All of Life is Education: Field Trips Can Build Executive Skills

[Editor’s Note: This article is one of three in a series looking at all of life as education. Daily activities during the months of academic studies and of summer are all building the skills and character of children. Read and consider these extremely practical articles as we move steadily into reflecting on the past academic year while planning for the next. Be encouraged. What you do EVERY day is truly education.]

Field Trips that complement a certain topic of study are amazing for experiential learning; however, with intentional questions, they also build executive functioning skills that translate to lifelong learning.

Executive functioning skills are defined in the book Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential, by Peg Dawson, EdD, and Richard Guare, PhD, as “brain-based skills required for humans to effectively execute, or perform tasks and solve problems.” The tasks, problems, and expectations will change as a child grows, but practicing the skills, especially in different environments, will help foster independence.

Here are two examples:

1. Why does every single museum have a gift shop located by the exit? Well, because response inhibition—defined as the ability to evaluate actions and consequences before you do or say something— is really hard.

My son always wants “to remember our time” with a cute stuffed animal wearing a tight-fitting shirt labeled with the field trip location—for example, “The US Mint” or “John James Audubon Center.”

For children who understand money and time, set a clear budget at the beginning of the school year. They are then responsible for saving or spending their budget throughout the year.

For children who do not understand money and future thinking (i.e., “If I get this bison now, I can’t get something at the spy museum.”), that budget process is unrealistic. For them, have a list of field trip ideas and choose which are “no money trips” and which are “money trips.” Then allocate money to them on the day of the event. Remind them of their previous and future money choices, and celebrate their ability to wait, to positively reinforce this difficult but necessary skill.

2. Sustained attention is sometimes easier in museums and on trips because the environment is new and exciting. There are, however, also more distractions. Several years ago, my friend Genevieve Peterson, a fellow homeschool mom, introduced me to the acronym COWLICKS to remind me of questions that can be useful to direct drifting attention back to an exhibit.

• Counting: How many____ do you see of this______?
• Observation:  Look at this________ until I say stop; now turn around and tell me everything you remember about it without peeking.
• Words: What is the first word you think of when you look at this_________?
• Letters: Do you see something in this _________ that starts with the letter_____?
• Imagination: Pretend you are this _______ (artwork, plant, animal, etc.). What would you say to me?
• Compare and Contrast: How is this _______ and this _____ both alike and different?
• Kinesthetics: If this ______ could move, tell me how it would move.
• Senses: What would this _______ feel (taste, smell, or sound) like?

The academic advantages to field trips are many, but also celebrate as you plan, pack lunches, travel, guide monetary decisions, and redirect attention that you are incrementally building your children’s skills of executive functioning. Steady development of these skills will directly impact other activities and lifelong learning positively.

Resources:

Dawson, P., Guare, R. (2009). Smart but Scattered. The Guilford Press.