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Show November 7, 1997 Cross Currents Wydown Middle School students discover sinking mud at a low water level on the banks of the San Juan River. River From page 7 By now, on this second day of a down the river, journal writing was - four-da- y journey habitual. At least three times a day the students are instructed by their teacher, Sandy Sermos, to journal. You can write a poem in solitude and reflection, or Sermos says. My jealousy of the students constant documentation supersedes the beauty around me. Im ashamed of my abandonment of keeping a journal and my long-ag- o recent attempts to start again. But I don't tell the students that when some moan and groan about another journal break. Im confident they dont want to listen to an adults remorse and parental admonition that theyll one day cherish their thoughts. in Moreover, Im envious that these students are here on the river as part of their daily public education. This is no leisure vacation in southern Utah, nor is it a special field trip to fill one education niche. These students traveled more than 24 hours from St. Louis, Mo. This is school, and this is their classroom. Julia Pereau, left, and Dana Silverman, right, take note of artifacts of ancestral puebloans on a side hike on the San Juan River. The two students are studying potsherds with petro-glyp- and a granary in the background. This group of students is part of a somewhat new trend in public education. They are students of expeditionary learning a concept that is based on tenets of the famous Outward Bound School emphasized with studies done by Harvard University. Class is the real world, not four walls and chalkboards. Textbooks and tests are still used, but the emphasis is on gathering information not found in those texts and enriching project work with real evidence and experience. These students attend Wydown Middle School, a During a four-da- y trip they will learn more about this desert region than even I, a native Utahn, know. I grew up and was educated in Salt Lake City and school outings were reserved for more curious adventures: a trip to the Wonder Bread factory where we were given miniature loaves of bread and a Twinkie; or the Hogle Zoo; and, the Great Salt Lake. While I am happy for those experiences, they didnt allow me to apply the daily curriculum I faced while sitting behind a desk. Extensive nature and recreation experiences were fulfilled on family outings. What these St. Louis students have on this outing is unique. They have at the tips of their fingers the very resources they studied intensely for two weeks before their arrival in Utah. They are spending eight days -four on the river and four at the institutes Professor Valley Field Camp learning about the ancestral puebloans, commonly known as the Anasazi, Navajo and Mormon cultures. They will see the ancient writings on walls, hold in their hands artistic pot sherds, identify riparian habitat and learn the hunter-gatherway of life. - er school in suburban Qaj-ton- . They have been together since sixth grade and have had the same two teachers for their core curriculum. This is their last year they will be together. Next year they will enter ninth grade dispersed among classes with other students and a separate teacher for each. This class is a model class lor the school district, which funds the expeditions almost entirely by dedicating an extra $8,000 per year in its budget. Other money comes from fund raisers and the students parents. It also is the only expeditionary learning class in the district. All other students are part of the mainstream school experience. Students were chosen arbitrarily by application. The)' arent accelerated students; they are on a variety of levels. Sermos, a teacher for 28 years, studied the concept of expeditionary learning for quite ome time before posing it to her district. It was a dre. n job, she says. 'X'hat could be better than to teach by expedition? Be careful what you wish for, Sermos says. Its harder than I thought, but its exacdv w hat I wanted it to be." She says it wasnt easy to persuade the school district to create an expeditionary class, especially since there are only about 17 schools in the country that have turned to this type of education. But she knew if it could be done, it could be done in Clayton. We do have some advantages, she says. Wc have an affluent district and a good tax ba in the community. We spend the most per student. And people in our towm never vote down a tax increase or a bond issue for education." The expeditions sound always exciting. Clayton students have gone to the coast of Virginia to study marine biology and canoe the Pocomokc and learned avalanche safety at Keystone Science Schorl. Each trip developed by teachers requires research, investigation and fieldwork. The trips must allow inteK xtual and character |