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Field trips are a school standard. Now a tradition at many schools. The German term is 'Klassenfahrt' meaning school trip or ride. We have alo noted 'Exkursion' being used, but this may be more hikes into the countryside. The field trip was not always school standard and still is not in many countries. The main issue is transportation. Until after Wirld War II transportation was not available to move children. This meant that children for the most part could not move any distance from school. Thus any field trip beyond walking distances were not feasible. This began to change first in America which was the first country in which motor vehicles became common place and school busses were widely used. Without school busses the school field trip is extremnely limited. This is a little different in Europe where were advanced urban transit systems. This of course was the case in Germany, with busses, trams, and undergrounds. We are not sure, however, to what extent urbn transit was used for field trips. We do see more youth grouops involved in what looks like field trips during th NAZI era before the War (1930s). These were organized as bike or public transit trips, but by the Hitler Youth organization and not the schools. These trips often had patriotic themes. We do not see evidence of school field trips in the photograophic records until after World War II and the German Economic Miracle as a result motor vehicles became common place in Germany for the first time. The only group movements we note from the schools are hikes out to the countryside. This seems to have been fairly common, but it was more of an aesthetic, health activity than an educational activity. Notice that the German term for field trip relates to a trip or ride, not a hike. We don't think that they can be called field trips with specific educational purposes. We think this was the general pattern throughout Europe. And it is confirmed by the photographic record. I know when I was teaching school in the 1970s that schools busses gabe me the ability to move my students anywhere in the city for a field trip. Without those busses, field trips would have been complicated if not impossible.
Field trips are today a school standard. Now a tradition at many schools. The field trip was not always school standard and still is not in many countries. Rather than a tradition, field trips were once either a rare treat or non-existent. This was primarily becuse transport is not availble.
The German term is 'Klassenfahrt' meaning school trip or ride. We have alo noted 'Exkursion' being used, but this may be more hikes into the countryside. Notice that the German term for field trip relates to a trip or ride, not a hike.
The main issue is transportation. Until after Wirld War II transportation was not available to move children. This meant that children for the most part could not move any distance from school. Thus any field trip beyond walking distances were not feasible. This began to change first in America which was the first country in which motor vehicles became common place and school busses were widely used. Without school busses the school field trip is extremnely limited. This is a little different in Europe where were advanced urban transit systems. This of course was the case in Germany, with busses, trams, and undergrounds. We are not sure, however, to what extent urbn transit was used for field trips. I know when I was teaching school in the 1970s that schools buses gabe me the ability to move my students anywhere in the city for a field trip. Without those buses, field trips would have been complicated if not impossible.
We do see more youth grouops involved in what looks like field trips during th NAZI era before the War (1930s). These were organized as bike or public transit trips, but by the Hitler Youth organization and not the schools. These trips often had patriotic themes. We do not see evidence of school field trips in the photographic records until after World War II and the German Economic Miracle as a result motor vehicles became common place in Germany for the first time. We think this was the general pattern throughout Europe. And it is confirmed by the photographic record.
The only group movements we note from the schools in any numbers as part of ghe photographic record are hikes out to the countryside. This seems to have been fairly common, but it was more of an aesthetic, health activity than an educational activity focused on some aspect of the school curriculum. We don't think that these excursions can be called field trips with specific educational purposes.
The school trip is different than a field trip. A field trip is taking a group of children in he same class studying a subject to a place away from school to where some insighs on the subject can be obtained. They are normally day trips within the spavce of the school day. This was a must in America where you have to get the children back to school in time for the busesmeanjing about 3:00 PM or so. . Other wise the kids are stuck at school. We assume the same is basically true for German and other European schools. The school trip was not done by classroom groups, but rather by year groups. In large schools there might be several class groupings of year groups. At some schools this was reserved for the graduting year groups. We suspect this is what we see here (figure 1).
Field trips are normally organized by classes. This has a slightly diiferent meaning in oprimary and secondary schools. A primary class is an age-based group where the childrn spend most of the day together with the same teacher. They are faurly easy to identify as they are commonly groups of about 30 same age children. A secondary school class is a subject-based group with some age differences and based on hour periods with different specialy teachers. Thus class field trips are somewhat, but not visbly different. There also may be school club trips based on the interest extra-curricular interests of voluntary student groups. These groups could be smaller than normal class groups. There is another complication here. In English the term 'class' does not just mean a room of students, but also an age group. Larger schools might hgave several class groups of the same age groups. Field trips are not generally organized by the age group class, but school trips are often by these age groupings.
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