Teaching
History Class
At
Triumph Expeditions
Shane Heath
Nathan Johnson
Shannon Shaner
HISTORY 2700
Dr. Mulderink
December 3, 2002
The title of our project was “Teaching History Class at Triumph Expeditions.” This is a youth home for troubled youth. The reason they are in this home are for various reasons. With each youth, the reason is different. We were asked by the employer that we not talk about the problems of these youth outside of the group home, but that they are serious enough to land themselves in this youth home. The three of us decided to do this project, because we all have had experience in working with troubled youth while attending college here.
We would first like to talk about the daily routine that these youth go through each and every day. This home is not so much a prison, but there are many reasons why someone might compare the two. The kids do not have a lot of privileges rather they earn them as they progress through the system. In doing our project the main focus was to go and teach them a History lesson, but we felt it would be of more service, to get to know the youth and their lifestyles as well. Each youth starts out at the same level, as they come to the group home. And they gradually move up in their levels, which in time will help them “graduate” from the program. Something we found really neat was that all of the youth can graduate from High School and earn their diploma while they are in this home. So the education program there is really on the ball.
Every youth wakes up at 7:00 am, every day. They each have their assigned chore for the day, so one room cooks the meals throughout that particular day. They go to school there on the campus from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, Monday through Friday. They all meet in the same classroom, with one teacher, who is an older lady. We could tell by the kids reactions that they would be excited (we hoped) to have a little change of pace, by us teaching them for a day. After school they do a variety of things, such things as: groups on their issues, work crew, P.E., special guest speakers, therapy lessons, and so on. After each meal they all have to do their chore, so the house is always clean. They all must go to bed at 9:30 pm every night. This may not have been the most interesting information, but as we said earlier it was also important for us, not to do just a one time thing, but to learn of the kids as well. We noticed by doing this we just might have helped them out for the few times we saw them, and that makes us feel like we accomplished more than just teaching them a History lesson.
Our project’s intended audience was of course these teenagers in this group home. There is also staff at the homes that also took part in helping with our service learning project. We will go into greater detail later in this paper about what we taught for our lesson. Hopefully these kids learned something from the three of us that they can take with them out into the “real” world, once they are released. As we talked with the various kids, it was good to find out that History was the favorite subject of the majority of the kids. This made it a lot better learning atmosphere for all of us. We realized from the time we spent with these kids, that there really were some very smart kids. They just made some bad decisions in their teen years that they now must pay for.
As we said earlier in our paper we all have had experience with working with troubled youth, so everything went smooth in finalizing the details on this project. Shannon knew one of the main people in charge of the home, so we worked through him most of the time. It was not difficult to set things up, as they were very cooperative with us.
It took a greater amount of workload than we first were expecting. We knew going in that it would not be easy, basically because we were going to work with “kids”. So the attention span might not be there all of the time, so it was important for us to make our lesson as simple as possible, but to make sure the kids are still learning something. The three of us got together, and brainstormed for about an hour, of different things we could teach these kids. We came up with doing just basic History ideas: States and Capitals. We all felt this is stuff that is important to know, and to give these kids a better understanding of their Country. The day which we were to teach was on November 8th, which was a Friday. We were informed that we would have about 1hour and 45 minutes to teach our lesson. So we came up with something that would last about that long. Since we were working with kids, we wanted to make it fun as well as a learning experience. We spent about 2 times a week for 4 weeks leading up to November 8th, on preparing our lesson. We divided out equally the different things we would teach among the three of us. We all had a part in teaching the lesson, and we worked together in presenting it. As we stated earlier we spent other days as well getting to know the kids and the employees. We don’t have the exact number of days we did this but it was probably about 4 or 5 days of doing this. With the total time that we spent on doing this project we spent a considerable amount of time for about a month and a half in preparing for this project as well as executing it.
We will now discuss exactly what we taught and how we went about doing it. The day that we taught we went at the very start of school. We had made sure before we came to teach that they had adequate History books, which they did. They contained a lot of information about various historical topics. We made sure to choose something to teach, that they could learn from their textbooks as well. The first thing that we did was have the kids list (together out loud) all 50 States from memory on the chalkboard, and to our surprise they got every single one. We taught for a majority of the time of the various 50 States and started to relay the Capitals that went with them. For most of the kids this was not a hard concept to learn, because most of them had a pretty good idea, there were 2 or 3 that struggled a little more. So we had them split into groups for about 20 minutes and study with one another the States and their Capitals. The three of us split up with these 2 or 3 that were struggling and helped them one on one. We then put their knowledge to the test! We handed out a “State and Capital Test” (which we will include in this report), to each student and told them to work on their own. We had prizes for those students who got 40 or more correct. We gave them about 15-20 minutes to complete this. We continued to help those three that were struggling a little bit, and they slowly did learn them on their own, so that was cool to see. After everyone was finished we graded them together and EVERYONE got 40 or more, there were even a few who got all fifty! Our prizes were mini candy bars, and they enjoyed this since they rarely had the privilege of having candy. It was neat to see how quick these kids could learn.
The State and Capital Test
List the State (1st) and then the Capital (2nd):
STATE-CAPITAL
1. 26.
2. 27.
3. 28.
4. 29.
5. 30.
6. 31.
7. 32.
8. 33.
9. 34.
10. 35.
11. 36.
12. 37.
13. 38.
14. 39.
15. 40.
16. 41.
17. 42.
18. 43.
19. 44.
20. 45.
21. 46.
22. 47.
23. 48.
24. 49.
25. 50.
After we were finished with this part of our lesson, some of the kids asked us various questions about our History knowledge. For the most part we felt like we did really well, in handling the questions. The teacher gave us about 30 minutes before we had to wrap up our lesson. We had one more activity planned which was kind of a relaxing activity. We felt this would be a really good way to end the lesson. We found a really cool trivia game that talks about each state (we will include this on the next page). We wanted to end on an upbeat kind of note, so this game would hopefully do that. We felt like it did. We split the 25 kids up into 5 groups. We gave each group a copy of this trivia game, and we told them to find the answers. There are 50 questions on this and each state would be used once. We let them use their textbooks to find the answers, but we were hoping that most of them would know some of them already. We also had a prize for the group that had the most right at the end of our designated time. The winning total ended up being thirty-five correct we think they would have got them all right, if we had more time.
They all seemed to enjoy this game and our lesson as a whole. The teacher thanked us, and was very appreciative of the time we took to spend with these kids to teach them this History lesson. It was not the most advanced History lesson, but we felt like it was something that would be important for these kids to learn. The students thanked us for coming and it was amazing how respectful they were while we taught them, and the respect they had for their teacher.
FUN TRIVIA!!!
1. What state is nicknamed the badger state?
2. What state is home to Mount Whitney the highest peak in all the lower 48 states?
3. Betsy Ross made the first American flag in this state?
4. What state could you stand anywhere in and be within 85 miles of one of the Great Lakes?
5. What state has never ratified the 18th? Amendment prohibition and was also the last of the 13 colonies to become a state?
6. What state was the first to design and fly the Confederate flag in 1861?
7. What state is home to the largest oil field in North America? Oil is also this states most valuable resource.
8. What state is home to the Grand Canyon National Park?
9. This state is officially known as "The Natural State"?
10. What state is the location of the United States Air Force Academy, located in Colorado Springs?
11. In what state may you not under any circumstances, cross the street walking on your hands?
12. What state was the first to ratify the Constitution on December 7, 1787?
13. What state is home to America's launch pad for space flights located in Cape Canaveral?
14. This state was named for King George II of England?
15. What is the only state that grows coffee?
16. What state is home to the deepest grove in America located in Hell's Canyon?
17. What state is home to the largest tower in North America, called the Sear's Tower?
18. What state has a city called Santa Claus that receives over one half a million letters and requests around Christmas time?
19. Dubuque is what state's oldest city?
20. Wyatt Earp, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok and William B. "Bat" Masterson were three of the legendary lawmen who kept the peace in rowdy frontier towns, in what state?
21. Bluegrass is not really blue--its green--but in the spring bluegrass produces bluish purple buds that when seen in large fields give a blue cast to the grass. What state today is known as the Bluegrass State?
22. What is the only state in the Union that does not have counties? This state has political subdivisions called parishes.
23. What state lies farther Northeast than any other state?
24. What state was home to the great Babe Ruth (Sultan of Swat)?
25. What state is home to the city of Rockport, where there is a house built entirely of newspaper?
26. What state is home to the Mall of America with a size of 78 football fields or 9.5 million square feet?
27. What state is home to Sharkey County, where in 1902 while on a hunting expedition President Theodore Roosevelt was hunting and refused to shoot a captured bear? This is where President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt acquired his nickname.
28. What state is known as "The Show Me State"?
29. In what state did the notorious outlaw Henry Plummer, build his first jail?
30. What state was first nicknamed the "Tree Planters State", but changed its name in 1945 to the "Cornhusker State"?
31. What state is home to the largest single public works project in the history of the United States called the Hoover Dam?
32. What state is home to the Memorial Bell Tower designed by Norman Rockwell and dedicated to women-military and civilian who died serving their country?
33. What state is home to the inventions by Thomas Edison of the light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture projector?
34. What state has the river of the Rio Grande run its entire length?
35. What state is home to L. Frank Baum the author of the "Wizard of Oz"? Also, this state features a yellow brick inlaid sidewalks leading to Aunty Ems and other Oz-themed businesses. This city Chittenago that is located in this state is also the home of the annual Munchkins parade.
36. What state is home to the Tar heels?
37. What state is home to the oldest independent college called Jamestown College, established in 1884?
38. What state was home to the first professional called the Cincinnati Reds?
39. What state is home to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, where victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were affected by the bombing in Oklahoma City in April 19, 1995 have a site where the bomb occurred?
40. What state is home to the Oregon Trail the longest overland route used in the westward expansion of the United States?
41. What state became the 8th. State in the Union on May 23, 1788.
42. What state is home to Mount Rushmore, where the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln can be seen?
43. In what state did Andrew Johnson hold every elective office at the local, state, and federal level, including President of the United States. He was elected alderman, mayor, state representative, and state senator from Greeneville. He served as governor and military governor, and United States congressman, senator, and vice president, and becoming President of the United States following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Tennessee?
44. What state is know as the "Lone Star State"?
45. What state is home to the Great Salt Lake?
46. What state is home to the city of Montpelier, the larges maple producer in the U.S.?
47. What state is known as the "birthplace of a nation"?
48. What is the only state to be named after a President of the U.S.?
49. What state is home of the world's largest sycamore tree, which is located in Webster Springs?
50. What state is home to the largest high school in the city of Gillette?
We learned a lot from this service learning project. It was an awesome experience to get to know these troubled kids and to teach them a History lesson. The majority of the youth in that group home look like your “everyday average Joe”, but due to some stupid decisions, they are being punished. It was neat to see their willingness to learn from us, they were very respectful and very attentive. We would recommend to everyone in the future, that a great idea for a service learning project is to get involved with a youth home. There are a lot in the area of Southern Utah that we think would love service from others. Although our main focus in the beginning was to just teach this lesson and be done with it. We learned that it was more beneficial to go beyond just doing that. This is a great way to help people who have made some bad choices, but by being an example to them, it just might help them along their way.