Conquering challenges outside the classroom
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Supplementing their study of the Transcendentalist movement, Miner’s class took a field trip last week to New Frontiers, an outdoor adventure program camp in DeKalb County.
“It was a way to help the students experience English and where the authors were coming from in order to be able to interpret what the authors wanted them to,” said Miner.
For the past several weeks, the class of 10 students has been studying transcendentalism, a literary and philosophical movement started in New England by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836. Much of the focus, however, has been on Henry David Thoreau, Emerson’s student and friend and perhaps the leading figure in the Transcendentalist movement.
In addition to “going to the woods ” like Thoreau, the students also visited a courthouse and a jail, both places the Transcendentalist spent time.
The field trip to New Frontiers served to help the students get a better grasp of two of the main themes of Thoreau’s work: self reliance and an appreciation of the natural world. Instead of sitting in the woods having a discussion on these themes, the class took a more hands-on approach, bringing the themes to relevance by scaling a 50-foot climbing wall.
To do this the students learned the basics of climbing, including how to correctly put on the harness, the commands to use when climbing and safety measures necessary for a safe climb.
All of the students, said Miner, gave the climb their all. For some this meant making it to the top, while for others this meant making it only half way, or even just a couple feet up.
“I am so proud of all my students. They worked hard to achieve a goal, and they learned to work together, encouraging and coaching each other,” she said.