My Favorite Week of the School Year

This week started with me donning my rainbow alpaca sweatshirt, Donald Duck hat, and argyle glasses to head to Camp Seymour with my students. It was a crazy run up to the trip, with different challenges to overcome than I had dealt with before and the promise of very wet weather.

But as always, it was an amazing trip.

Camp Seymour naturalists have been working hard in the off season to refine their Outdoor Environmental Education classes to better align with both the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. It was awesome to see the same classes I have seen taught at least ten times cover the same material but with a much more hands on, student driven inquiry bent to them.  Since this is exactly what I will need to do with my own lessons, it was perfect modeling for me to see how to tweak lessons to keep the content the same but allow student questions to guide the instruction. Nearly every class began with an object or item and student time in a small group or pair to develop "I wonder" statements.  Students were then asked to state what they noticed or observed, which can be tricky when they want to state what they know from prior learning. Finally, they are asked to make claims supported by evidence. I saw the intentional use of standards in each activity. Every class was more collaborative and more hands on than before - and they were already all fairly high on the collaboration and hands on metrics. The student driven inquiry and necessity for cooperation was so high that I actually had a cabin leader ask if Camp Seymour was working to align their curricula with the International Baccalaureate framework!

During our time there I watched kids stretch themselves beyond where they thought they could in big and small ways. For one student, just being there was beyond what she had thought she could do.  And she ended up loving it. For others it was getting on a canoe or dissecting a squid or holding a snake. For some, it was dealing with their cabin mates for two nights. Every student accomplished something he or she thought was not going to be possible at the outset. They all learned that they are tougher than they thought.

Relationships evolved too. At our closing prayer ceremony, one student stated she learned that you can get through a fight with your friends just by continuing to be around them, and even if you get really mad, it does not have to end the friendship.

I know that teachers build classroom community all around the world, every year without an experience like this one in the fall. But I also know there is no way to build relationship with your class faster than to take them slightly outside of their comfort zone and prove to them that they could do everything you said they could all along. Welcome to fifth grade!