Spring Means Field Trips

It's spring and that means field trips.  So here is a bit of feedback from a 6th grader from a recent field trip to a large Boston area museum:
"Why can't they do something different?  The tour guide started off telling us everything we couldn't do in the museum, so most of us wanted to leave after hearing 'no, no, no...' The lady talked the whole time, but didn't ask us any questions.  The galleries were SO crowded with other kids from other schools that we couldn't even hear or see that well.   The best part of the day was when our teacher told us about the largest ancient statue to arrive at the museum and how they had to remove the skylights in the roof to lower the statue into the gallery...now that was cool!"
What a missed opportunity.   Don't get me wrong, there are many, many cultural sites with innovative school tours and programs that get high marks for content, learning, and presentation.  Clearly this isn't one of them.   So, if this is what your site is offering to school groups - the standard docent led talking tour for students - think about inviting some 6th graders to give you feedback and ideas.  I know there are lots of kids out there who would be happy to do so - and, they would think it was cool!