Note: All last names, home towns, and schools of students were not included in order to protect the privacy of the students.
Original Post 17 July 2011:
Afterwards:
Here are the pictures from our day at McWane Center: Pictures!
I was so proud that the teens were excited to be there and learn! I was excited to hear that they were having a good time. Emily stated: "It was so weird and slimy. The sting ray was just slimy but the shark felt so weird" when referring to petting the baby hammer head sharks and the sting rays. Jared stated "This is the coolest thing I have ever seen! I love this thing! I want one at home!" when we was at the Spin Browser exhibit. I did get tired quickly when running up and down stairs either following the teens or searching for the teens and I realized that my job was cut out for me! Early in the trip (within 45 minutes)I was already tired from chasing after them and monitoring behavior. I did not realize how much like little children could act like, but I suppose it's always good to remember that they are still children.
I feel like by allowing teenagers to misbehave in an environment that caters to mischief was very eye opening for me. I have been watching over my nieces and nephews for years and have dealt with them in a somewhat academic setting (tutoring them and helping them with homework after school), but in a public setting their behavior was more wild and sporadic. I had a difficult time keeping up with them because they had a tendency to split up and wander off (and these kids are fast!). Luckily, this environment was somewhat safe for them to wander off in and mischief was embraced as a good thing.
However, teenage mischief is a little different from academic mischief. I was not surprised by the skate shop stickers or the food, but I was surprised to how easy it was for teenagers to get completely out of control. It was frustrating attempting to keep up with all of them (especially my nephew and his girlfriend, who found every chance they could to slip away from me), but I did learn a lot about how to handle misbehavior, particularly in public. I also certainly understand why so many chaperones are needed for school field trips!
The Top Ten Things I Learned from this experience include:
1. Ground rules, expectations, and consequences should always be laid out before hand. Whether in the classroom or out in a field trip children need to know what is appropriate and inappropriate. Ground rules are important because it gives them a guideline of behavior. Without rules there is nothing but chaos, especially with adolescents and teenagers. They also need to understand what would happen if they break the ground rules. Children also need to know what is expected of them inside and outside of the classroom.
2. It is exceptionally important to be firm with these rules. If a teacher is not firm the students do not take him/ her seriously. This crumbles your classroom management plan.
3. Bad behavior should be addressed immediately. If it is not addressed immediately the bad behavior will persist.
4.In order to manage misbehavior effectively is to travel around the environment frequently. In the case of the McWane Center I found myself constantly following the teens to make sure they did not do themselves or others any (more) harm.
5.Especially outside of the classroom that the teacher needs to be extremely alert for misbehavior. When the teacher is unaware of what is going on children can get hurt, and will.
6.When traveling with students the teacher should always walk either in the middle or back of the group to observe behavior.
7. Students will typically always be tardy or running behind, as a teacher I need to prepare for that by having a back up plan, and a back up plan for my back up plan!
8. Plans always change or go downhill, always have a back up plan.
9. Separate students that are misbehaving together.
10. Always be patient, kind, and level headed around students- or they will never take you seriously! But this also means that you must be firm and aggressive to managing misbehavior.
I learned a lot more than that, obviously. But to list every single thing I learned would take more than just one blog post. I plan to implement the experience into my classroom rules and expectations in order to have a balanced classroom environment.
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