Shooting my bow in the classroom - wow!

suttoman · August 06, 2009, 08:36:00 AM

I had a class of year 8 students today (13-14 yr olds) for History. They have been studying Medieval History and weaponry.

I am only new to the school and they did not know I was into archery. I took along my Firefly longbow and we had a fantastic lesson. I showed them the bow and talked about the modern R/D longbow and the andvantages over the English longbow.

I then strung the bow up and let them look at it and handle it. One of them asked if I could shoot it. I had arranged to have some old phone books available, because I knew they would want me to do that.

They were totally blown away. The good old Firefly slammed my 35/55 carbon - tipped with a field-point with a one of those small game cluster heads behind it. It punched through over 1,300 pages. I got the biggest kid to hold the arrow and stab it into the phone book - as hard as he could. It only went through about 130 pages.

We had an absolute ball and even some of the bad boys who I have trouble with - were like little lambs by class end.

If I don't get strung up tomorrow by the Principal over safety issues - then I will do this with some of my other classes.

It gives my kids a real break from all the modern technical crap that they are bombarded with. I was surprised how even the girls were extremely interested. I want to teach archery at the school next year and many of the kids said they want to join my class.

Sutto

khardrunner · August 06, 2009, 08:49:00 AM

Man I'd love to be able to do that for some of the physics classes here. No way in heck though. They would never allow us to bring them into class much less shoot them! They would be awesome teaching tools though.

moebow · August 06, 2009, 09:36:00 AM

Sutto, Here we have a healthy NASP (National Archery in the Schools Program) that has taken off big time in many areas. Wonder if there is something like that there --down under? Or if ouer program willextend to Australia. Might be worth looking into.

Khardunner, see above. NASP may be your foot in the door for your physics classes. Also seems that you could sell this as the effect of levers and a study in velocity,acceleration, momentum, Kinetic energy, etc. In fact, there isn't much in mechanics that couldn't be studied through the use of Archery. Just a thought.

suttoman · August 06, 2009, 06:58:00 PM

Hey Thanks guys - will look into that.

sutto

sweeney3 · August 06, 2009, 08:06:00 PM

My mother is a 5th grade teacher, and she was reading the book "Hatchet" to her class, or perhaps it was the sequil where the kid makes a bow to take big game so he can survive the winter. Not one of the students in her class could understand the concept of how the bow worked, much less imagine it killing large game. She arranged with the school admin for my father and me to come with our bows and show them the equipment. We also got cleared to take the class outside and shoot for them. We took a R/D longbow, a recurve and my father took his compound as well. The students were amazed with the whole thing. I am pleased to say that they were generally most interested in my recurve. Even though the compound was faster, I think its bulk was intimidating to them. My dad has to shoot it now (he used to use a Pearson recurve, but his shoulders don't work so well anymore), but he's hardly what you'd call a gadget/tech freak. His compound is still a laminated wood frame.

That is really neat when you can at least get some kids interested and exposed to bows. Many many of them have never seen one, of any type, in anything other than fantisy movies.

suttoman · August 06, 2009, 08:56:00 PM

Very well said sweeney3 - a great story.

NorthernCaliforniaHunter · August 07, 2009, 12:06:00 AM

It touches their souls. All those generations of perfecting the hunt, only to twiddle thumbs on a computer game... deep down they know better. You've just given them a glimpse, they'll be back for more!

Benny Nganabbarru · August 07, 2009, 03:02:00 AM

Good work, Sutto!

Plenty of archery happens each year in my class!

b.glass · August 07, 2009, 01:07:00 PM

That's neat hear that your class was so interested in your demonstration. I will be putting on a demo of shooting the longbow in about a month and I'm encouraged by you.

I have set up a thrower for aeral targets or it can through them for a moving ground shoot. I also have a 3-D deer target on wheels and I want a bison for a long distance shot. Do you think I can keep the crowd entertained for 45 min?

Bona

Chester Thompson · August 07, 2009, 01:35:00 PM

QuoteOriginally posted by suttoman:

We had an absolute ball and even some of the bad boys who I have trouble with - were like little lambs by class end.

Sutto

How many times have those "bad (I would call them bored) boys" asked you about the bow since? Now that you have their attention probably a good time to get them interested.