by Mike Davis, Ph.D.
Head of School

When I first interviewed at Colorado Academy nine years ago, I was asked my thoughts about the school’s campus. For any visitor, it is hard not to be impressed by the physical beauty of our school. At the time, a quote came to my mind of the geologist Peter Coney — a colleague of my father’s at the University of Arizona: “College campuses are preserves of civilization.” I’ve always loved that line and have quoted it often. We are not a “college campus,” but our grounds are not like a normal K-12 school, either.

 

CA is more than 90 acres of natural beauty — like a park, but we are, in a sense, a preserve of human civilization. We share with students the essential building blocks of human understanding.

 

We build students’ understanding of the humanities, arts, math, global languages and the sciences. We go from the basics of learning letters to pondering the meaning of the human experience through writers like James Joyce. Kindergartners count the days of the school year, learning the basic study of numbers, and our most advanced math students in the Upper School take on Multivariable Analysis and learn the language of math in depth. We embrace technology and, in recent years, interest in STEM and coding has taken off at CA.

 

This all takes place in a wonderful setting that adds something significant to a student’s education. There are times when I walk home from work as the sun is setting on Firman Field and find myself overwhelmed by the natural beauty of our campus. It doesn’t matter the season, whether kicking our way through leaves in the fall, tromping through snow in the winter or experiencing the fierce green of a Colorado spring, there is something invigorating about this campus. The school’s mission is to serve students, and over the past several decades, Colorado Academy has grown to accommodate and serve more young people, and helps them along on their journey through life. This has, at key points in our history, necessitated changes in the buildings and landscape.

 

Colorado Academy was once considered to be out in the countryside. Development of houses, apartments and strip malls came much later. I spoke to one former parent from the 1960s that described that it took “hours” to get to campus from downtown Denver. In my first years at CA, I had a memorable lunch with Bob and Salty Welborn, who spent their childhoods growing up on this land and whose families gave the school this property. They described what the campus then looked like. As late as 1962, wheat, corn, oat and alfalfa farms surrounded the campus.

 

The campus has changed much since those days. For many alumni, the only recognizable building from the early days of the school is Welborn House — the first point of contact for prospective students, and the last building students walk out of before receiving their diplomas at Commencement. Athletic Director Bob Simms and his wife Pat lived in a converted Army barracks, which was located close to where the Dos Chappell Trailhead is now. This building later became known as the “Little White House.” In 1965, preschool teacher Jane Dalglish established CA’s Pre-K through Grade 1 classrooms in the house.

 

It was the first co-educational classroom on campus. Until 1974, the Sculpture Garden was an asphalt military drill field and was used as a tennis court for summer camp. In Chuck Froelicher’s early days, Firman Field was the main playing field and was used for football and baseball. Wright Field wasn’t dedicated until Homecoming 1964 and named in memory of CA’s quarterback, Rick Wright, who died two months following his graduation.

 

An Olympic-sized track surrounded the field. CA’s first theatre was in the gym where the climbing wall is now located. While weighing many considerations, from supporting our curriculum to increasing safety, we have tried to be responsible stewards of this land. Jesse Schumacher, our Director of Operations, has brought an environmental ethic to his work on campus. In the past eight years, his crew has planted 50 to 100 new trees annually.

 

The Board of Trustees made a significant decision just last year to dredge and restore Woody’s Pond — another unique feature of our campus. Over the years, the runoff from the Rocky Mountains, channeled by irrigation ditches that run through our property, led the pond to silt up. Prior to our efforts to dredge, some parts of the pond were less than two feet deep, where the depth had previously been 30 feet.

 

Invasive flora and fauna had taken over sections of this ecosystem. When the pond was dredged, Jesse’s crew pulled out an enormous carp that was one of many that had spoiled the pond for native trout and bass. We saved the native fish, restocked the pond and are replanting native plant species. The dredging of the pond and restoring it to its original depth has improved the school’s ability to capture, store and recycle runoff water for irrigation, allowing for both water conservation, and a savings in water and energy costs.

 

On other parts of campus, there has a been an intentional effort to be more sustainable through the installation of LED lights on campus, the financial underwriting of a bus system that encourages fewer cars on the road, the use of biodiesel in our bus system, the promotion of recycling and composting among our students so that our dining facility is “zero waste,” and the construction of an Upper School building that promoted energy efficiency and sustainability, among other improvements. (We elected to take the dollars that would have been spent on the clerical costs of achieving LEED certification and invest these funds back into sustainable features.)

 

What does this mean for student learning? I am convinced that it is significant. Richard Louv is the author of The Last Child of the Woods and creator of the term, ‘Nature-Deficit Disorder.’ His research and writing have shown the negative effects of disconnecting students from nature. He connects the rise of obesity, attention deficit disorder and depression to humankind’s lack of daily association and interaction with the natural world. Forbes Cone, our Director of Experiential Education, references a study from Hofstra University in which the number of kids who reported playing outside every day declined by 39%, when compared to the experience of their parents.

Environmental psychologist Dr. Nancy Wells of Cornell University has conducted several studies, including one of 337 school-age children in rural upstate New York; Wells found that the presence of nearby nature bolsters a child’s resilience against stress and adversity, particularly among those children who experience a high level of stress (Environment and Behavior, Vol. 35, No. 3) . Louv’s writings remind me of my childhood, where I spent most of my free time with my friends exploring the desert surrounding my home in Tucson, Arizona. My parents gave me a tremendous gift by allowing me to roam. Did I get into trouble at times? Absolutely! But I also learned valuable life lessons and developed (over time) good judgment. There is a lot to be said for children having unstructured time in nature. I have been intrigued by the new trend of “free range parenting,” a reaction to the overprotective and truly damaging “helicoptering” parental behavior, that allows children more freedom to explore their physical surroundings. This approach, to allow students to explore but also deal with consequences on their own, leads to higher resiliency and autonomy.

 

Few “helicopter” parents are self-aware of the potential long-term damage they do by interceding on their child’s behalf. There are absolutely reasonable times to intercede and help your child, but most of the time, a student will be better served if the parent allows important life lessons to unfold.

 

A healthy childhood will always have tears, moments of struggle and failure. We have talked about this as a critical part of our philosophy for many years. I think being part of the outdoors is essential to their growth, because it can provide opportunities to exercise autonomy. We can’t grow without disappointment. We can’t learn to be self-reliant without confronting failure. Sometimes we, as parents, let our fears of the terrible things that we know can and do happen to children affect our better judgment. Often, this affects our parenting decisions when it comes to allowing our children time in nature.

 

How much freedom we give our kids is a judgment call that only a parent can make, but highly respected parenting experts like author Wendy Mogul remind us, “Your children are more likely to succeed in life without perfect childhoods.” I also love her quote: “ Allow your child to do things that scare you. You have to let her take some steps on her own, without holding your hand, if you want her to grow increasingly independent and self-confident.” This is challenging advice for all (me included), but it is important.

 

Not surprisingly, Mogul is a supporter of getting kids outdoors: “Encourage your child to play or spend time outside, using all five senses in the three-dimensional world. “

One thing that is special about the physical layout of our campus is that our students are REQUIRED to get outdoors several times a day.

 

Recess is one obvious area, but our students walk from their classrooms to the arts and music buildings, as well as the gym every day. They run to eat lunch, and then they run to the playground. Students in the Lower School have the special opportunity to walk to the Science Center at Woody’s Pond. (Note: We do supervise our youngest children as they walk from building to building, and we continually monitor the playground. Again, it’s about finding a balance between supervision and students’ autonomy.) What a unique feature of an educational program: a lab on a pond! There is also the Dos Chappell trail that encircles campus and provides a hiking trail with different plant species from Colorado.

 

Our students are immersed in nature. It’s an ordered, Thoreau-like nature; however, our campus is home to a variety of animals. We see owls, hawks and even an occasional eagle. There are coyotes that roam the outskirts of campus. One of my favorite memories was the morning our boys’ soccer team last won the state championship.

 

As I left campus to go to the game, I looked out from my house and saw a coyote sitting calmly in the middle of Firman field. What an omen! But, there are also foxes and raccoons. Our little kids most often see rabbits and squirrels. And, then we all know about the two geese that for the past few years have decided to nest on top of the Schotters Music Building and protect their goslings by hissing at every passerby.

 

For those with a magnifying glass, there are insects galore. Almost every day, if not every day, Lower School Science teacher Jeff Goldstein brings students a live or dead insect, piece of wood, part of a hive, or a pine cone with so much wonder and compassion. He offers them the opportunity to view it through his microscope that displays on his computer, or they make a habitat for it or investigate what it is. Our school’s natural environment is what makes these spontaneous learning opportunities possible.

 

With the exception of the inevitable cuts and scrapes that come with life, our natural world at CA lifts morale and, again, empowers young people. While it is a relatively ordered experience on our campus, the setting and history of our school compels us to want to take our students into the woods, in the wilderness spirit of John Muir. Chuck Froelicher, who helped to found Outward Bound in the U.S. on CA’s campus, wanted our students to confront nature and the wilderness, and learn from it. Our Outdoor Education program, from the various weekend trips that teachers lead, to our signature Interim Program, is about building essential life skills. Forbes Cone sees it as essential to character development: “In nature, students learn that challenge is the opportunity to improve oneself, develop an internal locus of control, and build confidence. Wilderness experience gives students an optimistic confidence in the predictability of nature and the pace of life, combined with a healthy ability to surrender control. In a world that is increasingly human made, climate controlled, paved and sign posted, it’s valuable for our students to learn flexibility in the face of dynamic outdoor environments.”

 

Learning comes to life in our natural world at CA. Cone observes, “We know that when students are engaged through multisensory learning, their understanding grows. When a student’s classroom lessons about river ecology are enhanced through a visit to a local stream to test water samples, sketch a hydrological map, observe fish, identify birds nesting in nearby trees, and collect bulrushes along the river banks, their learning comes alive, is better understood and retained.”

 

Lower School Counselor Kate O’Donnell notes how important this learning is from an early age: “I love the Thomas Berry quote from Last Child in the Woods about how ‘teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.’” This isn’t “soft” education. The Harvard Professor Howard Gardner, who proposed the concept of “Multiple Intelligences,’”added “nature smart” to his list of categories.

 

So here we are, a school in a beautiful space. But, it isn’t just about aesthetics; there is something deeper happening here as our students interact with their environment. As a school, we are focused on so many things to ensure our students will be healthy, fulfilled, and competitive. Our dynamic and varied program definitely sets out with this aim. But, it is important to remember that the backdrop where all this great learning and teaching takes place not only sets a tone but also is instrumental in the fulfillment of our mission.