This post is a guest column submitted by a reader PBK.
This week, a notice came home in my child’s backpack. You know the kind — a bright flyer, a permission slip at the bottom, and just enough excitement in the wording to make every middle schooler instantly say, “YES.”
The destination?
Topgolf.
Now before anyone jumps to conclusions, let me say this upfront: I like Topgolf. It’s fun. It’s social. It’s a perfectly fine place for families, friends, birthday parties, and team outings.
But that’s exactly the point.
It’s a perfectly fine entertainment venue.
And that’s what makes it so puzzling as a Beta Club field trip destination.
Because when you step back and think about what Beta Club actually stands for, something doesn’t quite add up.
What Beta Club Is Supposed to Be About
Beta Club isn’t just another school club looking for ways to fill time on a calendar. Its core mission is very clear:
To promote academic achievement, character, leadership, and service.
Field trips connected to organizations like Beta Club traditionally serve a specific purpose — they are meant to provide hands-on learning experiences that complement academic and civic goals.
Students are supposed to engage in activities that:
- Build leadership skills
- Encourage teamwork in meaningful contexts
- Foster community awareness
- Connect learning to real-world service
When you think about that mission, certain types of trips naturally come to mind:
- Visiting historical sites
- Participating in community service projects
- Touring civic institutions
- Exploring science or cultural centers
A recreational driving range — no matter how polished — doesn’t seem to fit comfortably into that framework.
The Bigger Question: Entertainment vs. Enrichment
The issue here isn’t whether kids will have fun.
Of course they will.
The real question is this:
Should public school academic clubs be using instructional time and resources to visit private, for-profit entertainment venues whose primary purpose is recreation and revenue?
That’s not a moral judgment about businesses. Private companies serve important roles in the economy.
But there is a philosophical line worth considering:
Public education exists to advance learning and civic development.
Commercial entertainment exists to generate customer engagement and profit.
When those two worlds intersect in the context of an academic honor club, it’s fair to ask whether the educational value is truly leading — or whether marketing exposure and convenience are quietly taking center stage.
If This Makes Sense… Where Does It End?
Once you accept the logic that any activity can be framed as “educational” with enough creativity, the boundaries start to blur quickly.
For example:
If Beta Club can go to Topgolf because it involves coordination, teamwork, and physics principles…
Then why shouldn’t a MathCounts team visit a poker hall?
After all, probability, risk calculation, and mental arithmetic are deeply embedded in card strategy.
Or why not send a choir group to a casino lounge?
They could observe professional performers and learn about audience engagement, stage presence, and performance adaptability.
Taken to its logical conclusion, almost any entertainment setting can be retrofitted with an educational justification.
But doing so risks diluting the meaning of what an educational field trip is supposed to be.
What Meaningful Field Trips Look Like
Many families have seen firsthand what purposeful enrichment trips can look like.
Students visit places like:
- Arboretums and nature centers to connect with environmental science
- Zoos to study ecosystems and conservation
- Arts and cultural museums to explore creativity and history
- Civil rights museums to understand social justice and civic responsibility
These experiences don’t just entertain — they expand perspective.
They create lasting connections between classroom learning and the real world.
And most importantly, they align directly with the values that organizations like Beta Club are meant to promote.
This Isn’t About Fun — It’s About Alignment
To be clear, this isn’t a criticism of Topgolf.
Nor is it an argument that students shouldn’t enjoy themselves.
Kids absolutely deserve fun experiences, social bonding, and opportunities to relax together.
But a Beta Club field trip isn’t meant to be just another outing.
It’s supposed to reflect the club’s core principles:
- Academic excellence
- Leadership development
- Character building
- Community service
And it’s difficult to see how hitting microchipped golf balls for a couple of hours meaningfully advances those goals.
A Simple Standard
Perhaps the simplest test is this:
If you removed the word “field trip” and described the activity honestly, would it still sound like an educational experience — or would it sound like a recreational outing?
If the answer is the latter, then maybe it belongs in a different category altogether.
Fun has its place.
But honor societies and academic clubs should aim for something more than fun.
They should aim for purpose.
Yours truly,
PBK.
PS: I also want to say this — I completely understand that schools have to work within real-world constraints. Planning field trips isn’t easy. There are budgets to manage, safety rules to follow, transportation logistics, staffing limitations, and the simple reality that teachers are already stretched thin. Sometimes choices come down to what is affordable, available, and easy to organize. This isn’t meant as criticism of educators or administrators, who care deeply about students and do the best they can with what they have. It’s simply meant to start a broader conversation about how we think about “enrichment” and how closely those experiences line up with the core purpose of academic clubs.
70 comments:
Wow. This post is spot on and I have felt this way for a while.
Every single parent at Madison Middle School can take their kid to TopGolf any night or on weekend. The new administration at MMS is a joke - see all their sophomoric humor on social media (Your administrators if they had walk out songs)
There's a dirty little secret being talked about in Madison right now. The best principals are at the elementary schools and are doing a great job. Once they hit the middle school, the quality is going down big time. The high school is trending toward being just another athletic-focused Mississippi high school.
What a party pooper.
Lighten up, Sandy
PBK, you should just home school your kids and never, ever reward them for being good students. Keep them locked up and grinding on their studies 24/7. Feeling sorry for your kids. (And who has time to write a thesis on such a minor thing?)
@2:11, MCHS ACT results say otherwise.
Well, I was in a Junior Beta Club in the metro area in the mid-1970's and our reward for our effort was a field trip to...Roosevelt State Park! Boy did we feel rewarded for our effort. At least we did get to go to the annual government event at the downtown Holiday Inn.
Top Golf seems fine to me. Sheesh.
You sound like a real fun person to be around.
@2:30 PM
That is exactly what all if the rising countries are doing with their young people. When we are left in the dust, remember it was because the kids in this country focused on sportsball and “taking care of the mental wellbeing” instead of getting into the top schools and getting two doctorates.
This is BRILLIANT! It's fantastically well-presented. And it describes, really well, the perversion of Education, today, and illustrates one of the reasons why our grandchildren aren't sent to schools.
May I suggest another possible activity? ...PARTICIPATION in a seminar class or symposium, focusing on some important issue? Tomorrow's LEADERS should be participating, and hobnobbing with today's leaders (not with the staff at an entertainment venue). That happened, in an informal way, for our kids. And today, it's happening for our granddaughters.
Canned experiences are great - in their place. But for tomorrow's leaders, participation is key.
We had cool field trips. Sugar cane refinery, borden plant which meant ice cream, new Orleans and FQ, and the stuff such as planetariums and zoos.
Wow, even Karens can't express their outrage these days without the help of ChatGPT.
Sheesh. What a foul person this must be. I feel sorry for their child. The Beta Club is made up of straight A students that have to do like 20 or 30 service hours in Middle School and they can't take a trip to TopGolf as a reward? This guy needs some counseling and I hope his kids are getting enough outside world exposure to turn out better than him.
the reward is the friends you make along the way and the girl you kissed under the high dive platform
“Quality is going down big time once they hit the Middle School”
Madison Middle School is literally ranked #1, Bozo
lol we get it. You are scared of technology and dont know how to use it. Not surprising that you pick the most low IQ ways to tell us!
Madison Central's numbers of National Merit scholars and ACT 30+ are laudable. However, keep in mind that this school has a year long class that does nothing but teach the PSAT and ACT tests. They study the questions, teach techniques, and take practice exams over and over.
Yes. Madison Central has great results but it is not like the school is hyper focused on reading, writing and arithmetic. The school is hyper focused on test taking skills.
Note: both my kids went to Madison Central.
2:30, high-IQ children may not experience it as a "reward". For them, such an outing as the one under discussion, may be just more mind-numbing drudgery. ...just more standing-around, waiting for their turn to do something pointless and stupid, which others (the people with power over them) say they're supposed to want to do.
Field trips to places like Top golf are FUNdamental! School kids already don't have enough fun. What a tedious existence they have with constant studies, academic pressure, and parents who just want to be friends.
80s Venture kid and 90's high school Beta club here. We went to the John C. Stennis Space Center, Pensacola Naval Air Museum, and the best trip was to DC to the Smithsonian and National Air and Space Museum.
Are BETA club field trips to Top Golf the reason that MRA has a waiting list? Many people are asking and saying that Madison Schools are no longer elite. SAD!
As parent of several kids that went thru MMS, yes it’s the worst of the 5 in the lineup through graduation. Teachers there seem ok but admin is the problem.
February 26, 2026 at 2:42 PM, spot on with your post. While the U.S. has wasted time on frivolous activities, the other countries of the world have kept first things first. If education were a footrace, we couldn't see the dust of the front-runners.
Dear diary...
#1 in what, 2:58? ...in Mississippi? Madison is the wealthiest and most educated town in the state (up there with Belle Meade, Mountain Brook, and Druid Hills, Biltmore Forest, Ladera, and Chevy Chase). OF COURSE the Middle School will rank #1 in Mississippi - even if quality is going down.
And the admin that made it the worst of the 5 is at the high school now.
Considering that my tax dollars are putting your chirren through school, I say NO field trips, etc., unless they are mostly educational. Take a day off work at your own expense and do it on your own time and your own dime. And while we're at it, feed your own kids.
How else is my kid going to be recruited to JA if he doesn't practice his swing?
Bring the students to the upcoming Mississippi Mineral Show on February 28-March 1 at the Trademart.
The number of em dashes alone make it obvious ChatGPT wrote a lot of this. Weak content 2/10 WNB.
If you are so bent out of shape about Beta Club going to do something fun to celebrate all they've achieved academically, you lead a very privileged life, PBK. You wasted an inordinate amount of what I can only assume is too much free time to concoct this idiocy. Children in public schools are hungry, poorly-clothed, etc. And you're worried little Mary Gray Margaret Stone Elizabeth might have a little fun at TopGolf? My daughter will be at MMS next year and if she is fortunate enough to earn her way onto Beta Club and this comes up, I will be signing it the very moment it comes home. I won't sit there fuming about "how dare they" from the comfort of my Lexus SUV in the car-rider line after my hot yoga class.
MMS is a fantastic school based on objective data and personal experience. What this original post fails to include is that this was a back up destination due to the original field trip being cancelled due to the location suffering ice damage. Kids work hard in the classroom and outside of the classroom contributing to our community. I would certainly rather hear their point of view rather than ChatGPT, which clearly was used by this long post about nothing. Let’s address real problems and not kids earning a reward. Also, not every kid in Madison schools is privileged and this post is ridiculous.
PBK since your child got the form, you should have also gotten the text that they were originally going to a ropes course as a team building exercise. Unfortunately, too many trees were damaged during the recent ice storm, so that trip had to be cancelled last minute. Were you okay with that trip? Or just upset because they had to change at the last minute and chose to support a local business?
Maybe in your little sheltered circle of friends but I have two kids in Madison schools and the only complaining I hear actually comes from the parents of athletes due to playing time or other kids taking little Johnny's spot. And that's gonna happen no matter where you go. My children are thriving. I moved to Madison due to the public schools and it is a decision with which I am consistently pleased.
You seem fun. I remember class trips to Funtime Skateland and whatever the skating ring was out Lakeland Drive back in the 80's. It ain't all work all the time.
If MRA has a waiting list it ain't because of stellar academics.
Looks to me more like a marketing solution looking for a paying problem.
It could be Great Wolf Lodge for a Beta Club trip, but that's just another county .
So top golf is only for beta club? How about non beta club students?
Does the K in PBK stand for Karen?
@3:59 Excellent idea!
i havent been to thr Gem and Mineral show in over a decade. I remember loving it as a kid. I remember using my meager allowence to buy a vial of what is supposed to be ash from the Mt. St. Helens wruption in 1980. i also have a geode somewhere!
Lol. Peanut Butter Karen (no offence to peanut and butter)
IMO, as a mere B student with some honors classes decades ago, and 20 hr/wk jobs starting at 14 y.o., and boy scouts and swim team, I would have valued anything fun and unrestricted outdoors, including sailing, especially ice skating, skiing, hiking and fishing in pristine mountain air. Does TopGolf enable physically striking a real Maxfli or Titleist?
@5:50
Peanut Butter Karen
you just know
Having attended school in Meridian, our field trips were to go to Thalia Mara hall for a play, or the Planetarium, or the museum of art.
So Planetarium is closed? Thalia Mara is finally reopening. And the art museum has always been available….
You say Madison Middle quality is going down but also “of course” it’s ranked #1. So which is it, 3:37?
2:52 - this excellent smartassary
We went to the AG Museum, Planetarium, Art Museum, and the Zoo. Late 80’s, early 90’s.
Kingfish at 2:38 pm. And look how you turned out........
I don't think there were field trips after grammar school. We went to the Coca Cola plant and Colonial Bread place. It was great fun for us.
Lighten up grandpa. Giving good students a little fun break is good for them. A reward.
Confirming. Top Golf was not the first choice. There were multiple notices sent out about this.
“ Beta: Winona Outdoor Adventures will be closed until mid-May after their arborist determined some areas are unsafe following the ice storm. Our new field trip plan is Topgolf on Thursday, March 19. Students received pink and blue forms at the meeting that must be returned by Friday. Payment is on School Bucks.”
Some of yall are insufferable
Two words: golf scholarship. Its clear they've never swung a golf club. Or played a round. If you're a low handicap to scratch golfer you could probably get a full ride. Goes double for girls golf.
I'm willing to bet that there is no "PBK," and Kingfish wrote this to get more comments on his blog.
Too many comments to read all of them but I have to assume there are some boomer references on this one. Come on man. One day at Top Golf. Do you not remember the two times a year they rolled a TV into class so we could watch Mulligan Stew? These kids needs a break.
Please tell me this is fake. Nobody is that much of a drama queen.
Karen proposes they go to the zoo or the Civil Rights Museum. Not much choice.
I was a product of the "one size fits all", cookie cutter public education system of the 50's and 60's. The lauding of that system today is pure foolishness. In trying to apply a limited and narrow system to everyone, they educated almost no one. The greatest failure was one of teaching "socialization". The vast majority of students were completely left out of social activities within the parameters of school structure. I was a product of that failure in many ways. In the 5th grade, achievement tests put me at high school graduation levels. The next seven years of my middle school and high school education were ones of absolute boredom and drudgery. I left high school with a chip on my shoulder the size of a large anvil. Don't worry, I recovered, but I look back at so many of my "classmates" who never did. If you judge every school activity on its educational merit, you are designing a system of failure. The highest paid skills in this world are not engineering, mechanical, or technical knowledge, they are management, the organization and direction of the efforts of others. I am happy that this school has the resources to organize social interactions among their students. It may be the best part of the education they will receive.
@7:05.
Are you from Tupelo? Exactly our field trips. We each received a tiny loaf of fresh bread.
Beta club? Never heard of it. And I doubt any of the cool kids have either.
He clearly meant something else with the statement about Madison Middle’s decline. Likely had something to do with kids that don’t look like his kids. Code words, ya know?
7:25 or maybe his principal no longer looking like his kids....
Personally, I'd rather my kids go to play golf than go to the left wing indoctrination centers like social justice and civil rights museums. Talk about brainwashing. Let's teach the kids to hate themselves.
There is no better proof of our poor educational system than the whiny people posting on this site. If you think the other countries' educational systems are better, then pack your shit and move on over there. And enhance your intelligence by spending your time actually reading intellectually stimulating material rather than whining on JJ.
Pressure to achieve academic “perfection” in high school has resulted in more than one college student crashing, burning, and flunking out.
True achievement is a healthy balance of all types of activities.
@8:33
look up “logical fallacies” and educate yourself because you just made a big one!
Bottom line is that this will pretty much empty the account. And guess who will have to replenish it ? Exactly.
Don't worry ...
Believe me, we're not and never were.
Wow, MMS is literally #1 and has been for multiple years. You folks smearing the reputations of the adminstrators there ought to be ashamed. Beta Club kids enjoy entertainment outings just like all others.
The beta club needs to go to Two Gun Tactical & learn good shooting skills. Prepare for the breakdown of the USA. I'll loan them my 9MM S&W Model 59, AR-15, SKS , Colt 45 satin nickel finish & my 4 22 pistols.
Please don’t use Chat GPT anymore. It’s glaring.
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