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By Betty A. Pearson
Contributing writer
John A. “Jack” Chamberlain, Jr. refuses to pay lip service to team-building in his 5th-grade class at Jackson Elementary School in West Bend.
As a former businessman employed at a mutual funds company, he heard the buzzword “teamwork” constantly, but rarely saw the concept in action. That disconnect between talk and action troubled him, and in 2000 – after a lot of soul searching – he traded in his corporate clothing for a T-shirt, shorts and clipboard. He began a new career as a YMCA director, a path that years later led to his true calling – teaching.
"Coming into contact with more traditonal educators (while a YMCA director) had me thinking about becoming a teacher," he said.
Chamberlain, whose mother and grandmother were teachers, said the decision was perhaps inevitable. “Some of those elements were ticking away in the background for some time,” he said.
“I took a huge risk by becoming an educator, but I haven’t doubted my decision for a minute,” said Chamberlain, whose wife worked as a librarian while he cared for their daughter during the day and pursued his master’s degree in education by night. He is now one of the few male elementary teachers in the West Bend Joint School District No. 1.
 Students in Jack Chamberlain's class, with the help of a parent volunteer, tackle the low ropes course in West Bend. |
Chamberlain, in his third year as a teacher, uses the skills he’s developed in his previous two careers as he interacts with youth each day, including his certification as a ropes course instructor. Over the last year, he has worked with two groups of West Bend school children, as well as corporate and university groups, at a local ropes course at Regner Park. The course is operated through a joint venture between West Bend School District and the city Park, Forestry and Recreation Department.
On a sunny spring morning in late May, Chamberlain had a chance to share the ropes course experience with eight of his own students. As they settled into their outdoor classroom, they warmed up with games like “group juggle” and “speed rabbit.” The exercises help the students prepare for close physical interaction, careful listening and rapid execution of directions, Chamberlain explained.
Following the ice breakers, students sat in a circle with Chamberlain and prepared for work on the low ropes course. Excited, but working on self control, they listened to and then repeated the PEEP strategy for safety. Through PEEP, students are asked to monitor:
 Chamberlain has found his calling as a teacher, which allows him to connect with others. |
The word PEEP is then used by participants to indicate any discomfort or overstepping of boundaries. Feeling mentally and physically safe is the key to success on the course, Chamberlain said.
Once on the course, students first balanced all at once on a large, semi-buried log, trying to line up in birth date order without losing balance or stepping off the log. In the second challenge, students walked across the “multivine,” a taut cable strung six inches above the ground. They clung to jute ropes strung from an upper cable, pretending to cross a gorge.
In his outdoor classroom, Chamberlain watched every move, encouraging and challenging students to work together. He pointed out that supporting one another is just as important as achieving the goal. Understanding individual physical and mental differences helps the class build collaborative skills, he stressed.
“At first glance the excitement is what these elements look like,” he said. “But what’s really happening is people are figuring out how to work together.”
The lessons students take away are specific, and are discussed by the group before leaving the course to go back to school. Students gave concrete examples of how the work they had just completed will help them grow as individuals and classroom citizens. The answers take awhile, but no one was excused from this important, and probably most challenging, task of the day.
“The only way our work on the challenge course today will be useful is if we transfer these experiences into our personal lives,” said Chamberlain, becoming reflective as he thought of the school year coming to end.
“I get more than I expected to, being a teacher,” he said. “Frankly, I didn’t anticipate I would care as deeply as I do.
“Life that doesn’t have connections to people – it’s not really worth living, and that’s the gift that teaching’s given to me.”
Posted May 23, 2008