Warning: If you are waiting for me to have a good old rant about something funny...this isn't it. This is just a dump of all the angst spinning around in my head. I figured I'd put it out in the universe and then it might become homeless and forget where it used to live...and move into a shelter where some nice pastor will make sure it is clothed and fed and not a danger to itself or anyone else! (You know I don't want it sleeping in a cardboard box or anything...I just want it to move out and stop making me feel nuts!)
If you are still with me, put on your galoshes and get ready for me to take myself WAY too seriously for a couple of paragraphs...
At the beginning of the year I always have 500 ideas for field trips we should go on...but by this time in the year I am starting to feel bad about the whole schedule. It seems like for many folks the field trips are an inconvenience because they interfere with soccer or church or other family activities. The cost of some of them can be on the high side which makes some people unhappy even though there is financial aid available (that no one ever uses) and I always end up having to send a lot of email which I am pretty sure drives everyone nuts (including me by the way).
But the girls seem to love the field trips. I have a feeling the field trips are a big part of why our troop is so strong and so bonded and why everyone in the troop feels like we have something special. Plus the real reason I am a Girl Scout leader is for those moments when I get to be with a girl and watch her challenge herself and try something new. The moment I see that "Wow, I was scared and I didn't realize I could do that...but I did it anyway" look come across her face it makes my heart sing like nothing else on earth. And that usually only happens on the Field Trips. So I take them outside and I look for new opportunities for them to challenge themselves. But maybe that's just selfish because that is what I love...I just don't know...
So let me ask you this. What would you do? Continue to plan the trips and the torpedoes be dammed? Try to take everyone's personal situation into account for every field trip (and end up in the looney bin)? Stop planning so many field trips? Only do inexpensive trips we can do during meeting times? Seriously...what would you do?
Personally I just don't know what the right answer is.
With any luck though, I'll be struggling with this dilemma for quite some time to come...because if I am it means my troop is together and strong and we are all doing new things together (and the parents haven't tossed me out on my ear for causing too much trouble) :)
1 comments:
My daughter LOVE LOVE LOVEs the field trips!!!!!!! She's tried so many cool new things.
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