The quiet child who found his voice: Teachers who still take students on field trips despite the risks

By Kim Yong-jae, The Herald Business

"Teacher, I want to try being group leader."

The words came from Chanyeong, a fifth-grader who had been a source of quiet worry for his teachers — spoken at a youth retreat facility in Gyeonggi Province. Normally reserved and slow to connect with classmates, he had rarely stood out in the classroom. His homeroom teacher, identified only as Teacher A, hesitated before handing him the role. What followed surprised everyone. Chanyeong rounded up his friends, tracked the group's movements and threw himself into every activity with more energy than anyone else. Back in the classroom after the trip, he talked more with his peers and his engagement in lessons improved noticeably.

"You often discover sides of students in the field that you never see inside the classroom," Teacher A said. "Experiences like that make it hard to give up field trips, no matter how exhausting they are."

Among educators, organizing a school field trip under the current system is widely described as a game of hot potato. Teachers bear the full weight of administrative responsibility and, in the event of an accident, potential criminal liability as well. The burden became painfully concrete after a student was struck and killed by a bus during a field trip organized by an elementary school in Sokcho, Gangwon Province, in 2022 — a case that ended with a guilty verdict against the supervising teacher and has since come to symbolize the risks teachers face.

The share of schools holding retreats or school trips rose from 63.2 percent in 2023 to 65.7 percent in 2024, then fell to 62.2 percent in 2025. For elementary schools, last year's rate stood at just 48.1 percent. In a survey by a teachers' organization, 96 percent of respondents said the current system makes it difficult to ensure student safety, and more than 80 percent said field trips should be suspended altogether.

Even so, some teachers keep boarding the bus with their students. Teacher A, who organizes grade-level field trips every year, acknowledged that no teacher is free from the fear of something going wrong. "But someone has to do it, and I keep taking it on because I believe it is education that children need," she said.

The reasons teachers cannot bring themselves to stop go well beyond creating memories. Teacher B, a middle school educator, said field trips play a crucial role in building relationships among students. "Students who barely speak to each other in the classroom often grow close when they share living quarters overnight," Teacher B said. "I frequently see students who were in conflict with each other naturally repair their relationship through shared activities."

Teachers broadly agree that field trips have a positive effect on students' social development and sense of community. Strengths that are hard to spot within the confines of a classroom often emerge in the field.

Teacher C, an elementary school educator, recalled a student who had lost interest in academics. "There are many moments when you discover something in a student during a field trip that you never see in class," Teacher C said. "The belief that giving children a wide range of experiences is what education is for is what drives me to go, even at the cost of the administrative workload and the risk of accidents."

Field trips also carry meaning as a tool for narrowing the education gap. Where travel and cultural opportunities vary sharply by household income, school field trips offer every student the same experience. "There are quite a few students riding the KTX for the first time, or visiting a museum for the first time," Teacher A said. "Making sure that a child's range of experiences is not limited by economic circumstances — that is the role of public education."

Teachers warn, however, that a system relying solely on individual dedication cannot last. When an accident occurs and all responsibility falls on the supervising teacher alone, no one can be expected to run field trips with any enthusiasm, they say.

The preparation alone is daunting. Organizing a single trip requires dozens of tasks — collecting parental consent forms, selecting a venue, conducting advance site visits, drawing up a safety plan, checking each student's health, inspecting vehicles, arranging insurance and filing a post-trip report.

Teachers agree that what is needed includes more dedicated field trip coordinators, legal protections for educators and a structured safety management support system.

"The system needs to act as a safety net so that teachers can focus on teaching," Teacher C said. "I hope the activities that students need for their learning are not allowed to wither away."

South Korea's Ministry of Education announced a support plan that would place dedicated field trip coordinators at every district education office nationwide and exempt teachers from liability in cases that do not involve intentional wrongdoing or gross negligence. The ministry also plans to build a district education office-centered support framework to ease the administrative burden on teachers — with coordinators handling contracting, assigning support staff and conducting safety inspections, tasks that teachers have until now managed on their own.

The ministry said it hopes to complete the necessary legislative amendments in the second half of this year so that field trip activity can pick up again next year. "We hope the legal framework will be put in place, the district support system will take root, and the anxiety teachers feel will be relieved," a ministry official said.