It's been a few weeks, the tents are (mostly) clean and dry, the sand stakes have been (mostly) collected, students and faculty presentations have been delivered - enough time has passed to evaluate the experience not from the perspective of elated survival but the calm collected distance of pedagogical intent and assessment.What were we going for in our mad dash to the sea, the "Seeing What's There"-mini revival of 1980s Evergreen experiential education?
We wanted to create a space - a space for students to think up and create something they were truly interested in, to develop and test it (albeit with tiny sample sizes), to try out and apply something they felt they had learned. That happened. Students presented on journal writing, on fitness, on observations about improv theatre and interactions and preparedness and an ESOL lesson plan; there was photography, writing, and drawing. Each member of the party had something to report on the time spent on Bear Island. So, outside the classroom and in some ways unsupervised (it's a pretty wide beach out there), productivity was achieved. (The stakes were intentionally low: a single 199 credit hour in either Interdisciplinary Studies or Art.)
And community: setting up and moving a tent, perhaps for only the second time (we practiced!). Food, erratically planned and shared as needed. Tying up trash bags and setting up a little stove and carrying silty water from a faucet half a mile down the beach - the everyday realities of camp life, so infinitely far removed from dorm and campus life.
The surprising absence of screens, phones, ear buds - and, for a while, even chatter, as students spread out across the beach to do work. (Not all work has to be defined or productive.)
Then, there was the aspect of experience - an opportunity to have an emotional connection to other individuals, a community, a place of nature and inherent beauty. This also happened. The elation of the prospect of crossing to the island, the excitement of the brief ferry trip, the struggle of trudging across the width of Bear Island and up the beach to the camp sites gave way to a sense of relief and connection: toes in sand and water, a first exploration of a wide open place full of wind and sun.
We could have ambled along in this manner, all at ease - but then we had weather. A feature in all outdoor adventures, ours came with promises of gale-force winds, an inch or so of rain spread over the afternoon hours of the second day, and (this was the kicker), temperatures to drop into the mid-30s. Which, honestly, is too cold to be sleeping in a wet sleeping bag in a leaky tent and not court hypothermia. So, we de-camped into the wind-buffeted shelter under the wide overhang of the closed concession stand down the beach, and we were cold but dry. The mood shifted - the community, originally split into tent sites and small groups, drew together; there was snacking, journaling, reading, and (contentious) card playing.
There was slack time. So rare for students whose days are often a jumble of class times, study times, athletic practice times, social times, meal times - for a few hours, we just kind of sat there, watching the rain, feeling the wind, wondering about the impending cold. Some of us walked down the beach (miles in each direction) and picked up some shells. Took some more photos. Watched the clouds draw in and disperse.
The night was cold. Very cold. Windchill factor 27-cold. And the morning, as bright and sunny and clear as anything, was still windy and barely above freezing. So, after cups and bowls of hot coffee and tea we packed up and marched down to the ferry landing, done with our adventure.
Nobody complained. (We made them sign waivers that said: "I will not complain" - but I think the weather might have rendered those legally moot.)
I think we got what we came for.
