This past Wednesday, we went on a field trip to Camp Don Lee. The purpose of the trip was to build team unity and develop character. As a team, we decided to let our students choose their own groups of up to 15 kids and each teacher grabbed a group, with the help of a couple of parent volunteers (and a sub who picked the right day to accept!).
The kids were then tasked with games that were designed to be not only difficult, but needed team effort to accomplish the goal. As adults, we see this as fun and a great way to learn some life lessons, as kids... they saw this as a way to look foolish in front of friends and could not see any life purposes. I really enjoyed watching the dynamics of my group as they chose when and how hard to work to accomplish the task. My group had leaders and followers, athletes and readers (not that the two are or should be exclusive), males and females, and shy and outgoing kids. I saw some kids step up to take charge and others I thought should take charge stand back because they had failed on the first attempt. We forget as adults what it is like to be a pre-teen and teen. It is embarrassing when something does not go your way so many of the kids feel it is easier to not try than to try and fail. This is the same with classroom tests. The benchmarks for Language Arts and Math recently took place and the results were disappointing. The Science ones have been decent, but still not where we would like the scores to be. This week we will have another Science Benchmark on Monday and hope we can keep the grades on the upward swing. I bring this up because kids in the classroom often brag about how low their scores are, I just do not understand this but last Wednesday gave me a small insight as to why. If they do not feel comfortable with their knowledge, it is easier to make it seem like they do not understand something than to try hard and fail. This was the case with the complicated tasks given to us at Don Lee and it is the same in the classroom. Kids do not like to fail. I see this also on the field with athletes. We reward participation and many kids and players expect playing time to be handed out evenly. Life is not like this, life is not fair. You get rewarded for working hard, succeeding more often than failing, and caring about what is placed in front of you. I saw a picture today on Facebook of a kid playing baseball and the motivational words stated that it is often the moments that mean the most that come from the person we least expect and that we will never know this unless we give them a shot. While I agree with the first part, players and students do not need to be "given a shot", then need to earn it. Hard work pays off either on field trips, on the field of play, or in the classroom. We can not give things away, they need to be earned. With all of that in mind, we did have some great food that was served family style on the field trip, so you can give me some more of that any day! Thanks for trusting me with your children. At HJ MacDonald, We are One Vision, One School, One Squad!!! Happy Thanksgiving to all.
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September 2016
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