The Mall, fireworks and a brief account of Wed.
Note: I tried to post this several times yesterday, but the hotel internet connection was giving me fits.
Six months of trying to anticipate the unexpected and figure out just how we were going to keep our eyes on 32 ninth graders whilst trying to find a good spot to watch the show and help them enjoy the experience culminated yesterday evening. And it all worked out perfectly. Or as close to perfectly as real life gets.
We were eating dinner at the food-court at Pentagon City when fierce storms hit. The downpour was so torrential that it overwhelmed the storm drains, surprising us with a geyser of water shooting up several feet out of the floor in the middle of the food-court. From what we heard later, the violent weather may have been our best friend. Word on the street was that The Mall was packed tight, up until the weather turned, but DC police cleared the area just before the storm hit, evacuating inside as it were, into various Smithsonian buildings. Our guess is that lots of people who had staked out spots gave them up for good then, deciding to go home given the uncertain conditions. When we arrived sometime before 7PM, The Mall had plenty of open spots in prime viewing area. So we grabbed a spot, then relaxed for the next couple of hours. Our kids chilled out in typical ways: soccer and Frisbee, various card games, layin’ around on the grass and taking short explorative forays up and down The Mall. The storms had cut the humidity and cooled the temps into a very comfortable summer evening; wet ground was the only negative remnant and it wasn’t so wet as to keep us from sitting fairly comfortably on the lawn.
Two words to describe the fireworks: they rocked. For the adults especially, a particular aesthetic pleasure was how the light show framed and illuminated the sky behind the Washington Monument, though I heard at least one kid ask something like, “Why did they do the fireworks behind that tall pointy thing?” I’m hoping he was joking…
One of the biggest unknowns as we tried to plan the evening was how we’d retreat from the fireworks back to our hotel. We were pretty sure our charter bus wasn’t the best option, so the only other feasible route was the Metro. As you know if you ridden the DC Metro before, it is a fantastic example of clean, reliable and user-friendly public transportation. But the July 4th crowd is super big, and by definition most of the people leave at the same time (unlike, say, the many marches and gatherings that might be as big but probably don’t end quite so abruptly). So it’s fair to say we felt a good bit of trepidation about shepherding our 32 charges through the crowd. We divided into four groups of eight students each, assigned to a specific chaperone and told to stick with that person NO MATTER WHAT. That way even if all thirty-six of us couldn’t stay in one pack given the crowd, surely nine of us could keep each other in sight. And that’s basically how it went. It happened to be my group (Nate, Dominic, Matt, Mitchell, Trevor, Steven, Nolan & Eduardo) that got separated from the others, but we stuck to each other like the proverbial “white on rice.” It was pretty cool to watch the guys counting to make sure we hadn’t lost anyone every time we passed another point of possible separation; it didn’t feel like me herding eight boys but instead like nine of us looking out for each other – a good feeling for me as a teacher and I think a testament to the boys’ maturity. We thought we were woefully behind the others, since we started the trek bringing up the rear. But lo and behold my boys were so quick on their toes and helpful that we ended up first back at the rendezvous point (the others were only a couple minutes behind, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell all you parents the relief I felt when those last couple kids were safely counted). All in all, the night turned out to be a grand success from my perspective.
It will be interesting to hear feedback after the trip about the degree to which the night was “worth it” for the kids. I heard one student say today that the fireworks weren’t much more impressive than in Elkhart. If that’s the general consensus I’ll want to know, but I also recognize that trips like these tend to increase in meaning as the years go by. I recall that my classmates and I ended our high-school trip to DC unimpressed, but over the subsequent years I’ve been surprised how many seeds of interest were planted in those few hot & humid days. I expect that some of our kids will undergo the same experience – as they see the DC fireworks on TV in upcoming years and tell their friends and family, “I was there!” their appreciation of the event will grow.
And of course there’s the issue of trying to keep the kids happy, but at the same time not so happy that all we do is what they want... I’m typing this post at about 6:3oPM on Wednesday night, surrounded by at least eighteen TV screens here at ESPN Zone, while the kids are playing to their hearts’ content below in the game room. These are the same kids who managed to breeze through the Holocaust Museum (HM) earlier today in about thirty minutes. Not all of them, mind you, but even kids who otherwise might find such weighty topics interesting seemed to be “full-up,” too tired from lack of sleep and the busy schedule of the last couple days to give the HM more than a cursory glance. In retrospect, I’ve thought of some ways we might have slowed them down without turning it into an unpleasant power-struggle, but I knew going in that the HM was going to be a tough one for the kids to give its warranted attention. All that to say that just because kids are going to rate the ESPN Zone as more worthwhile than several of our stops doesn’t mean that it’s getting a permanent spot on possible future Concord trips. I recognize that we need a certain amount of “fun” events on the trip, but I’d prefer them to be unique to Washington DC, at the very least.
I should explain that tonight had been scheduled for a dinner & dance cruise on the Potomac, but Classic Tours was informed by the ship’s operating company last Friday that they didn’t have enough other schools signed up to warrant taking out the ship. So ESPN Zone was a last minute substitution forced by the circumstances.
The rest of today (Wednesday) went like this: We left our hotel somewhat later than yesterday and tomorrow’s schedule, leaving for Mount Vernon about 8:45AM. Our visit to Mount Vernon filled up the morning, and got mixed reviews amongst the students. Lunch was at the Reagan Building, and then we walked to the Washington Monument to ride up its fifty stories for some great views; this seemed to be universally enjoyed by the kids. It was while we were up in the Monument that the weather turned against us a bit, drenching several of our kids as they waited for the others to finish at the top. We then walked to the HM, where as I already wrote things didn’t “click” as I would have liked (maybe I’ll learn later that it made more of an impact; feedback from you parents will be particularly helpful). After that our trusty Classic Tours guide Bob took us to the Kennedy Center and the Jefferson Memorial. Then we came here to ESPN Zone for a dinner buffet and two to three hours of games. When we get back to the hotel tonight we’ll begin the packing up process so that we can check out when we leave the hotel tomorrow at 8AM.
And with that I think I better draw this post to a close; I need to get downstairs and see what all the excitement is about. I’ll put this post on the ‘net when we get back to the hotel later tonight.
next post
Six months of trying to anticipate the unexpected and figure out just how we were going to keep our eyes on 32 ninth graders whilst trying to find a good spot to watch the show and help them enjoy the experience culminated yesterday evening. And it all worked out perfectly. Or as close to perfectly as real life gets.
We were eating dinner at the food-court at Pentagon City when fierce storms hit. The downpour was so torrential that it overwhelmed the storm drains, surprising us with a geyser of water shooting up several feet out of the floor in the middle of the food-court. From what we heard later, the violent weather may have been our best friend. Word on the street was that The Mall was packed tight, up until the weather turned, but DC police cleared the area just before the storm hit, evacuating inside as it were, into various Smithsonian buildings. Our guess is that lots of people who had staked out spots gave them up for good then, deciding to go home given the uncertain conditions. When we arrived sometime before 7PM, The Mall had plenty of open spots in prime viewing area. So we grabbed a spot, then relaxed for the next couple of hours. Our kids chilled out in typical ways: soccer and Frisbee, various card games, layin’ around on the grass and taking short explorative forays up and down The Mall. The storms had cut the humidity and cooled the temps into a very comfortable summer evening; wet ground was the only negative remnant and it wasn’t so wet as to keep us from sitting fairly comfortably on the lawn.
Two words to describe the fireworks: they rocked. For the adults especially, a particular aesthetic pleasure was how the light show framed and illuminated the sky behind the Washington Monument, though I heard at least one kid ask something like, “Why did they do the fireworks behind that tall pointy thing?” I’m hoping he was joking…
One of the biggest unknowns as we tried to plan the evening was how we’d retreat from the fireworks back to our hotel. We were pretty sure our charter bus wasn’t the best option, so the only other feasible route was the Metro. As you know if you ridden the DC Metro before, it is a fantastic example of clean, reliable and user-friendly public transportation. But the July 4th crowd is super big, and by definition most of the people leave at the same time (unlike, say, the many marches and gatherings that might be as big but probably don’t end quite so abruptly). So it’s fair to say we felt a good bit of trepidation about shepherding our 32 charges through the crowd. We divided into four groups of eight students each, assigned to a specific chaperone and told to stick with that person NO MATTER WHAT. That way even if all thirty-six of us couldn’t stay in one pack given the crowd, surely nine of us could keep each other in sight. And that’s basically how it went. It happened to be my group (Nate, Dominic, Matt, Mitchell, Trevor, Steven, Nolan & Eduardo) that got separated from the others, but we stuck to each other like the proverbial “white on rice.” It was pretty cool to watch the guys counting to make sure we hadn’t lost anyone every time we passed another point of possible separation; it didn’t feel like me herding eight boys but instead like nine of us looking out for each other – a good feeling for me as a teacher and I think a testament to the boys’ maturity. We thought we were woefully behind the others, since we started the trek bringing up the rear. But lo and behold my boys were so quick on their toes and helpful that we ended up first back at the rendezvous point (the others were only a couple minutes behind, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell all you parents the relief I felt when those last couple kids were safely counted). All in all, the night turned out to be a grand success from my perspective.
It will be interesting to hear feedback after the trip about the degree to which the night was “worth it” for the kids. I heard one student say today that the fireworks weren’t much more impressive than in Elkhart. If that’s the general consensus I’ll want to know, but I also recognize that trips like these tend to increase in meaning as the years go by. I recall that my classmates and I ended our high-school trip to DC unimpressed, but over the subsequent years I’ve been surprised how many seeds of interest were planted in those few hot & humid days. I expect that some of our kids will undergo the same experience – as they see the DC fireworks on TV in upcoming years and tell their friends and family, “I was there!” their appreciation of the event will grow.
And of course there’s the issue of trying to keep the kids happy, but at the same time not so happy that all we do is what they want... I’m typing this post at about 6:3oPM on Wednesday night, surrounded by at least eighteen TV screens here at ESPN Zone, while the kids are playing to their hearts’ content below in the game room. These are the same kids who managed to breeze through the Holocaust Museum (HM) earlier today in about thirty minutes. Not all of them, mind you, but even kids who otherwise might find such weighty topics interesting seemed to be “full-up,” too tired from lack of sleep and the busy schedule of the last couple days to give the HM more than a cursory glance. In retrospect, I’ve thought of some ways we might have slowed them down without turning it into an unpleasant power-struggle, but I knew going in that the HM was going to be a tough one for the kids to give its warranted attention. All that to say that just because kids are going to rate the ESPN Zone as more worthwhile than several of our stops doesn’t mean that it’s getting a permanent spot on possible future Concord trips. I recognize that we need a certain amount of “fun” events on the trip, but I’d prefer them to be unique to Washington DC, at the very least.
I should explain that tonight had been scheduled for a dinner & dance cruise on the Potomac, but Classic Tours was informed by the ship’s operating company last Friday that they didn’t have enough other schools signed up to warrant taking out the ship. So ESPN Zone was a last minute substitution forced by the circumstances.
The rest of today (Wednesday) went like this: We left our hotel somewhat later than yesterday and tomorrow’s schedule, leaving for Mount Vernon about 8:45AM. Our visit to Mount Vernon filled up the morning, and got mixed reviews amongst the students. Lunch was at the Reagan Building, and then we walked to the Washington Monument to ride up its fifty stories for some great views; this seemed to be universally enjoyed by the kids. It was while we were up in the Monument that the weather turned against us a bit, drenching several of our kids as they waited for the others to finish at the top. We then walked to the HM, where as I already wrote things didn’t “click” as I would have liked (maybe I’ll learn later that it made more of an impact; feedback from you parents will be particularly helpful). After that our trusty Classic Tours guide Bob took us to the Kennedy Center and the Jefferson Memorial. Then we came here to ESPN Zone for a dinner buffet and two to three hours of games. When we get back to the hotel tonight we’ll begin the packing up process so that we can check out when we leave the hotel tomorrow at 8AM.
And with that I think I better draw this post to a close; I need to get downstairs and see what all the excitement is about. I’ll put this post on the ‘net when we get back to the hotel later tonight.
next post
posted by Cowells at 4:56 AM
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