At my small school, fieldwork is a regular part of the curriculum, not an aside or an end-of-year reward. City High School students participate in, among other curriculum-related field experiences, four “community days” each year. During these days, students in multi-age groups chaperoned by a staff member visit various local resources, like the Tucson Museum of Art, Ben’s Bells, or Las Milpitas, our school’s community farm.

We do not take these trips in order to increase test scores. Our mission as a small high school is help students become civically engaged through place-based experience. We want our students to care about our city, and they won’t if we keep them behind the closed doors of the school. Educators love to say that students are more than their test scores. Are we ready to say that learning is more than what happens in a classroom?