And this is why I will NEVER fail to chaperone my kid's class on a field trip

[RecoveringKinkoid]

So, my kid's school is right next door to a DNR fish hatchery. So we walked over there for a field trip. Easy, right?

Well, considering that the teachers hadn't really scoped out a path to take over there and came disturbingly close to taking two classes full of five and six year olds through a narrow trail full of poison ivy, no. Not so much. Not only would they have been lost... it would have been easy enough to get unlost, but going on a scouting mission with two kindergarten classes through unfamiliar woods would not have been fun...but they would have contaminated two entire classrooms with urushiol (the gift that keeps on giving).

No planning? Really? Nobody thought to bop over there at any point and see how hard it was to walk over there before bringing a bunch of little kids out there?

Seriously?

I managed to get everyone onto a safe road and get them there and back without getting messed up in poison ivy and oak, stinging nettles, snakes, and fire ants. I think these people simply didn't know what they didn't know. Another classic example of people thinking the world is Disneyland.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't been there. And I had to watch everyone, too. I actually stopped one of the dads from wading through a patch of poison ivy with a bunch of kids in tow. Talk about having to be on high alert.

I really don't even know what to think about all this, I'm just kind of dumbfounded.

[firecat88]

Another classic example of people thinking the world is Disneyland.

It's pretty much this, just like you said. Well, that and 'Oh, someone else is chaperoning this, therefore it's not my problem'.

[mikoyan29]

A fish hatchery sounds kind of cool. I visited one here a couple months ago. I wish I would have gotten there early enough to see the hatchery part though. They did have a pond with some trout in it though and you could feed them. It was cool watching the little fish jump up to get the food.

[Slayer]

Sounds like a big bunch of fail Those kids would have been miserable.

Normally teachers really don't have the time to scout out places first. My mom certainly doesn't. Of course, in your case, it's literally next door so it wouldn't have taken long at all.

Since there were chaperones, I'm figuring it was set up with the hatchery? I usually go with my mom on field trips to help out. The places always explain where, when, and how to go. You'd think what sounds like a poison ivy barricade would have prompted the hatchery to at least give a warning, lol. Then again, my mom asks a LOT of questions about stuff like that so it's highly possible they tell her because she wants to know.

Were the poison ivy encounters on the way to and from?

[Cookie]

I'll be the first to admit I don't know poison ivy on sight. Feel a bit ignorant and heaven knows I've tried. My failure with anything to do with plants is legendary. However, I also know better than to be touching or wading my ass through plants I don't know. If I don't know it, I don't touch it. Period. I also know the places snakes hide. (Snakes area lot cooler than plants so I remember that sort of thing, I guess). Even with that kind of knowledge, I would NEVER take kids through an environment where I'd have to be watching to make sure none of them are going to come face to face with a rattler. As someone who just kind of goes "duh" at a lot of this stuff, I'm STILL shaking my head at the stupidity. What does that tell you?

[Jester]

I am willing to give the teachers the benefit of the doubt on this, and figure they didn't know what they didn't know. I sure wouldn't have thought of any of that. Of course, I almost never chaperone more than one child at a time anyways.

Also, even if I were a teacher and had thought of that, it wouldn't have mattered, for I too have no idea what poison ivy or poison oak look like. I have been lucky enough to have never found either unintentionally, which may be why I am unfamiliar with them, but if you put me in a woods and told me to point to the poison ivy, you might as well ask me to differentiate various species of snapper in the water. (I eat fish. I don't fish.) I am, in this regard, shockingly clueless.

Honestly, the only plant life I can readily identify other than obvious ones like pine trees and palm trees are the kind I find in the local produce aisle. If I'm cooking with it, I know it. Otherwise, I'm as clueless as a baby in a topless bar.

[AccountingDrone]

Otherwise, I'm as clueless as a baby in a topless bar.

LOL I think a baby would know what to do in a topless bar ...

[Jester]

It's just an expression. Would you prefer "just as clueless as a baby in a strip club"?

Or how about "just as clueless as Rick Santorum at a gay pride parade"?

How about "just as clueless as William Shatner at an acting class"?

I could go on, ya know....

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, see, I'm not thinking anyone was willfully negligent, but clearly "they don't know what they don't know" fits.

I get that, if you don't spend a lot of time outside. But it's scary when you start talking about dragging large groups of small children around in ignorance.

[AccountingDrone]

<some American historians always get a bit of a snigger that poison ivy was taken back to England as an ornamental plant and was slightly popular for a few years until it was discovered that it is a pretty universal allergen>

[Chromatix]

...was slightly popular for a few years until it was discovered that it is a pretty universal allergen>

I bet the gardeners discovered this fact a great deal quicker than that. Convincing their employers of it, OTOH... just see the MiM section.

[strawbabies]

I rely on my husband to keep me out of that kind of trouble . I guess when we have kids, he'll be the one I volunteer to go on field trips.