Teachers at the Center

Hello everyone, this is Marie again. Last week I talked some about field trips to the Eastern 4-H Center that students can take. This week I am going to focus more on the teachers. I may be a new teacher since I recently graduated, but I have been around the education system my entire life because my mom is a high school math teacher. Each day after school I would go to my mom's room and wait for her to finish tutoring, planning lessons, or whatever she might have to do. In that time, I also met and became fairly close to many of the other teachers that she works with. My sister and I would always help several of the teachers set up their classrooms at the beginning of the year while the teachers would stay busy with the hundreds of other things they would have to do. Anyone that knows a teacher or that is a teacher realizes that the majority of teachers love their job and for the most part enjoys it, but they also realize that it is a very stressful job. My mom has been teaching for almost thirty years and she still stays at school everyday until at least 5 o'clock and then she comes home and grades papers. What better way to help reduce some of that stress then to come here and stay for a weekend! Teachers have to complete so many workshops over a certain number of years so, why not have one of those workshops in a conference center like this one where you could spend you free time from the workshop rock climbing, or testing yourself on the hi-ropes course?

Last week we had a group of leaders, several of which were principals from Wilson, NC. These leaders completed the teambuilding activities as well as the hi-ropes course. Some of the principals kept commenting on how great it would be if there teachers knew all the teambuilding activities that they were shown. Well then, why not have a group of teachers come and learn some of these teambuilding activities?! They could learn how to show their students ways to properly communicate with each other, to show leadership, and to make the students more comfortable and trusting around each other. These teambuilding strategies can be changed from simple activities to more advanced ones for older students.

This Center could also be used as an orientation for new teachers. The activities that we can provide here would give new teachers more leadership confidence as well as overall confidence in themselves to step out of their comfort zone and try something new. They can then take that confidence back to the classroom and be a better teacher by trying new lessons that will make the students think more and learn more. I have been working here for the past two summers and I have learned a lot about teambuilding activities. I feel that any teacher that comes here to try and learn something new about teambuilding will walk away with a positive way to bring their students closer together through communication and trust.

Have a great day everyone…