end-of-year experiences

 

learning complexities

what can be the value of end-of-year high school trips?

I visit with a CFS high school teacher and two of our alums:

each of whom share revelations of truth

they found within their late year experiences,

stories they can imagine sharing

as foundational as to who they are,

maybe in a revisit to the school,

maybe around a campfire with friends from the time,

I hear of empowerment as each is challenged,

whether emotionally, physically, or culturally, 

a move from being daunted to rising to the occasion,

maybe sharing with a community 

not of my native language,

or that I can hike, canoe, cook, clean, 

do what needs to be done,

and I can also be humbled in that I need another for help,

for how to deal with "hitting the wall,"

with expanding my sense of who I am,

I loved one insight, that such trips are of 

"learning complexities of ourselves, and of our peers,"

of making connections with others not already friends,

of finding ways forward that had not already revealed themselves,

of embracing the friction with the unfamiliar,

of taking agency of self and world, not just receiving

but finding ways to act within and upon the world for the better.

by Henry H. Walker, 

built upon the insights of 

Dave Worden, Aliza Bridge, and Matt Gouchoe-Hanas,

shared July 20, ‘23