Chi-Town Throwdown {The Greatest Field Trip Ever}

I have always believed that classrooms are effective tools for lots of instruction. But the confines of four walls can also limit instruction. Indeed sometimes it is imperative to take the students outside. And sometimes, it is imperative to take the students to Chicago.

Some of my best friends, who happen to also teach here, and I have planned up a magical field trip to Chicago in late May.  We call it the Chi-Town Throwdown.

I do not know where our personal experience ends, and our education begins - but I know that the two are interconnected and nonexclusive.  I have learned so much in my life in classroom settings, and on educational campuses.  But my personal connections and beliefs were shaped almost solely by my experiences in life.  I am the person that I am, as a result of experience.  Theories, books, and knowledge have mostly served to help me understand the experience that I am living into.

As a professional educator, it is always my hope that my students' understanding of history, humanities, and social science will help each of them better understand their experience in this world.  I know that for me, my experiences in Italy, California, England, New York, etc. have shaped my perspective more than any single academic class.   It is my hope that I can give back, and that this trip to Chicago can do the same for my students.  It is not so much the museums, or architecture tours - as it is the opportunity to soak up the sights, sounds, and spirit of a new city.  I believe it was Proust who said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”   
Chicago will be our new landscape, but it is a means to an end.  The end is to return home with new eyes.