Spoiler alert. This is a teacher story.
In education there are many different philosophies that come and go. Anybody remember the open class concept? Remember the pods? Pods were supposed to limit the number of different teachers kids were exposed to.
Well, our school was organized into pods and it worked quite well. The pod I was in had four gr seven classes. I had an assignment of three language arts classes and one math and some options.
We got the idea that we would take all 120 kids out for an all day field trip. We decided to take them to Fort Normandeau which is a nearby heritage site on the Red Deer River. . This was where the first white people came to the area. At that area you could ford the Red Deer River. You could walk across, ride your pony across or drive your horses and wagon across.
Today there has be development on the site so that there is a credible museum of western history, theater, replica of the old fort and stopping house.
We divided the kids into groups and assigned them activities to take part in. Of course , being teachers we made them record what they learned and thought.
One of our caretakers had the hobby of gold panning. Small amounts of gold have always been found on the Red Deer river. Glayde got gold pans from the club and showed kids how to pan for gold. Kids did find the odd fleck of gold or bit of gold dust. I can still see their faces today when Glayde showed them that they had a tiny piece of gold. Of course, we had not prepared the kids to take small bits of gold back home so there was some stress until we found some envelopes. .
Of course , we had a big hot dog lunch and in the afternoon we took four bus loads of very tired and dirty kids back to the school.
This is just one part of the complex. This is a replica of the original fort and trading post.
