Jackson Lake sunset
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
On the Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
High Creek Trail
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
A student reads a book during a trail break
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Writing on the trail
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
How to Make Tent
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
High Creek Lake
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Crossing the High Creek
Mount Naomi Wilderness
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Sunset Moonrise
Grand Teton National Park
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Wes, the 6th grader who reshaped
what I believed was possible
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, PhotographerTeachers offered a variety of summer courses around this theme—all were funded by grants. Each session was based on a book. The idea was to bring the book to life. For example, a couple of technology teachers read October Sky with students and built and launched rockets on the soccer field. PE teachers offered a course called Extreme Sports. They read Maniac Magee and played all the sports Maniac plays in the book. Other courses, like “Say it with Puppets,” were offered based on teachers’ expertise and interests.
These summer school programs were offered to incoming sixth graders as a way to build their confidence, boost their reading skills, familiarize them with the middle school, foster friendships with peers, and build trust with teachers. Learning was fun and engaging and over the years, thousands of students fears and anxiety of transitioning to the middle school were dissolved.
Dave, Bryce, John Gregory, and I offered a course called “River Rats.” The first week students learned to canoe, hike, and spent two days backpacking up High Creek to Naomi Peak. This is a brutally hard trail for first time eleven and twelve-year-old backpackers, but we had a system. We’d walk until they were tired. Then we’d sit down in the shade, pass out snacks, and read a chapter or two of a book. When kids began to fidget, we’d shoulder our packs and hike again. We repeated the pattern for about eight hours until we arrived at our campsite. By the end of the day, kids didn’t realize how far they had traveled, they just knew they were tired. We also taught writing throughout the session—a favorite aspect of the curriculum for me.
The second week of “River Rats,” we camped in Grand Teton National Park for three days, paddling canoes on String Lake, hiking to Taggart Lake, and rafting mild sections of the Snake River. Weaving in our literacy theme all the while.
We ran two to four sessions of River Rats each summer for thirteen consecutive years. Memories abound of students who had major breakthroughs, of wildlife encounters, of learning moments, of rocks stashed in packs, and connections with people and the land.
A half dozen Cambodian refugees signed up for River Rats one summer. They spoke hardly a word of English and didn’t have any idea what they had actually signed up for. But they showed up every day and smiled and laughed and learned and made friends. I still remember their names and their faces. One, who I encountered years later, was completing her degree to become a teacher.
Another summer, three Chinese boys (whose parents were teaching Engineering courses at USU for a year), stood around a tangled mess of tent poles and tent parts in a high mountain meadow. Perplexed, one of them said to me, “How to…..make tent?” All of us burst out in laughter and I helped them “make” their tent in the yellow-orange alpenglow as a Cache Valley summer sunset lit up the sky.
We have stories of accommodating kids in wheelchairs, of kids building friendships across cultural barriers of all kinds. There were kids in tears who wanted to give up, kids who were terrified of water, kids who had never camped—but each found the strength to rise up and complete the journeys.
One summer a parent reached out to me before a session and said that his son had a prosthetic leg. I explained that his son should be able to do everything except for the overnight backpack.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” the father said, “Just treat him like any other kid.” And we did. The boy didn’t mutter a single complaint the whole way, over ten miles of trail and 4,500 feet of elevation gain—with a full pack on his back.
I gained a new hero that week.
I became an educator because I hoped to have an impact on future generations—but I did not anticipate the profound impact my students would have on my own life.
I’m Eric Newell and I’m wild about Utah and the power of outdoor programs in public schools to change lives.
Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Credits:
Images: Courtesy & Copyright Eric Newell, Photographer
Featured Audio: Courtesy & Copyright © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin as well as Anderson, Howe, and Wakeman
Text: Eric Newell, Edith Bowen Laboratory School, Utah State University
Additional Reading: Eric Newell & Lyle Bingham
Additional Reading
Wild About Utah Pieces by Eric Newell
Spinelli, Jerry, Maniac Magee, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, November 1999, https://www.amazon.com/Maniac-Magee-Jerry-Spinelli/dp/0316809063
Hickham, Homer, October Sky, Dell, February 16, 1999, https://www.amazon.com/October-Sky-Coalwood-Homer-Hickam/dp/0440235502
Mount Logan Discovery Google Site: http://MountLoganDiscovery.org/
Mount Logan Discovery on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountlogan.discovery/
Mt Naomi Wilderness is part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, USDA Forest Service, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/uinta-wasatch-cache
Grand Teton National Park, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/index.htm
How to Set Up a Tent, Expert Advice, REI Co-op, https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/tent-set-up.html
