field trip

Before the past two months, I think the last field trip I went on was to the Pilsner Urquell brewery with thirty 17 year-olds. It was another of those odd cross-culture experiences, where you stand by and watch your underage students throw back free samples of cold, yeasty beer, where you stand by as one of your students drinks a cold one right after you told him not to, where you get assaulted by a cranky old tour guide. It's a good story. Ask me some time.

It's good to be on the student side of field trips again. Especially this weekend, when Chrissy joined me and my ESL strategies class on a field trip to San Francisco. I really like this professor's philosophy: we can read all about multicultural teaching strategies that are basically tried and true and recommended by every other course anyway, or we can visit the places that our multicultural students might call home. So last Saturday we schlepped around the Mission District and Chinatown, taking pictures, seeing sites I never would have made the effort to check out otherwise, and eating foods muy deliciosos.

My favorite part of the trip was the murals in the Mission. The next time you get to wander around in The City, consider doing it up and down 24th street and up and down the side alleys. Take your camera.


And (yes, this sounds like bad advice, but...) look in the windows! I saw this huge paper airplane hanging from somebody's ceiling!