Beam Me Up Scotty
Silver Member
Let me start this off by saying I work at a youth centre, and I deal with kids primarily between the ages of 7 to 12.
So when I arrived at the school yesterday to pick up the children, I found out that two grade 5 classes had gone on a filed trip. To the mall. To the Apple Store.
...What?
They even had shirts. They were bright yellow, with a picture of the Apple Store on the front, and "Field Trip to the Apple Store" written on it. Since they were given the shirts there, I assume this is becoming some sort of established and accepted "field trip". I asked the kids what they did at the store, and they told me they were spoken to about Apple products, and spent most of the time playing on iPods, iPads, and Macs. That's it. For 2 1/2 hours, that was their field trip.
This basically left me with an overwhelming sense of "What the heckk?"
Come on! You're telling me that schools are now going on trips to the Apple Store, when that time could be spent better on an actual educational field trip to, I don't know, a museum or something? That's what I did when I was their age. Hell, I help the children with their homework every day, and I'm growing more and more frustrated by the state of our (Canadian) education system and curriculum, since the kids can't even do basic stuff; they have to rely on tricks or tools that the teacher gave them, instead of using mental math/logic (although a problem, this isn't the focus of my post). As such, how the hell can they think that going to the Apple Store - thus playing into Apple's marketing - can be beneficial in any way?
The kids are gonna go home now and ask for whatever over-priced thing it was they spent an hour playing on. From a marketing standpoint, this is an absolutely brilliant idea. Get them when they're young to make lifelong customers. Maybe even throw in a few facts here and there, just to say that the field trip was "educational".
On the other hand, how the hell can schools justify this? I actually do not understand how they can pull kids out of class for the most noneducational field trip ever.
Now perhaps I'm overthinking this, and perhaps I'm a bit frustrated about it (read: angry), but for the love of god, you can't possibly tell me this is a good idea on the schools' part?
Thoughts? I'm just stunned...
For reference, I'm 21. How can things have gone so poorly in such a short time? It makes me genuinely sad to see.
So when I arrived at the school yesterday to pick up the children, I found out that two grade 5 classes had gone on a filed trip. To the mall. To the Apple Store.
...What?
They even had shirts. They were bright yellow, with a picture of the Apple Store on the front, and "Field Trip to the Apple Store" written on it. Since they were given the shirts there, I assume this is becoming some sort of established and accepted "field trip". I asked the kids what they did at the store, and they told me they were spoken to about Apple products, and spent most of the time playing on iPods, iPads, and Macs. That's it. For 2 1/2 hours, that was their field trip.
This basically left me with an overwhelming sense of "What the heckk?"
Come on! You're telling me that schools are now going on trips to the Apple Store, when that time could be spent better on an actual educational field trip to, I don't know, a museum or something? That's what I did when I was their age. Hell, I help the children with their homework every day, and I'm growing more and more frustrated by the state of our (Canadian) education system and curriculum, since the kids can't even do basic stuff; they have to rely on tricks or tools that the teacher gave them, instead of using mental math/logic (although a problem, this isn't the focus of my post). As such, how the hell can they think that going to the Apple Store - thus playing into Apple's marketing - can be beneficial in any way?
The kids are gonna go home now and ask for whatever over-priced thing it was they spent an hour playing on. From a marketing standpoint, this is an absolutely brilliant idea. Get them when they're young to make lifelong customers. Maybe even throw in a few facts here and there, just to say that the field trip was "educational".
On the other hand, how the hell can schools justify this? I actually do not understand how they can pull kids out of class for the most noneducational field trip ever.
Now perhaps I'm overthinking this, and perhaps I'm a bit frustrated about it (read: angry), but for the love of god, you can't possibly tell me this is a good idea on the schools' part?
Thoughts? I'm just stunned...
For reference, I'm 21. How can things have gone so poorly in such a short time? It makes me genuinely sad to see.