In block 4, one of the required classes we had to take was EDUC 401 – Career Education. Myself and three other classmates got the opportunity to lead a field trip for our class. We decided to reach out to local businesses around our community with the objective of exposing ourselves to different career paths and business routes we can expose to our students in the future. We wanted to learn about how the businesses ran and how they started up their independent businesses and what opening up an independent business entailed. We ended up connecting with Books & Company, Omineca Arts Centre, and a new local restaurant called la Catrina. This was a great learning experience for us as teacher candidates as we had to take on the role of planning, reaching out to businesses, and coordinating times for each place. I hope to take my future students on many field trips, so this was a good opportunity to get some practice recognizing the work and processes that must be done in order for things to run smoothly. We coordinated with businesses by phone, email, Facebook, and instagram. I noticed throughout this process that there are many different ways of accessing businesses and taking the time to do this was very much worth it.
We decided to take the city bus to and from UNBC for this field trip. We arrived at the closest stop to the businesses we were going to visit. From the bus stop, we walked to Books & Company. At Book & Company, we spent time looking around at the books and the resources they had to offer. Unfortunately we weren’t able to schedule an employee to talk with us about their business, but one of the members in our group decided to do some research and gave an overview and facts about Books & Company and how it can be useful to us as future teachers. I viewed our first stop at Books & Company as a “soft start” as it was pretty relaxed and we were able to explore on our own time depending on our interests.
Our next stop was la Catrina. We walked there from Books & Company. La Catrina is a rooftop Mexican restaurant, but since it was raining that day, we ended up spending most of our time in the restaurant underneath that was owned by the same people. I was grateful we had that option and it made the experience more enjoyable for everyone. I was in coordination with the owner of La Catrina and he wanted me to send everyone’s taco order the day before so that they could prepare the food for us on schedule and in a timely manner. The execution of this worked great and as we were waiting for our food, we got the opportunity to learn about how this business started and the meaning behind it. After we ate our food, we were able to go up to the rooftop patio and see the grill that they normally use and how everything operates. We had the opportunity to ask more questions at this point. It was so fulfilling to see how passionate the owner was about this restaurant and I am grateful for people in this community that are passionate about their business.
After la Catrina, we walked to Omineca Arts Centre. We had the opportunity to see the art that was displayed there at the time and we got to learn what the centre was used for, the journey that they have been on to ensure their business can stay up and running, how they run as a business, and who is able to use the space and for what. It was so interesting to learn that there is a space for people in the community to do their art and I feel like it would be a great environment to meet people with similar interests.
Overall, this was such a great experience for me as it was a glimpse into how planning, organizing, and coordinating a field trip may look like in the future. There is a lot to consider when going on a field trip and making sure you take everything into consideration is extremely important to ensure things run smoothly. I am proud of our group for facilitating this for our class and I can say I now hold a stronger connection to these places and to my community.