Friday, June 17, 2016

Epaulette Sharks in our town and a rant


I signed my kids up for our library's summer reading program. Each week, they have an hour program featuring something different. The first week it was a singer, last week it was our local kid's science center, and this week was a presentation with the Newport Aquarium traveling shark exhibit. (Now if you know anything about my town, we are a few hours away from Covington, Kentucky where this aquarium is located.)



My kids got to enjoy the Newport Aquarium's Wave on Wheels Shark Encounter. They got to listen to a presentation about sharks from one of the employees and they learned things like how big the largest great white shark ever captured was (23 feet long), what sharks eat, why they bite humans, how humans have abused sharks and how to take care of sharks and animals in general. 

They also got to learn a bit about an Epaulette shark, which is native to Australia and is sometimes called the walking shark. 

 

After the presentation, the kids had a chance to go up and touch an Epaulette shark. 


Rebecca and Benjamin both touched a shark, while Jacob did not want to touch but preferred to look at it. Rebecca said it felt weird! LOL



I was glad that my kids had a good time because there was something annoying that happened. I will say that I was disappointed though in how the people running it handled things. There were several camp groups that came in that had 20-30 kids with them each and only 2-3 adults. The kids were very loud throughout the entire presentation and were beyond rude. The library staff that was on hand didn't say anything to these camp counselors or did nothing to try to keep the kids quiet. They also did not have a microphone for the Aquarium representative so that he basically had to shout his presentation, and even then you could barely hear him and we were sitting in the front row.  Says a lot about the rudeness of people and the lack of respect that is being taught to young people. These kids all were elementary age, with most of them looking like they were 3-5th grades, so 8-10 years old. I have run camps like that and I have been in school aged care programs and I have NEVER allowed the kids under my watch to behave like these kids did. Just disappointing. 

I won't let it ruin though the memory of Rebecca laughing as she was touching the shark and experiencing something that some people never get to experience. I just have to take the good and know that in my memories it will outweigh the bad. 

Have you ever touched a shark before?   

 

5 comments:

  1. I have never touched a shark and don't actually plan to. lol. Working as a lunch lady, I saw that kind of behavior in the elementary school cafeteria every single day. Some teachers had good control over their class, taught them manners and to be quiet, but some teachers had no control and let the kids go wild. These new little ones coming up seem to have been raised with no rules or boundaries. I'm not really sure who or what is to blame, but it's definitely upsetting because the good kids don't understand why the bad kids are getting away with that behavior.

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    1. Rebecca did ask me why the kids kept talking and being rude. I just told her that they did it because the adults in charge didn't stop them. I don't know what the answer is either, but it does seem to be happening more and more and that is scary.

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  2. Sorry that the others (campers) were out of control. You made the best of it, nice that you have these weekly outings for the kids

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    1. This is the first year that my schedule has allowed me to take the kids to these events. They are free and open to the public too which is a win/win.

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  3. What a great outing ! I understand the frustrations of a group of kids with no real supervision. I have been in a similar situation to the library workers. The best way to handle things, unfortunately, is to talk to whomever is in charge of the offending party after the fact ( unless there is a real danger present). Sad, but these are the times we live in.

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