Homeschool Nature Program for Teens Community School
We
have a lot of fun in nature, a refreshing change from regular life where
you can just let go of whatever else is going on and just relax and have
a good time.... and be aware and connected with the earth, I feel comfortable
there.-Rutah, age 14
Our Mission
The Mission of the Wilderness Awareness Community School is to create
an educational environment that helps homeschooled teenagers engage their
natural intelligence and awakens their innate abilities to perceive and
connect with the world around them.
Our students immerse themselves in intensive, experiential studies of
nature from both scientific and indigenous perspectives. In this effort,
our students are instructed and supported by a large, diverse community
of mentors from all ages and walks of life.
Why Study Nature?
For millions of years, humans have lived in direct contact with the natural
world, and our senses developed to attend to its rhythms and sounds.
It is only in the last couple of hundred years that we have insulated ourselves from nature with things like buildings and cars and pavement. One unfortunate result of this separation is that our senses atrophy from lack of use. With no reason to pay attention to birds, we don't even see them as they fly by. We don't hear the deer or raccoon as they sneak away through the bushes. And we slowly grow deaf to our own intuition and instincts which guide and connect us to the world.
Our goal at Wilderness Awareness Community School, our teen wilderness course for homeschoolers, is to reawaken this deep awareness of nature in our students.
What happens when young people expand their awareness of the world around them and pay attention to their inner voice, their intuition, and their heart is truly remarkable.
These students gain an understanding of the natural flow of things that puts them in better balance with themselves and the world around them. As their confidence grows, they find themselves firmly on the path towards developing into physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually centered people.
Teaching through Mentoring
Staff at the Wilderness Awareness Community School consider themselves Mentors rather than Teachers. Thus their role shies away from lecturing students about facts they should know, and instead emphasizes helping students to find their interests and gain the skills to question, investigate and explore the world around them.
The art of mentoring is a delicate dance, and every student presents unique gifts and challenges to our staff. As a result, close personal attention is crucial for successful mentoring.
The school is also supported by a larger community made up of amateur and professional naturalists, artists, crafts people, teachers, elders, and young people.
These people volunteer time to teach classes and mentor our students. In this way, the entire community of people, plants and animals serve as the real teachers of our students.
In the past, we have had herbalists work with us to harvest and prepare medicinal plants, crafts people teach us to prepare fleece and make felt blankets, and carvers teach us some of the traditional carving and basketry techniques of the Northwest Coast Native Peoples.
Our Curriculum
Our approach to studying nature combines modern scientific understanding with the more first-hand connections that ancient cultures had with the natural world. Over the course of a year, our teen wilderness course focuses on many topics, including:
- Wilderness Living Skills
- Mammals and Tracking
- Birds and their Languages
- Plants and their Uses
- Aidless Navigation
- Native Cultures
- Trees and Survival
- Ecology and Community
At Wilderness Awareness Community School, we explore these topics using a powerful, comprehensive curriculum. We begin our inquiries experientially, taking students into the natural world where they can see, smell, hear, and feel the subject matter.
To this experiential understanding we add a cognitive component as our students research the current topic through books, field guides, videos, lectures and other resources.
Students may become skilled naturalists and master trackers by the end of their time with Wilderness Awareness School (our curriculum is designed for it!), yet ultimately our goal as a school is something far simpler, yet much more elusive.
What we aim to create are not naturalists or trackers, but centered, healthy, self-motivated young adults, able to think critically for themselves, with the confidence and inspiration to dream a vivid vision of their own future, and the skills and enthusiasm to pursue that vision.
What Our Students are Saying...
Read what our Alumni have to say about their experience at Community School.
To Apply
Please call our office to apply: 425-788-1301.
Register for Teen Homeschool-Community School
| Apply | Ages 14-18 $3480; September to June, Friday 9am-3pm; At our land in the Cascade foothills near Duvall, WA (60 min from Seattle) |
2011-2012 Calendar and Enrollment
Community School is an intensive mentoring course for homeschooled teens ages 14-18. Class size is limited to 9 students per instructor in order to ensure individual attention and mentoring.
Community School meets each Friday from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m, from September 16, 2011 until May 25, 2012 at our outdoor classroom in Duvall, WA.
As part of the year, students experience three week-long overnight expeditions that allow for field learning in diverse ecosystems throughout the West, as well as offering opportunities for personal growth and leadership development.
Visit Days - On April 20th, 2012 You and your children are invited to share a day with our staff, students and other families to see Community School in action! Contact Us to sign up!
Call our office to apply, or schedule a visit to the course: 425-788-1301.
Our Educational Philosophy
At the core of our approach to educating young people is our concept of "Passion-based learning." This is the idea that every one of us has special gifts to bring to the world, things that spark our passions in life.
Our school's fundamental goal is to awaken this spirit in our students, and to help them identify and pursue their gifts. We believe that the most effective learning happens when young people are pursuing what they love, and so truly desire to learn.
Equally important is our philosophy that the most effective learning happens when students figure things out "on their own."
In their efforts to do this, they are individually guided by mentors who strive to create experiences and opportunities for students to discover their own answers.
We call this method Coyote Mentoring, a technique that encourages creative thinking rather than providing answers, and results in much deeper learning. It also stimulates the growth of problem-solving skills, and stretches the students into greater self-sufficiency in their living and learning.
Tuition & Scholarships
Annual Tuition is $3480
Non-Refundable Enrollment Fee: $870, due upon registration. Remainder payable in three payments due Sept 1, Dec. 15, and
March 15.
Scholarships:
If you require tuition assistance, we invite you to download a Scholarship
Application in PDF format, complete it and mail it in.
The non-refundable enrollment fee is required to hold the place of all registrants, regardless of scholarship status. If, within two weeks of scholarship notification, scholarship applicants decide not to commit to the course, we will refund your fee in full. (This is the only situation where the enrollment fee is refundable.)
Tuition Assistance for Community School!
Your homeschooled teen can receive valuable tuition assistance that can be applied
toward costs at
Community School! More
details
Our Instructors
Mike Prince serves as a core instructor of Anake Outdoor School and Lead Instructor of Community School. Mike also coordinates the Wild Within Teen weekend program. Mike previously served as Land Manager for Linne Doran for 5 years and is a dedicated keeper of the center fire. As a Delaware native, Mike spent many years exploring the wilds of the Chesapeake Bay region and Mid-Atlantic coast. He earned a BA from University of Rochester in upstate NY. After teaching High School, directing a Boy Scout Camp, and directing at a YMCA Camp & Conference Center, Mike followed coyote west to join the Anake Outdoor School in 2004. Mike is passionate about the art of mentoring and dreams of creating a Wilderness Awareness Academy for teens that would blend nature and modern academic skills. Mike loves tracking, swimming, sailing, real pizza, scouting, Inipi, football, live music, stock investing and ice cream.
Merilee Wilmore is an Outreach Assistant and Community School Instructor, as well as a graduate of the Anake Outdoor School. She also spent a year as an Apprentice Instructor for the program through the Anake Leadership Program.
While Merilee has a background in counseling and special education, she feels most alive and at home teaching in the woods and along the beaches of the Northwest.
She is passionate about continually deepening her knowledge and connection to the natural world, through wondering, bird watching, animal tracking, harvesting wild foods and preparing herbal remedies.
