Semester XXVI Gears up for OASES
By Susan Tinsley Daily
“Tag in!” Beau slides from the couch onto the floor, joining four other students in a discussion around the coffee table. The rest of us listen from the surrounding couches, waiting for the right moment to speak.
“What we’ve learned so far has definitely changed how I make food choices. I think I will try to eat ‘happy animals,’ ones that don’t come from industrial operations,” says Beau.
“Tag in!” Mickey drops to the floor in front of the coffee table, as Emily tags out and sits back on the couch. “I’m a lot more educated now about what I eat, but I don’t know if it will really change things, because I live in the city and I’m not always in control of where my food comes from.”
And so the conversation flows, with students moving to and from the coffee table, debating, summarizing, and analyzing their last three weeks talking about “Food” in Environmental Seminar. The conversation builds as we turn to the overriding question of how we can make a difference. There is just enough idealism mixed into our pragmatism to give us something with which to work. Can one person make a difference? We look around the room at each other. Who’s willing to try?
A class like today reminds me of why I came back to The Outdoor Academy. Nine years ago, I came here to teach English and Environmental Seminar as a new, enthusiastic teacher, ecstatic to finally find a school that meshed my love of the outdoors with an innovative school environment. Since then, I’ve taught in four different schools around the country, from a coat-and-tie prep school to San Quentin State Penitentiary. I continued to be challenged as an educator, but never did I feel that I was helping students connect so clearly with the natural world than I did when I was here. Where else do you hike and climb alongside your students, debate environmental issues respecting all perspectives, give thanks at each meal together, and sing as a community into the darkness each night? I knew I needed to come back.
Now, as Dean of Students, my experience here is multi-layered, and instead of being a new teacher, I am a new mother to a four-month old. I have a similar enthusiasm but a lot less sleep. But the highlight of my day continues to happen in the classroom, whether that be under the wooden beams of Sikwayi or the interlacing branches of the surrounding forest. In Environmental Seminar, we don’t just learn about the environment; we experience it. We debate it and taste it and write on it and throw it away – or recycle it. We ask “What is sustainable?” and “How will this affect my lifestyle back home?” and “Why do I care?” Recently, at a Global Warming forum at Brevard College, our students took the lead in facilitating a discussion with an above-sixty crowd. At one point, a gentleman turned to our students and said, “I know you hear this all the time, but it IS up to y’all. We’re handing this world to you. Sorry it’s a mess. What are you going to do with it?” If our discussions are any indication of what these young adults are going to do with it, then I’m hopeful.
In April we are hosting the first ever Outdoor Academy Student Environmental Summit. Ninth graders from around the Southeast will join us on our campus to learn about sustainable agriculture, food choices, gardening, and a host of other topics related to the theme of “Food.” I look forward to seeing our students take the lead in this conference, using their own process of wrestling with the topic to help others figure out for themselves how they can make a difference. For a teacher, the best way to know if your students have learned a subject well is to have them teach others. I have no doubt that the OA students will act as confident ambassadors for the OASES participants as they navigate such a relevant and tricky topic. Who else could do it better? Yes, it IS up to them. As I tag out, they tag in. Can one group of students make a difference? I’m willing to bet on it.
