Yearly Archives: 2012

Deep Creek Middle School

DCMS Campers in New England

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This summer DCMS grade 9 student, Lance Pelecanos, received a scholarship to return to Camp Dudley in New York for a month of camping fun and personal growth. He was very excited to once again be paired with lead counselor Tom McDonough (S’08).  Here is a picture of the gentleman outside of their cabin.

Many Deep Creek Middle School students spend their summers at camps locally and in New England.  The school and camps work to obtain sponsorships for the students and many Island School families support the program by hosting students on their way to or from camp, serving as chaperones, providing gear or sponsoring students.  Many thanks to the following families for their contributions this summer:

  • Family of Simon Mann-Gow (F08)
  • Family of Julie Thomsen (F07)
  • Christian Henry
  • Rachel Shapiro

If you would like to support DCMS campers in their future adventures, please contact principal Joanna Paul at joannapaul@dcmsbahamas.org

Student Update

Student Update September 11, 2012

Every semester, one of the special things we do at The Island School is pair up with students at the Deep Creek Middle School (DCMS) to work on community service projects. Every student gets a buddy, ranging from ages ten to thirteen. Last week we wrote an introductory letter to our DCMS buddies and since then we’ve all been very eager to meet them. Yesterday was the big day. At lunch we got letters that our buddies had written for us, and then around 1:15, our buddies came to campus. As the buses pulled in, we all stood in the driveway waving madly. When the students climbed out of the buses and we all circled up around the flagpole there was an air of anxiety and nervousness, but that soon dissipated as we found our buddies and introduced ourselves. The teachers had three stations set up with games and activities for us to play, and the energy of the DCMS kids was soon overflowing into all aspects of the afternoon. We played tag games and a twenty-questions sort of game, and we had three-legged relay races where half-way through, a teacher would ask each buddy questions about their new friend. Everyone – and I mean every single person – was smiling and laughing, more so than I’ve seen so far all semester. [slideshow] Continue reading →

Student Update

Student Update September 10, 2012

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Hi everyone, I’m Kelly, a student here at The Island School and I’ll be writing the Student Update Blogs for the next two weeks. I write new updates during chore times on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. So look forward to those in the coming days. A little bit about myself; I enjoy creative writing, snorkeling blue holes and finding massive spiders on kayak trips. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to be your window into our lives here at Island School…

Today marks the first day of academic classes. It’s a pretty important day as you might guess, because not only does it mean classes and homework but it also feels like a sort of… beginning. Orientation ended on Saturday, and to celebrate we all jumped off High Rock (which is, well, a really REALLY high rock). While it may not seem like much, it was very meaningful to a lot of us. One by one we leapt off the rock and into the sea; out of orientation and into the semester. Even for those of us who are afraid of heights didn’t hesitate. As we stepped to the edge of the rock and looked down into the water, into the scary unknown of the next couple months, we heard the voices of all of our new friends and classmates cheering us on. And we just closed our eyes and jumped.[slideshow]

I’d like to share a little story with you all, a story that to me, really highlights what makes the Island School Community so special. Continue reading →

Alumni, Alumni Spotlight

Alumni Spotlight: Jan Shi (F’09)

Fall 2009 alum, Jan Shi graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy this past spring and instead of going straight to college this fall like most high school graduates, Jan deferred his acceptance to the University of Virginia and has taken the opportunity to spend the year traveling. As the recipient of the Phillips Exeter Academy Perrin Fellowship, a $10,000 fellowship awarded to an Exeter senior that supports a year of independent travel before college, Jan now finds himself preparing for his journey. On September 12th, he will begin his trip by traveling to Southeast Asia where he will stay for roughly nine months. Jan’s exact itinerary is flexible at this point, but he has plans to visit Thailand, Myanmar, Sumatra & Sulawesi (Indonesia), Borneo, and the Philippines. Jan hopes “to wander around the coastal regions and jungles of Southeast Asia to learn about the sea, environment, and other themes from my time at the Island School” and encourages people to contact him at jan.shi@me.com with suggestions or ideas for his trip! Good luck, Jan, and congratulations on this amazing opportunity!

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More Meaningful Moments…

Lexi Welch

I still wake up and can’t believe I am here. Every morning I wake up and see the ocean outside of my window and it doesn’t seem real. I have been here at The Island School on Cape Eleuthera in the Bahamas for a whole week and I have learned more than I ever could have imagined. In the past week, I have met new people and made new friends, explored the island of Eleuthera, went night snorkeling, watched the sunrise over the ocean, took a three day kayak trip, listened to local people tell their stories, taken risks, challenged myself, and looked at the moon and the stars in a night sky that wasn’t disturbed by city lights. On our three day kayak trip, which we just returned from today, a black tipped shark swam under my kayak, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the rain, we snorkeled and explored blue holes, I tried lionfish for the first time, and for the first time in my life I laid on my back in the cool sand and looked up at the clearest night sky I had ever seen. It took my breath away and I found it was hard to pull myself away from looking up at the sky. All the stars looked like perfect little twinkling diamonds in the black sky. It made me feel so small, so little in the world we live in. All of the sudden, everything seemed so much bigger, like the possibilities in this life were completely endless, like some of the blue holes that we explored on our kayak trip. It seemed as if life’s opportunities spun deeper and deeper every time I looked up at the sky. Continue reading →

Deep Creek Middle School

“What I learned at Summer Bridge”

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by Dashae Clarke, DCMS Grade 7

What I learned at Summer Bridge was that the Deep Creek Middle School is different from all other schools, in Eleuthera and probably throughout the entire Bahamas. Bad behavior is treated much differently at Deep Creek Middle School. By using a system of color coded cards, such as red, orange and yellow. A green star is used to show you’ve been a good student.

Deep Creek Middle School hosts special events such as dances, field trips, sports, parties, scuba diving and other fun educational activities. Each child has a chore that helps the school to stay clean.

Normally, a Janitor or Janitress would do these things at any other Continue reading →

Cape Eleuthera Institute, CEI

The Story of Sharks

Last spring, CEI interns, Brendan Talwar and Ian Rossiter, created a short film about the endangerment of sharks to share with the public at the Governor’s Harbour Agricultural Expo. They used a unique method of film making called stop motion, which requires taking thousands and photos and stringing them together to create motion. The result of their efforts was incredibly impressive–so much so that it caught the attention of famous French underwater videographer (and former member of Jacque Cousteau’s prestigious dive team), Didier Noirot during his visit to the Cape Eleuthera Institute in April. Didier helped Brendan and Ian perfect the film and encouraged them to submit the film to a festival. This summer, their short film was chosen as a finalist in the 2012 BLUE Ocean Film Festival in the Animated category. Brendan and Ian will be attending the festival along with Edd Brooks, CEI’s shark project manager, September 24-30 in Monterey, CA. Below is the trailer for their film, “The Story of Sharks”. Good luck to Brendan and Ian!

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Meaningful Moments from Student Orientation

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For Kayak groups 1 and 2, now on campus and working on their SCUBA certification, we challenged them with a different prompt from Orientation, asking them to consider which moments have been the most vivid and meaningful from their short time here. Enjoy these personal insights with more to come tomorrow.

Kelly McCarthy 

It’s raining. And I mean REALLY raining. It’s raining the kind of rain that chills you to the very core, even though only moments before I was sweating buckets paddling under the hot sun. We’ve only just brought our kayaks on shore, only just pulled out the tarp for us all to sit under, and here I am crouching in my soaking wet rash guard, my drenched soccer shorts and my sand-filled water shoes. Here I am with eleven other students balancing precariously on our life-jackets, or Personal Floatation Devices (PFDs) as we call them here, to serve as a barrier between us and the ground should the lightening overhead actually hit our little place of refuge. We’re soaked, in case I haven’t made that clear yet. We’re packed tightly under the make-shift tent that our trip leaders made for us out of a tarp and some kayak paddles, shivering and getting as close as possible to stay warm and out of the rain (shivering? In the Bahamas? Is there something wrong with this picture or is it just me?) Rachel has been having us count the seconds between the thunder and the lightening to figure out how close to us the storm really is. All of a sudden, the thunder cracks. The loudest thunder I have EVER heard.  It sounds like it is coming from all sides, just filling my ears with that incomparable thunderous noise. Without even thinking, I shoot my hand out and grab hold of the hand of the person next to me. She looks at me and smiles; asks if I’m ok. I just nod. Continue reading →

Deep Creek Middle School

DCMS’s Will Simmons Directs Another Successful “Space to Create”

Six years ago, Will Simmons, Deep Creek Middle School art teacher and Harbour Island native, started a non-profit arts summer camp on Harbour Island called “Space to Create”. During the 3-week program, the 100+ campers are exposed to dance, drama, theater, and visual arts, all taught by volunteers. At the end of the session, the campers put on a show for the community. You can read more about the final show, “Space to Create” and Will Simmons here. Congratulations on another successful summer, Will!