Middle School Outdoor Education Excitement

Middle School Outdoor Education Excitement

Emerald Mountain School kicked-off a new monthly outdoor education program for Middle School students this year. It all began with a day of dog-sledding and survival skills. Students built snow shelters and started fires in adverse conditions in the Flattops. They worked in teams and expanded their abilities to cooperate and learn from each other. Our second trip of the year focused on safety in the back country in winter, especially in avalanche conditions. Beacon training, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing figured prominently, and the students were treated to a surprise visit from a rescue helicopter. Each month, Emerald’s Middle School students have the opportunity to learn about the outdoors IN the outdoors. Aside from just being plain fun, these outdoor expeditions provide learning opportunities related to science, social-emotional development, survival skills, the environment, situational awareness, mindfulness, and working in teams. These monthly outdoor education experiences augment the intensive winter skills training that Emerald Middle School students will engage in during mid-February. For three days, students will camp in rustic conditions and learn to be self-reliant even in the most challenging conditions. The culminating event for our eighth grade students includes a six-hour solo wilderness experience where each student employs the winter survival skills (s)he has learned, practices mindfulness, and builds confidence. Through Emerald’s outdoor education program, students learn about themselves as they learn about the world around them and as each student pushes his or her limits.

Johnny Spillane: Passion for Learning Comes Full Circle

Passion for learning comes full circle

Opportunity. It comes up a lot in conversation with Johnny Spillane about his experience at Emerald Mountain School, both as a former student and, now, parent of a bright-eyed, energetic kindergartener ready for the world of learning. 

Johnny was one of the first students to walk through the doors of the school founded by his mother, Nancy Spillane, more than 20 years ago. He spent seventh and eighth grades here, nurtured by a personalized education that helped him excel academically as he pursued his athletic career in Nordic Combined skiing. 

A hometown Olympic champion, Johnny is also dad to Hadley and Genevieve. When it came time to send Hadley to kindergarten, Johnny and his wife Hilary knew they wanted it to be Emerald Mountain School. "It's been a unique opportunity to watch the school evolve and be able to send her here. It's a great school and, for me, the best option available."

Most notable in Johnny's years at Emerald were the small classes and phenomenal teachers, who allowed him to move at his pace academically and enjoy his favorite subjects, math and science. His education also helped prepare him for the outside world, fostering problem solving and the ability to work well with others. "It gives you the opportunity to succeed. I'm very excited to watch Hadley grow and learn here." 

What Makes Emerald Unique

What Makes Emerald Unique

It’s a great time for education in Steamboat, with multiple choices available at several schools. Steamboat’s newest option, a Montessori school, raises the question of what you will find, uniquely, at Emerald Mountain School.

At Emerald, we inspire passionate learners through personalization, close relationships with subject specialist teachers, and small class sizes. At Emerald you find academic excellence, confident learners, and community involvement and leadership.

Our students are held accountable to the highest academic standards in the country, making more than a year’s worth of progress during each year they attend Emerald. Small classes allow students to learn to advocate for themselves, and public speaking and performance opportunities teach them the communication skills to do so effectively.

The warm and family-like environment at Emerald gives students a sense of belonging which stimulates a desire to reach out and help others in both the school community and the wider Steamboat community.

Emerald & Montessori offer:

·         An alternative to traditional education

·         Mixed age (grade) classrooms

·         A focus on developing passionate lifelong learners

Emerald offers:

·         Structured curriculum: focus on strong academics personalized for each student

·         Child-centered approach to learning: Students find success and are challenged in ALL areas of the curriculum (vs. child-driven approach at Montessori)

·         Smaller class sizes: Emerald classes are capped at 18; 7 to 1 student/teacher ratio

·         Unique programming: art, music (strings), outdoor education

·         Passionate teachers who are subject specialists: teacher-student relationships are nurtured year after year

·         A philosophical emphasis on personal accountability as a member of the greater school, local, and global communities

·         A centralized location in the heart of town since 1993

Emerald Curriculum

A parent recently asked about Emerald’s curriculum, wondering if we follow the much-discussed Common Core Curriculum that is being implemented in the nation’s public schools. This engendered a broader discussion about how Emerald curriculum is developed. The short answer to the question about Common Core is a resounding “no.” Emerald faculty do not follow any published curriculum slavishly. Instead, we have an ongoing curriculum development process during which our faculty investigate and analyze available published curricula, professional standards and benchmarks, and best practices from other schools. At the same time, Emerald faculty keep the children’s developmental trajectories firmly in mind as they consider when it is appropriate to teach a specific skill to a specific child. As new research and theories regarding brain development and functioning become available, our faculty re-examine the teaching strategies they are using in light of research results. Our ERB standardized testing results, which provide us with very detailed information about our children’s growth as well as a comparison between our students and those from other top schools in the country, provide an additional source of information upon which we build curriculum.

Emerald’s faculty think critically about the information and ideas from all of these sources as they work collaboratively to design a curriculum that helps each child grow and learn to the very best of his or her ability. Our experiential program, built around a new theme each year, provides the framework for this curricular investigation. For all of these reasons, Emerald students follow a curriculum that is uniquely Emerald’s and which is built upon the combined knowledge of all of our faculty members. Narratives describing Emerald’s curriculum in various subject areas can be found on the program page of our website, at http://www.emeraldmountainschool.org/#!program/c1ktc. Each year, as we revise, update, and enhance the program, we rewrite our narratives to reflect the learning opportunities we provide for our students. As our faculty work together to develop each year’s plans, they produce “maps” which help them find connections between different subjects within the program as well as providing structure to our own, Emerald-developed, curriculum.

The curriculum at Emerald Mountain School reflects its developers. It is an inspiring, challenging, individualized, experiential, and creative curriculum developed and constantly fine-tuned by faculty who embody those very values.

Generosity

            I recently received a notice from my previous school about the fact that one of the grades had just made it to 100% parent participation in the Annual Fund. This reminded me of how very fortunate our students are to have such strong Annual Fund support from families, alumni, staff, and friends. Our 2011-12 Annual Fund, which supports the ongoing operation and program of the school, was the most successful in our history. We raised over $210,000 and had 100% support from families, staff, and board members. This is a testament to our shared belief that through working together, we can provide the best possible education for our children.

This reflection upon on our Annual Fund campaign came as the LWPS school community was returning from Spring Break to a beautifully updated building, with brand new carpet. The generosity of the Craig-Scheckmans in providing that carpet allowed us to see with new eyes the very special warmth that our uniquely child-centered building provides. As we walk into the classrooms on our new carpet, we see new technology also provided by our families. The Zedecks’ contribution of a SMARTboard has enhanced the Upper Primary math and social science program, and we are preparing for a SMARTboard provided by the Faunces and an anonymous donor that will reap similar benefits in Lower Primary math and language arts classes. As we move forward, we hope to see SMARTboards in all of our classrooms.

The effects of our families’ generosity extend well beyond our bricks and mortar to the people and programs that make our school such a uniquely special place. Many of our families combined resources to meet the Basses’ matching challenge to provide funding for Bonnie, our music assistant, and allow our strings program to be fine-tuned for all of our students regardless of their level. We have new bike racks provided through the generosity of the Knoxes, allowing our students to continue to buck the national trend where only 13% of students walk or bike to school. The Findell donation of the campsite for our Fall Camp Trip, year after year, makes that important kick-off event possible. The Oleskis and Carltons have provided software and other pieces of technology.

The list of the individuals who deserve recognition for their ongoing support goes on and on. Each and every one of our families provides time and energy to our program: within the classroom, within the building, and during our many events like the upcoming Spring Trips. Our children all benefit from the many gifts that our families provide to the school. They also benefit from the culture of philanthropy that is so much a part of their school world at LWPS. As they encounter the magnanimity of the full school community on a daily basis, and as they generously give of their own time and energy both at school and in the community, they are developing into the kind of adults who will make the world a better place, just as their parents and grandparents have.

Transformation

            There’s only one other place I’ve been where the landscape reflects limitless possibilities as it does in the West, and that’s out at sea. Sitting on the bowsprit of a sailing vessel is much like standing at the top of a mountain; the wide-open vista feels like a concrete metaphor for unending options in all directions. Last night at the Bud Werner Memorial Library, as I listened to author Craig Childs share his experiences in some of the most remote locations on Earth, and the exploratory childhood that led him to appreciate the wide-open possibilities they represent, I thought about the ways in which being out on the land can expand the growth of a child. As a child, Childs was always “getting out there and going,” sometimes accompanied by his mother but always encouraged by her. He explored, and his written reflections on those explorations were the precursors to his current writing as a naturalist. Someone asked him how he first got started writing, and he referred to learning letter formation in kindergarten. Childs’ experiences during his early years were what set him up to truly love nature and to be able to communicate that love.

            In Steamboat Springs, there is such an opportunity to experience and explore nature in an active way, just as at Whiteman Primary students have ongoing opportunities to process and write about those experiences. In a recent Chinook class, students looked closely at an aspect of their environment, thought about that aspect as a metaphor for a bigger idea, and wrote essays about that idea. While working on writing skills, they were also honing their critical thinking skills. As our students look forward to their Spring Camp trips, spending time in the outdoors camping, hiking, biking, and observing, they can expect opportunities for journaling and other writing to help them put their experiences into a larger context.

            Our teachers, too, enjoy broadening their views and expanding their learning while they are out in the natural world. Childs talked about his desire to be there for the moment of change – the change in sound precipitation makes on a window as snow turns to rain, the hardening of the ground as lava turned to rock, the visual explosion as dark turns to light – and it is the moment of change in a child that teachers live for. Watching the joy of a child recognizing that printed material has meaning brings joy to a teacher, as does the discussion with a young adolescent about how the movement a school of fish can be seen to represent human behavior. The experiential side of a Whiteman Primary education is full of such magical moments for students, teachers, and parents. I wonder how many of our students will look back to their transformative experiences here in Steamboat Springs as the start of their love of the outdoors and writing?

Moral Development

I recently read in an etiquette blog about how important it is to be nice to everyone, even the receptionist, office manager, or secretary, when on a job interview. After all, this certified etiquette trainer pointed out, you could lose the job if the secretary spoke poorly of your social skills. While the end result of this advice is positive – a concern for others’ feelings regardless of their station in life – the underlying message that being nice is simply a means to an end struck me as severely misguided.

            This raises the question of the real reason we should be kind to the secretary and how we can raise children who will know the answer to that question. In schools and as parents, we are concerned with our children’s moral development as well as their cognitive and athletic development. The earliest stage of moral development revolves around consequences:  will I be punished or rewarded for my behavior? If the former, the behavior must be bad, and if the latter, it must be good. Next comes a stage of utility – does the behavior serve others’ and my interests? This seems to be right on target for our etiquette specialist. As children develop morally, they move beyond what Lawrence Kohlberg calls pre-conventional moral thought, through stages that focus on interpersonal relationships, maintaining social order, respecting social contracts and individual rights, and internalized principles of justice. A child develops a moral and ethical conscience by building his or her own abstract understanding of the complexities of the world in which we live

            The development of moral character is individual work for each child, but it is accomplished within a social framework. If we want to help children make the move from caring only about themselves, we can do so by helping them think more about others’ feelings. Once children have developed the habit of thinking about social relationships, we can help them extend their thinking from individual interactions to broader societal and cultural issues. This happens in so many different ways throughout the school day. A young child who has had an altercation with another child is encouraged to think not about punishment, but about how the other child feels. Students at all ages work on interpersonal relationships during our Morning Meeting, and we often touch on social justice issues and cultural awareness in our social science classes. Throughout the history of our school, we have taken pride in how the adults in the school model thoughtfulness toward one another and toward students…and ask the Upper Primary students to practice and to do the same.

            It is our hope that our children would demonstrate their agreement with the etiquette specialist by being kind to the secretary when on a job interview. However, our goal is that the students would be kind not just because the secretary may have an impact on whether they would get the job, but because it is the right thing to do.