Aggravated at education!!

[dpal666]

I've been keping retiles and phibs for a few years now, and have been working with people on the education side of things, mainly proper care and understanding these animals. Also helping some people get over their fear of snakes in general.

This being said, we just got our grandson into kindergarden, and me and the wife approched the school about doing some small scale presentations. The answers weren't at all productive. His TA said that too many people were afraid of animals, and we couldn't do anything with the schools. The principal of the school tried to tell me that too many of the kids had allergies to reptiles. (complete BS).

Has anyone tried to get into doing educational presentations, and how did you get into the schools to be able to do it?

Any help would be great, we just want ot help the kids out!

Don

 

[Sylvias]

When they are that young I usually don't even try.... The only time I have done a show for kids that young was when a lady came into my work (petco) and during normal conversation I mentioned doing shows for schools and she asked me if I could do one for her daughters birthday.
I am not much of a young kid person so most of my shows are middle and high school... i try to keep it to high school... generally i approach the biologies teachers before the principal... principals are more likely to tell you no right off the bat than if you go to a teacher first and get their support.
Also once you get your foot in the door and do that first show or two at a school it makes it easier to do more. If you plan on letting anyone touch or hold anything (which is another reason I don't do shows for young kids) make sure YOU provide the hand sanitizer -don't count on the school to do it- and have everyone's parent sign a release form saying your not responsible for anything that happens. I use a pretty generic form that I found on google. One of these days I am going to look into some sort of insurance for this sort of thing but for now I am relying on liability forms and faith in my animals heh I always have my two kings that are my reliable ones for handling..... if the others aren't cooperating...and they often don't.....

 

[black_sun]

I've done a few at private schools and places where my younger sister was attending (originally I got into doing it in response to a parent who brought in animals and then tried to "correct" my sister's corrections on his information. That was absolutely hilarious, 40+ year old man being corrected by a 5 year old, hah.) and then with a few private academies in the area.

I only bother with the private schools and courses because public schools have too many strings and regulations about that stuff. It's just not worth the effort, because even if you can get a teacher, principal, etc to agree you still have to get the board to approve it or there's legality issues and blah blah blah. But that's just here, it's easier in other places.

But anyway, I've always just approached the teachers first and let them go to bat with the appropriate people since they know the players better. I've also hooked up with other educational groups so I have well known names to back me, which makes it easier, too. But once you've done a few shows your name gets around and you'll find yourself more and more in demand. You just have to go about things carefully, persistently and get familiarized with the rules and legal issues associated with whatever particular place you're going to. Then you have the appropriate answer to any question or potential issue and they'll have less concern or reasons to say no, you'll also be in a better place, too.