What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

Two weeks ago the third grade took a field trip to The City Museum (CM) in St. Louis. Looking at the pictures on the website of the museum really doesn’t do the museum justice and it is just as difficult to describe. It is an amazing place.

As I blogged earlier, I was a little nervous about this trip for several reasons. One, I had never been to the CM before. I had heard from many people how great it is but I never actually been there. This of course is a huge unknown for someone who is in charge of a group of 23 youngsters. Two, this was a long trip. By bus the trip was at about two hours one way, therefore we would be arriving back at school after school was out which would mean that parents would have to pick up their children. That is fine, and everyone was there when they should have been but it can be such a mad house and trying to make sure that each child leaves with an authorized adult can be quite a task. Three, the CM isn’t a group activity kind of museum. It is designed for children to explore, without the hindrance of an adult. That of course means that I can exercise less control over the little ones. Thankful this group of kids is the sweetest and more dependable group of kids that I have had the pleasure of working with. But still…

I had recruited three dependable parents to go with me on the trip to help supervise a group of students. I took the students in my class who where most likely cause trouble with me, and Charles who was visiting us from the fourth grade. We arrived at the museum and established meeting times and places and each group of children went out and into the museum. The first thing that the kids wanted to do was the two story slide which was just the first in a day full of hurtles of trying to keep the group together. To get to the slide you had to stand on this grate in which you could see down through. The ground was of course two stories below. Halfway to the slide out in the middle of this grate, I discovered something interesting about one of my students that I didn’t know, I learned that Nate was afraid of heights. So picture this, me and my group including Nate are out on this grate waiting in line to go down the slide. We had been standing there for about a minute and then Nate thinks to look down and notices that he can see through the grate to the ground two stories below. Doing what comes naturally to a person who fear heights in this situation, he screams and starts hugging the wall and then repeating over and over again, “Mr. W I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t like this.” Within seconds he was clinging to the wall. About 75% of the time I am able to talk kids out of hysterical states, but Nate was having none of that. It is to bad too because I wanted to go down the slide. I had to pick up Nate and carry him back to solid ground.

After gathering the group back together, we headed into the main exhibit area. This area is the one pictured at the top of the CM web page. Basically it has a bazillion different little holes, tunnels, and hidden paths. The group wanted to crawl up the slinkies to the tunnels hanging from the roof. More heights so Nate decided to stay with me. From our vantage point on the floor, I couldn’t see where the tunnels lead and when the group returned, of course two of them were missing. Increase nervousness. By now Nate and I were quite a pair of nerve.

Thankfully it got better for me when I lightened up. Soon I was crawling, or probably a better description would be trying to crawl through a few tunnels and tight spots myself. I will never forget when I was crawling through a tree right over one of the parents that came with us. I could here her telling one of her kids to find Mr. W and I yelled down to get her attention. She looked around not finding me but the student she was talking to saw me and said, “Oh there he is,” as he pointed up and walked off to meet me. The parent looked up and I waved down, “Well there he is.” The look on her face was classic, however, Mr. W doing something kooky like that was second nature to the students. Funny.

Unfortunately Nate wouldn’t go into anything that was high off the ground, looked like a hole in the ground or was the slightest bit dark. We struck a deal that if I did something he would have to do it, unless it was really high off the ground. We had a few tense moments but he made it.

I was a little disappointed that two or three things were not open because of weather (MonstroCity) or closed for repair (Skateless Park), or we couldn’t visit because it costs more (The Enchanted Caves and the World Aquarium).

The kids had a blast and after I loosened up I had a great time as well.

Class dismissed!

PS I also thing that it would be kinda cool to live in one of the City Museum lofts too.