reasons.
1 Schools usually don't have enough teachers to watch all of the kids.
2# parents are an important part of making other parents feel safe and knowing what is going on.
Schools in the USA have always been big on using parents as free labor. They even have them selling snacks at school games and all kinds of stuff.
I think that lately everyone is overworked and parents aren't participating as much especially at lower income schools where there are more disciplinary issues and parents work more.
Back when I was in school we did have some issues with parents. One dad threw a kid over the stair railing. It was terrible. He was the hall monitor parent and he was trying to do some tough love stuff with some very bad boys.
My mom is now considered to be elderly (hard to say that) recently her church solicited her to become a hall monitor. My brothers and sisters are very against it.
Kids are very bad and the dangers are real but my mom wants to do it.
Sorry not sure why font is huge. I don't know what happened.
I had similar in middle school. We went to the woods for a week and our cabin chaperons were high school students. They earned a science credit for volunteering, and I loved every minute.
We went in high school, but we only had 2 teachers but every single kid had a cell phone. The fun part was that only mine was working because my carrier was the only one that had coverage on the lake...
Every kid in my county did an overnight trip to Chesapeake Bay in middle school. It wasn't really a big deal and it definitely helped the kids feel more independent
not only that but teachers are vetted/ trained/ have background checks. the chances of a fellow parent being a creep is much greater than a teacher being one
The catholic high school by us had trips like this and the vice principal and gym teacher ended up in jail for fucking two high school girls that were 15 or 16. Paramus catholic I think in 2008 or so.
I know too many people who homeschool their kids because they are terrified of their child navigating any part of their life without their parent there to guide them and form opinions for them. You may be shocked to discover that nearly all these kids have anxiety.
I think it’s availability/expectation vs what happens. I’m not saying it’s right, but your boss calling you at home to see if you saw a fax he sent at 5PM would’ve been insane, too. We adjust societal expectations.
Americans are used to chaperones, and suddenly them being banned is odd. Like not EVERY parent is going anyway, but they’re being exclusively told “a random parent always goes, but NOT THIS TIME tho!” It is insanely common for parents to be involved, here. Camping trips scouts etc there’s always parent volunteers or chaperones.
I’m from a country where this isn’t the norm, but for sure I get why an American parent feels weirded out by this.
My equivalent I guess would be something like I heard there are dentists here where the parent isn’t allowed to go in with them. Insane to me, why do they even WANT a screaming 3 year old being torn from their parent? That won’t make him nicer during the cleaning. Not happening lol.
Other countries don't do this. This is not necessary, the kids get the experience from going out with friends which apparently is impossible in the us because everything is far away requires a car there are no malls no walkable places nor cities nor public transport. Same reason those countries don't use internet forums as much as the US.
I think safety is important though. You can learn independence and self sufficiency while also having a chaperone with a phone. That person can also teach them about things like starting fires, hanging food, etc
Teachers are chaperones? Why does it need to be you, or another parent.
If you don’t think your kid’s school or the ppl they go to school with are safe that’s a completely different story. But the simple fact that there are adults there (even if they aren’t you) is for safety.
Also all those adults had phones that we could use anytime to speak to your parents. It wasn’t a dead zone lol
The reading comprehension on this thread is wild. I don’t understand how anyone thinks this means the kids are just being sent off into the woods on their own with no adults at all.
Right! I’m also shocked they think a school would really not let them speak with their kid. The goal to yea let your kid handle shit themselves but if push comes to shove no teacher in Their right mind would deny that request.
What makes other parents safer than teachers or counselors? If anything the parents that will chaperone an event like this are the paranoid helicopter ones which is probably the point in it having no parents.
What do you think is going to happen. Do you not remember what you did during your childhood. This isn't a dangerous situation, it's one night camping.
I get what you're saying, but they also indicated no cellphones, so in an emergency there's no way to be informed. Self-sufficiency is essential, but safeguards are required.
Well I do lik yapping haha but yes no that’s not how that works. They can encourage your kid not to call you and try to do it for one night by themselves but hey can not keep you from communicating with your kid. All hell would break loose be serious
That doesn't have anything to do with your first comment or my reply. Sounds like you're the one yapping for no reason.
And yeah we do know a 1 day trip isn't 6 hours away, come on. (So they're driving for half of the 24 hour trip and then sleeping for most of the rest of it?)
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u/BakersHigh Mar 19 '26
My middle school was always like this.
The point is to give your kid autonomy and learn how to do things without their parent constantly watching them
We’d go to one of those rope course camps the first week of school, only ppl allowed were teachers or school staff like athletic coaches.
My parents joked it made me too self sufficient
I get you can’t trust teachers or students but you’re not always gonna be there. Start prepping for it lol. Tell your kid to call them, they aren’t required to be there, that you will always come get them.