49. Chaos

Chaos - possibly the word for the year, but definitely the word I to apply to my learning community class. For all the thought, planning, and organization, sh*t happens. This weekend was a perfect example. We headed up to a camp in San Bernardino mountains only to find it has been double booked. Half of us ended up staying down the road in a motel and the other half of the students are back at the camp. It is only 6 miles distance, but it did change many of our plans.

The last time we camp up to camp with this same group, we had a major snow storm that kept us from getting out in the field. Again, chaos and major change of plans. I think something great happened that weekend that we didn't expect. With little else to do, the students bonded in a way that they never have before. With this early building of friendship Vince (my team teacher) and I noticed an amazing positive effect on the group projects. The students seem to have a strong sense of responsibility to each other.

Back to this weekend... there was only a limited of number of places to sleep at camp. Those that could not fit at camp were comped a stay at a cute, cozy, and way more comfortable motel down the road. An upgrade so to speak. But, when it came time to dividing up the students, many choose to turn down the motel spot in order to be at camp. The students simply didn't want to be separated from their groups.

Again... more chaos. Vince (geologist) and I typically have the students locate a USGS bench marker on the camp property. Much of the snow from 4 weeks ago is still on the ground and we were not able to take the whole class hiking in the area to find it. Instead we gave the students the GPS location of the bench marker, and offered extra credit to the first group that could use those coordinates to find something relevant to the class. We were pleasantly surprised by the dedication of the groups in locating this marker but it was chaos. The marker was buried in snow, the GPS units were having trouble triangulating the coordinated with any precision, once the students found the marker, I could not receive their photographic prove via SMS. Eventually Vince and I drove out their to see if they found it... and got the car stuck in the snow.

The point is, some days are more predictable than others, but generally chaos is always in the mix. Planning, and back-up planning will only go so far and then you have to learn to think on your feet and go with the flow.