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Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 15, 2011

by Cacique Elliot

Today was a very long and exciting day! We started off the day with PSAT’s in the morning from 8-12. Then we went to a beach right outside of Rock Sound that was a little off the beaten path. We spent the rest of the afternoon tanning, body surfing, snorkeling and having a blast. After the beach we went home and prepared for our first Homecoming. Each settlement on Eleuthera has a Homecoming each year, and that is when everyone who has moved away comes back and celebrates with a big street party. When we arrived to the Homecoming at 8:00pmit was an amazing site. There were vendors lined up on the streets with all sorts of local specialties.  I right away hoped in line at one of the stands and got a basket of conch fritters and an ice cold mango smoothie. There was also a basketball court that turned into a big dance floor. Towards the end of the night there were many Island School students out dancing with some of the locals to local rake and scrape music played by The Rum Runners. The whole Homecoming was just an amazing experience to end on before our community splits up for three weeks and has 8 day kayak rotations that start Monday.

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 14, 2011

by Caciques Tyler and Anika

I caressed the slip of paper in my hand as I walked up to Cam. My eyes were covered by a pair of Aviators that were bigger than my face. I walked up to her and slipped the piece of paper into her hand. She looked up at me, her eyes curious. I nodded curtly and saw her eyes widen before she nodded in response. On the slip was a name; Teschna and it was circled in red. She looked up at me before turning towards the door and running out of the dining hall to catch Teschna. I took off my glasses and smiled smugly, my next slip of paper already in my hand. Today, Anika and I organized a game where students compete in a clandestine game where at the end of the day, only one individual wins. It started with just students but by lunch had moved among the teachers. Tensions were high among the students and the teachers and the campus was filled with paranoid glances. I was happy with the turn-out of the game and I am sure that a more organized version would be definitely be an option for the oncoming weeks.

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Thoughts from Blog Chore

by Cacique Update Editor Claire

It’s early morning and Annie and I are sitting on the dining hall deck as the sun rises in front of us. Each of us are busy at work writing blogs. This is the scene that unfolds every morning for me being on blog chores, each time with a different cacique. I have the pleasure of sitting with the cacique of the day and hearing about what was special for them that day. Often times it’s events that were barely memorable to me, but as they describe it, I get a brand new prospective on the past day. These past few days have been long workouts, then sleep-ins which means we don’t have chores. I have missed this tranquil time in the morning these past few days. I love the idea of reaching out to everyone at home through writing and I am glad that we’re back to chores, even though things are about to get even more busy and exciting here at The Island School! Eight-Day Kayak rotations start Monday!

 The anticipation of the coming weeks is buzzing on campus. In the short time we have been on campus everyone has come together so much it’s so strange to think half of us won’t be here. Kayak is another exciting event which the whole community comes together to enjoy and work through together. The sun has come out on Eleuthera! We hope the weather continues as our first group heads out on their kayak trip!

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Island School Math Class Takes on Water Issues

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Back at home, it’s easy to think that when you turn on a tap, water will come out. Here at The Island School, however, we have learned that water is not an unlimited resource. In fact, our water supply is contained within five underground cisterns on our campus. The water that fills our cisterns comes from the sky, and roofs across campus collect this water, which then flows directly into the cisterns. We draw water from one cistern at a time for drinking, cooking, showering, and various other purposes. Each morning during chores, the Cistern Crew is responsible for measuring the level of water in each of the five cisterns, and entering the data into an Excel spreadsheet. This data is then examined to determine how much water we have used up and how much is left. The problem is that, currently, there is no real system behind deciding which cistern we draw water from. Over the past few weeks in math class, we have been figuring out a solution to this problem.

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Cacique Update October 13, 2011

by Caciques Annie B. and Marius

Annie: Today I was truly inspired. In our Literature class, we had to write a 12 line “Found” poem, relating to the current book we’re reading, Omeros. In a “Found” poem, the idea is to find words or lines from a piece of work that stick out to you, and create a poem out of them. In this assignment, we were told to do this within our most recent assignment of reading from Omeros. Seeing as it wasn’t a graded assignment, I assumed most people would throw 12 lines about Achille’s identity struggles onto a sheet of paper ten minutes before class… but I was wrong. I was in awe as I sat in listening to the poems people had written in class the next day. Everyone had created such incredible pieces, and it really showed me how much people care about this place we’re in. It showed me that we really are in an incredible place with incredible power, and the fact that everyone put so much effort into their work was incredibly inspiring. One poem especially stuck out to me; Jane Drinkard wrote a phenomenal poem referencing the pain and inner struggles that protagonist Achille faced in Omeros. Continue reading →

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Cacique Update October 10, 2011

by Caciques William and Katie H.

William: Waking up yesterday morning, the only thing on my mind was Morning Exercise. This was the day of our second timed Run/Swim. I thought of countless ways that I could improve my time from the previous Run/Swim. Listening to other students around me I could see that this was everyone’s goal, to do better. I feel that my time here at The Island School has nurtured within me the spirit of self-improvement and that between each student a motivation to cheer each other on. The inspiration to do better seemingly was the theme of the day. Continue reading →

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Eleutheros

This year, the Human Ecology, Histories, and Literature Departments have collaborated on a series ongoing assignments. Each week students are asked to write a reflective essay that demonstrates their understanding of the themes from their coursework and effectively links these themes to their unique thoughts and experiences.  Enjoy reading how our students have deeply and personally engage with essential questions, important to their course of study at The Island School…

This Weeks Prompt:  How does culture affect one’s relationship with the ocean?

“The Glue that Holds Us Together” by Helen Russell

My first memory is at the beach. I was four years old at Bethany Beach, Maryland with my dad’s side of the family and I was playing in the waves with my grandpa. It was the first year that my brother was with us, having been born the previous winter and everyone was obsessed with the baby. Like a typical four-year-old with a new baby in the family, I was feeling pretty neglected. But that day my grandpa had said that he wanted to go to the beach just me and him, to have “grandpa, granddaughter” time. So we make our way to the beach, me with my floaties around my arms and my towel dragging behind me. The only way that I remember all these details is because of pictures I have of myself that summer. So we played in the waves and for the first time in my life, I wondered when the ocean ended. So I asked my grandpa how the blue went on forever and he said that it was like glue that held all the continents together. He said that they were so far apart that the glue had to stretch over the sides of the Earth and that if I could swim all the way out to the horizon, then I could see the next continent. So that was my first definition of the Ocean: the glue that held the continents together. Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 9, 2011

by Caciques Ellen and Zeke

Zeke:

During exploration time today, the waters at High Rock and Fourth Hole were a little less than nice to those of us who decided to take snorkeling trips there. Before brunch, a group of us from the boys’ dorm went to high rock for a snorkel. After being tossed around by the waves for a few minutes, we were soon chased out by the lighting we saw offshore and biked back to school, a little disappointed.

After brunch Erik Canfield and I took a trip to Fourth Hole to see if the octopus we had spotted earlier was still in his den. We couldn’t even find the den, and great deal of our time braving yet more waves that were trying to “turn us into chowder.” We didn’t see too much there, due to the water’s murkiness, so we headed back to school to try our luck at Boy’s Dorm Beach. The water was much calmer there, enabling me to get some great photos with my SeaLife camera. [slideshow]

On this trip, we came across a yellow stingray that appeared to be trapped in a fisherman’s cage. Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update October 7, 2011

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by Cacique Claire

The day started off with Bizarro tracks. So the students who usually swim, ran and the runners swam. The runners took on the challenge of swimming up the current towards the bridge by the Marina quarter mile down the road from school, while the swimmers ran the four mile inner loop. After breakfast and chores we all had math, then history class. In math we had a Harkness discussion on new possible ways to rotate which cisterns we pull from in order to conserve more water. In History we continued our discussion on race and the role it’s played in History and current-day culture. After lunch everyone headed out into the field for research.

It was a windy day for research here on Eleuthera. The queen conch research team went out after lunch to do density surveys in the sound. Everyone got there gear and piled into our boat, the Bonita and headed out to our research site. Everyone got their gear on and jumped into the waves. We spread thirty meter ‘transects’ or lines, from three sides of the boats, then swim along them and collect the conch we see, to weigh and measure. Everyone was very excited to get into the water. Annie and I were buddies and fearlessly jumped into the water first. When I opened my eyes behind my goggles under the water I Continue reading →