Waring Classrooms are Everywhere: Endterm, Camping Trip and beyond.

I was thirteen years old, about to walk backwards off a granite cliff. It was my first Endterm at the Waring School, where I was finishing my eighth-grade year, and my science teacher and my French teacher had brought a group of us to New Hampshire’s White Mountains to see what we could learn from camping and rock-climbing. I was strapped into a webbing harness, clipped by a carabiner to a sturdy climbing rope, on an anchor built by our resident professional, a man we students knew as “Camper Dave.”

But when it came my turn to rappel, I couldn’t do it. I mean I really couldn’t. My body wouldn’t cooperate. Being a klutzy kid, I was used to that to some degree, but I remember being uniquely flummoxed by the concept of making myself walk backwards over the edge of a cliff. I remember laughing with the other intelligent people up there with me about the obvious fact that we humans are evolved not to do this, and soaking in the awful irony of it, but my legs just wouldn’t  go. The intensity of that fear is still vivid in my mind. The shaking muscles. The choking sobs. The hot tears running down my face: shame, frustration, disappointment, primal fear. I remember it took a very long time. Several tries.

Of course the story doesn’t end there. I remember my science teacher Laila’s calm, kind face as she talked with me, laughing her wry laugh with me, talking me through it, getting me there. I recall Matt, my French teacher, and Camper Dave, and their lightness, their ease; their total confidence that of course I could; they’d seen this before. They weren’t worried about me at all. I didn’t consciously or explicitly know that in the moment, but I remember the feeling that they created: the lightness of transcendence.

I did rappel that afternoon, which was just the beginning, because then we had to climb back up again, that being the ostensible point of the exercise. I think I went back for another round of rappel-and-climb, though maybe that was the next day or the next year, but I remember laughing how it was so different the second time through, laughing with my friends at our shared struggle.

In true Waring fashion we then wrote about the experience. I learned to parse this later, in my training to be an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS); that students learn vastly more from an experience by reflecting upon it, preferably in writing and in sharing aloud. It’s standard practice at Waring for Writing classes to use a workshop format, in which students take turns reading their work aloud to a group of a dozen or so of their peers, and then offer comments on each other’s writing.

Matt and Laila put us all up to the reflection exercise that Endterm. It felt automatic to me, like a given; it would have been strange for Waring students not to be asked to write about what we had just been through as a group and as individuals. I remember sitting around the wooden table in the fireplace room back on campus, warm, dry and clean again, laughing together as we wrote and shared our drafts, making the words and sentences flow better, learning to write and to critique equally as we learned to face our fears, to work together. And it was just as obvious that we would then be expected to share our writing with the whole school, standing up to read loud and proud about our fears, triumphs and goofy mistakes. Opportunities for this kind of sharing are routine at our daily All-School Meeting.

My teachers’ expert guidance through that experience fostered lifelong learning through teamwork and by challenging the comfortable. My science teacher and my French teacher - who themselves loved the outdoors - understood that we would be better students (and better humans) if we extended the laboratory and classroom a bit to include a four-day backpacking and climbing excursion. They knew that Waring’s classrooms could be anywhere a teacher chose to make one, so they facilitated an experience of deep learning for us amidst the pine and granite. Waring students’ experiences in the “classrooms” that Waring finds all over the world cultivate curiosity and wonder, and build connections between book-learning and the stuff of life.

Waring’s travel programs grow from their roots in the original mission and values that Philip and Josée Waring espoused when they founded La Petite Ecole in 1972. Philip Waring believed that the world is our classroom, and so travel has always been an integral part of Waring’s official academic program. In the early days, when the school was composed of only a dozen or so students, everyone piled into a bus known as Rocinante (awkward, and past its prime, like its namesake, Don Quixote’s horse). The intrepid group set off for parts unknown, with few opportunities to call home, on a trip that lasted weeks longer than anticipated.

The fact that learning of unforeseen proportions occurred on this trip is beyond question. Josée and Philip were masters at guiding students through a given experience by making the most of whatever circumstances came their way, by a consistent practice of conversation and reflection via writing and drawing in the ubiquitous sketchbook. (Waring teachers still require students to keep a journal and a sketchbook, and during school trips, leaders regularly find good places for the group to stop, spread out, and take time for silent reflection.) Philip and Josée seemed to be known for their approach that used leadership with a light touch; their leadership allowed student independence to a degree that feels exciting.

Today, the opening week of Waring’s school year is spent on a camping trip with the whole school community, including students, teachers and administrators. As a sort of bookend, travel also occupies the closing three weeks of the academic calendar – once the seniors have graduated – with the Junior Class voyaging abroad, and sixth- through tenth-graders engaged in mixed-age Endterm programs. Endterm – the program that hosted my transformative climbing experience – offers several widely varied opportunities each spring, anything from robotics and coding, or an intensive study of professional women’s soccer, to writing, rehearsing and performing an original theater production. While some groups do stay on campus to take advantage of lab space or the theater, Endterm is a natural venue for travel, since each group works intensively together for an immersive three weeks.

In October and March, an exchange program matches Waring’s freshman class with peers in a French-speaking country, who trade four-week visits to each other’s homes. For many years, this program partnered with the Lycée David d’Angers in France, although the exchange has also taken place in Bordeaux, France and in Martinique. Waring classes engage in numerous other shorter trips for science, debate, theater classes, and the like, as well as a journey to Montréal for the sixth and seventh grades together. Waring’s three weeks of experiential education in June – via Endterm and Junior Trip – allow the school year to “end” by ramping up to finish the school year with fresh and exciting energy. Academic classes also create capstone experiences to round out the classroom portion of the year; teachers seek to provide some form of synthesis to conclude each course. These facets lend a “beginning” feeling to the freedom of summer, and feed hopes that students and teachers alike will start summer vacation feeling invigorated and inspired by their Endterm and travel experiences.

We humans naturally understand and gravitate towards the value of lessons that we learn through direct experience. John Dewey was one of the first educators to voice these merits during a period of school reform in the early 20th century. “Progressive” schools of that era began to recognize the benefits of learning by doing rather than through the rote memorization that may have served schools well during the Industrial Revolution. Dewey noted in 1938 that, “Wholly independent of desire or intent, every experience lives on in further experiences. Hence the central problem of an education based on experience is to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences” (p. 28). His emphasis on the importance of the educator’s expertise in choosing which experiences to offer to students lines up with Waring faculty’s dedication to the craft of teaching.

Contemporary research also continues to underscore and delineate the value of learning from experience, and emphasizes the need for expert guidance and the power of reflection. In a 2011 paper, David A. Kolb states, “Many of us live our daily lives making little or no conscious effort to learn from our experiences. We tend to assume that effective learning happens automatically […] yet research […] has shown that experience alone does not produce much learning” (p. 3). At Waring we maintain a universal habit of sketching, writing, sharing and listening within learning groups so that experiences can take on educational value through reflection and conversation. Kolb, who is known for his writing on the “experiential learning cycle,” continues that “[b]y intentionally guiding the learning process and paying attention to how we are going through the phases of the learning cycle, we make ourselves through learning” (p. 9). Waring teachers’ thoughtful guidance, building upon the Warings’ own “light touch” for leadership, crafts a deliberate space in which experience creates learning.

Waring students are eager to share their memories of positive experiences in this regard. “Waring at its heart prizes learning from powerful experience—entire Humanities classes held in utter silence, dawn runs along the Seine as Paris begins to stir, exploration of our goals and aspirations shared beside [a Camping Trip] bonfire at North Woods,” writes one alumnus (class of 2017) in an email brimming with gratitude. He continues:

“Waring gave me the opportunity to teach my younger counterparts the same skills once taught to me by my older counterparts, a […] cycle that reinforces the community dynamic and gives all students a vested interest in each other’s academic pursuits. This was true in Writing classes with Group One [eighth-graders], in Angers with Group Two [ninth-graders], but most significantly in the mountains. I was able, as a senior, to return to the outdoors Endterm […] that I had first enjoyed so heartily in Group Three [tenth grade], but this time as a partner […] rather than a disciple. I was able to take some awesome younger Waringites on an adventure up into the best parts of the world: the higher, mossier, rockier places. I didn’t know anything about outdoor leadership in anywhere approaching a formal capacity beforehand, but [my teachers] brought me along to the best possible environment to learn quickly: freezing rain-meetshail cascading down onto our soaked, shivering masses” (S. Lincoln, personal communication, August 25, 2018).

Inclement weather can be a powerful teacher in its own right. We all have stories to share of a surprise downpour or snowstorm that transformed an ordinary event into a striking memory or offered us an important lesson. But intentionally exposing students to a harsh mountain environment requires skill, training and good judgment, such as that of an experienced teacher. John Gookin, founder of NOLS, writes, “In the backcountry classroom, students quickly recognize the applicability of information as it is presented to them” (2002, p. 4). Experiences like this student’s and my own align with Gookin’s observation that “The wilderness is the real teacher, providing illustration for key concepts [and] reinforcing lessons with real consequences” (p. 4). Kolb’s (2011) and Dewey’s (1938) points are also critical, in reminding us of the value of strong and experienced guidance and leadership as students process their experiences, whether in nature, in a foreign country, or in a boat-building shop.

When I solicited memories from Endterm participants, I received another moving story from an alumna (class of 2016), who wrote about experiencing a lesson in selflessness from her Waring teacher and Endterm leader:

“During part of our amazing White Mountains hike […] the weather was not in our favor. It was pouring all day and some of us were not adequately prepared. […] One of the trip’s co-leaders eventually stopped in a sheltered area to ask [a young] student if she wanted any of [the teacher’s] layers. It was the end of the trip and we only had one day left. Everyone was drenched, yet [my teacher] showed compassion to this student who hadn’t listened to the packing instructions, and gave her own warm layers. As Ellie [a friend] and I tried to walk faster and get to the hut sooner, I realized that I hadn’t thought about other people than myself. I too was wet and cold, yet I hadn’t taken a moment to ask the student if she wanted my extra long sleeve. Spontaneous teaching moments like this happen all of the time at Waring” (E. Taylor, personal communication, June 6, 2018).

This element of deliberate risk-taking sets Waring apart and offers unique value in our educational program. Philip and Josée were firm believers in the value of healthy risks. In a 2018 film created by Head of School Tim Bakland, Josée comments that students “…could run free, and, in doing so, they could dream.” The level of trust in Waring travel experiences has always been – at least ideally – akin to that present within a family, as Philip stated in the same film. He added that they founded Waring as part of the “free school” movement of the early 1970s, which he describes as comparable to today’s home-school movement.

At Waring we constantly ask students to work in relation with their peers, as well as with older and younger students. Students participate in mixed-age classes daily, whether in mathematics, French or Writing classes, or in twice-weekly Tutorial meetings. The Tutorial program is sometimes referred to as a student’s “school family,” or a group of 10-15 students from all grades, matched with one or two teachers. Tutorial groups meet twice each week, on Tuesdays for lunch, and on Fridays for a 50-minute period that engages in a variety of activities over the course of the year, ranging from one-on-one check-ins to off-campus excursions, cooking projects, community service, or other possibilities. Our school year begins with a weeklong Camping Trip, during which students engage in a variety of activities that build relationships through shared experiences.

The nature of Camping Trip means many of these experiences occur outside the typical comforts of home. Students might set off after breakfast in the dining hall to go canoeing across the lake with their Tutorial group and one or two teachers, and then return to do some reflective writing prompts up in a treehouse or under the shady pines by the waterfront, or to rehearse a skit with their Tutorial group. The skit might be based on a book that the entire school read over the summer. After lunch, students could find themselves reconvening with their grade level to participate in a French immersion project, before heading up the hill to soccer or cross-country practice with everyone from sixth- to twelfth-graders, along with whichever teachers might be inspired to join in for a workout.

To begin the school year in this way – directly engaged in carefully-chosen experiences with evolving groups of community members – is a powerful commitment of resources on Waring’s part to count Camping Trip as part of our required academic program, rather than an optional “extra.” We could hardly not have Camping Trip, though, because Waring believes, as John Gookin states, that “activities enhance learning by providing opportunities to practice new skills and examine new theories” (2002, p. 4). Working with peers ceases to be a theory and becomes a lived practice when the weather turns fickle out on the lake, or when tough athletic drills build camaraderie and a sense of triumph. If a Tutorial group is required to present a skit at the campfire, all the members have to work together to get the piece ready, and all share in the accomplishment as their piece unfolds before the rest of the school on the last night of Camping Trip.

Students experience real teamwork in Endterm, too, and they describe that best in their own words. Waring’s Communications director, Graham Pearsall, filmed and produced a short movie during a recent (2018) Endterm period. In this film he captured many articulate and perceptive reflections from students about their own experiences. Cole Sauder, a participant in a boat-building project, talked about how:

“Everybody is working on different parts of the boat and so you don’t really see all the progress that has been done in one day because you’re just focused on your part of the boat but at the end of the day when we put everything together you can really see your boat coming to shape. It’s a super cool experience because it’s not just you building the boat, it’s a group of people building the boat and everybody is working together on separate little projects. It’s an awesome experience” (Pearsall, 2018).

These connections to team members again extend the Waring classroom beyond four physical walls, and speak to the community bonds that students form with each other and with their instructors.

This authentic practice of life-long learning is one that students build at Waring and carry with them forever. A long-time Waring teacher, who is credited with beginning Endterm, spoke to me about building connections between book-learning and outside experiences of learning. When I spoke with him about the origins of travel in the Waring program, he described conversations that stay alive beyond the academic table, citing an example of an unsolicited email from a former student sharing an experience she thought he would be interested in. I’ve exchanged emails myself with a number of former students, but one stands out in my mind. The student had been a young participant in a hiking Endterm I once led, as well as an erstwhile Tutee and Writing student, and was seeking advice for a backpacking excursion in New Zealand, a place he knew I had spent some time. We shared ideas, questions and memories over email, and he subsequently took advantage of a phenomenal opportunity to be a hut warden in a national park on the North Island there. As his former Writing teacher, I was thrilled that even as a busy adult he was keeping up with his journal-writing practice. Connections like these offer an essential dialectic between the classroom and the stuff of life.

Beyond the critical work of building group dynamics, though, the classroom truly is everywhere that Waring students find themselves. Our program constantly seeks out and offers opportunities to study and learn from experiences in the real world. My sixth- and seventh-grade Physics class recently hopped into a pair of school vans one Thursday afternoon and ventured to Fisk, Inc., a nearby company that builds pipe organs in a cavernous workshop. We had been studying forces such as air pressure, and wanted students to make a connection with our subsequent unit in which we would be studying simple and compound machines and transfer of energy and forces. Students that afternoon found themselves pressing keys on the keyboard to watch what would happen in the air-pumped bellows behind the façade of a partly-completed instrument. Later we discussed the wavelength of sound waves in a hand-built wooden organ pipe that students passed around. In a Geometry class, I brought eighth-, ninth- and tenth-graders to a playground to study rotations and transformations as they played on swings and slides; they carefully took measurements with protractors and tape measures and recorded them in their notebooks.

Philip Waring believed that the world is our classroom. He encouraged students (and teachers) with the questions, “What do you want to know?” and, “What questions will you ask, and of whom could you ask them?” When the school routine is to practice curiosity and wonder, students and teachers alike develop these skills like a muscle. When mathematics classes focus on problem solving rather than memorization, students are prepared to tackle challenging issues in other venues as well. Because a Waring graduate has memories of climbing a peak together with the whole eighth-grade class in the pouring rain on their first Camping Trip, that student has experience in the bank to draw from in facing life situations down the road. Students emerge confident in their own abilities to manage adversity, ready to appreciate and question the world around them, and eager to communicate with others and engage in productive conversations and actions. These are the kind of citizens I wish to live with in this world that we share.

Works Cited

Bakland, T. (Director & Producer). (2018). Celebrating Our Roots [Motion Picture]. (Available from Waring School, Inc., 35 Standley Street, Beverly, MA 01915)

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi.

Gookin, J. (2002). Defining Environmental Education: NOLS Philosophy of Education. In Gookin, J. & Wells, D. (Eds.), NOLS Environmental Education Notebook (TKTK). Lander, WY: National Outdoor Leadership School.

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kolb, D.A., & Yeganeh, B. (2011). Deliberate Experiential Learning: Mastering the Art of Learning from Experience. ORBH Working Paper, Case Western Reserve University.

Pearsall, J.G. (Director & Producer). (2018). Experiential Learning: Endterm at Waring School. [Motion picture]. (Available from Waring School, Inc., 35 Standley Street, Beverly, MA 01915).