We must row whatever boats we find ourselves in...

A few years ago I read an article about the first person to complete the entirety of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in one continuous journey. His name was Earl Shaffer. He had served in the South Pacific during World War Two as a forward area radio man, and he had hiked the entire 2,181 Mile AT in 124 days. The boots he wore while on trail , as well as a 3 ringed notebook where he journaled every day, are housed in the Smithsonian Institution. The boots, and the fascinating entries he kept during that first thru-hike in 1948 are a testament to how wild, beautiful and humbling the trail can be. Earl devoted his life to the AT, he hiked it several more times before his death in the early 2000s. He knew that the AT is a place where man is a temporary visitor, meant to live for a few hours at a time before marching on. He understood and promoted that hiking its challenging terrain is a way to reconnect with and ultimately conserve nature. He also knew it as a place to reset your mind. When he was asked why he walked in excess of 2,000 miles, he responded I did it to “walk the war out of his system,” and when he was done he was bummed there wasn’t more to hike.

I got bit hard by the hiking bug after I was fortunate enough to accompany ten Freshman from Northeast High School on a 5 day Outward Bound Expedition in the Spring of 2018. It was here that I first became familiar with the transformative and healing power of the AT that Mr. Shaffer referred to in his motivation for completing the trail. Anyone who has spent time along one of its many ridgelines can attest to the 97 year old white blazed trail’s healing ways. The experience given to me on the trail by Outward Bound has affected my world view and pedagogical approach in ways that are immeasurable.

Scenes from the Appalachian Trail 2018-2022

The history of the trail is one that is intertwined with Outward Bound’s mission- discovery through challenge. Outward Bound's programming has harnessed the power of what the AT’s founder intended when the trail was first planned in 1921. OB has become a steward for mental health, self actualization, and for safely & responsibly exploring and preserving our natural world. The organization would make the AT’s founder Benton MacKaye very proud. The AT was born out of Benton's lifelong love of experiential learning, a practice Mackey had picked up from his bohemian upbringing. Benton would often hike into the woods of Vermont to teach himself the principles of biology and ecology when traditional school wasn’t a fit. I’d consider him a pioneer of experiential learning, it certainly helped him to get through Harvard’s 1st forestry program. It was during those early years of exploring that MacKaye had dreamt of a footpath that connected communities from Maine to Georgia. It wasn’t until after the tragic death of his wife that he began to reexamine the possibilities of creating that trail. Mackaye lived during a time of tremendous political and social turmoil. The country was experiencing a worldwide flu pandemic, recovering from a World War that sparked racial, social & political tension at home, and women were in a fruitless struggle to be heard politically. In 1919, it all proved too much for Mackey’s suffragette wife Betty who had succumbed to her own mental health crisis. When on a hike with friends in the Delaware Water Gap to ease his mind from his wife’s demise, Benton began to write a trail conference proposal. He led off with “living has been considerably complicated of late in various ways—by war, by questions of personal liberty, and by “menaces” of one kind or another. “ He saw the rapid deforestation and urbanization of the east coast as a threat to our mental well being. He had intended the trail to be a utopian community where one could live and forget about the noise of traffic or the fear of missing a meeting. The trail has since morphed into a collective of individuals and organizations that look after the trail as a place where one can challenge and reset themselves in ways living in a city cannot offer. Flash forward to the Spring 2021 - I had been I had spent most of my pandemic times in the woods of Wissahickon Park- like Benton I was going through a family tragedy, and the world I was living in was reeling from a worldwide pandemic, racial and political strife, a disparaging education online education system and what felt like an era of uncertainty. Then we were asked to return to a classroom and teach like the before times- like nothing had changed. In the early days of returning back to the classroom, I'd pass by the Wigard Ave OB Outpost and think about how the experience in 2018 affected my students. I went back and I read what I wrote to my students after my first outing with OB:

"As we began our expedition by trekking up that hill with 30+ lbs on our backs, we

quickly realized that each one of us had our own strengths & limitations. We soon saw that in order to overcome our limitations, we'd have to have compassion for each other and we would have to give aid to one another. We had to form a team and become altruistic. I hope it made you think about how we can work to make the world a better place, as we learned that we get a lot further by building each other up than tearing each other down. Imagine how better off the world would be if everyone experienced what we experienced on that trail. We became a tribe. You each spent time gathering water, setting up shelter, and cooking for one another on a single camp stove, all while navigating 20 miles of rugged terrain in the driving rain."

The letter to my students didn’t mention how impressed I was that the students who had little interest in their science class could spout out the difference between a shagbark hickory and a pignut hickory, or how a student who was afraid of heights climbed 5 stories

on the face of glacier deposit. Those were addressed by the accompanying pictures and memories forged through Outward Bound’s unique programming.

As we must row the boat we find ourselves in, I began to reevaluate what I was offering my students as a public servant. I began to try to align what I had experienced on the trail with Outward Bound with what the School District of Philadelphia was asking of me. In coordination with my colleagues at NEHS, we began to mold a small learning community called Natural Resource Management. It was founded on a lot of the same principles both the AT and Outward Bound prides itself on. Our program is focused on conservation, protection and responsible human interactions within a range of natural resources including the air, forests, soil, water, fish , plants and wildlife. In the spirit of self discovery and challenge we began to build rowboats, earn drone licenses to see our world from a different perspective, to raise and release trout, repair riparian areas, and to grow our own food hydroponically. Essentially, we are a nod to Benton and a torch bearer for Outward Bound. Recently I was given the opportunity to take students who I’ve mentored in this program along for a 5 day expedition. It was magical to see Outward Bound strip all outside baggage away from the students to start everyone fresh, to instill in the students the confidence and competence to reshape their post pandemic world, and to inspire this teacher to keep finding ways to make education and the experiences it provides to students relevant. The trail is a classroom, Outward Bound its teacher, and the students are its hikers. I am forever thankful for Kim, Jen, instructors and everyone at Outward Bound who has allowed our program to continue to flourish through inspiration and its unique thoughtful programming.

Students on the Outward Bound Expeditions