The Field Trip

There was a field trip at school.

Not a school-wide field trip. Only one class was going.

The thing is, the trip had been planned at the last minute, and some of us in the class were in another class where a test was being administered.

But we can take the test another time, right?

Wrong.

The teacher in the other class would not permit us to take the test another time and told us that we would just have to skip the field trip.

This seemed...wrong.

We went to the teacher of the class that was going on the field trip and told her that she had to talk to the other teacher.

She said she wouldn't.

We had to choose.

This didn't make sense.

Was she saying we couldn't go on the field trip?

No, she said, I'm not saying that. I'm saying you could go on the trip and just...skip the test.

But then we'll fail the test, we said, that teacher will give us a zero.

Probably, she said, So I guess you have to choose.

This was only getting more confusing.

A teacher was telling us we could skip taking a test, but we'd fail the test if we did.

Would we get in any other trouble?

No, the teacher said.

No, the other teacher, the one giving the class said, You won't get in trouble, but you will get a zero.

What was going on?

They were leaving it up to us?

To skip a test?

To miss out on a field trip?

This couldn't be right.

Then the teacher, the one putting together the field trip, said to us--

You're all getting older. There isn't always going to be detention when you do the wrong thing. But there are also not always going to be times where there's a right thing and a wrong thing. If you skip the test, that's not you doing the wrong thing, because you'd be skipping it to go on a field trip where you would learn something and enrich yourselves further. If you skip the field trip, that doesn't mean you're doing the right thing just because you chose the less attractive option. It's just a choice. It has two outcomes. You have to get used to this. This is how life is more often than any other way. Two choices and both have consequences. Both have pros and cons. You have to make a choice.

Some of us chose the field trip and some chose to stay and take the test.

At the time, I remember we were all furious at having to make this choice.

But I still think about it.

Because some of the kids on the field trip felt guilty the entire time and couldn't enjoy themselves and some of the kids who took the test felt like they'd missed out on something fun just to do the right thin and it created resentment within them, and some didn't worry about it much, because they'd already made their choice, and so what was the point in agonizing over it?

And that one instance is something I remember more than I remember ninety percent of everything else I learned in school.

There aren't always bad outcomes, and you aren't always entitled to have a right choice and a wrong choice in front of you.

Sometimes you just have a choice.

And you have to learn to choose and live with it and understand that making the other choice wouldn't have been better or worse, just...a different choice.

By the way, the field trip was to a museum.

A history museum.

Just in case you wanted to know.