Farmcraft with the students from Topeka was a blast! The students were well behaved, and perhaps more importantly, very interested in what I was teaching them. They were super eager to do the hands-on activities, but patiently waited their turn. I felt like I had really done a good job in asking them questions to get them to think about each station, and they had a lot of great questions for me in return.
One thing that was very interesting to me was how differently these third graders interacted with the animals compared to the first graders that I worked with while shadowing Mary. The first graders were totally entranced by just looking at the animals and getting to pet and feed a couple of them. The third graders on the other hand quickly became bored with them if they were not able to pet or feed them. Thank goodness Carol and/or Lisa had told us how much the goats enjoy cottonwood leaves and twigs, otherwise I might have been at a total loss for what to do for the ten minutes after we had talked about the animals and what they do for us. I guess that's just a good thing to keep in mind as we lead different age groups through the stations.
Things went much differently with the home schoolers in the What's Buggin You program. I ended up with 7 and 8 year olds, which translates to 1st and 2nd graders I think. Don't get me wrong, these were great kids; very bright and interested in nature. The big difference just seemed to be their ability to focus on insects specifically, and to follow my directions. As we walked along the trail, they were constantly pointing out cool trees and fungi and birds and animal tracks and everything but bugs! At this point I wasn't sure if I should try to reel them back into the focus on insects, or just roll with it and foster that sense of wonder with alternate subject matter. My indecisiveness at this point may have actually been what cost me authority throughout the rest of the day.
I guess the biggest question I have coming out of this day is, was the lack of focus in my group a product of my inexperience with behavioral management, or are home schooled children just not as used to focusing on one topic and following the directions of someone other than their parents? Ah, the evolution of Teacher Tom continues...
Your final paragraph touches on what seems to be a common note with our entire group. I'm glad to see that we're all learning from our teaching experiences, and trying to reflect and figure out why things are the way they are, and how we might alter our practices a bit and try other things. It's a great opportunity to work with so many different groups on different days, and really allows us to find our teaching mojo. I'm still not sure where mine is, so I'm glad to have another month (9 months?) to find it.
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