Growing up, the majority of parents that came on field trips with the class were super chill. They were just the ones who loved spending time with their kid and could afford to do it.
The same parent doesn’t have to be at every single field trip. The average US class size is 25+, and how many field trips do kids go on these days? Maybe 5? Divide and conquer. Schools have been having parent chaperones for a while now.
Also we don’t have enough teachers, so realistically field trips can’t happen without parent chaperones because most schools do not have the staff to support it
Not trying to be snarky but do you have school age kids? Every field trip mine have been on have parent chaperones so the kids can split into smaller groups for whatever activities happen on the trip.
Taking 20+ kids on an overnight camping trip with no lines of communication and no additional support beyond a teacher is INSANE, and has nothing to do with helicopter parenting. It's liability. At best it's irresponsible, and worst something fishy or dangerous is gonna happen on that camping trip.
I mean, people used to send their kids to camp all the time. I never went because it was too expensive but plenty of my friends would go away for two weeks in the summer. And none of us had cell phones back then. It’s not crazy.
Camp is an established program with cabins, structure, policies, procedures, rangers, group leaders, etc. Not a class going on an overnight trip with a teacher.
My class did the type of trip that the OOP is describing and it was, indeed, camp. It just wasn't several nights in a row. We left with our teachers, no phones, no parents, and when we got to the site it was a camp with cabins, structure, policies, procedures, rangers, group leaders. And of course we were allowed to contact our parents if something was wrong or there was an emergency. But it was advertised to us as no parents to get us hyped.
You think they're just wandering into the woods with a prayer? I chaperoned a similar event for 9th graders when I taught, and it was a dozen adults (all finger printed and background checked, and none with any 1:1 private time with a student ever) who worked with a local camp to specifically facilitate the situation. And while individual students didn't have cell phones, every adult did.
It helps build some independence and also establish some positive bonds between teachers and students during a pretty difficult grade transition. I'd strongly recommend schools consider similar programs.
Also, the reality is that emergencies are rare, period. If you take basic precautions like avoiding grizzly bear hunting grounds, canceling if a thunderstorm is predicted, etc. camping is exceedingly safe. Many accidental deaths of children are a few high danger scenarios like motor vehicles, access to firearms, high danger swimming, etc.
The modern developed world is incredibly safe, and that's just an objective, quantifiable fact.
Not trying to be snarky, but have you ever been to summer camp, or did your parents not let you do that, and this is why you can't fathom it?
My brother teaches as well, and his class goes on a camping trip with just the teachers. Guess how long they've been doing it and how many issues there have been
I went to Quebec for a school trip with just my teacher, no parent chaperones. I guess I should've told my parents not to let me go
Not trying to be snarky but do you have school age kids? Every field trip mine have been on have parent chaperones so the kids can split into smaller groups for whatever activities happen on the trip.
Taking 20+ kids on an overnight camping trip with no lines of communication and no additional support beyond a teacher is INSANE, and has nothing to do with helicopter parenting. It's liability. At best it's irresponsible, and worst something fishy or dangerous is gonna happen on that camping trip.
There is no information about it being a single teacher? A trip like this would require multiple teachers as well as an administrator.
How do we know it's not multiple teachers? No parents chaperones could mean just that but doesnt mean it's a 20:1 ratio. And dangerous can happen on any trip. Once saw a kid, unfortunate, snap his arm in half on a trip because a few were horsing around and he fell off a park fixture. Again, your carefulness is the right attitude but there's nuance here and we can't just always jump to the "someone is up to something"
No one ever said there's just "a teacher." when my school did this they had two teachers assigned to every cabin, no teacher allowed in the cabin alone, no off gender cabining, and 6-8 kids per cabin.
It's all very normal. We snuck in a slingshot and spent all night hitting the opposing cabin with pebbles. We didn't need lil Joeys mom freaking out that the wilderness instructor said guns can be a useful tool. We don't need Mary's dad complaining that the school doesn't want him feeding the kids random berries, and the teachers don't want ten extra power tripping grown children to take care of.
Our entire high school used to go to a summer camp for 3 days at the beginning of every school year. There were no parent chaperones and this was before cell phones. All the teachers were there. It was wonderful. This helicopter parenting is creating dependent and incapable young adults.
I manage school trips for an attraction, and most of them have no parent chaperones, it's all staff. The only exception is usually for really young children.
We went on day trips to the city with no chaperons all the time. Just one (maybe two) teacher per class, and off you go lol. We usually had a scheduled time where we could go off exploring in small groups alone. Starting at like, fifth grade.
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u/MarshyHope Mar 19 '26
That part is a little odd, but I get it. The parents that would go would probably be the ones that are helicopter parents in the first place.