First off, there is validity to tracking behavior data - it is how we understand if what we are doing works - but there is no need to make things so complicated.  Here's what I don't like:  multi-leveled reward systems that look more like an Amway sales pyramid.

You and I both know that intrinsic reward is much more effective than extrinsic anyway, so why put so much effort into some positive behavior system?  Ten reward tickets gets you a piece-of-junk reward that companies sell by the gross.  Ten such rewards earns the recipient a larger award.  With 100 points, a recipient gets a special privilege. When the class accumulates 1,000 tally marks, there will be a special activity.  And every month, if you haven't made anybody angry, you can have yet another special classwide activity.  This is not to mention that at the end of each semester, there will be a drawing that, really, nobody knows how to be eligible or how the winners are picked.

Most of this doesn't result in positive behavior.  It only makes the teachers who excel at party planning happy. Really, once again, I am not a party planner.  It's not the job I was hired for.  No, I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud; I'm just saying, I'd like to make my class special on more than one day a month.  I would rather integrate these types of special activities into my daily schedule.  To stop everything and call it special gives the impression that the other days are not.

I can use the time better.  I can encourage my students to make a better culture without having to navigate some complicated chart some of schoolwide trinket-ice-cream-movie-relay-race pyramid of rewards to satisfy teachers' need to feel like they are doing something that is supposedly research-based.  Fact:  just because something has been reduced to an acronym does not mean it is research-based or effective.  Another fact:  even if it is research-based, that doesn't mean it will work in my classroom.

There's just a certain feeling about St. Charles, Missouri - a certain mood to the old part of town that we enjoy.  For me, it reminds me of the time when Lewis and Clark camped for the winter before taking their little hike to the Pacific Ocean.  It carries me back to a time when Daniel Boone called this region home.  It takes me to a time when this was the first capital of the state.

From the school's website:

A side trip to St. Charles always makes my wife happy.  We love the history of the old Main Street there, and the ships are unique and nice.  With the kids and their interests, we thought we would split up this time.  I took to the Missouri River to check out the replica of Lewis' and Clark's flat-bottomed keelboat, stored in the boathouse for viewing when it's not in the water.  Ther is a museum here, as well, but my son and I opted not to tour it on this trip.

The large statue commemorating Lewis and Clark is a strange one to me.  With its prominent sideburns, I think Meriwether Lewis looks more like Elvis Presley than an important explorer in the early 19th century.

After several weeks, months, and possibly years, the first man brought some bailing twine along with him.  He kept it in his pocket until the end of a casual conversation when he pulled it out and innocently fiddled with it in his fingers.  When his buddy asked him about the twine, the man laid the string out straight on the table and explained:  "If I grab one end of this twine and push it off the edge of the table, the resistance I get just causes the twine to get all bunched up into a big mess, but if I take the end and pull it, the twine follows along in a peaceful manner."  He said, "I promised I would never push you on this topic, but I will pull you in hopes that you will follow." Pretty soon the second gentleman was more willing to pursue a respectful conversation with his friend until, ultimately, he came around to his friend's point of view.

These men were conversing in regards to a religious subject, but I think the illustration explains a better way to teach and persuade.  I have students who are eager to step out of their comfort zones; they aren't afraid to plunge into deeper waters and work hard to swim.  Then I have students who are scared to get their toes wet; they won't even consider working hard.  They are satisfied with their current state of achievement and see no way forward. While the others will dive in and swim laps around the pool, these have consigned themselves to sitting in a deck chair and watch.

A teacher can attempt to force a reluctant child into the water, throw them into the deep end and hoping they will dog paddle back to the edge, spitting and sputtering once there, or the teacher can instill a love of challenge and and inspire the kid to muster the guts and the desire to try something for himself.  With the former, the instructor must continually battle with the child, repeatedly muscling him back into the water.  The resistance to this method is strong, and more often than not, the child quits altogether.  With the latter, the child does the work because he wants to do the work.  He gets in the water because he is inspired to get in the water.  He ventures deeper and deeper because he is curious.  He succeeds because he wants to feel successful.  Not only that, but once he feels that growth and victory, he wants to feel it more and more.  In many cases, this child becomes unstoppable.

The bailing twine analogy helps me understand how this process works.  It also helps me understand what is happening when I have successfully lifted a child from the funk of academic depression (when I have pulled them along), as opposed to the times when I have tried to force a kid to do something before his attitude would allow him to try something difficult.  It is something to comprehend as I continue to evaluate my teaching methods even after all of these years.

For me, it's not about finding a scientific approach to teaching kids to read and write.  It's not about tricking kids into tackling assignments.  It's not about hitting them common assessments, sticking with some pacing guide, and staying on the same page with my colleagues across town.  It's about changing mindsets in my students, helping them understand that they have a family culture in my classroom, and that we celebrate with mistakes are identified and when mountains are climbed.  I will try to maintain that trajectory as I enter my 32nd year of teaching.

The rest of the museum needs to be more hands-on for the kids.  While they attempt to encourage interaction with the information presented, it is usually displayed with too much text or at a level that might attract college students in certain fields of study.

A planetarium show is always a welcome sight and a chance to rest your feet for a while.  This one took a look at the current night sky over St. Louis.

Finally, the museum attempts to appeal to children using the lure of dinosaurs.  Again, however, they miss the mark and try to be too highbrowed.  The whole area is also a little one-sided in the evolution debate.

Keep in mind that the museum is free, so it still might be worth a visit if a family has the time.  If not, I suggest there are other interests in the St. Louis area that would be more worthy of your efforts.

Before returning over the Mississippi River for a day, we first stopped at the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park for a view of the St. Louis skyline, including the Gateway Arch.  This well-kept park is still in Illinois, but focuses on what lies across the mass of moving water.  At the apex of a ramped structure, guests are provided with a great spot for taking pictures with the Arch in the background.  I found the view to be lacking, however, since there are so many electric wires in the way.

A statue of Malcolm Martin sits up there, and you can tell all your secrets to him if you would like.  You might also, as we did, call family and tell them to go to the live cam at the top so you can wave to them.

The afternoon became pretty busy at the St. Louis Zoo.  In fact, things became uncomfortably crowded considering the zoo was requiring reservations and limiting admission.  In the end, we were shoulder-to-shoulder with visitors and ready to leave.  We saw many of the standard animals, but as I mentioned in a previous writing, I don't take many pictures of animals where it looks like thy are in an unnatural setting.

​After riding the zoo train for a while, we wanted to make sure to see (and touch) the historical aviary, which was originally constructed for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.  We talked about the fair in class, so I was sure to take some shots of the large, walk-through cage which was definitely overbuilt for its purpose.  The aviary provides a quiet place for a few birds in the zoo's collection.

I didn't get very many pictures at the St. Louis Zoo when we were there recently.  Generally, I am not fond of photos that clearly show animals in man-made habitats, so I tend not to take them.

We paid for an extra pass that gave us access to the penguins, the sea lion show, a 4D Jungle Book character video, and the Dinoroarus exhibit, as well as rides on the carousel and the zoo train.  We could aso pet the stingrays.  We especially appreciated the chance to sit down for the sea lion show which featured a single animal, Mia, and her trainer.  The animal performed with few flaws and seemed to enjoy her job.

This year, I was nominated by two students for Gilder Lehrman's National History Teacher of the Year award.  My part of the application process included a few steps, the first of which was to respond in 75 words or less to each of the two questions below.  In standard form, I used every one of those 75 words and came up with the following responses.

Word is expected sometime this month to notify contestants about state-level recipients.

In our recent visit to the St. Louis area, we wanted to see the zoo.  This zoo has free admission, but it's important to remember to take some money for parking ($15).  One should also consider that everything inside the zoo is really marked up - maybe to make up for the free admission.  Reservations are currently necessary for entry into the zoo, but even with "limited capacity" due to COVID, the place was quite crowded in the afternoon.

One of the first things we did when arriving at the St. Louis Zoo was visit the Dinoroarus exhibit.  The area flowed really well and did not go out of its way to over-educate.  It was nice to just enjoy the dinosaurs, which had very limited mobility.  They didn't try to scare the kids with loud noises and quick movements.

I didn't go to the zoo to see rubber robots, but it is important to understand extinction and history.  While the exhibit did side with evolutionists, even this wasn't thrown into the faces of people who disagree with the theory - although many statements were presented as facts with no evidence to back them up.