Callie McMahon:
Going out of their way to make you confused is part of the faculties’ job here at The Island School. In circle one morning Kate explained a comfort chart using rope to designate different areas of comfort as a way for us gauge our emotions. The middle represents something totally comfortable, “I do it everyday.” Then sort of comfortable, “I might do this.” Then there is the learning zone, where you can move closer to the middle through learning a new skill. The last one, of course, is the complete freak-out zone. Here at The Island School most things keep me in the learning zone. Our dorm-head Brady said on the first day, “I know it’s really tempting to cling to one person just because you met them on the plane and you’re safe with them, but it’s more important to stitch yourself out.”
Brady later taught, dare I say, my favorite history class ever. We had a big Harkness discussion and I learned from students and teachers about the history of the Americas. On the kayak trip, this same Brady came with me to spend three days without a shower to experience some beautiful underwater environments. She has helped me to stay safe and tidy in my home, helped me learn about the past of this place in my school, and helped me to be curious in fascinating surroundings. John is a fantastic math teacher, but he also gave me a tour of the campus, taught me how to monitor the cisterns, and we fed the stinky pigs together. Leigh is my advisor and checks up on me, but he’s also the human ecologies teacher and is married to my art teacher, and he does all of the morning exercises with us. The list goes on forever…
Never before in my life have I had teachers that I can interact with like this on so many levels. It blows my mind to be sweating bullets next to the same people who do the dishes with me and teach my English class. It always makes me uncomfortable when people refer to this as school. After scuba diving today, for example, Rachel told us to head back to school. Everything in my mind is telling me this is home. This the first time I’ve heard school used as a term to describe where you eat, sleep, explore, learn, and have fun.
Duncan MacGregor:
After such a magical first day of morning exercise, I didn’t know that it could get any better than snorkeling to a wreck with some of the coolest and most exquisite people in the world. Much to my surprise however, the third morning at The Island School was even better than the first: We had a run swim. For those of you who don’t know what a run swim is, it’s one of the best full body cardio workouts. It consists of running a short distance to a waterway, which you then swim across, and then run to the next waterway. On this certain morning, the run swim was only half of the official run swim course, but it still pushed many of us to the brink of exhaustion. We started our run swim by swimming across the harbor to the opposite shore. From there, we ran soaking wet to a small inlet, which we crossed mightily. At the shore Chris Maxey put us through some of the hardest abdominal exercises I’ve ever done. Many of my mates and I assumed we had reached the pinnacle of our run swim, and that we would now head back to school – I was surprised again – much to my chagrin, we had just began. This grueling and repetitive process carried on for the next hour. To narrow it down, the next hour was run, swim, abs, run, etc… In the moment, I was miserable. I felt like my bones would break, and that I simply couldn’t do it anymore. Thinking back upon that first run swim morning, I am so happy to have experienced something so incredible. I’m sure once I go home I’ll look back on the morning run swims and wish that I could be back in the Bahamas doing intense workouts with some of the coolest people in the world. Running and swimming with the sunset at your back is one of the most incredible experiences in life.
Asher Dawson:
My name is Asher Dawson, and I was asked to try to explain one of my many memorable experiences so far at The Island School. Notice how I say, “try to explain,” as the emotions and my mentality will be hard to convey. The first moment that came to mind was one of my two nights on a down-island kayak trip. The trip was set up to transport six boys, six girls, and two staff members roughly six miles down the coast of Eleuthera. We kayaked for about four hours, and to say that finding the camping spot was a ‘relief’ would be an understatement. Once we arrived, we set up boys and girls tents, ate a lunch consisting of stale crackers, watery cheese, and musty tuna, which at the time was delicious. The next day and a half were spent cooking, eating, kayaking to snorkel a blue-hole, and even a little bit of sleep. Nearing the end of our second day, after just finishing dinner and fireside s’mores, we were just about ready to crawl into our tents when we saw the sky light up for a split second. After counting thirty-two seconds, a role of thunder informed us that a storm was approaching from about six miles away. After brushing as much sand as we could off of our feet, and swatting as many possible bugs as we could inside our tent, we laid down onto a fresh memory-foam-like sand bed. The six boys were split up into two tents, and, being boys, it’s fair to say that we didn’t put the entirety of our effort into securing the tents into the sand. As we sat and talked in the darkness of our tent, flashes continued to illuminate our faces. Then the rain started and suddenly sheets of water weighed down the frame of our poorly constructed tent, to the point at which the tent was practically useless. I’m not sure how many of you reading this know how tents/rain flies work, but the basic principle behind them is that as long as the rain fly doesn’t actually touch the exterior of the tent itself, you can’t get wet. Now, with the combined power of torrential downpours and extraordinary wind, I still can’t be certain whether or not a proper tent construction would have made a difference at this point. To be honest, I would have been fine sleeping wet (unhappy, but fine). The wind was the most prominent factor in the eventual evacuation of our tent. When I finally exited the tent, the rising tide was near my feet. Only a few feet away was my friend Clem (whose blog you should read to learn another perspective of this experience) was screaming “THROW LOGS ON THE TENT!” I’m not certain how or why we did this, but there was something about being in the moment and the vicious wind and sideways rain that made this request seem legitimate. I soon realized that I was in fact the only thing holding the tent in place, and since I had evacuated, the only thing that seemed plausible to replace my weight, was a small tree. (Read Clem Titsworth’s continued entry) Continue reading
