22 thrilled jr. high Mock Trial students who went to criminal court today.
One of my all-time best field trips---and this list includes a Mozart Festival to Austria. The kids were well-behaved and our hosts were magnanimous. Two judges spent quite a bit of time (one completely unscheduled) in talking to my students. The kids also got to interview two attorneys--one from defense and one on prosecution. And the court reporter explained her key pad to them and typed all of their names out, so they could see her unique alphabet.
All Ana could talk about for the past three weeks was that she hoped to bang the judge's gavel. The judge obligingly found one for all them to try out.
Trying out the cushy juror chairs.
Posing with one of the judges.
I returned to school with the same kids with whom I left; always a relief. And a big eye-roll as one of their favorite things of the entire outing was being able to peek out the windows of the 8th floor and see the convicts playing ping-pong. Honestly. Why do we even try to create lesson plans?
Hah! Ping pong. That's nice and benign. I remember visiting the jail as a high school senior - the prisoners knew we were coming, and put on their version of Scared Straight. We were PETRIFIED. They lunged at us and made animal noises, and then laughed and laughed. I nearly had a nervous breakdown.
ReplyDeleteWell, we were 8 floors above the large groups. The criminals we did interact with were Texas ones, so it was all 'No ma'am' and 'yes, sir' and 'you're correct ma'am' and 'excuse me'.
ReplyDeleteI do like the manners and civility around here.