This school leverages lessons from their on-campus ropes course to help students realize their full potential as part of a community of learners—and beyond.
As a small public tuition-free charter school in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, The Greene School has always emphasized themes of interdependence—in their local ecosystems and in their classrooms. In addition to their location—a 74-acre woodland setting—one of the features that makes this school so unique is a number of outdoor education elements sprinkled throughout campus, and the way the faculty utilizes them to help students build the mindsets they need for learning. A climbing tower stands near the pond, and throughout the year, teachers use the ropes course attached to the tower along with various team-building activities to help students fully appreciate what they are capable of doing, and learn how they can truly support each other.
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First task is to use the holds and create one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, okay?
So can I get maybe three volunteers?
The climbing tower is part of our outdoor education program.
Our wellness teacher is actually a trained facilitator.
So this is my belay team, okay, and we are in this together.
I think you can go to a lot of places now and you can see ropes courses and
they're used for recreation.
That's not the point of our ropes course and that's not the point of our outdoor education program.
There's so much around group dynamics and group process and a ropes course just
offers so many powerful examples and metaphors for how we function as a group.
Students can climb that tower a hundred times, but with each training and with each experience,
they're learning so much more about who they are as a community member and
what it really means to truly support one another.
That tower is where we can talk about the concept of like self-reliance, right?
There's so much more in us than we realize, are willing to own, are willing to accept,
are willing to step into, and I think that outdoor ed kind of pushes you, right,
into this sometimes a place of discomfort that allows you to see yourself differently and
potentially have like a transformational moment.
Do you trust us?
Can you lift your knees up so they're not caught your feet?
There you go.
You know, we've seen students who struggle in the classroom, who are regularly struggling
with behavior, who are wandering in the hallways, but they get out there where they're tackling
an initiative with a group of students and they show up completely differently.
There's this totally different sense of possibility that they have for themselves
and that they can see in themselves.
There's a progression, so the idea is that as students become more comfortable and they
build relationships that they will feel like they can participate in risk-taking activities,
right, that are positive, that are going to help them grow as a human being.
Nice job, Riley.
Allowing kids time to practice and to play and to explore how they're showing up and
how they're showing up is impacting the group's progress within that initiative and within
that task is really powerful.
Sometimes when you're in the classroom, it's too abstract for them to see that, but they
can see it very, very clearly when they're out on a ropes course and they can see very,
very clearly that either their positive contribution or the absence thereof is impacting the group's
ability to reach their goal.
That also allows faculty to use some of those really specific examples with students around
what does it mean to be part of a community of learners and what does it mean when we
say everyone in this classroom matters and we need all voices and everybody's participation
and how you show up is going to impact our experience.
That outdoor education program sort of naturally is lending itself to that classroom experience.
