Bonding
I’ve been on two main school-sponsored trips this year: Clarksdale for Habitat and Wisconsin Dells for the senior trip. Both had their pros and cons, and I generally enjoyed both. One of the main goals for these trips was to give the students an opportunity to bond with each other. But did these trips meet this goal?
For me, the Habitat trip was one of the best weeks of my life. The people in Clarksdale were exceptionally hospitable and I had a lot of fun working on the houses and getting to know the area. There were 18 students on the trip, just the right number to better know each other, especially when we were cramped in the Habitat dorm for a week and spent a lot of time at night doing group activities. It was literally as if we were together 24 hours a day.
By the end, I felt that I had learned a lot about every single person who went on the trip. It was as much of an entertaining experience as an educational one.
The senior trip was a little different, to say the least. We and 11 chaperones were split into six condos, and went to the waterpark, skiing, and relaxed in the condos. Personally I don’t think it was as effective in terms of bonding. There were some people I probably only saw once or twice the whole weekend. The closeness that I felt with people during Habitat just wasn’t quite there.
There are many reasons why this could be the case. The senior trip had three times as many people as Habitat, and there was a much larger space for people to roam around. Habitat allowed time for almost everyone to work together on the houses at the same time, while we were dispersed everywhere for most of the time in the Dells.
If we’re really looking for a class bonding experience, how about a trip to Clarksdale or a similar volunteer-oriented trip? It would be a much more engaging experience. Anyone else up for the idea?
— Benjamin Fu