School trips overseas - Good idea - Waste of time?

[Winston001]

Any thoughts? I'm under pressure for my daughter to go to Tahiti for a French class experience - they will live with local people for a couple of weeks.

I'd rather use the money towards her university education.

[Headbanger]

Sounds awesome. Might even be a life changing event, Ok, perhaps just an eye opener, But she will remember it for life. Let her go.

[CookMySock]

nah let her do it. go with her!

we went with our kids to Vanuatu on a school trip. It was awesome. Something we will never forget.

edit: my 12 y/o daughter raised ALL her money herself, selling chocolate bars and stuff.

DB

[sAsLEX]

Was on the French ship in port on Friday night, based out of Tahiti they are, had good champagne......... but on a school trip go for it!

[McJim]

Hmm - Tahiti. I'm thinking Gaugin, under age marriage and syphilis.

Better to send her to Paris.

[McJim]

nah let her do it. go with her!

we went with our kids to Vanuatu on a school trip. It was awesome. Something we will never forget.

edit: my 12 y/o daughter raised ALL her money herself, selling chocolate bars and stuff.

DB
Vanuatu? That's the area around Palmerston North innit? Home of the Vanuatu Standard?:rofl:

[Dargor]

Most probably a waste of time IMO.
What are they going there to learn, its a french class is it, why do they have to go there to learn about it. Why is french so important.
Shouldnt she have science and math to learn. She might not be a nerd but why should one class take two weeks away from her other classes.

[sAsLEX]

Why is french so important.


And all French learn English so its a bit pointless learning it......

[Mutley]

Our oldest daughter went to the gold coast in year 12 for a week "Geography Trip" to study the effects of tourism on a populated area.
She had to fundraise to pay for her trip and to pay for the teachers who were going with the class but as parents we also had to contribute to ensure enough funds were available.
They spent less than half a day studying the effects and the rest of the time playing. She had a ball. We (the parents) were annoyed.

Our youngest went to Japan for a Choir trip. They spent 10 days in Japan staying with two different family's in two different cities. Sang a little, got to learn some of the culture, impart some of ours and had a great time. She also had to fund raise for herself and travelling teachers and as parents we also had to provide funds to cover any shortfall. This trip however seemed more value for money and funnily enough it is our youngest who has chosen to go on to University to study music and languages.

Often these trips are a blatant junket with little or no educational value. It is up to the parents to decide.
For our part, although the Japan trip was twice the price of the Australian trip , it had better educational, cultural and financial value.

If she is learning culturally as well as educationally the trip may be worth it.

[Headbanger]

They are always a perk, Nothing wrong with perks, The Gold Coast one is a hard case though. wonder if those teachers went on to politics.....

[alanzs]

Travel is always good for kids IMHO. Expands their minds and exposes them to parts of themselves they aren't generally aware of. Being resilient, flexible and taking risks outside their cotton wool protected environment.
You may want to take the money and go to Paris or Holland. Holland cause it's a different language and you can smoke some great dope there, check out the hookers when she's asleep while taking her to museums, Van Gogh house, red light district, coffee shops, etc. Paris because the whole place is a tourist attraction. Chock block full of history and cultures from all over the world. Besides great food. ;)
Pass on the English speaking places in Europe though (London is good if you want to see a few shows, but VERY expensive).... Why bother, it's just like all the other western culture places, except much more expensive.

Took both my kids (son and daughter) individually, to the above places when they were 12-13 by myself. Great bonding times that we still talk about many years later. They have both said it was some of the best times in their lives. My daughter went to Italy on a school trip a couple years later and hated it! Uptight parents, shitty lodging, tight wad assholes went for budget everything and they didn't have any fun.
You only live once, so go for it... Money very well spent, IMHO.

[Pumba]

I personally did the rugby tour thing. Or was that a drinking tour with a few games of rugby thrown in?

Great fun.

Reality is that all these college tours are purly junkets, with limited education value, and whatever the education value is it is very quickly forgotton, but my god are they fun.

Let her go, its only money.

[Mom]

I am not sure this applies to all schools but...

My daughter studied Japanese at college. Her teachers were planning a trip to Japan for 10 or so days. This was an annual trip. Parents meetings revealed that the accompanying teachers expenses (apart from personal spending money of course) was to be paid for pro-rata by the students. The cost was far too much for this then solo mom to afford. The entire trip did not go ahead.

Later that year, she was selected to be the college exchange student to Japan. When I went to book her airfares I discovered that by obtaining an international student ID she could travel to Japan for $1600 return!! A saving of $600 if she did not have one. Apparently this is a recognised discount that both students and teachers can use if they pay $25 for a international student ID. This was no secret, but seemingly not important for the teachers to research as they did not have to pay anyway!

There is one teacher here that has a 10 day annual trip to FIJI paid for by his Geography students.

Unless you can genuinely afford it, dont do it. It is a wonderful experience no doubt about it, but a junket all the same. I would say no myself. :yes:

[tri boy]

Holy shit, the furtherest I went on a school trip, was to the local court house and police station.
Times have changed a bit.
(also went to the milk factory, but it was closer, but the same people who worked there, were also appearing before the beak at the court house, small town ya know).

[MaxB]

Good Idea.

My eldest was set to go on a 6th form trip to France in early 2009. She got a part time job and saved hard. It was going to be a struggle but somehow we would have managed it. Then the teacher gets pregnant and the deal is now off. My daughter will have left school by the time of the next one. Bugger.
The money will go to some local trips but it is not the same.

I think travel makes the traveller a better person just for seeing how other people live.

[quallman1234]

Sooo basically what i see here is, if she's willing to help pay for it by getting a part time job, go for it. If not stiff bicky for her.

[bgd]

I too would recommend it.

My eldest went to France last year with her school and for her it was a fantastic trip. She had been to France several times before, having lived abroad, but going with friends made all the difference. She came back with a new zest for the language and is going to carry on with it at university. She stayed with local families and got to see how the French lived.

She was also mugged but fortunately came out of that unscathed. She had to talk to the police in French and even attend a lineup of the local crims. It was good for her language and life skills. "Dad even the female detectives carry guns!"

We are great believers in giving our girls experiences over material possessions. I'm hoping that the younger one will go on a trip to Argentina for her Spanish.

[yungatart]

Our youngest went to New Caledonia in 06. Hosted by a local family, went to Creipac (the language school) every day and did the tourist thing. He really got bitten by the travel bug and in less than 9 weeks heads off to Belgium on exchange for a year!
What price can you put on being a part of another culture? IMHO it is a fantastic experience and should be encouraged!

[CookMySock]

Unless you can genuinely afford it, dont do it.bullswool. My son and daughter didn't have two cents to rub together, and neither did us dolts. They will need to want to do it though.


DB

[mowgli]

bullswool. My son and daughter didn't have two cents to rub together, and neither did us dolts. They will need to want to do it though.
DB
DB's got it. If it's a freebie it won't be appreciated nearly as much as if they'd worked to get there. Use the opportunity to teach life skills such as making and saving money.

[BiK3RChiK]

I went with my Son when he was year 8? (form 2) to Vanuatu. It was a fantastic experience. Sure it was a junket, but who cares? The kids had to do financial planning. The teachers paid their own trip. Most of the kids there probably would never have gone to such a place and seen the culture and lifestyle (or lack of) of the Ni-Van. Driving on the 'other' side of the road, Swimming, Snorkeling, travelling to local villages and meeting with local schools (a real eye opener, I can tell you!) and generally mixing with the locals in the villages had the kids and parents buzzing out for ages.

When I got home, I raved about it for weeks! It was so awesome, I went the following year with my daughter and husband. This to me was a much better experience than going to the 'theme parks' in Aussie or to another western-style country. Worth every cent! Not something easily forgotten...

[Mom]

When my daughter went to Japan on exchange, she worked in a dairy to earn the airfares herself. I no way was in a financial position to pay them and all the other expenses while she was away for 6 months. It was a team effort and well worth it. She has gone on to study Japanese at University and has just got a job as a tour group liason for inbound school parties from Japan.

[magicfairy]

Holy shit, the furtherest I went on a school trip, was to the local court house and police station.
Times have changed a bit.
(also went to the milk factory, but it was closer, but the same people who worked there, were also appearing before the beak at the court house, small town ya know).

You were lucky. We went to a brick factory - All girls high school, Dunedin many years ago.
And we learned ... how bricks were made. The bus trip there was more interesting.

[phantom]

Last year my youngest daughter went on a school trip to Vietnam. she raised all the money herself apart from me helping out cleaning up after stockcars a few times as a money raiser. She could also have gone to Japan but decided that everyone did that ( shit the only school trip I did was to a local farm ). I am sure it has been a life changing experience for her and has helped give her confidence etc as she starts off at university. In spite of this it would appear that a lot of school trips are little more than a junket

[Headbanger]

You were lucky. We went to a brick factory

I would have killed to go to a brick factory.

We went nowhere, even the school camp was cancelled.

[Winston001]

You were lucky. We went to a brick factory - All girls high school, Dunedin many years ago.
And we learned ... how bricks were made. The bus trip there was more interesting.

Brick factory??! Luxury.

We went to local pig farmers slurry pit where we learned to pick out the solid bits and unblock the drains, very useful life skills, and when we got back to school our teachers thrashed us with a leather strap just to make sure we remembered how lucky we were to go on a school trip. :wacko:

[fireball]

WTF my school only took me to wanaka (1hr drive away) for our school trips

i say better off taking a trip around your own backyard before going overseas that way you will realise how lucky we are..... plus find more roads for riding on too!

[Winston001]

But I digress.

Thanks everyone for your input and I'm coming around to thinking this trip is worth doing. I'll talk to other parents and find out more about it.

My views are biased by the sort of reports you hear of rugby/history/whatever school trips to Australia America Europe whereever. Beaches and theme parks etc plus illicit booze seem to be the main memories.

However you have convinced me that not all trips are junkets and a waste of family money. My 14 yr old daughter already works as a gymnastics coach and I'd expect her to pay half the trip cost. Make her earn and appreciate it.

[007XX]

Any thoughts? I'm under pressure for my daughter to go to Tahiti for a French class experience - they will live with local people for a couple of weeks.

I'd rather use the money towards her university education.

Let her do it if you can. I know what it's like to be stretched financially, but the fact is, this is very very likely to be an awesome eye opener for her, which she won't forget for some time.

I was born in New Caledonia and so saw a lot of exchange students while living there. They were all really ecstatic about being there, and left feeling really enriched by the experience.

[Winston001]

One experience - local school class went to Vietnam and I knew a student. Before he went I asked him if they knew about the battle of Den Bien Phu and the French history in Indochina - nope.

When he returned I asked him the same question - nope.

Spare me days!!! :doh:

His version of the trip was shopping for copies of brandname clothing, CD/DVDs and cheap electronics. He's got a university degree now but the trip was just a holiday/party.