As an outdoor educator, the weather has a supreme effect on the happenings of your week, at work or at play. As the weather has started warming up, I've enjoyed a sense of renewal in my energy and adventuresome spirit - hiking further during classes and seeking out wildflower bloomings on solo hikes.
I am continuing to learn in leaps and bounds about classroom management in a "classroom" that could shorten ANY individual's attention span. My best solution so far? Embracing the distractions of acorn woodpeckers and coyotes with vigor, encouraging the students to take the focus off our lesson plan and give their attention to the things that are way cooler than anything written in my field notes. Another field group saw some bear prints in the mud this week - I look forward to interrupting my classes more for those moments as the forest wakens from its winter slumber!
One of the neatest things about working here is seeing the variety of students that come to our school and succeed, regardless of circumstance. The most inspiring student I've worked with in all my weeks was a girl named Leah who came up with her parents this last week. Leah had muscular dystrophy and was confined to a wheelchair - it didn't confine her ability to learn or participate though. She was a dynamite ball of positive energy and inquisitiveness, and the other students loved it when she joined their class on the trail! She participated in a few of my classes, including astronomy and snakes class, and I was struck by her love for learning. I am proud to work with a company that embraces the spectrum of students, including (in past weeks) deaf students with sign language interpreters, students with cerebral palsy, and many others.
I look forward to the newness that transitions between seasons brings... "No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn." - Hal Borland
A picture with a group of my students - they continually cracked me up with their talk of the Jonas brothers (whoever they are?!) and snowball fights.
A photo taken at Burnt Flats during a solo hike - the side of a mountain that was burned during the wildfires in October 2007.
Me "staying protected" in a student-built shelter as a part of our Outdoor Survival Hike class in which kids learn about Leave No Trace ethics and how to navigate through emergency situations in the great outdoors.
