A Field Trip to Disney World By Sarah West

The last four days of my life have consisted of excitement, laughs, exhaustion and many many happy memories. Our school orchestra and marching band took a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. It was one of the best experiences of my life. We got to perform three pieces in Disney Springs, record a song for Beauty and the Beast, and of course get to experience four Disney parks in eighty-degree weather.

The sight-reading workshop in which we played the music for Beauty and the Beast was an experience that really stood out to me. The whole orchestra learned valuable skills and not to mention a cool dvd of the dancing scene from the animated movie with us playing the music. But we also got an inside look at what being a professional musician is like. The recording, the personal stories from our instructor, advice on how to become a professional; all invaluable. Being a musician mostly likely is not something I would do as a career, but it is also one I had never even considered before this experience and I am thankful to have been able to.

The parks also did not disappoint. There were so many fun interactive and immersive rides. One ride, Mission Space, simulated the actual feeling of flying a rocket, G force and everything! I spent an entire ride through the world of The Pirates of the Caribbean questioning how it was possible that we weren't outside (the set was so well done for half of the ride I thought I really was outside). I also had the chance to try out my skills from french class for real in Epcot, plus the opportunity to fulfill childhood dreams by meeting classic characters. Not to mention some pretty funny pictures from the roller coasters and The Tower of Terror and some great firework shows.

While trip may have ended with being stuck at the airport with a four hour delay, not returning home until 5:00 am (at least I got another day off of school), aching feet, a sunburned nose, and the knowledge of how much school work I need to make up, it was all worth it. I got once in a lifetime experiences, made new friends, happy memories, and funny stories to tell. This has definitely been the best school trip I have ever been on.  

Children's tales and teaching a child morals. By Owen Welsh

(Frankenpooh was much beloved by younger me)

After reading some of the Canterbury Tales in class, it got me thinking about more childish end of spectrum like fairy-tales, and how they continue to influence our children today. It's a widely accepted fact that how you treat a child in their early years affects them for the rest of their life, you can change the entire way a child thinks with as little as a misplaced comment or by knocking down an aspiration accidentally. Most parents in the Western world try to introduce children to stories when they're very young, to try to teach their children basic phonetics and pronunciations as well as giving them a basic set of morals to base their decisions off of. But does this really lead to a child being more morally correct in later age? It's not my place to decide for all people but there so far hasn't been a storybook that stuck with me throughout my entire life up to this point, let alone any life lessons I may have learned from them. This isn't to say I have no favorite fairy-tales, but I don't think a children's book has had any impact on me beyond "Oh that was pretty funny." But some people insist that there's some 'knack' to parenting that makes a child into an instant success. Who can really say that their rendition of Horton Hears A Who was what made little their little Alexei into some sort of musical genius?

Contrary to everything I just said, I do believe reading is important to people of all ages, the teaching of lessons and being able to look at situations from other people's viewpoints is what has led humanity to the golden age it is in today. This does raise the question of how were the great people of the previous ages raised, how did people like Boudicca, who led a hugely popular and near successful rebellion, do great things if all they were taught as a child was to obey? It's obvious that not all of a child's intellect comes from the books read to them, but what if they weren't read to at all? It was not until around the 1970's that reading to children became more regular, but you cannot argue with the fact that the world is getting smarter every day, so that could be down to exposing children to more advanced books from an earlier age. There's no real way to tell, as we could also attribute the rising intellect of children to a progressive school system or the fact that more people go to school than ever before. All in all, I can't say for certain whether reading to a child will help them become more literate or not, but one thing is for certain, children always have and always will be susceptible to outside influences which mainly involve parents.