What happened?

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From March 5th – March 8th my school had its annual Creativity Week, and as I mention earlier, I was going to help Stephen Vrla and Lee Bryant lead a camping trip. Originally Lee had planned out to camp at Lake Houston, but because the park closes on Tuesdays we weren’t able to camp there. She chose another location, Big Thicket National Preserve, but this also didn’t work out. Lee and Stephen ended up choosing Sam Houston State Park, which is north of Houston, and that’s where we ended up camping at.

Honestly, the camping trip was more of a learning experience for me. I had planned out to teach the students about outdoor leadership, but I feel that I was the one who learned about outdoor leadership. Throughout the trip I was learning about leadership by being in charge, for the first time, of a group of 19 students and giving them instructions. I felt that I had a many mistakes here and there, but I’m glad that I had those mistakes because they uncovered many things that didn’t know. For example, I had to find a way to get the students together and quiet down before a gathering. I didn’t know how to do this at first; I would only ask them quietly to settle down, but towards the end of the trip, I got better at this and began to properly use my authority.

Throughout the trip, I felt like I didn’t pull my own weight because I didn’t do as much things as I wanted to, and Stephen and Lee were helping me out with things I should have already figured out. I felt like I wasn’t doing anything right, but, now that I look back at the trip, I was feeling this way because I was learning.

The Trip

So the big question is “What am I going to do?” So far, I have joined a Creativity Week group with two teachers, Stephen Vrla and Lee Bryant. Today we had our first meeting with all of the group members who are going to participate in the trip. There are about twenty students in total, and Stephen, Lee, and I gave them an overview of what we are going to be doing throughout the trip. Stephen is going to teach environmental ethics, and Lee is going to teach art; I’m going to teach the basics of camping and leadership to the students.

The location of the trip will be at Lake Houston. We will spend one night on campus to get everyone comfortable with camping, and spend the next two nights at Lake Houston. On the last day, Thursday, we will come back to campus for the all-school presentation and during this day we will present our Creativity Week project to the whole school.

Currently, everything is working out well. All we need to do is prepare for the trip by gathering the equipment, food, and other things needed for the trip. I still have to prepare my part of the project by creating my agenda and the activities I will make the group participate in, but the preparation is going smoothly. So to answer the question asked above, this is what I’m going to do.