Virtual Field Trips

In an era where technology has integrated everyone together, desensitization lacks subtleness due to a lack of personal experience. Many individuals do not get the opportunity to experience extreme poverty in developing countries first hand. Most elementary students do not get to experience the atmosphere of a historical period, which can blur their comprehension on certain subjects and events. For example, a professor, Faye Short, notices this desensitization while conversing about Nazi concentration camps:

This absence of emotive response may be seen in the students who view the lecture explaining the effects of blind obedience in the Nazi concentration camps as a dry theory related to a distant history lesson. Classroom activities that weave tangible concrete experience into the academic concepts may enhance learning for these sensitive issues by making the concept more ‘real’ and overcoming desensitisation (Short).

The professor found that field trips provide a better and more inclusive opportunity to introduce a student (or students) to the real world that we live and/or lived in and shaped by. This lacks astonishment to me, because field trips have created more emotional connections to certain events than any other form of teaching. To illustrate this idea, I went to the Maine Islamic Center in Orono, Maine and learned about the religion of Islam. I believe that the hands on experience helped me understand Islam more than I ever would have in a classroom. I discovered I was more vulnerable to another person when I was in their territory instead of my own, which helped me stay focused on learning about Muslims. Inevitably, someone may disagree with the idea of going on a field trip to learn something a teacher could easily explain in class because of money or not wanting to disrupt the school day.