The "More" Child

Yesterday afternoon I accompanied C.’s Coming of Age class on a field trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. What makes this annual trip special is that the group is guided by a member of our interfaith community who is a child of Holocaust survivors. And not only does she work at the museum, but she was part of its creation from the earliest planning stages.

We started our journey at a Metro station in the ‘burbs and then slowly made our way downtown. I say “slowly,” because these days Metro is single-tracking on the Red Line in order to do much needed repairs during the weekend. Inexplicably we had to disembark at Friendship Heights and wait in the gloom for another train to come. And it didn’t help matters that we ended up going in the wrong direction when we changed trains at Metro Center.

No matter. It turned out that these transportation snafus provided our group of two teachers, ten students and sundry parents with an unplanned for “teachable moment.” Trains, our guide told us, were an integral part of the Holocaust experience. The purposely off-kilter entrance hall of the museum was designed to evoke an industrial, urban space, much like a factory or train station. The mixture of anticipation, uncertainty, boredom, senseless delay and jostling crowds that we had experienced on the Metro mirrored, if only in the tiniest, remotest way, what millions endured during the transports.

For most of us it was our first visit to the museum. I thought of how much more vivid and “real” our understanding of the Holocaust now was for having walked through those exhibits and for having been accompanied by a knowledgeable interpreter. How fortunate we were, to have this place just a Metro ride away. How fortunate C. and her friends to were, who in in the course of their young lives had probably been on hundreds of outings like this to area museums, festivals, petting farms… you name it.

Our afternoon made me think of the story I read in the previous week’s Washington Post, Learning by Going: D.C. Nonprofit Brings History to Life With Trips Around Region, about a teacher named Matthew Wheelock, who has started a nonprofit called Live It, Learn It.

As a teacher at Walker-Jones Elementary School in Northwest, he sought ways to inspire his students while teaching core academic skills. He incorporated field trips as part of his lesson plan to reinforce the concepts being studied in the classroom. They went to the Capitol while studying the three branches of government, and to the planetarium at Rock Creek Park while studying the solar system. The methodology behind his nonprofit organization came about during his teaching years.

“I was stunned by the impact of each of these trips. My students’ level of excitement and engagement was palpable, and the trips invariably remained the subject of conversation for months,” said Wheelock, 37, who has a law degree from Stanford University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.

In 2005, he founded Live It Learn It, a program that uses the District’s history and landmarks to teach public school students from across the city. Wheelock and his staff of one part-time and three full-time educators partner with public schools in the city to teach fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders.

What Wheelock describes is what every parent who embarks on homeschooling knows: that there is no more powerful kind of learning than that which is experienced firsthand. It’s the kind of learning that most middle class and affluent “schooling” families are able to provide and take for granted, what schools euphemistically call “background knowledge.”

I think it’s a key to the achievement gap puzzle.

Recently MCPS touted that all of its kindergartners are reading, and that the achievement gap is closing in elementary school. But disturbingly, that gap widens in middle and high school. My hunch is that that a paucity of background knowledge is the key. You can “hothouse” reading skills in the early grades, but eventually kids need to be able to read and write about something. They need to be able to analyze and make connections based on information they’ve amassed, ideally through prolonged study, or life experience. As Wheelock demonstrates, nothing can catalyze deep learning like a field trip. Not surprisingly, it’s an approach used by superteacher Rafe Esquith.

Sadly, post 9/11 security concerns, budget cuts and NCLB have conspired to reduce field trips. If I were queen of the world…or at least a middle school teacher/administrator…I would look at building a hands on, student-driven, project-based curriculum with significant outside-the-classroom learning opportunities. Especially in the Washington, DC area, where we have such an abundance of free museums and historical sites. Kids don’t need more standardized testing. They need more field trips.