What’s new at OA?
At this point in the semester things are really beginning to settle down into a routine. We went through our orientation week, which saw students learning the way we run our intentional community at the Outdoor Academy. Students learned how to clean the kitchen, their dorm spaces, and the community area that they are in charge of cleaning each morning during chores. They’ve learned the path up to Morning Watch, the ridge we hike to every morning to begin our day in a space of contemplation and self-reflection. They’ve had work crews and gotten their “lumberjack clothes” and work boots dirty. They’ve learned some new games and songs and discovered Ashton’s delicious organic & local cuisine.
Also in this first week, we have had our first few community meetings. Community meeting is a weekly meeting on Monday night attended by the entire faculty and student body following a formal dinner. We sit in a large circle on the ground and discuss issues going on in our community, which may be brought up by students or faculty members. Our first community meetings have been lengthy discussions about what kind of culture we want to create for the semester. We decided, for example, that hateful language would not be tolerated in our community and that students as well as staff will enforce that decision. We discussed what it means to be a good and bad community member and that we all need to do our respective parts to maintain our community.
Following that first orientation week, we have now turned our focus to academics. Students are busy reading and completing assignments and are figuring out their routines, scheduling time to exercise and play music while still getting their work done on time. Teachers are diving into our lesson plans and setting up the framework for the way our classes will run this semester. When the weather allows (which has been often this week), we take our classes outside for discussions about taxonomy in Natural Science, travel narratives in English and Western Philosophy in World History.
We are so excited at how this semester is shaping up. It is great to see our students engaging with their course material in productive conversations.
Give Thanks,
-Josh
Orientation Trek: Exploring the wide, dangerous, beautiful, extravagant & bright world!
“The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright.”
-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Shortly after arriving at the Outdoor Academy the students head into the wilderness on a backpacking trip. We do this for many reasons. For one, it allows them to get to know a smaller group of people (and remember fewer names). The students get a great opportunity to know each other in a way they may never get to know their friends back home, truly relying on each others skills for their food, shelter, water and emotional well-being. Going out immediately helps to frame the students’ experience at OA on the front end, with their solos framing the back end.
It sure isn’t easy for all of the students. Many have never backpacked before and struggle with the “danger” and “bitterness” of the wilderness, from dealing with the cold to climbing what seems like the never-ending uphill of Chestnut Mountain. Others are pros in the wilderness and can help their peers discover the “extravagance” and “brightness” of nature.
Maddy, Ben P & Lauren use their map & compass skills to figure out where they are.
We do our best as faculty to get students ready for their first experience in the woods with us. We start with an on-campus “skills rodeo” in which students learn necessary skills and OA protocols that they will need in the field. They learn to use our camp stoves and our specific kitchen safety procedures. They learn how to hang their food in bear-bags high in the trees so raccoons, mice and (in rare cases) bears can’t get to it. They learn tarp and tent-craft to set up shelters that will keep them warm and dry in the elements. We teach them to pack their backpacks properly and how to treat their water with filters and iodine to safely stay hydrated in the backcountry. Students put these and many other skills to the test on orientation trek, with instructors on hand to guide and assist them, understanding that as the semester goes on with each successive outdoor program, the students will be expected to do more and more of the work on their own. This mastery culminates during the students solo overnight, in which staff is only on hand for safety and students must do all of the work required to sleep overnight in the woods alone. All of our wilderness staff are certified in Wildernes First Aid and First Responder certification.
All of that aside, our first time in the wilderness went great! Our students had a great time exploring the beauty of Pisgah National Forest, located just a few miles from our campus. With the winter weather, students enjoyed great views of the forest, able to see the beautiful mountains all around them. They climbed John Rock, Cedar Rock and Chestnut Mountain, and got great views of Looking Glass, Pilot Mountain and the Fish Hatchery.
Nole enjoys the view of Looking Glass from atop John Rock. Looking Glass is one of the sites where we often go rock-climbing.
We leave you with a question, dear readers, if you care to leave a comment:
Where was your first backpacking trip or significant wilderness experience and what did you gain from it?
Give Thanks,
-Josh Rosenstein
Semester 34: We can’t wait to meet you!
The faculty and staff of the Outdoor Academy have been working hard all week to get ready for Semester 34! We’ve been running around campus getting classrooms and dorms in order. We’ve been cozing up by the woodstoves during important planning meeting and trainings. We’ve even gone out backpacking to get our Wilderness Leaders ready for our Orientation Trek (which leaves on Monday)!
Our students and families are coming from all over the country and the world to be part of this new semester and we wish every a happy and healthy journey from your own homes to ours inWestern North Carolina. Hopefully your trips will be full of good music and conversation. The weather should be sunny, with temperatures in the mid to high 30’s. If you need directions or anything on your travels, please call our office at (828)-877-4349.
All of us here at OA are eagerly anticipating your arrival and we really can’t wait to meet you!
See you soon,
-Josh Rosenstein
Communications Intern
A Benefit for the Transylvania Country Animal Shelter
By Katie Flanagan, Garden Manager
This story begins almost two months ago while the students of The Outdoor Academy were volunteering at the local Mountain Song Music Festival. While visiting the fundraising booth for The Friends of the Transylvania County Animal Shelter (FOTAS), a couple of students started a conversation with Dr. Ann Holshouser, local Veterinarian and Board member of FOTAS. They were immediately inspired to join forces in planning an event to raise money for the cause.
Once the students settled on a plan for the evening, they put their noses to the grindstone, breaking up into small groups to organize everything on their own. They spent over a month creating and posting flyers around town, planning the menu (chili, cornbread, and apple crisp!), organizing the musical entertainment, designing a program for the evening of the event, and practicing for the big night!
Expecting almost 30 guests to attend the event, the students spent all of Friday evening and Saturday afternoon before the event cooking up a storm, rearranging the Sun Lodge, making decorative posters and paw prints, and baking gingerbread “doggie biscuits” in “doggie bags” as treats for the guests to take home.
Daniel and Caroline are prepped and ready to greet the guests!
As the guests began to trickle into the Sun Lodge that evening, the students welcomed them with bright smiles and light conversation. Dr. Ann and the full house of guests were thrilled and pleasantly surprised with all of the hard work and creativity that went into planning and executing this event…and the entertainment had not even begun!
Once the guest’s bellies were full of homemade chili, cornbread, and sweat tea, they headed into the Den for a presentation by Dr. Ann. This presentation allowed her to share in more detail the great need for a new animal shelter in the county. The current shelter is out of date and not able to meet the current needs of stray and abandoned animals in TransylvaniaCounty. The new facility will allow for a more welcoming and happy space, as well create a healthier layout for both the animals and staff working in the facility. For more information on the project please visit: http://animalsheltertc.org/how-you-can-help/
The Semester 33 Musical Revue!
Once the presentation had concluded, the entertainment portion of the evening began! Starting out with a musical number by Forrest and Liz, the evening progressed with poetry by both students and staff, dance and drums with the African drumming class, a couple of instrumental pieces, and finished with two songs sung by the whole group, and some of the guests singing along. The students received a standing ovation and endless accolades from the room full of guests!
Entertaining a full house
While this was a challenging experience for the students, they learned a whole lot about the ups and downs of planning and executing a small-scale fundraiser. We could not be more proud and excited for them! Oh and they also raised over $900 that will go towards building the new Transylvania Country Animal Shelter…well done team!
Breaking cornbread together for a good cause
“The Animal Shelter Benefit was wonderful because, I got to explore restaurant style cooking and present my food to a larger audience. I really got to see the students of my semester step up into a leadership role, which I am eternally grateful for.”
-Sophia
Here, Let Me Help You
It never takes long for a helping hand to appear at OA. Ted always seems like the first one on the spot when he sees someone struggling with a heavy load. He will grab the other end of the table or what have you, and you’ll end up sharing a fun moment while finishing the job. There’s no hesitation to act when: 1) Someone needs help and 2) You are able to give it.
Semester 33 students volunteer at the local Mountain Song music and arts festival, which benefits the Boy's and Girl's club of Brevard
Even with bigger tasks like setting out the spring planting in the garden, those many hands make light work. Who would say, “I don’t feel like it” when it’s time for Work Crew? Inch by inch, row by row, that garden will grow.
Semester 32 students work together to build the garden greenhouse
At OA we need your help too, and you can lend a helping hand without having to come to Pisgah to put your hands in the dirt. In 2010, scholarship requests have increased by over 200%. The challenge sounds huge; who can take care of that on their own? The good news is, one person doesn’t have to do it alone. What if we all pitch in, grab that end of the table, and give as we’re able so we can lift the load for students who are aching to attend Semesters 34 and 35?
How good will those students feel knowing that the alumni who share the OA bond are right there with them, every day of the semester?
It’s ok if you’re not the most muscular mover in the crew. Just don’t sit on the sidelines and wait for someone else to take care of it!
If you feel moved to lend a hand, click below to find out more. You’ll also have an opportunity to lift a table and dig in the dirt for real in 2012 at the ENF 85th Anniversary Reunion.
Thank you to every alumnus and parent who has given from the heart in the past, and who will in the future.
http://www.enf.org/donations_gifts
-Susan Gies Conley, Director of Development
Photo Class Delves into Matters of Light and Dark
By Hannah Levin, Art Teacher, Photography and Ceramics
Some things never lose their magic. To me, photography holds exactly that allure. I first learned to work in a darkroom at the age of eight when my mother had a darkroom upstairs in our house. Since then, the interaction between light, chemistry, and ideas has never ceased to encourage my imagination.
As an art teacher at OA, I have the honor of potentially igniting that spark in my students. This semester’s photography class has proved to be an inspiring one indeed.
We started out our course by making sun prints to explore the way light can be used to record imagery on paper.
Sun Print
Next, we built pinhole cameras out of oatmeal boxes and students shot with paper acting as film, taking shots of parts of campus in unique ways.
Pinhole Photograph of Cheoah from Cabin 7 Field
Recently we moved on to shooting 35 mm film with manual cameras. The students have taken to it- each shooting two rolls of film in a few days in order to have negatives to print with for the last couple weeks of class.
Pinhole (positive on left, negative on right)
It is such a gift when the excitement that I feel about something is reflected back to me from my students. Some of them are talking about trying to get 35mm film cameras when they get home. One student said she talked to her mom about setting up a darkroom at home. They’ve been bitten by the magical photo bug. I am excited for the photographic adventures that await them and honored to be a part of the journey.
Students working in the darkroom.
Emma shows off her finished 35mm print!
Poetry!
By Felix Dowsley, Wilderness Educator, Assistant to the English Department, and Communications Intern
Last week the English department took a bye and sat back in class with great enjoyment as our Dean of Students, Susan Tinsley Daily, stepped in to teach two special classes on form poetry. Susan assumed her role of English teacher with ease and familiarity–she taught English at The Outdoor Academy back in 2007-2008.
Susan took on the often difficult job of convincing the students that they wanted to write sonnets and sestinas: ”So, you might be wondering why we are talking about form. You might think , ‘eww, now we have to follow a bunch of rules.’ But, how many of you have heard a set of rules, and then immediately think of how you can bend them as much as possible without breaking them?” Most of the students raised their hands. “See, that’s why form poetry is fun. Because there are rules, and you have to follow them, but you can be very playful, and see how much you can push the rules. Have a rhyme that barely rhymes, like when a good rapper pushes words to fit in a line. That’s called slant rhyme, or off rhyme. Or uses homonyms, so that when you repeat a word over and over in a sestina, you can use different forms, like ‘which’ and ‘witch’, or ‘two’, ‘too’, and ‘to’.”
The students set to writing their own form poems with gusto. Many declared that they had always hated writing poetry, but that with a little direction and free reins, it was actually pretty fun. Topics ranged from critiques of mass media and deconstructing gender norms to the wonders of the persimmon fruit. I’d like to share with you the latter, a beautiful sestina composed by Sophia:
Sestina #1
Such a glorious fruit is a persimmon.
Such a muted and a strong orange color.
Such a particular, joy-evoking smell.
They are the smallness of a button-nose child,
and are more delicate and breakable than lace.
How could such a fragile treat withstand strong, strong winds?
I am pushed to the persimmon trees (two) by strong internal winds.
When I stand at their base, I stare up at the round persimmons.
Blue sky comes through the few branches like lace…
The hue of surprise might be persimmon-colored—
Walking through the leaves barefoot, I feel again like a child.
I touch and see the smallest things; I breathe and smell.
If disappointment is scented, it must be this smell—
a smashed persimmon’s aroma, carried by the wind.
When you don’t notice the gift and break it; more adult than child.
And they are so rare, these persimmons;
You never want to see the bright orange color
of the open inside, those inner fibers like lace.
I’ll be a blushing bride swathed in lace
and a grandmother with grandchildren’s hair to smell.
I’ll come to know my many colors—
and sail the roughest winds.
But in October, turning around and gasping at the sight of one more persimmon!
I am the girl I know, my deepest child.
If I ever have a daughter
I’ll wrap her in the lace
of how a persimmon
smells—
raise her to welcome winds—
teach her to know colors.
Sometimes I need to see the earth’s color
and I cry to be my inner child.
I love to feel those northenly winds
and cover myself in nature’s lace.
And when I do, my tender nose will start to smell
the wild scent of my persimmons.
Those trees full of persimmons have a color
and a smell I wish to teach every child.
They’d know the difference of lace and winds.
Ask the Students
The students, plus Noah in pirate Halloween gear.
With the students fully recouped from trek, and trek being the monumental midpoint of the semester, I thought it was high time that the students be polled on their experience thus far. I took a random sample by sitting down in the den shortly before lunch and received some candid answers about the OA experience.
What have you done at OA that you have never done before in your life?
Sophia: I have felt very necessary to the community.
Imani: Going backpacking.
Alec: Liking school.
Evan: Trying in school.
Lea: Having real relationships with my teachers.
What are some of your goals for the rest of the semester?
Sophia: Live it up! Be here, be present, and continue to form bonds with people. Also, to come into my own intellectual voice.
Imani: Divide and conquer my grades.
Lea: To bring my new knowledge back home.
Alec: To bring a desire for learning back to my sending school.
What has been your favorite class day so far?
Sophia: When we did similes and metaphors in English. I’d used similes before but now they make sense—especially after actually doing the thing: running through the woods, and then saying, “running through the woods is like…”—much more real than when you’re sitting at a computer.
Imani: Leading Alec blindfolded through the woods [during English class on Elizabeth Bishop’s “Questions of Travel”.]
Lea: Whenever we just sit down and have a great discussion.
Alec: When we run around and then write.
What has been your favorite weekend activity?
Sophia: Having free time on Sundays; slack lining, having random dance parties in Cheoah. And the climbing trip, of course.
What has been the hardest moment of the semester?
Lea: Backpacking for nine days.
Imani: Pilot Mountain—it never ended!
Lea: Roan Mountain, although part of it was like Narnia.
Alec: Integrating with the community lifestyle; finding a newer version of myself.
Imani: Being around all these people. It’s like getting new siblings again, and the frustration that comes with being around new people for a long time.
Lea: Reeling in the sass.
What has been the silliest moment of the semester?
Lea: Oh man. Oh no! They’re all just so silly.
Alec: Everything is silly all of the time.
Lea: I’m either cracking up or having a deep conversation.
Alec: Yeah, it’s either one or the other. There’s no in-between. Never any…bad time.
Trek!
The heroes are happily home. Our students tromped over the rugged mountains between Sam’s Gap and Carver’s Gap, putting behind them sixty miles on the Appalachian trail and well over ten thousand feet in elevation change. The first three days and last three days were marked by that burning autumnal blue sky, completely clear of clouds. The leaves in the high mountains finished their fireworks and began to fall like flags signaling the approaching winter. The northbound trek group hiked through snow. In between the days of idyllic weather came the not-quite-frozen rain that tests hikers the most, even more so than snow and freezing temperatures. The students took it all in stride, hiking with determination even when their boots were soaked, depending on their comrades and finding inner strength in the face of these challenges.
The Northbound Group, all smiles despite the frosty weather
I found it telling that as we descended the last ridge down to the vans the students expressed mixed feelings about exiting the woods:
“I want to go back!” said Sophia.
I replied, “hold on a second and I’ll get the car door open.”
“No,” she said. “I mean back!” and she pointed back the way we came, back towards the wind and rain and wet boots, back over Big Bald and Roan Mountain. When I pulled out of the parking lot and started to drive back to the interstate we were all taken aback by our rapid rate of travel.
“I don’t like it!” one student exclaimed. “We’re moving so fast that I can’t look at anything!”
In English class the students read Wendell Berry’s essay “An Entrance to the Woods,” in which he recognizes that when he goes camping his mind is still moving at seventy miles an hour even days after he has exchanged interstate travel for foot travel. After nine days on the trail the students achieved the mental transformation to a state of walking. It is a way of being that makes impossible the common distractions we experience as a byproduct of accelerated transportation. It brings the mind into direct contact with the body and its surroundings, and with one’s companions on the trail.
Wading through the grasses atop Big Bald
On the last night out, sitting around our campfire on the windy heights of Big Bald, Forest described the communal trail experience with honesty: “We know we all love each other, and then we get incredibly frustrated with each other and see the worst in each other, and then we still love each other!” Truly, when it is raining and one cannot feel one’s soggy toes, and it is dark but the bear bags have not been put up, it is easy to be at one’s worst; but it requires at least three people to hoist the heavy bear bags into a tree. I did not have to tell my trek group that their bond on the trail would last a lifetime, but I couldn’t help myself.
Most of all I take pride in knowing that they could repeat their trek without me, that they can go out as competent and confident backpackers and explore the woods on their own terms. It is a great gift, one that I received at their age, and one that is an honor to pass on to the next generation.
Warming up with a hot meal and good friends
Gearing Up for Trek
In the last days before Trek the rainy weather fits the students’ mood: pensive, with an acute awareness to the homey comforts of honey ginger tea and scones. At the same time, the dorms are a flurry of fleece and wool as packs are cinched and stowed in anticipatory readiness. Packing lists are consulted twice and thrice. Extra batteries and more long johns are considered, then crammed into stuff sacks. The whole bundle is tested for weight.
Packing out food in the Sun Lodge
Yes, tomorrow we leave for the Appalachian Trail. Over the next eight days the students will walk sixty miles up mountains and down valleys, all the while carrying on their backs everything they need to live the good life in the woods: filters and iodine for drinking water; food, fuel, and stoves for hearty dinners; journals, wool hats, cameras, and maybe a bit of chocolate for the top of Roan Mountain. (If you happen to talk to them this evening, please don’t mention the chocolate – I’d like to keep it a surprise.) Finally they’ll lace up their boots, now well worn-in after Orientation Trek, two Paddle/Climb weekends, and Classes in the Field.
A comfortable boot that is well acquainted with your foot is a prize possession indeed. Boots are repositories of memories. I bought my first serious pair of boots when I was fifteen; they bore the cattle and horse brands of Philmont Scout Ranch, where I took my first long trek. A week from Sunday, when the students take their last steps and triumphantly swing off their backpacks at the trailhead, they will have worked a whole topography of joy and awe into the creases of their boots. Even after that pair falls apart at the end of some other trail, they will never forget the bonds they forged with their friends in times of struggle and celebration.
Caroline's well-worn boots
If you talk to the students after trek, you should ask them how they became heroes. In English class we have been discussing Joseph Campbell, a 20th century thinker who recognized in the classic epic stories and folk mythologies a common cycle: a hero or heroine steps away from the comfortable and familiar realm of hearth and home out into the strange wilderness, contends with hardship and forces of opposition, and finally returns home to share the special knowledge they gained through their tribulations. This cycle is as present in Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings as it is in the Gospel of Matthew and Gilgamesh. When the students return from trek they will tell the story of their heroic journey—how they made dinner despite numb fingers and cold rain; how they cheered their companions up the final push of Big Hump’s windy bald. When the students imagine themselves as heroes, they will come to terms with the immensity of their accomplishments and the outer limits of their powers. Until then, they have only one assignment: Get out in the woods! Be a hero!
