My Recent Trip to The Met

Some people are “museum people” and some aren’t. I am. I love museums. I love history, cultures, art, and learning about all these things. I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art countless times over the years and I’ll never get tired of it. My most recent trip there was 2 weeks ago for a field trip. My friend/co-worker and I organized the field trip for our 9th grade students. I thought I’d share some snaps I took that day and offer some tips for traveling there with 40+ teenagers.

My Tips

• Wearing a dress is questionable. I wore a dress and this was good and bad. Good because it was really hot out and it kept me cooler. Bad because I got stuck on the school bus seat with the big hump so I had to figure out how to gracefully have my legs propped up on the hump without anyone being able to see up my dress.
• Some teenagers are really into museums. Others are not. Be prepared to hear complaints about how “boring” the museum is. You can point out things that look super interesting just to annoy them more.
• If you’re at a museum that has old Greek or Roman statues, which usually feature naked people, be prepared for a lot of snickering from the kids. Also, with today’s smart phones, you’ll probably find a lot of students taking pictures of just the butts of the statues. I may or may not have caught a student doing just that.
• You will have to remind certain students again and again and again not to touch the art. At some point security may begin to follow you around, which is super embarrassing.
• Some students who are really into pop culture and/or fashion may be excited to see the Manus x Machina exhibit because just weeks earlier the biggest stars were there for the Met Gala.
• When they’re eating lunch out on the steps and complaining about how hot it is outside, remind them that these are the very steps that Blair and Serena ate lunch on in Gossip Girl! Yes, the show may have been slightly before their time but many of the kids have watched the show and some will actually appreciate it.
• Not sure if this only applies to the kids at my school, but food is everything. It doesn’t matter what the field trip is, all they want to know is what’s for lunch and if they can stop at McDonalds or Popeyes or even just the rest stops on the highway for fast food. Naturally, while sitting on the steps my students wanted me to walk them down to the hot dog carts and ice cream truck. They were extremely excited about the ice cream truck and were probably more enthusiastic about it than the museum. In any case, they will probably be shocked when they see that the fries are $5 and you will have to remind them that they are in the city and everything is more expensive in the city.

I hope you found my tips helpful or at least entertaining! Until next time, Met.