Training Log Archive: barb

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.

Here is the plan for Monday. I simplified it from the original plan, thanks to an astute comment from Cristina about "Barb's mind" making things a little too complicated.

There will be 5 groups of 12-15 7th grade students. Over the course of the day, the groups earn points, and the group with the most points gets something nice on the following day's field trip to Canobie Lake.

1. Score-O on school grounds in teams of 3, after a short video introduction and relatively little instruction about maps. Just get them out running around as soon as possible. In a twist, the team members will be connected to each other using flagging tape to emphasize that they need to stay together. This is something the NCDS teachers came up with. It was not loved by the NCDS students, but I think it makes the point quite strongly.


2. Break while the kids attend "Specials" - I believe Specials are classes in music, art, language and the like. During this time the staff and chaperones can check in about the rest of the day and any adjustments that need to be made.


3. Groups rotate among 5 learning stations (distance estimation, map symbols, Grid-O, Maze-O, white course)


4. Lunch


5. 45-minute score-O at Fresh Pond in teams of 3

C • Barb's mind 2

I set out a series of maps; one map led to the next. Finally, there was a treasure. Snack.

These boys can't read maps.
Also, they disperse quickly.
Fortunately, Vince runs really fast.

I started off the first lesson this spring trying to do some simple tabletop exercises about map reading. But they were too high energy to pay attention, and I don't have the teacher chops to get them to focus.

Marina & Vince were there to help with teaching, and Mrs Carr too. Mrs Carr: kudos to Mrs Carr; she really was a trooper through this class. Vince was fairly talkative with me about the orienteering at the sprint camp. Which is good. He wishes he could follow Isak through thw woods to see what that would be like. Um. Not sure how to make that happen, but it's a nice idea. The IS champs kids did that early on in our crazy month-o-training.

I'm looking forward to talking with Kathleen on Saturday about orienteering + kids.

C • Those boys 2

Isak's track team qualified for Nationals, and they need a little more money to get to the meet in Greensboro this weekend.
Here is the fundraiser link.
Help them out if you can. Money is a major issue for a couple of these guys, and has been a source of stress in planning this trip. Danny (on the right in this photo) is going to be in the Mayor's Program orienteering project this summer, so you will be helping a couple of orienteers. And Isak has given a ton to orienteering USA - let's give him some love!

We only need about $1400 total because the coach is pitching in some money and we found a cheap hotel and a free shuttle to the meet. Any more than that will help pay for food and excess will be donated back into the CRLS track team fund. Right now we're at about $1000.

UDPATE: we have enough money thanks to the coach promising to find some money in the school budget. Thanks all! Any excess we have will go to the school to reduce the amount the coach has to put in.

Met with the VLUS 7th grade teaching staff to do further planning for the orienteering day on Monday. I wonder if Cristina will still be around on Monday.

Spent some time in preparation.

C • Yes 2

Last classes at Rindge Ave / Peabody / Haskell Park.

It was back to the small park for this class; I learned my lesson last week. I learned it very well.

I told a pseudo story about the Sand People and the Water People, then divided the park up into Sand Land and Water Land, and asked who wanted to be where. Everyone wanted to be in Water Land (where the playground happens to be) except brave Leo. I had them hang controls and then go find controls, and then just play in the park.

Older kids: had them make a map, and put some of the controls on it.
Liam told me that he liked the class (he's the one whose affect is difficult to read). Blessing continued to show her map abilities. And Saron made an amazing map. Hopefully I'll find it and show you sometime.

Cristina and Lukas helped!

Last class at Dana Park with the Amigos / Upton St CS kids.

Individual race to seed the relay. Finish/handoff chute. Kinda worked.