So finally we arrive at the museum… I left out the typical issues with the bus trip. Things like the the kids running on the bus so they can sit in the back (there is an unwritten rule dealing with how where you sit on the bus determines your social status). You might notice that as I am giving some quick directions one parent is on a cell phone. This does happen more than once. Which is why I usually do not have a group of children and wander, just in case something “really important” happens at the office and the chaperone has no idea that the kids are now climbing on the mastodon.

As for losing a student, it does happen to the best of us. the story that I will never, never live down was on a field trip in which I let a responsible parent kind of lead us to the busses. The issue was I had thought all my kids were with, one was in the resource room and had forgotten the direction to be back to the class at a certain time. I thought I had everyone… and then as we are on the road, my cell phone goes off. “Bruce, did you forget something?” I checked and I had all the required stuff, the inhalers, etc. “What about…” From that point on I always ask about that one student on every field trip. It keeps me humble.