What I learned from Interpretation with Barret Miller

It was a beautiful Friday morning, a perfect day to learn. The day started with us going to the Art room to meet Barret. He talked about what he does at Fortwhyte Alive and some of his experiences as a professional interpreter. Then we went through the circle and everyone said their name and what we are excited about and what we are scared of. He talked about some changes we could make on the document. Then we went through the circle and did an interpretation of our first stations. Matthew, Max and I went first, we only got 10 - 15 mins to orgainze what we were going to say. This was not enough time becuase this was the first time we had even gazed at this document. But despite that we did our best. We weren’t so spread out on the reading, Matthew ended up reading more then Max and I. Barret suggested that we spread out the reading and use a whiteboard to visualize the water cycle.

After, we finished going through the whole circle, Barret talked a bit about Tilden Freeman. He asked us about the four principals of interpretation. Then we grabbed our bags and headed for the north doors. We started walking. While we were walking he stopped us and said somethings that I can't recall. When we got to the wetlands we took a five minuet break. then we started walking around the wetlands. At our first stop he talked about adaptation and how that group should walk around the area and show the kids the different adaptations of animals. He later told us that a cattail is edible.

While walking he gave some pointers on how to do a good interpretation, for one he told us to face the wind or the sun depending on which is worse at the time. He also told us not to worry about the kids behavior, he told us to use some sort of noise maker to get the attention of the kids. Then we walked some more and when we got to the shed we played a game. Barret used Popsicle sticks rather than other sorts of chips because popsicle sticks are biodegradable and if they were to get lost they would decompose.

After we finished the tour we came back to the classroom. when we got back we did a synthesizing of what we learned. we went around the class and he asked everyone what we liked and if we had any questions. I said that I learned that it's a good idea to bring a whiteboard to explain the water cycle and help the kids visualize. Close to the end of the day he told us various stories of things that have happened to him at Fortwhytealive. overall, it was a fun day despite the cool weather.