Did you go to dangerous school trips?

[felines are superior]

When I was a teen, start age twelve, the school took us to trips where we climbed mountains on a narrow path. If you fall, that's it... Some places we didn't even have a path and had to climb looking for footholds and places to hold. No ropes. You don't stand a chance if you fall from this height. And there's always a story about a kid who'd fallen to his death last year.

 

[Progster]

No - there was no chance of any kids going on dangerous school trips when I was a kid, unless you include the skiing trips where one could potentially have an accident (but I didn't go on those). The UK 'nanny state' is very keen on health and safety, schools and educational bodies don't want law suits or bad publicity of an accident occuring on their watch, so school trips are well supervised and unlikely to have any element of genuine danger.

 

[Iamnotarabot]

There is something wrong here.

School and dangerous in the same sentence, I mean, maybe you are older than me at at the time you were in school they didnt care about safety but now everything has to be safe.

Nowaday nothing is dangerous at school. At least in the west.

But im also the kind of person who always refuse things I might consider dangerous, most of the time its related to my own fears.

So I would say no.

For instance I hate climbing even with ropes, I dont like rollercoaster.
And everything that has a 0.1% of catastrophhic event i'm like NOPE.

My father never took a plane for that 0.1% reason, and as a kid I was used to it so its easier for me, but when on the new there is a plane crash It Might block me , i guess, I have not been on a plane for more than 10 years.

When I had a class trip choice younger I would have pick a class trip in nature with hikings instead of cultural class trips because it reminded me of zelda ( yeah lol) , It could be considered dangerous but realy it wasnt.

 

[Bolletje]

No, my school trips were always relatively safe. The only times kids were in danger was when they caused the danger themselves.

 

[tducey]

Option 4. I went to school from 1987-2000 and any field trips we took were pretty safe.

 

[Judge]

The interpretation of what constitutes a liability hazard on behalf of most educational institutions and their insurers have changed quite a bit in the last 40 years. I suppose going to camp for a week many miles away from school and home represented any number of hazards in the 60s. But I survived to post about it without getting bit by a wood tick. Or getting beaten up by any one of the class bullies.

And in my last 18 months of high school I drove to and from class every day.

Ironic though to consider how dangerous it is or may have been for any number of students just to arrive at school each and every day. And then return home in one piece. Which may make some discussions of field trips kind of a moot point.

 

[Joel's Hear]

I didn't feel real safe in Washington D.C.

On the other hand, when I was 15, we went on an optional (you had to pay) trip to Hawaii, Australia, and NZ. People bought fake IDs in Honolulu, and everybody was constantly drunk (the ages were 13 to 17). While in Sydney, we had a curfew of midnight, but nobody ever obeyed that. The girls on the trip met guys and disappeared to do drugs while the boys went to a strip club called Porky's.

The teachers I guess considered everybody to be growing up a bit?

I always remember the twelve-hour flight from Hawaii to Australia, my poor science teacher (a heavy smoker) was not doing well with withdrawals. I offered her some dipping tobacco, but she refused.

Oddly, when at school, the teachers were extreme disciplinarians. I went to a private school with a strict dress code, with some sort of British aristocracy-esque image it tried to propagate.

New Zealand was boring as heck, everybody was hung over and complained constantly. My greatest adventure there occurred when I decided to try to roll down a huge hill and landed at the bottom smack on my bottom - in a sheep patty. Luckily no one ever noticed. I just did what my mom told me to do when I was little and peed myself: wrap your coat or sweatshirt around your waist so no one sees.

 

[SusanLR]

Never went on a school trip.

 

[felines are superior]

I didn't feel real safe in Washington D.C.

On the other hand, when I was 15, we went on an optional (you had to pay) trip to Hawaii, Australia, and NZ. People bought fake IDs in Honolulu, and everybody was constantly drunk (the ages were 13 to 17). While in Sydney, we had a curfew of midnight, but nobody ever obeyed that. The girls on the trip met guys and disappeared to do drugs while the boys went to a strip club called Porky's.

The teachers I guess considered everybody to be growing up a bit?

I always remember the twelve-hour flight from Hawaii to Australia, my poor science teacher (a heavy smoker) was not doing well with withdrawals. I offered her some dipping tobacco, but she refused.

Oddly, when at school, the teachers were extreme disciplinarians. I went to a private school with a strict dress code, with some sort of British aristocracy-esque image it tried to propagate.

New Zealand was boring as heck, everybody was hung over and complained constantly. My greatest adventure there occurred when I decided to try to roll down a huge hill and landed at the bottom smack on my bottom - in a sheep patty. Luckily no one ever noticed. I just did what my mom told me to do when I was little and peed myself: wrap your coat or sweatshirt around your waist so no one sees.

That was something the kids did, going out after midnight to get high. The teachers should've watched over them, but on the school trips I went to, even if you don't chose to do something crazy, you REQUIRED to do something crazy and take your life in your hand.

 

[Joel's Hear]

That was something the kids did, going out after midnight to get high. The teachers should've watched over them, but on the school trips I went to, even if you don't chose to do something crazy, you REQUIRED to do something crazy and take your life in your hand.

Lagomorphs are superior.

 

[Joel's Hear]

That was something the kids did, going out after midnight to get high. The teachers should've watched over them, but on the school trips I went to, even if you don't chose to do something crazy, you REQUIRED to do something crazy and take your life in your hand.

My mom really loved cats. She had four. Once we got a rabbit and when we found the scientific name of rabbits was lagomorph we started calling him "The Lagomorph"

 

[felines are superior]

The interpretation of what constitutes a liability hazard on behalf of most educational institutions and their insurers have changed quite a bit in the last 40 years. I suppose going to camp for a week many miles away from school and home represented any number of hazards in the 60s. But I survived to post about it without getting bit by a wood tick. Or getting beaten up by any one of the class bullies.

And in my last 18 months of high school I drove to and from class every day.

Ironic though to consider how dangerous it is or may have been for any number of students just to arrive at school each and every day. And then return home in one piece. Which may make some discussions of field trips kind of a moot point.

I assume you're talking about violence in school and not car accidents. My school wasn't dangerous this way. I went to a girls' school, and nothing life-threatening happened during recesses, except maybe girls pulling hair or slapping each other, didn't happen much. And nobody ended up in the hospital or was in danger of death.

I suppose you're right, though. If you can get knifed or shot in school, whether or not the trips are dangerous is irrelevant. Haven't thought of that.

It's just that my sister lives in Ireland with my two nephews, and she wants to go back home, she might go back at some point. I'd rather she just stays there because she'd made it clear she wants to send my nephews to school trips if she come back. From what she told me, there's no fighting, gangs, drugs, or violence in southern Ireland schools.

 

[felines are superior]

My mom really loved cats. She had four. Once we got a rabbit and when we found the scientific name of rabbits was lagomorph we started calling him "The Lagomorph"

I have three feral cats that had decided to make my home theirs, and one more that just jumps in to my first floor, ground level apartment and helps itself to cats' food.

I just looked up lagomorphs on the net, and they're cute and adorable. But with my cats, I can't have them. They'll be killed.

 

[Joel's Hear]

I have three feral cats that had decided to make my home theirs, and one more that just jumps in to my first floor, ground level apartment and helps itself to cats' food.

I just looked up lagomorphs on the net, and they're cute and adorable. But with my cats, I can't have them. They'll be killed.

Definitely. All her cats were neutered and therefore not as aggressive or animalistic.

 

[Aeolienne]

On a school trip to Sorrento in Italy our classics teacher was criticised for making us walk from Naples railway station to the archaeological museum and back (it took 30 minutes each way winding through seedy back streets). Fortunately we didn't come to any harm, although we did get harassed (racially and sexually) at the museum. To elaborate, I was partnered for the museum trip with a girl who was of Japanese descent. As soon as we sat down for a minute we were surrounded by a gang of schoolboys who stared at my partner as if she was one of the specimens on display and I heard one of them say "cinese o giapponese?" Later we all went out into the museum's courtyard garden to eat our packed lunch. The same boys gathered round us and one of them sang a snatch of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex". Their teacher (or a man I assumed was their teacher) did nothing - apparently found it amusing. We ended up eating our lunch at the railway station.

 

[Judge]

I assume you're talking about violence in school and not car accidents. My school wasn't dangerous this way.

I'm talking about anything and everything growing up in the 60s and attending public schools relative to what could be construed as being "dangerous", from Virginia to California.

Quite a few hazards to deal with. Everything from basic transportation exposures to a presence of criminal groups, hate groups (forced racial busing) and then just the usual concerns of educational institutions when it comes to the care, custody and control of their students whether off or on the premises. Apart from one principal who didn't think anything about publicly beating disorderly boys.

However this was in the suburbs, and most of us knew such things were far worse in the inner cities. Though attending an over-populated high school didn't help either. I think it peaked at around 4100 students while being designed for around 2500.

 

[Mr Allen]

I remember one time, they took us to a gliding place, they wanted us to actually go gliding and I was literally like WTF?! We were kids from the "Unit" for God sake! Most of us had some kind of disability and they wanted us to go gliding? On what Planet is THAT safe for disabled people?!

Other times, we went to Thornbridge Hall out in Derbyshire, really nice place but the activities? Eh? At least one night we had Pizza for tea and I've had a liking for them ever since

And then 20 years ago I was on the Prince's Trust, and we went to a place called the Winged Fellowship down in Essex, looking after severely disabled Pensioners for a week, I stood it for 2 days before I was literally crying down the phone to me Dad to come and bring me Home it was that bad! I mean come on, it took literally 2 hours to get a guy out of Bed and into the Bath due to having to use a Mechanical Hoist to get him out of Bed in the first place, how is that suitable for a guy like me? OK I can physically crawl out of Bed in a morning, but I do struggle with the usual morning routine of Bathing and stuff.

 

[Aspie_With_Attitude]

I went on Duke Of Edinburgh expeditions with our school principle who was one of the worst pedophiles in the Australian Catholic church.

 

[Aeolienne]

Most of us had some kind of disability and they wanted us to go gliding? On what planet is THAT safe for disabled people?!

Depends on the disability. My great-uncle by marriage took up gliding before the Second World War and continued with it even after losing a leg fighting for the Luftwaffe, living to be over 90.
British Gliding Association > Disability gliding

I went on a school trip with my classics teachers to Greece that proved to be memorable for reasons that had nothing to do with archaeology. We flew to Athens, spent three nights in Delphi, one in Olympia, one in Tolo and then back to Athens for the rest of the week.

It was Olympia that proved to be the turning-point of the week, when we realised that this was going to be a school trip like no other. We arrived in Olympia in time for lunch, so we headed to a café near our hotel for the usual tomato & feta salad. (The teachers went to another café.) The waiter who served us urged us to check out his brother's disco - "very fine disco" - here in Olympia tonight. Were we up for it? You bet. After the teachers had gone to bed we sneaked out of the hotel. We were escorted by our Greek guide/interpreter, who insisted that he was not responsible for what we got up to. The music was fairly cheesy Euro-disco pap, but it still brings back memories today. There was hardly anyone else there apart from us English schoolgirls. (It's surprising how quiet Greek resorts are outside of high season, despite enjoying temperatures in the 20s as early as April.) A seasoned Faliraki clubber would probably consider that a crap night out. Personally I thought it made the evening more fun, more intimate, more like our very own private party. I even got chatting with a local lad called Konstantinos - I mean really chatting, not having to yell until I sounded angry over background noise.

We went out again the following night in Tolo, but there were no discos open. So we went to a bar and frittered away our drachmas on overpriced cocktails.

So far that doesn't sound particularly dangerous (although one of the younger girls got sick in Olympia after one ouzo too many). Looking back on it I'm so relieved that social media didn't exist then, because if it had the teachers could so easily have found out about our nocturnal adventures - it would only have taken one person whose privacy settings weren't watertight to have resulted in a public posting and we would have got in so much trouble.

Things actually took a nasty turn during the final few days in Athens. There was an unpleasant episode involving drunken basketball fans at the hotel. It started after dinner, when we had to walk past them through the hotel lounge (and again without the teachers). Initially the whole room went quiet, and then they all started whooping and wolf-whistling at us. At the time this seemed rather amusing, but later on I heard reports of the basketball fans attempting to break into the girls' rooms. Worse, rumour had it that some girls had encouraged them. In the light of the Caroline Dickinson murder case, not funny.

 

[GrownupGirl]

All our school trips were quite safe. We only went to places that weren't that far away and only stayed there for about a day. None of this fancy going to other countries and stuff. Or even other provinces. But then again, that was when I was in elementary and junior high school.