Field Trip

As I have wandered from historic site to historic site in Rome, I have come across groups of children on school trips. The end of the school year is nearing in Rome just as it is back home. Field trips, as I have witnessed them, seem to be very similar to the trips school children take at home. I would like to be able to report some significant differences between field trips for Roman students and field trips for American students, but as of yet I have not noticed any significant diversions. Roman students go to important historic sites like the Forum as depicted in this picture from Hillary. You can see the school kids wearing yellow hats standin underneath the arch of Septimius Severus (Nicole got another shot of these children).


They take chaperons. I have to assume that the older, parent-looking people are fulfilling this duty. They also tend to wear some sort of uniform hat or bandanna with their school's name on it so that the children can be identified easily and kept safe. I even caught a group outside of the Vatican sitting on a long bench eating bagged lunches.

Today, in Siena, I saw more students in the museum at the City Hall. Some were Italian and some were French. They looked older, middle school/high school age, and they did not wear uniforms. Just as at home, there is little reason to keep track of older students on field trips with uniforms. Seeing French students on a trip was interesting. Presumably the trip, for them, was a little long than the daytime excursions that many of the Roman school children are on at the Forum. The French students, like many of the Roman students, were receiving a lecture from someone who appeared to be an authority on the site that they were visiting. Just as museums at home provide guides for school groups, so do many Italian museums.