Outdoor Nature Programming
I come from two generations of family members who dedicated themselves to education. School calendars and academic campuses are the most familiar places and ways of life for me. I coached high school students and worked on the administrative side of a summer day camp for Buckingham Browne and Nichols upper school in Cambridge, MA after I graduated from college in 1987. I worked for the Athletic Director, Bill Etter, who had been my father's football coach at the school, as well as a colleague of my grandfather's who had been the wrestling coach and an english teacher. I was the third generation to walk through the doorways on campus to contribute what I had to offer at a young age.
The Bivouac program (a two-week camping experience in the Maine woods) was being taught then and is still to this day, but now in New Hampshire. My grandfather initiated the project in 1951 "to help students develop a sense of confidence in their own ability to cope with (the) unexpected and challenging situations and to cultivate in the students an awareness of the interdependence of all members of a community (through outdoor skills and collaborative problem-solving)." My grandfather's work inspired me to create a site-specific installation in 2018-19 which also became an outdoor classroom. I am continuing the important work that my grandfather started seventy years ago of basing and developing education, personal growth, community and well-being in nature.
The need for our connection to the outdoors is even more important now with the pandemic. This past fall (2020), I attended the following conferences and workshops to expand on a better understanding of how teaching artists can contribute during the current crisis of COVID-19:
CASEL Learning Together Social and Emotional Learning 4-Part Workshop Series: "Leading Schoolwide SEL: Preparing for the Journey Ahead"
2020 Teaching Artist Academy through the Community Engagement Lab for Vermont's Teaching Artists
https://www.communityengagementlab.org/
The American Art Therapy Association's 51st Annual Conference: "Art Therapy Connected: Advancing Mental Health in a Virtual World"
Susan’s teaching artist profile can be found here.
