Why We Still Have Interim
Despite our many green initiatives at CA, I don’t very often “recycle” an old newsletter piece or News Flash post. However, I did find this article from three years ago that I believe still holds true today—just as we are about to head out on Interim 2013. I updated the statistics for this year’s version . . .
Why We Still Have Interim
Interim has long been one of CA’s signature programs, a shining light of experiential education that harkens all the way back to the school’s halcyon days of the 1960s when Head of School Chuck Froelicher helped found Outward Bound in Colorado.
From an administrative perspective, Interim is challenging indeed. This year our 354 students will be involved in more than two dozen experiences involving 42 faculty and staff, along with numerous additional supporting guides and personnel all over Colorado, Utah, South Dakota, and New Mexico. We allot around $390 per student to run Interim, so one can do the math to figure out the total budget demand. Most schools have dropped these kinds of programs because of complications with logistics, faculty buy-in, student apathy, rising expenses, transportation problems, or legal restrictions.
Every year, as some new logistical challenge presents itself, I find myself asking, not altogether seriously: Why in the world are we doing this again? There are always last-minute or late-breaking complications including weather issues, transportation snafus, and students who have suffered late-season injuries in sports and can no longer go on their original trips. One year a faculty member’s stomach illness, suffered on the Saturday before his trip was supposed to go out, meant an on-again, off-again status that stretched all the way through Monday. It’s enough to keep any administrator up all night.
And then the trips go out, the experiences are wonderful, even life-changing, faculty and students return with glowing faces, full of stories and adventures, and I am reminded why we do it.
Our students really do love these Interim trips. They look forward to the week in May when we completely change the pace and take them out of their comfort zones—in some cases like Chip Lee’s “Going Very Light,” we take them far out of their comfort zones. In other cases, like our Cooking Interim, the journey is not quite as distant. But in any event, we do remove them from the usual classroom setting and bring them into the “great beyond” of life. Because so much of our usual academic, arts and athletics programs are so precisely planned, students really do value the sense of spontaneity and surprise that comes with an Interim. Whether ten miles or 500 miles from home, students appreciate the fact that they don’t really know what’s coming next. They have a blast simply being open to the surprise and wonder. Interim is experiential education at its best.
Alumni also have fond memories of their Interim experiences. Ask them and they will say the same things our current students do. They recall situations where they were tested, pushed, where they bonded with new friends and faculty members, when they faced what seemed like immediate disaster, or when their vehicle broke down, or when someone did something amazing and unexpected. When they challenged themselves to do something they had never done before – and did so even better than they thought they could.
Of course students and parents must trust that we and our hired guides know what we’re doing (we do) and that all necessary safety precautions have been taken (they have). Spontaneity is great; reckless endangerment is not. Since Forbes Cone was brought in to run our experiential education program, we have taken even more measures to ensure safety and to have the proper protocols and personnel in place, even when students are travelling to remote places or testing their physical limits in some new activity.
Many faculty have been consistently excellent purveyors of the spirit of Interim: Steven Hammer, Barry Simmons, Chip Lee, and Jen Cotton all offer adventurous trips year after year. Cathy Nabbefeld and Dani Meyers have sponsored a very popular climbing and camping trip to Shelf Road for as many years as they can remember. Their students relish the away-from-home, outdoor experiences and appreciate the quality time they spend with other students and the faculty members.
We will continue to explore the parameters of this program and work to make it even better over the next few years. We are committed to experiential education precisely because it is authentic and direct learning; our students thrive under these conditions. What better way to prepare them for the wonderfully unpredictable nature of the world?
© 2023 Colorado Academy
