An Education That Builds Memories
NCCL’s 40th Anniversary brought together many current and past NCCL families as well as founder Ann Brown to celebrate the things that make NCCL special! The text of Ann's speech follows.
Speech By Ann Brown, founder of NCCL, on the 40th Anniversary
When I think about NCCL 40 years later and what has made it special, I believe this title is what we do best. We have certainly changed and evolved from the beginnings, we have had successes and failures along the way, but my belief is that giving students memories that seem to last a lifetime- 40 years so far- is our forte. I will highlight some reasons I think this happens.
We look quite different from the early years- our oldest alumni can attest to that- but there are key parts of our education we put in place early on that to my knowledge of other schools make us pretty unique. Somehow we knew these could create important learning experiences and I am not surprised that, 40 years later, they are still in place.
We believed in that educational catchword mainstreaming, but knew it had to take place with smaller class sizes. We set up the 10/1 student/teacher ratio that, give or take a few, has remained steady over the years. When we had big waiting lists, it would have been financially helpful to enlarge classes but we never did, believing it much more important to allow kids with varied abilities to grow and learn together.
organization and work of the school means that students see that their parents and teachers are working together for their benefit. It took years and countless hours of discussion to develop our system of work days, cleaning, committee work, elected offices and monthly meetings, but the structure still works. Any changes to this meant months of more discussion. In the early days everyone was required to clean and do work days. Parents today would probably find it amusing how many months it took to change that to be able to buy out.
We build this same sense of responsibility for the school into our students program by having weekly meetings. Graduating kids take turns running the meetings, everyone sits on the floor around the edge of the gym, all from the youngest to the oldest, including teachers, have an equal say. When problems are brought up in class, teachers say, "Let’s talk about it at the meeting," and when the leader goes around that week to each class, it is put on the agenda. There is always a time for bringing up something from the floor. It never got old for me to see a 5-year-old talk for the first time and see everyone listening carefully. Ways to solve the problem are offered, discussed, and voted on, and if that didn’t solve it, we were sure to hear about it the next week, when a new approach could be suggested. The power of kids feeling they have a voice and some control over their school experience builds a sense of responsibility and empowerment that I think is huge in their development.
We pay attention very closely to the differing needs of the age groups. What we saw early on was that, as kids closed in on puberty, their social and emotional needs increased expontentially over their academic ones. As important as academic skills are, I always felt they were way easier to teach than building self-confidence and a caring character. We felt we had to introduce a regular forum to allow class discussion of any topics kids needed and thus the weekly Choices Class was created. Believe me, the pressure to end this and put in more academics has always been there, but even if the teachers tried, the kids wouldn’t let this happen. Now remember I have been gone for 10 years, but just this year I got a wonderful long letter from a former student, who, after 17 years, had gone to visit an old NCCL schoolmate and they were able to connect like no time had passed. Afterwards she sent me a picture of them and wrote about her lasting memories. Here is part of what she said: "Choices Class made a world of difference in my life. For one thing I’m comfortable talking honestly about anything. I don’t avoid or ignore my feelings. From Choices, I learned to talk to my father. Without it he and I would have a completely different relationship. I feel blessed. I learned to really listen to people. I hear what they are saying and how they are saying it and what I don’t understand I am comfortable asking about it. I realize I have no barriers. I’m comfortable with how I feel about people and things. "
Our educational philosophy has always included the element of change in the curriculum to awaken interest levels in both teachers and students. Another aspect in this approach is to involve the student in planning. As we gradually got more structured in our academic classes for the older kids, we invented Workshop Week, where classes run for 1½ hours for 5 days and are decided from a list generated by students mostly and occasionally by teachers with student agreement. They occur 3 times a year and create a break from the regular schedule, they give a chance to include subjects not usually taught, and an opportunity for parents and other interested adults to come in and teach. Here are some examples of last year’s workshop classes: solar energy, drama improvisation, gnomes and gnome habitats, ballroom dancing, breakfast cooking, rock songs as poetry, sewing, geocashing, beadlings, and karate.
I’ll close this section with another quote from that letter- "Someday I have to write Nora. It was in one of her workshop week classes that I learned to love to cook. None of my cousins’ kids can do more than fix cereal. I look at all the things I did at NCCL and look at how little other people did and I just glow. NCCL gave me so much. I can sew, do woodworking, paint, cook, and so much more."
It has been our belief that the most memorable educational experiences often happen outside the school walls. Thus our frequent trips were instituted right from the beginning. We wanted to give kids a love of nature and being outdoors and so camping and our outdoor skills week for the older kids happen every year. All our history and science themes involve trips. After I learned of another former student’s college graduation this year with a major in environmental studies and minors in marine conservation, psychology, and biology, I sent a congratulations card with a note hoping that her early childhood seining experiences at Cape Henlopen had in some way sown the seeds for her field of work that will do so much good in the world. She graciously wrote back, saying, "When you mentioned seining with NCCL, tears came to my eyes, because I can assure you that the path I have chosen in life is a direct result from not only the activities we did, but from the support I had from everyone there. I never would have spent last summer training dolphins and teaching marine conservation if you and everyone else had not pushed me and told me that my dream could come true, even if I dream it at a young age."
I’m leaving until last my favorite part of our curriculum and that is our apprenticeship program, which has been a part of NCCL from the earliest years. We felt strongly that our 7-8 graders needed some real life experiences- relating to adults who were not their teachers or parents, learning work skills to give them a head start in getting jobs in high school and later, and learning the level of jobs available without a college or vocational specialty degree. We have been lucky to always have local businesses willing to find one afternoon a week of useful volunteer employment and this has allowed the added benefit of community recognition for the school. The apprentices always know that they are setting examples of our school out in public. And, more often that you might think, kids have found paid employment with these same businesses in high school.
All of these programs take huge amounts of time outside the teachers’ workday, but it has obviously been worth it. The longevity of our staff is another quite unique thing about us. From no salary at the beginning to fairly competitive ones now, our enthusiasm for teaching has remained.
I will close now. These are some of my reasons why our alumni, even if they were only with us for a few years, remember so many experiences and remain friends with each other and with us. But I’m not sure it’s the whole answer. Whatever is this strength, I am sure it cannot be captured in a standardized test. And I am most proud of this ability of ours to give them enduring, meaningful memories.
