Everyone remembers the excitement of their elementary-school field trips. Field trips break up the monotony of school, which can be especially helpful for kids who struggle in the classroom. However, field trips are de-emphasized in high school. College is suddenly an imminent shadow upon the horizon, so students and teachers prioritize preparation for the future. Whether or not this is a good trend is a topic for debate.

In my opinion, school field trips are beneficial, but they are not beneficial in and of themselves; therefore, Benet should only have more field trips if they have concrete learning objectives.

Too often, when someone says “we should have more field trips,” they mean “we should do less school.” School newspapers are some of the worst apologists for this unfortunate tendency. For example, a google search for “high school newspaper opinion articles about field trips” reveals a plethora of opinionated high schoolers who are unequivocally in favor of more field trips. The argument for school field trips goes like this: field trips are good because they provide more engaging learning than in the classroom. According to Hannah Berns, writing for Boulder (Colorado) High School’s The Owl, “Simply put, field trips make learning fun.”

Therein lies the heart of the matter, field trips have to make learning fun. According to a 2013 Study by the Dept. of Education, “Field trips offer an opportunity to motivate and connect students to appreciate and understand classroom concepts, which increase a student’s knowledge foundation, promoting further learning and higher level thinking strategies.” Because field trips only present opportunities, not all of them are equally valuable. Spending time outside of the classroom does not guarantee increased learning. Only field trips that are carefully paired with in-class learning prove beneficial for students.

Much is made of the value of experiential learning for igniting a passion for a subject in a student. This is absolutely right! In college, many undergraduates participate in research and experiential learning to prepare for careers or graduate school. However, colleges don’t do field trips — they do field work. We teach in the classroom to prepare for college, so why don’t we also prepare for college outside the classroom?

High school is a time for exploration and self discovery. If we water field trips down into nothing more than days off of school, we rob students of the opportunity to enrich their lives with new experiences. In the spirit of providing students with every opportunity to grow and learn, we should have balanced and educational school field trips in high school.