Students need help raising funds

Springfield's new Expeditionary Learning School is having a silent auction on June 8 from 7-9 p.m. on the school campus located at 1170 Carew St. to raise funds for the ninth grade Outward Bound course. We are inviting you to help make it possible for our ninth grade students to experience an important personal and school community activity by donating an item for the silent auction.

The Springfield Expeditionary Learning School is not a typical urban school. It is a college bound public school committed to every single one of its students achieving an extraordinary level of academic and personal success. Our students will be young men and women engaged as active citizens, committed to safe and healthy life habits and connected to one another as compassionate and supportive human beings. If our school is going to be successful in getting radically different results, we have to "do school" differently.

The ninth grade Outward Bound course is a key component to "doing school" differently. Each September, Springfield Expeditionary Learning School ninth graders will complete an Outward Bound orientation course at the Hurricane Island, Outward Bound School. The course is designed to jump-start a breakthrough school culture by bringing students and staff together and supporting them through a series of individual and group challenges. The crews of 10-20, into which students are grouped in Expeditionary Learning high schools, experience the Outward Bound course together with their teachers.

Based on our founding students' experience this past September, we believe the Outward Bound orientation course is critical to creating a positive, inclusive culture at our new school. The course provides a unique opportunity for students and faculty to build trustful, positive relationships with one another, to learn how to work as a team to overcome challenges, and to form school community values. The experiences the students and teachers have together on the course are intended to have explicit and positive applications to the culture and daily life of the high school, particularly with respect to teamwork, student-teacher relations, and students taking responsibility for themselves and the school community. Research has shown that similar courses for incoming college freshmen substantially reduce the rate of freshmen year dropouts. Our thesis is that this course can have even greater impact, especially as it is designed to help build a school culture that will, in turn, reinforce the values, lessons and experiences of the courses.

Outward Bound is an international organization that was founded over 60 years ago by Kurt Hahn to provide adventure-based education for all types of people. Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound is a branch of Outward Bound USA, and its Design Principles are based on Hahn's educational beliefs and practices. Outward Bound is recognized as the premier wilderness education organization in the world and has an impeccable safety record. The Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, based in Rockland, Maine, was founded over 40 years ago.

Since Outward Bound is the foundation of Expeditionary Learning Schools, this six-day wilderness course will be a cornerstone experience of our school. We expect this six-day course to be a source of inspiration, confidence, and success our students will call upon throughout their four years of high school and well beyond into their college and adult lives.

The school must raise $45,000 so that the course is available to every freshman at no cost. Your generosity will make it possible for kids who have never pitched a tent, used a sextant, or carried a pack to re-image themselves as high school and college graduates, doctors and teachers, engineers and bankers, judges and executives.