Last week’s final performance of the Live-In School was another eye popper.
One student composed:
“I wish I was a slave, to 40 more days.
Learning in the fields, and seeing the mountain haze.
Staff have mercy on my wild and crazy ways
Please, just another 40 days”
This came from a kid who began his 4-month stay by not budging a facial muscle for three days, searching for some existential exit sign out of here.
100 sunsets later, he’s 20 lbs lighter and attached to a peer group to which he ascended as one of its benevolent alpha-males. He is 7.5 credits closer to graduation, with only three more to go to the finish line. He subdued his dreaded English and Math credits with quiet humility. He is hungry for the next stage of his life and possessed with unbridled ambition and an improved work ethic.
His yearning to linger on is something that was resoundingly shared by every student and teacher in this cozy banquet scene. This group was special. Staff told me they had a hard time sleeping that night because they felt a sense of loss. The ubiquitous texting, face-booking and live chatting that the kids will return to won’t replace this feeling of connection. But the group is moving on to another beginning fraught with promise and the anxiety of uncertainty.
But for that moment, on the 99th night, we hit the jackpot. People were oozing gratitude and wearing their discovered virtue with inflated chests.
But enough of this mushy gushy stuff. Like the students, we gotta mosey along. Ambitious plans await.
We have 26 five-day outdoor adventures to deliver between now and mid-June. Partnering with schools and other public sector agencies, we’ll receive groups of 10-15 eclectic human manifestations of pubescent hormones with strange and ever-changing voices; eager to conquer whitewater, northern pike and their own demons. We just finished the first group on Friday, a cohort of aboriginal youth that taught us more than we could ever hope to teach them.
And then it’s on to summer adventures for the mainstream kids for July and August. We are busy booking these adventures now, fielding phone calls from families searching for something truly different to engage their teens.
I personally am focussed on September, when we plan to double the capacity of the Live-In School and extend it right through to the end of March 2015. The next twelve months will wait for no Boundless laggard.
As my snow-shoveling muscles harden through unrelenting opportunity, I am counting the seconds to spring.
Looking forward to working with you all in the exciting days ahead.
Steven
