Training Log Archive: barb

The Prellners prepared a Midsummers dinner and celebration for us which included the singing of schnapps-drinking songs, and a bunch of pickled fish. It was excellent. They are happy to have Isak back, and we are sad to be saying goodbye. On to the next adventures!

My next adventure, I guess, is the 6-week orienteering program.

I will announce here that day-to-day operation of the program will be led by ETHAN CHILDS.

How awesome is that?

Ethan will receive a stipend from the city of Cambridge grant for the program, and room & board from us.

We received the list of participants on Wednesday. 3 kids from the IS team, a boy who has been helping me teach one of the classes, another CRLS grad who heads to Harvard in the fall, another CRLS track team member, and 4 teens I do not know yet. Plus we'll have Maggie Waters and hopefully Ethan Hall as volunteers.

C • how awesome? 8

Talked to the 8th grade teachers about the fall program. Similar to last year, but I want to think about how to change the learning portion.

Attended the intro session for employers and met the counselor who will work with our 6-week, 20 hour/week summer orienteering program.

Isak's family arrived.

(I'm including today's prep time. I don't consistently log this orienteering teaching, sadly)

Today was the first time we worked with VLUS' 7th grade. I had awesome helpers: 5 parents, Cristina, Melissa, Lukas, Isak, Walter, Marina, Leah. People really turn out to help for these things; I couldn't do it alone, and it makes a difference. Leah recruited Mary-Ann (a parent) to be the head parent/chaperone wrangler in the fall.

There were 3 section to the day, with breaks of about an hour in between (during which time the students had other classes or lunch, and we checked in with the teachers and set up for the next thing). The first section was a score-O on the school. Then learning stations for 1:40, rotating between 5 stations every 20 minutes. Then a score-O at Fresh Pond.

It was hot in the sun and the kids were fading during the mid-day learning stations. Cristina and Melissa were running the Maze-O; Cristina said that the kids in later groups seemed to "get it" more about orienting the map, which would speak to them having learned in previous sessions (particularly Grid-O and the Symbols/Map Orienting station). On the other hand, they were more tired and less interested in running more than one course.

The teams had only 34 minutes at Fresh Pond, but 7 out of 25 teams hit every control! There were 15 controls spread out all over the map.

I left before the Fresh Pond orienteering started, but Isak took over, wore the hat, and got the teams started. There were a couple students who did not wish to participate, and the teachers allowed them to sit out, waiting near the start. Isak saw them, and soon after the other teams started, he spoke to them in his commanding voice, telling them to get up right now and look at the map with him. He has used that commanding voice on me at least once and it is not something you can argue with. (He made me go running when I was wavering.) They looked at the map together, and took 3 controls. The boy was pretty good at navigating. The girl was afraid of dogs, and they dealt with that a lot - there are a lot of dogs at Fresh Pond. Isak is great. Leave no child behind.

Supporters of Navigation Games' latest fundraiser, take note:

Esu about to run mile

Update: the guys did not have great races in NC, but they really got a lot out of being there and competing at a higher level. Esu had been in the hospital earlier in the week, and Isak was fighting off a cold. The races they ran at regionals were much faster and would have been a great result at nationals. They all were glad they got the chance to go, and also developed deeper friendships with each other and with Brianna who also went (separately funded); she is a rising star and a great person. They also got to spend time with the track & field coach Carmelle from CRLS, whom they did not know well because they don't work with her regularly.

Julia ran 58:04 first leg Venla (387/1348), and Isabel 1:00:43 (282/1304). Nice work, ladies!
Can't wait to hear the details.

Had a good conversation with Kathleen Lennon about expanding the number of children who orienteer, and what Navigation Games and QOC have done. QOC made a deliberate decision a few years ago to focus on families, as opposed to just having old timers setting courses for old timers every event. Sounds like it is paying off with more families, and also adventure racers, participating. QOC also made an effort to get orienteering into schools via the Physical Education department, but found it hard; the PE department already has their curriculum in place.

For those who are not fully aware and are curious, here is a recap of Navigation Games:

When the kids were in preschool, Bill and I did a little orienteering outing with Tot Lot. Isabel's first grade teacher Linda Fobes encouraged parents to bring their passion into the classroom; she was really welcoming and it resulted in a rich experience for the kids. I brought orienteering, of course, and the teacher worked with me so that there were several activities over the year. I started out using a set of lesson plans from USGS about a girl who goes up in a balloon at an amusement park, and looks down to see all the things from above. At the time, ack, I am spacing on the name of the orienteer from NEOC, a woman who was a Harvard research in entymology, what was her name? Ack. Brain. Anyway, she welcomed the class at Harvard and gave them a presentation about insects, and the class learned about all sorts of maps, and it all culminated in a trip to Harbor Islands for orienteering (bad George's Island map made by me) and some citizen science (bug catching and identification).

I continued working with Linda for several years until she retired, and she also recommended me to other teachers. As a result, the grade 7/8 team and I created an orienteering team-building experience (team score-O with various twists) that was held each fall for several years until the schools were reworked and there was no longer a Graham and Parks junior high. I had helped Jeff Saeger with a junior high trip to Boojum Rock and used some of what I learned from him. I also started working with Julia Bishop at the Morse school, and have been working with both 5th grade classes there for several years. In all those cases, there are several opportunities to learn skills and practice them, and then there is a final trip to the woods for a team score-O plus an optional white course.

The past few years things have started to snowball, and there have been far more opportunities to teach than I can handle. Here is some of what has been happening:

Julia got me a gig last year at Girls Sports Day, and this year orienteering was elevated to the feature sport. This means, if we can keep it going, that EVERY SINGLE PUBLIC SCHOOL GIRL in Cambridge will have orienteered at least once. Why I love this: last year I set out the crazy goal for Navigation Games of getting every kid in Cambridge to orienteer. Suddenly, a year later, we have a mechanism to make it happen, at least for the girls. Sometimes when you give voice to a wild idea, it starts to happen.

A parent I've worked with (she chaperoned many of the orienteering trips) connected me with the 8th grade at Vassal Lane, and we have a program there every fall now. Starting tomorrow we will have a program at the 7th grade there - with some of the teachers I used to work with at Graham and Parks.

Dave and I, with Isak's help, created the Guerrilla Orienteering events: we just showed up at parks in Cambridge on Sunday mornings (getting permits for the ones we needed to get permits for, of course), having advertised on local parents lists, and introduced the sport to passers-by and a few people who had heard about it. Super easy to put on, and we definitely raised awareness.

I started teaching Community School classes. Community Schools in Cambridge are programs at most public schools providing after school enrichment classes. Each class meets once a week, and there are all types of classes. There are two class periods each afternoon at each school, with many classes offered. It was an easy way to provide orienteering classes, because the structure was already there. I didn't have to deal with advertising or registration, and they provided me with staff to help with kid-wrangling. Last spring we went all out with several teachers, but I couldn't manage all that easily, and contracted to just 4 classes/week that I taught (with the help of Marina and other occasional helpers), this spring.

Summer programs - I've done orienteering at one of the Community School summer camps; at the COMPASS program (a Linda Fobes connection); and I somehow got connected with a program in Roxbury one year that involved orienteering on Thompson Island. I'm sure there are many other opportunities to drop into summer camps in the area and provide orienteering education.

I also taught in-school classes at a local school - that's where the IS Champs middle school team came from.

Then there was the IS champs team: the month of training followed by remarkable success at the event.

So - with all this activity and with me still working full time at a different job, I wanted to find others to help. I had approached NEOC board a few years ago with a concrete proposal to start a kids' program based in collaboration with another successful program, but the board felt this was not in NEOC's core mission, and felt unprepared to get into the business of paying people, along with other concerns. To build a strong sustainable program, we were going to need to pay people, and have other institutional support, and it became clear to me that this would need to be done, for now, outside of NEOC. CSU actually has a very good example in their ski education program for kids that Alex is part of - but that is outside of orienteering. Anyway, it seemed that creating our own organization for now was the way to go, and if it is successful, I hope it can be folded into a future NEOC or OUSA or other umbrella organization. I'd love to see all OUSA clubs have a strong junior development section, with paid staff. They would run workshops for teachers, make sure resources (maps, equipment) were available for local schools and organizations, and provide support for local interscholastic leagues.

Navigation Games has gotten a slow start on the business side, because I'm just too busy with my regular job plus handling the current orienteering teaching opportunities. I haven't stepped back and really worked on the organizational stuff, but that's OK - slow is OK. We did file and get 501(c)3 status, and that's big.

Themes:

Organic - this has been many years in the making, with opportunities coming via word of mouth from key champions in the school system.

Fun. I want kids to associate orienteering with having fun. I don't need them to become excellent orienteers. I don't need them to even learn how to read a map well. I just want them to see the control flag and have an instant positive reaction. Then when they come across orienteering later, they will be inclined to take it up again and encourage their friends as well.

Team. A lot of the programs involve kids working on teams. Some of the programs are about team-building, with orienteering as the mechanism. (If you aren't aware of the work that Mary Jo and Carl do at Dartmouth in the summers - it's really cool, and I encourage you to find out more - very much about team-building with orienteering only as the means.) Kids orienteering in teams is safer, and less scary. They don't all need to be good at orienteering or understand what to do, they are just out there having FUN with other kids in the woods or the park. That's fine.

Focus on local; it is way too early to worry about getting people to local and national meets. I think one of the concerns from the NEOC board when they were considering the proposal to start a kids program was that they were dubious this would translate into NEOC members in the future. To me, this is wrong-headed. First of all, to grow orienteering in this country, we need to build a broad base of orienteers, we need to start with kids and families, and we need to stop worrying about immediately translating kids' programs into a stronger WOC team. From my perspective, getting kids orienteering in a local park, as part of a school program, is an end in itself. I have gotten kids outside, gotten them to run around, enjoy nature, laugh with their friends. Of course I will make parents and teachers aware that there is a channel to pursue orienteering for those interested in more, at local meets, and beyond.

Having said that, I point out that I brought two teams of Cambridge kids to a national meet in Ohio this spring - and I have gotten a few kids to local and other national meets. So there you go. But I think the more sustainable and lasting approach is to get every kid in a city exposed to orienteering, and then with that broad base, you provide the club, regional and national level opportunities for the few who are interested in more. To demand instant translation from a few kids orienteering in a couple little school programs, to OUSA club members, within a couple of years, is missing the point - for that you need to wait, you need to build the programs over many years and build the numbers.

Everyone. I love school programs because I can capture every single kid. The afterschool programs are OK - but now you are starting to self-select, and get kids whose parents can afford to put them in these classes.

Building awareness. Lately, when I do a program, there are often kids who have orienteered with me before. At Girls Sports Day, there were maybe 30 girls out of the 200 who had orienteered, either in the COMPASS program, or in 1st/2nd grade, or in the 5th grade. That's powerful, because it seeds the groups with kids who are confident and know that they had fun last time they did it. It builds this snowball of awareness.

Just doing the guerilla O, or holding afterschool classes in the park with the distinctive orange and white flags, builds awareness. Katia told me that there was a passer-by at the Boston Sprint Camp, at the Dana Park micro-O, who mentioned that he sees kids learning about maps with this activity frequently at the park. So even people who are not participating are starting to see it.