Hundreds of dazzling exhibits sit behind glass walls, displaying America’s history through a thousand different lenses that lie across more than 70 museums. They showcase pain, love and joy, realities that are ingrained in our nation’s past.

Washington, D.C.’s museums offer a wealth of knowledge just a metro ride away from Whitman. However, despite the school’s proximity to D.C.’s museums, Whitman students miss out on these field trips. Montgomery County schools should organize more field trips to take advantage of the variety of museums near D.C.

Museum enthusiasts often praise D.C. as a major museum hub, and that credit is well deserved. From Smithsonian institutions like the National History Museum and the Air and Space Museum to privately owned ventures like the Spy Museum, D.C. presents a plethora of high-quality, affordable opportunities to get a face-to-face experience with history.

The Smithsonian consortium, one of the largest museum associations, offers a variety of free field trip options. Such experiential learning is engaging, improves cognitive abilities and greatly assists children’s education and development — all at no cost to visitors.

Rather than spending a day stuck in a classroom memorizing facts, visiting museums forces students to confront the real impact of the concepts they learn about. Learning shifts from abstract to reality, and students can switch from uninterested to curious.

Whitman’s field trips are limited to activities specific to certain clubs or programs, such as the Leadership Academy for Social Justice (LASJ), and the Student Advisory Council, which hosts career readiness events. For instance, the LASJ visited BCC High School to hear author Jason Reynolds speak about Black history in literature, and the Student Advisory Council visited Montgomery College in April for a career opportunity summit.

However, these trips are rare and don’t have the wide reach they would have if core classes implemented them, since they are only available to participants in these specific programs. In required core classes, meanwhile, the amount of educational opportunities outside of the classroom decreases as students get older.

As young children grow into teenagers, purposeful learning becomes secondary in the classroom as students’ focus pivots towards maintaining GPAs and cramming material for short-term memorization, significantly reducing the demand for field trips.

Despite this depletion, the value of education through experience remains high. Tracey Jabbal, the Manager of Education Programs at Planet Word Museum, said the effectiveness of field trips increases with age.

“The learning gets more sophisticated and more intense the older you get,” Jabbal said.  “I think that’s a reason that you should be out of the building.”

Museums offer a unique opportunity for students to develop connections between the material they learn in class and its real-world application. Field trips to museums would increase student engagement by allowing students to exercise their inherent curiosity through interactive experiences.

Two vital concepts of learning theory are reflected in museums: active learning and personal agency. Active learning allows students to dive deeper into questions and interests through tangible experiences, a learning style conducive to museums, particularly those with interactive exhibits. The Planet Word Museum in D.C., which serves to educate the public about linguistics, has an exhibit that allows visitors to explore phonetics through karaoke. Many similar exhibits, like a podcast room and library, allow for individuals to gain their own unique experience.

Personal agency, another core facet of learning theory, centers around learning by choice, something museums excel at by not requiring students to do anything and instead allowing them to select exhibits and information at their own volition to focus on.

When students are engaged in their learning, they grow to enjoy it more. Experiential learning fosters a love of learning — one that students today lack, as fewer than half of Gen Z students reported feeling motivated to attend school. It also motivates students to dive deeper into educational topics, not because they have to, but because they want to.

 Senior Mayme Killeen is the Whitman Museum Club president. She said museums allow students to apply a more profound understanding of their school content in a way that feels refreshing, rather than repetitive.

“Museums have the wonderful ability to translate what you’re learning in the classroom into real life,” Killeen said. “They make learning more engaging and fun.”

As teenagers grow older, they become increasingly apathetic toward school. Incorporating fun experiences into learning encourages students to become more responsive to material taught and be more motivated to explore the broader impacts of topics taught in school. 

For example, rather than simply learning about the issues pollution causes, at the Natural History Museum in D.C., visitors look and listen to the night sky and see these issues’ impacts firsthand. An immersive experience like this brings classroom concepts right in front of students’ eyes.

The primary reason Whitman teachers refrain from arranging field trips is the considerable time and effort required to organize one. Museum Club sponsor and English teacher Matthew Bruneel said that, given the enormous workload high school teachers face, spending time and resources on these outings doesn’t seem worth it.

“I think that they’re cute,” Bruneel said. “But it’s hard for me to justify it as an endeavor that is educationally enriching. It’s more like just entertainment.”

Yet, when trips are accessible, their benefits remain evident to students. Their enjoyable nature is exactly what makes them fulfilling, since they can associate what they’re learning with excitement rather than boredom.

If teachers and administrators work together to increase the ease and frequency of museum field trips, the result will be unmistakable.

Whitman Business Administrator Danielle Fus said this year, Whitman’s administration has recognized the complications with these trips and attempted to aid teachers in the organization process.

“We have made a concerted effort to encourage resource teachers and staff to investigate taking more field trips,” Fus said.

For students, leaning into the entertainment aspect of field trips is important because it gives them a break from the stress of high school.

 Field trips are not a distraction from teaching, but rather an exploration of a different form of instruction that students enjoy more than traditional learning. The fun that these spaces provide doesn’t diminish their educational value. Field trips and museums allow students to personalize their educational experience and understand it more intensely.

“Classroom learning is important,” Jabbal said. “But to experience it in an authentic setting really solidifies the learning.”