So when the local homeschool group that I belong to planned a field trip to the zoo, I was excited to join in. The kids would get to hang out with other school-age kids, and we would get to explore the zoo together. Win-win!
Except that's not exactly how it worked out. I had never been on a field trip before (unless you count my own school days, eons ago, which I can barely remember now), so I didn't quite know what to expect. There was not too much exploring. Our day was planned, almost to the minute, and filled with "educational" experiences. Not too much hanging out, either. The only time the kids had to play and interact with each other was after lunch when they all raced off to the playground together. Unfortunately, we were scheduled to ride the train right after lunch, so playtime lasted all of about 7 minutes. It was still a fun day, just a lot different than I expected. To me, the day felt like school at the zoo. Which I suppose is what any field trip really is - school at some location other than school. I just didn't realize that until we got there.
The real problem I had, however, was with the "educational program" that we participated in. For $2 per kid, a zoo employee gives a little talk as they take us around to see a few of the animals. Sounds good in theory, right? The kids get to learn a bit more about the animals than they might from just looking at them. So we signed up for the a program that was all about the food chain. As soon as we met the leader of the program, she took one look at my kids and told me that they wouldn't understand her talk because they were too little. She didn't ask how old they were, she didn't talk to them, she didn't enquire about their prior knowledge on the topic. She just assumed that they wouldn't get it. I was a little ticked off, but I just told her not to worry about them and to go on with the talk. If they wanted to listen, they could. So she began. And she talked to the kids like they were deaf. Honestly, I've never seen someone talk so slowly, and annunciate so deliberately, to a group of kids. Perhaps she thought that if she talked slow enough, my not-so-bright kids might have a chance of understanding? I don't know.
And then it got worse. A big part of her talk involved kid volunteers reading off laminated cards about different parts of the food chain. Of course, Ella put up her little hand every time. The leader had to acknowledge her, since not too many other kids wanted to read at that point. She looked at Ella and said, "Are you sure you can read this? There are some really hard words." What I thought was, Are you kidding me? A kid who is probably fairly new to reading is volunteering to do it in front of a crowd and your reaction is to tell her that she won't be able to do it? What I said was, "She can do it, just let her try." So Ella went up to the front and started to read aloud. It was about grass, so when Ella came to the word "chlorophyll," she stopped and said she couldn't do it. Well, of course. She had just been told she wouldn't be able to do it. The leader sweetly said, "How about your mom comes up to read with you?" So I joined Ella up at the front and read aloud all the words she refused to read. The frustrating thing was that I know if she had been reading that paragraph on her own, she would have read all the words. She may have mispronounced a couple, but at least she would have tried instead of just shutting down. It makes me sad that this was her first experience reading aloud in front of peers.
It got me thinking, though. How many kids at school have the same type of experience with reading aloud? It can be a daunting task, especially when you are young and new to reading. It seems to me that an adult in this situation should encourage the child, rather than discourage. (Of course, there are some great teachers out there who would do just that, but I'm sure there are also some "less great" teachers, too.) Another thing it made me realize was that this woman, who assumed Ella wouldn't be able to read this particular paragraph, just witnessed Ella not being able to read it. She probably thinks that she was correct in her judgement of Ella. Of course, I know differently. I know how well Ella can read because I get to witness it every day. No big deal for us. However, what about all those kids at school who are plunked into the "remedial" reading group simply because of the way they read aloud? I don't have any stats on this, but I bet there are a lot of kids whose skills are not truly known by their teachers. And why does it matter? Well, I have actually read (in one of the many books that I have read about school, though I don't remember which one) that kids who are in the lower reading group in early elementary school are worse off for their whole school career, and beyond. Scary.
Now, I do realize that the leader of this program was probably trying to be helpful by warning me that my kids are younger than other participants, and by warning Ella of the difficulty of the paragraph. However, the message she was sending was that Ella would not be able do the task, because of her perceived age and assumed reading level. And Ella received that message loud and clear. The lady told me I wouldn't be able to read these hard words, and that mom would need to do it for me, so I'm not going to bother trying. If the leader had concerns, perhaps she could have asked me beforehand about Ella's age, her reading level, and her knowledge of the topic. I could have told her that Ella reads at least as well as the average 3rd grader, and that she knows a fair bit about animals from the countless books she gets from the library.
Regardless, both Ella and Liam learned a fair bit from her presentation. They walked around the zoo afterwards talking about herbivores, omnivores and carnivores. They discussed which category humans fell into, and what we eat. Pretty good for a couple of kids who couldn't understand because they were too little.
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