Christopher Newport Lesson......

When we came to class to do our science lesson last semester, the students were always REALLY excited to see us. They couldn't wait to see what we were going to teach them, which was really fun. I liked being the cool teacher that the students couldn't wait to see. This semester has been somewhat different. We weren't getting groans or anything, but with each explorer lesson, the students seemed less excited about us being there. With this lesson I wanted to fix that, so I put a lot of effort into making it interesting and fun, as well as educational for the students.

There is surprisingly little information about Christopher Newport himself. Most of the information seems to focus more on Jamestown than on Newport. So I tried to blend the two together in my lesson, which was probably a good thing anyway since probably the most important thing to know about Newport is that he founded Jamestown and that it was the first permanent English settlement. The kids had demonstrated on the preassessment that they knew very little about Christopher Newport, and since we only had an hour to teach about him, I settled on another direct instruction lesson. This time, though, I wanted to get the kids more involved, so I decided to have them imagine they were on the ship with Christopher Newport on his journey to found the new colony. They didn't seem to be getting into it at all, so when I passed out the "sea-biscuits"-- examples of the food sailors really ate (which are just flour and water baked for an hour), I totally lost them. The sea biscuits didn't taste good, which was the point of having the kids taste them and imagine eating that for four months, but instead of cementing an understanding of the life of a colonist travelling to america, I ended up with kids running to the trashcan to spit them out, asking if they coudl go get water to rinse out their mouths, one little girl who took a tiny nibble complaining about her stomach hurting, and one kid in the back continually asking for more. It was chaos. M said kids at one tablegroup were throwing them at eachother. This was definitely not a good start, and when we moved on to the online Jamestown simulation I had planned, things got worse. The kids could not settle down, and I kept tryign to yell over them to be quiet and raise their hands, but they ignored me. Instead of getting the idea I had hoped they would understand from the simulation, they focused on building the biggest fort and killing all the native americans. It was a disaster. As soon as I finished teaching and their teacher took charge, she lectured them for being so rude and had them sit silently until they had to leave for specials.

When I talked to her about it, she said that she has the same problem with this particular group of kids-- that they get overly excited with anything fun or different and that she has to be really strict with them. I definitely failed in that area. I realized later that I was kind of in babysitter mode, which is a much different kind of relationship. I wanted to be the nice one, so I tried to gain control without being strict or punishing them. But instead of listening, they walked all over me. That is definitely going to be a challenge for me, because it is not my natural inclination. I also felt better that at least the lesson itself wasn't a total bomb, it was more about my classroom management skills. Hopefully the next time I end up teaching a lesson on Newport or Jamestown, I will be much more capable of managing behavior since I've had this experience.