Why bring students to Monteverde, Costa Rica?

When my wife and I first went to Monteverde in the summer of 2009, we only spent a couple of days there as we toured different parts of Costa Rica, but that’s all it took to fall in love with the culture and the beauty of the surroundings. When I showed the pictures and told the stories to friends, family and colleagues, I mentioned that I would like to bring students there – and they smiled and nodded politely.

I hold an adamant belief that travel can be an invaluable, life-altering experience. Families that have the means to travel often see it as a luxury, and take for granted the incredible learning that they and their children gain. I work in an alternative high school – most of my students are from families that do not have anywhere near those kinds of means. Their experiences have been, in large part, a struggle and the larger world is mostly an abstraction – including the potential wonder and hope that it can hold. Monteverde epitomizes that kind of wonder and hope – blending the culture of indigenous inhabitants with that of the American Quaker settlers that arrived in the 1950’s, and balancing a model of conservation with becoming an international eco-tourism destination. The book, Walking With Wolf, tells this story in a remarkable way. When I went back to Monteverde during my next February vacation, I bought and devoured this book – changing my fanciful desire to my bring students there, into a passionate drive to do so.

When I returned from my second visit and spoke about my intentions to share this experience with my students, I no longer received simple smiles and nods – I was met with excitement, doubts of my sanity, and lots of questions:

• What will students learn? They’ll learn everything from ecology to economics, history to agriculture, and community development to world affairs. Most of all, they’ll learn what wonders the world can hold and what role they are capable of having in that world.
• What will the class look like? It is a yearlong, interdisciplinary class that will include a significant amount of experiential education. We'll spend the fall reading Walking With Wolf and blogging about the learning adventures it sparks – I hope you keep checking back and follow the student blogs (links are on the right sidebar). In the spring, students will pick an area of personal interest and create an individual research project that compares some aspect of our home to that of Monteverde. Mid-spring, we’ll go to Monteverde for 10 days and students will determine the itinerary to meet the needs of their projects. When we get back, they'll be producing a culminating product to represent their learning. If all this sounds vague, that's because I'm not arbitrarily dictating the outcome - this is student-centered and student-driven.
  
• Am I crazy? Well, certainly not because of this. It is a challenge to do international travel with any group of students and plenty of people wouldn't dare do it with students that have struggled - but aren't those the very students that we should be doing this kind of inspiring thing with?! The students that I have in this class have made a commitment to working hard and they deserve a chance to prove themselves. They are turning their lives around and if I can be a part of that then I'll do whatever it takes - crazy or not.
• How will we pay for it? Hopefully, with your help. The students have already been working hard (even during the summer before the class started) and we’ll be including future fundraising information here, but we’d also really appreciate a check for any amount you can offer – we have to raise $15,000 by January. Checks can be made out to “Lister Academy – Costa Rica Class”, and mailed to: Robert J. Lister Academy, Attn: Bryan Mascio, 35 Sherburne Road, Portsmouth, NH 03801.

Walking With Wolf - Chapter 3

Making connections is what I love about teaching, what I do in everyday life, and why I decided to use Walking With Wolf for this class. When I read about history, I think about the world today. When I read about a foreign culture, I think about personal relationships. These things aren't that far apart, and that was what I was thinking about while reading this chapter.

More of the modern history of Costa Rica is revealed in this chapter, explaining how it developed following it's revolution in 1948. As a country renews itself, there are a lot of choices to make and each of them could hugely alter the future trajectory of its people (this is just as true during transitional times for individuals). Costa Rica is located in a part of the world that is notoriously unstable - yet it has been quite stable for more than a half-century. Is that because of the decision to have no military? When my wife and I were traveling there, tour guides said that the money which would have gone towards an army was spent on hospitals and schools - and now virtually every town, no matter how small, has adequate services. This has to impact the stability of a country. The lack of a military is certainly a major factor in why Wolf and the other American Quakers decided to go there - how many others chose to go or stay there because of that, and helped make the country what it is today?

On page 27, Wolf is recounting the little he knew about Costa Rica before he went there. A main feature is that the revolutionary hero Pepe Figueres "...invited people from developed countries to come and invest in Costa Rica." On the face of it, this seems like a natural thing to do during a time of transition - to bring in people that can help - but I believe that this kind of openness and tolerance was a courageous act. This act resisted two major tendencies that people follow, especially during times of difficulty and uncertainty: people tend to want to project power and confidence, and people tend to shift into an "us" and "them" mentality. It is rare to see a modern leader have the courage to admit that they need the help of outsiders. It is far more common for a leader to vilify outsiders or "them" so that people will come together and bond over a common fear. This kind of mentality can be seen throughout the world, or even here at home - but Costa Rica took a different path and opened themselves up. Monteverde is still largely influenced by the Americans that settled there and their children, as well as people from all over the world that come to appreciate what has been created.

This kind of openness made for a perfect home for Wolf and the rest of the Quakers. I was particularly moved by the group dynamics during the difficulty of finding the best location to settle. It had taken a long time and each new site turned out to have a major flaw, so the group considered splitting up to cover more ground. On page 31 we learn that they decided to stay together because, "...the more financially able members of the group remained committed to helping the younger members. Of equal importance was the group's belief that staying together for worship and schooling was essential to their future as a community." This value of the community and putting a greater good before your personal comfort, seems so rare now but it is precisely what we try to instill at our school. In a society that can appear so "me" centered, it can feel like an impossible task to teach people to be kind and giving - but I've already seen it from the students at our school and in this class. It was such a vital quality for Wolf and his community, and I think it will be of equal importance for us to be successful.

One of the things I love the most about Kay Chornook's writing style is how she weaves her story with that of the main character, Wolf Guindon, and that of the broader topic - be it the country of Costa Rica or the development of Quakerism. This is a writing technique that I remember first coming across in another one of my favorite books - Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer. On its surface, blending all of this information together could seem confusing, and I suspect that some readers find it such, but I love how it shines a bright light on the connections that exist all around us. Kay and Wolf are of different generations from different countries and different family traditions, but their stories are connected - and not just because of their time spent together or their love of Costa Rica. Their stories are connected in the spirit of their lives and in the message that they can tell us - and through this book, it's now connected to our story. When we travel to Costa Rica this spring, we will then be connected to all of that broader history that both shaped their decisions and was shaped by their actions.