We are excited to announce the introduction of the Center for Sustainable Development and Tingum Recycling Center! Check out the new website to learn more about this new building on our Cape Eleuthera campus! http://www.csdbahamas.org/
Parents are Coming!
The students at The Island School cannot believe that parent’s weekend is officially a day away! The fact that we will be reuniting with our family for the first time in nearly two months is beyond exciting. In the mean time there is a lot to do on the Island School Campus in preparation for the arrival of our parents.
When our parents and siblings first come they will get a quick tour of the campus and then they are whisked off immediately to the art gallery where the cumulative artwork we have been working on this semester will be on display.
At the moment we are finishing the final parts of bringing the art show together but we are ahead of schedule so I am sure that it will come together beautifully.
Besides the art gallery the students are all gearing up for the final research presentations. At this point all of the research groups have presented there first run through to a small audience but we are still scrambling to make last minute changes to further perfect our performances.
What all the students are really looking forward to is alone time with their family to share all of the treasures that The Island School and Eleuthera withhold. There will be scheduled activities such as scuba dives and kayaking on campus for the students to do with their parents and I’m sure just about every student is excited to have the opportunity to start exploring the rest of the island!
There are plenty of great sights around the island, near and far. In South Eleuthera the two biggest attractions that Island School students know are the Rock Sound Ocean Hole and Lighthouse Beach. Lighthouse beach is an expansive Atlantic pink sand beach on the southernmost tip of the island, with high cliffs, beautiful sand, and (of course) an old lighthouse, this beach is a must see! This is also where the students took there 48 hour solos during the eight day kayak trips.
Farther north in Rock Sound lays Eleuthera’s famous Ocean Hole, visited by the first prime minister of The Bahamas, Lynden Oscar Pindling as well as Jacques Cousteau who tried and failed to find the bottom. This inland saltwater pond is believed to connect to the sea, and teems with fish- it ‘s like snorkeling without getting wet! Another one of the highlight from everyone’s down island trip, which is a great destination for parents, is Glass Window Bridge. Glass Window Bridge is the narrowest part of the Island and if you look to either side you will see a drastic contrast of the color of the ocean. On the Caribbean side the water is a vibrant turquoise, on the Atlantic side it is deep blue. Surrounding it are treacherous limestone cliffs that paint a dramatic landscape. These are just some of the many amazing sights that one can see on Eleuthera and some of the families will have the luck to do so.
by Faith Isham and Patrick Friend
HMI Founders Visit The Island School
Christopher and Molly Barnes, founders of the High Mountain Institute, a semester school in Leadville, CO, sailed their boat into Triangle Cut right next to our Island School campus last week during their epic family journey around the world. They got a tour of the grounds and were especially thrilled to reconnect with mathematics teacher, Catherine Klem (Island School Fall 2003 alumna), who taught as a teaching apprentice at HMI a few years ago.
The Passage
My Name is Sam Parizeau. I made this video to display all aspects of my Island School experience. It contains footage from thousands of feet in the air, to deep beneath the sea. I hope you enjoy it.
Don’t Count the Days, Make the Days Count
Monday was the first full day that all of the 48 Island School students were back together as a whole community. For the past three crazy weeks students have been split up in a combination of exhausting eight-day kayak trips, exciting down Island trips and a usual academic week.
I started with the academic week which was very relaxing after our crazy midterms week. Although we were still on campus there was plenty of fun things to do; night dives, yoga, free dives, an earth day celebration and best of all a rake and scrape dance class.
Then my small group of twelve embarked on our Down Island trip where we got to visit tourist destinations and resorts to see how tourism has affected Eleuthera and the greater Bahamas. Highlights of the Down Island trip included visiting a ginormous banyan tree, exploring Harbor Island, indulging in all of the sweets and food that we have missed at the Island School, jumping off a twenty foot cliff into a beautiful blue hole, and the Hatchet Bay caves where we got to paint our bodies with red mud.
When we returned to campus with our stomachs substantially full and our faces a little redder we had to immediately pack for our eight-day kayak trip. This entailed packing six days of food, kayaks, personal and other gear.
After we had a last good nights rest in our beds we woke up early the next morning at 6:30 and finished getting our kayaks packed up and ready. I can easily say that for most of us the eight-day kayak trip and the two-day solo were probably the hardest experiences of our life. With around five hours of paddling per day in the hot sun (don’t worry we were equipped with plenty of sunscreen) the first four days were pretty difficult. On the fourth day we finally reached light-house beach where we had our much anticipated solos.
The 48 hours we all spent separately alone on the beach with very limited resources were spent in various ways. Some people spent the whole time busy adventuring into the coppice others swam, sunbathed and danced on the beach. Personally I spent a lot of time reflecting and writing in my placebook with the occasional visit into the coppice to open up a coconut.
Time at the Island School constantly feels like it goes by quickly so I really enjoyed the time to decompress and step back from all of the experiences that have occurred thus far in the semester. As Klem my group leader said at the end of the solo when we returned as a group, whether you made sense of you solo now or sometime later in your life it is an incredibly valuable experience.
Lastly, we spent our final two days paddling before we returned to the Island School Campus. After a relaxing Sunday where we could shower with fresh water and get a good nights sleep in a real bed we have a normal week of classes.
Students on campus are all so excited for the arrival of there parents which is only a week away but we are also gearing to organize the art show and research symposiums which will both be a huge part of parents weekend.
Like I said before, time passes by quickly at the Island School so I’m sure that we’ll see our parents in no time but for now it feels like there is so much to do before then. It’s hard to believe that the semester is coming close to the end (less then a month but whose counting). After Parents weekend we will only have two more weeks on the wonderful Island of Eleuthera.
But as a quote once said at dinner circle said, “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
by Faith Isham
West Chester University Students Complete Their Student Teaching at DCMS
Deep Creek Middle School recently said goodbye to two more of its student teachers this spring, Jonathan Jasper and Nancy Stehman from West Chester University in Pennsylvania. The candidates, seen here with their university supervisor Dr. Claire Verden, were the first in their school to fulfill part of their student teaching experience requirements abroad. The opportunity came about through Dr. Verden and the long relationship she has on the island with schools like DCMS and The School for Exceptional Learners in Governor’s Harbour. Dr. Verden, who first came to Eleuthera on vacation, identified ways to volunteer and get her students engaged on the island. “Our relationship first began when Dr. Verden brought students to DCMS for a half-day visit. Soon after, we were conducting joint professional development for each other and then talking about how to share expertise,” says Dr. Paul, Director of Education and coordinator of student teaching partnerships. “The West Chester students are all dual certified in special education and another subject of their choice, so we at DCMS can benefit from their expertise. At the same time, the West Chester students are excited to see us implementing a range of best practices in education with a variety of learners and academic results.”
The West Chester students are just one group in a series of partnerships with international and national universities to support student teaching. DCMS has agreements with West Chester University, Queens University, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and The College of The Bahamas. Each university has a different arrangement with DCMS, but all find it valuable to offer some of their students exposure to the work being done at DCMS, The Island School and CEI. This past year, we hosted our first full-time student teacher from COB. Mrs. Sophia Smith was so excited to be working in a school that is utilizing the progressive pedagogy that she had learned that she applied for and was hired to be the English teacher next year. These partnerships are excellent opportunities for DCMS to share its experience with curriculum and programs as well as to find the next crop of talented teachers who will give back to our community.
Follow Up on Alumni Spotlight: Jenny Sherman (F’08)!
A few weeks ago, we shared with you the story of a Fall 2008 alumna, Jenny Sherman, who was chosen from countless entries to speak at Duke University’s Commencement Ceremony. This past weekend, Jenny delivered the winning speech and did a phenomenal job! You can listen to her speech below. Congratulations Jenny and the rest of our alumni in the class of 2014!
Happy Mother’s Day!
We hope that all of The Island School mothers had a wonderful day! We miss them and can’t wait for our families to visit in 9 days!!!!
DCMS’s Zachary Carey Accepted to Perkiomen School
DCMS and The Island School would like to congratulate DCMS grade 9 student Zachary Carey of Tarpum Bay on his recent acceptance to Perkiomen School in Pennsylvania. Zach will attend the school next year as a boarder for grades 9-12, joining fellow DCMS alumna Megan Sweeting (DCMS’11).
“Zach has been an incredible contributor to academics, the school community, and the greater community of South Eleuthera. He will add a lot to their school and will soak up all the opportunities he is offered while he is away,” said Dr. Joanna Paul, Director of Education. Zach is a member of the Eco-Club, Early Act Service Club, Founder of the Spanish Club, and an avid SCUBA diver. Here he can be seen as the Plastic Bag Monster while advocating for plastic reduction efforts at a workshop on Harbour Island.
Spring 2014 Kayak Trips
This weekend, the entire Spring 2014 semester will be reunited back on campus for the first time since beginning their 3-week block of academic, kayak, and down island trip rotations. This photo slideshow is a compilation of photos of each kayak group on the first day of their expeditions!