My first teaching assignment was seventh grade science, at Hudson Middle School. It would not have been, if I'd have had my first choice, but slowly I grasp that Providence is superior to self sufficiency . Though I'm quite sure that I'm wired to be a high school teacher, it turns out, the lessons of middle school were invaluable. Funny how that works.
I don't remember the specifics of my first field trip as a teacher. I don't know where we went or what we did. I remember that I was miserable through most of it. It seemed to me like chaos.
We had plenty of teacher and parent chaperones for the one hundred (give or take) seventh graders. I was dissatisfied with the evident lack of hierarchy. Teachers and parents watched children misbehave, not in outrageous ways, but in small subtle things that simply require adult oversight and management. I was as guilty as the rest and knew it while it was happening. Students went uncorrected and the behavior of the mob, seemed to me, to deteriorate steadily. We were one mass of adults watching over one mass of students and the adults seemed always to be deferring to others to initiate discipline. Might it be that teachers are reluctant to correct children in front of their parents, and parents are equally reluctant to take charge during a school activity? I did determine to do things differently on the next try.
I remember my second field trip as a teacher quite well; with veneration. The school had a standing tradition of taking the seventh grade class to the Henry Ford Museum and Green Field Village. After that earlier experience, referred to above, we approached this field trip differently. Instead of one mob of kids being generally supervised by one mob of chaperones, we carefully assigned specific students to individual adults, who would then be responsible for the behavior of that group. Seems obvious doesn't it? I volunteered to make, and take charge of, a group of our "problem boys", six or seven of the guys everyone knew would be a behavior handful. I don't remember the names of the boys. I remember how they reacted when they learned that they'd been chosen to spend the day with Mr. Frazee. They groaned, sighed, and rolled their eyes. They weren't sure they wanted to go, and were sure that if they did, they'd have a miserable day.
I made two rules. The guys were not to leave my sight without permission, and, once at the museum we'd have no interaction with any other students from Hudson Middle School. Those rules were to go into effect on arrival.
We traveled to the east side of the state in school buses. I don't know if the correct way to say that is "on a bus" or, "in a bus" but for myself, when it comes to school buses, I'd rather travel on the bus, than in the bus. Give me a pommel and a couple of stirrups and I'll take my chances on the roof. My utter contempt for school bus travel is constructed not from one particular trip but from a collection of tribulations, branded into memories that span more than twenty years, first as a junior high student and finally as a junior high teacher.
Those boys on that unnamed island in Lord of the Flies? How long did the decivilization take? I don't know, but their hair grew long and they became malnourished. I've seen kids become brutes in a school bus long before lunch or a haircut were required. The difference of coarse is space. Kids on an island have elbow-room and places to hide. Kids on a bus are forced to coalesce, shrinking the natural buffer that people regard as personal space.
Bullies and milquetoasts conjoined on a contrivance designed to transport with maximum efficiency and economy; neither of which is a friend of comfort or even courtesy. Those were days before every child's head was wired to a personal playlist. Bus trips required a blaring radio, the station chosen by the most vocal child, and sixty children, many of whom found it necessary to practice free association, at a volume competitive with the radio and the other children. And then. Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! There's one thing I hate! All the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
(Blessedly, unlike my Grinchly divagation, the bus went straight to its destination.)
Once on site, my troupe and I seperated ourselves and headed for the museum. I gave them a short lesson in "museum pace". Literally, I showed them how to walk; and forbade them from getting ahead of me. Left to their own lead, kids will run from one shiny object to another and finish any museum in thirty minutes. We strolled. Stopped. Examined. Discussed. Being the science teacher, we were on my turf. I've not tried this at an art museum, or a Civil War memorial. I'm not sure I could pull it off. But; it worked here. The guys went at my pace, they asked questions, and when they got a little fidgety, they responded to my correction quickly. The Ford Museum is big and we followed a different course than the rest of the school. Avoiding their classmates became a game. If we turned a corner and saw a half dozen Hudson Middle schoolers, we'd almost bolt to escape their route, the one exception when museum pace was not the law.
The morning went quickly. We ate sack lunches with the rest of the seventh graders, though I, visiting with other teachers, noticed that my guys ate as a group, and interacted with other students only nominally. I would not have predicted that. The afternoon was spent in the Greenfield Village. We were going through the barn at the Firestone Farm when a group of girls from Hudson, headed toward us. I had gotten pretty comfortable by that point and intended to make no issue of the propinquity. The guys would have none of it. We left the site only partly canvassed. Their idea. In our last hours in the Village, I let the guys run off in groups of two or three to examine structures that were of interest to them. They had earned my confidence. I was certain that they knew how to conduct themselves in this setting, and, they never wandered out of my site for more than twenty minutes. In one of their disaggregated saunters, I happened into a close orbit of two of the fellows. I don't think they knew I was near, I'm sure they didn't suspect I was within earshot. One of the fellows told the other, something very much like, "I thought this day was going to be awful. It was great".
We visited the gift shop, crowded with Hudson Middle schoolers, climbed on the buses, and returned home.
It was a great day. One of my top ten in the "classroom".
I don't remember the specifics of my first field trip as a teacher. I don't know where we went or what we did. I remember that I was miserable through most of it. It seemed to me like chaos.
We had plenty of teacher and parent chaperones for the one hundred (give or take) seventh graders. I was dissatisfied with the evident lack of hierarchy. Teachers and parents watched children misbehave, not in outrageous ways, but in small subtle things that simply require adult oversight and management. I was as guilty as the rest and knew it while it was happening. Students went uncorrected and the behavior of the mob, seemed to me, to deteriorate steadily. We were one mass of adults watching over one mass of students and the adults seemed always to be deferring to others to initiate discipline. Might it be that teachers are reluctant to correct children in front of their parents, and parents are equally reluctant to take charge during a school activity? I did determine to do things differently on the next try.
I remember my second field trip as a teacher quite well; with veneration. The school had a standing tradition of taking the seventh grade class to the Henry Ford Museum and Green Field Village. After that earlier experience, referred to above, we approached this field trip differently. Instead of one mob of kids being generally supervised by one mob of chaperones, we carefully assigned specific students to individual adults, who would then be responsible for the behavior of that group. Seems obvious doesn't it? I volunteered to make, and take charge of, a group of our "problem boys", six or seven of the guys everyone knew would be a behavior handful. I don't remember the names of the boys. I remember how they reacted when they learned that they'd been chosen to spend the day with Mr. Frazee. They groaned, sighed, and rolled their eyes. They weren't sure they wanted to go, and were sure that if they did, they'd have a miserable day.
I made two rules. The guys were not to leave my sight without permission, and, once at the museum we'd have no interaction with any other students from Hudson Middle School. Those rules were to go into effect on arrival.
We traveled to the east side of the state in school buses. I don't know if the correct way to say that is "on a bus" or, "in a bus" but for myself, when it comes to school buses, I'd rather travel on the bus, than in the bus. Give me a pommel and a couple of stirrups and I'll take my chances on the roof. My utter contempt for school bus travel is constructed not from one particular trip but from a collection of tribulations, branded into memories that span more than twenty years, first as a junior high student and finally as a junior high teacher.
Those boys on that unnamed island in Lord of the Flies? How long did the decivilization take? I don't know, but their hair grew long and they became malnourished. I've seen kids become brutes in a school bus long before lunch or a haircut were required. The difference of coarse is space. Kids on an island have elbow-room and places to hide. Kids on a bus are forced to coalesce, shrinking the natural buffer that people regard as personal space.
Bullies and milquetoasts conjoined on a contrivance designed to transport with maximum efficiency and economy; neither of which is a friend of comfort or even courtesy. Those were days before every child's head was wired to a personal playlist. Bus trips required a blaring radio, the station chosen by the most vocal child, and sixty children, many of whom found it necessary to practice free association, at a volume competitive with the radio and the other children. And then. Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! There's one thing I hate! All the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
(Blessedly, unlike my Grinchly divagation, the bus went straight to its destination.)
Once on site, my troupe and I seperated ourselves and headed for the museum. I gave them a short lesson in "museum pace". Literally, I showed them how to walk; and forbade them from getting ahead of me. Left to their own lead, kids will run from one shiny object to another and finish any museum in thirty minutes. We strolled. Stopped. Examined. Discussed. Being the science teacher, we were on my turf. I've not tried this at an art museum, or a Civil War memorial. I'm not sure I could pull it off. But; it worked here. The guys went at my pace, they asked questions, and when they got a little fidgety, they responded to my correction quickly. The Ford Museum is big and we followed a different course than the rest of the school. Avoiding their classmates became a game. If we turned a corner and saw a half dozen Hudson Middle schoolers, we'd almost bolt to escape their route, the one exception when museum pace was not the law.
The morning went quickly. We ate sack lunches with the rest of the seventh graders, though I, visiting with other teachers, noticed that my guys ate as a group, and interacted with other students only nominally. I would not have predicted that. The afternoon was spent in the Greenfield Village. We were going through the barn at the Firestone Farm when a group of girls from Hudson, headed toward us. I had gotten pretty comfortable by that point and intended to make no issue of the propinquity. The guys would have none of it. We left the site only partly canvassed. Their idea. In our last hours in the Village, I let the guys run off in groups of two or three to examine structures that were of interest to them. They had earned my confidence. I was certain that they knew how to conduct themselves in this setting, and, they never wandered out of my site for more than twenty minutes. In one of their disaggregated saunters, I happened into a close orbit of two of the fellows. I don't think they knew I was near, I'm sure they didn't suspect I was within earshot. One of the fellows told the other, something very much like, "I thought this day was going to be awful. It was great".
We visited the gift shop, crowded with Hudson Middle schoolers, climbed on the buses, and returned home.
It was a great day. One of my top ten in the "classroom".