Email: MAAP Con 2012 - Expeditions at Northwest Passage

MAAP Con 2012 - Expeditions at Northwest Passage
	For the next few days, I'll be covering the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs (MAAP) conference in Rochester and passing on some of the most interesting, exciting, and thought-provoking concepts.

My first presentation on Thursday came from two teachers at Northwest Passage High School. They described their school's use of “expeditions,” which are less metaphorical than they sound. Several times a year, the teachers take students outside the "normal" school environment to encourage team-building, problem solving, and navigating relationships with peers and adults.

The expeditions are broken up into three different levels that increase in duration and intensity. Low-level expeditions could be a night or two spent close to home. At their most intense, students spend a week or more backpacking in Texas, exploring Mammoth Cave, or adventuring in other ways and locations. These highest level expeditions usually require students to meet certain physical fitness standards and often result in intense personal discoveries.

Roughly thirty-five trips are offered in a given year, with six over the summer. The 180-student school can afford this by asking a lot of their 15 member staff. In addition to being teachers, staff are also licensed bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and pretty much all of the other work of keeping the school functioning.

Of course, this approach will not work for all students. Part of the point of this conference is that no approach works for all students. Programs like Northwest Passage are aimed at students who have struggled in more traditional school settings, though one could argue that there are plenty of students that merely get by in traditional settings who would thrive in a school more like Northwest Passage.

What was missing from this presentation? Any discussion of test scores. The teachers clearly have a different definition of what is worth aiming for in terms of student success. The kinds of outcomes that motivate these teachers – increased self-confidence (distinct from typical teenage bravado), better coping skills, improved relationship-building abilities – are critical to students' lifelong success and impossible to measure on the MCAs. It's worth reminding ourselves from time to time that there's more to school than a particular subset of math and reading comprehension skills.

P.S. Those who are interested in learning more about Northwest Passage's work can see more at http://fieldnotes.nwphs.org, which features pictures and reflections from the expeditions.

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