Surviving Bear Island School Visit by Paul Greci

 

Signing a book for the Jackson Intermediate Library

Yesterday, I did my first Surviving Bear Island school visits. I visited two schools where I was student back in the 70’s, John Marshall and Andrew Jackson Intermediate Schools for grades five to eight in South Bend, Indiana.

I felt very taken care of at both schools. The visits were set up on really short notice and the school staff did a fantastic job of being prepared. And the kids were just awesome and full of questions about writing and about Alaska.

The Welcome Board at Marshall Intermediate

My brother, who lives in the town I grew up in, facilitated setting up the visits.

As a teacher my way of preparing for my presentation was to over-prepare, i.e. have more to do and share than there is actually time for. I also asked the teachers to have their students come with questions about Alaska and/or writing.

Reading at Marshall Intermediate School

I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer about how to do a school visit. Since I am a long time teacher I feel pretty comfortable in a school. If I had to add anything in addition to being over prepared it would be to be present with the students and staff and be flexible in your own presentation so you can switch things up to go with the energy of the situation. I’m sure I have a lot to learn so if you have some school visit tips I’d love to hear them in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by.

Surviving Bear Island comes out March 25^th and is available to order at Independent Bookstores, Barnes and Noble and Amazon right now.