Island School (Bahamas)

Island School
Location
Eleuthera The Bahamas
Information
Type	experiential, coeducational
Established	1999
Faculty	25
Grades	10 & 11
Number of students	48 per semester
Campus	rural
Website	www.islandschool.org

The Island School is a community of teachers and learners that hosts a semester program for high school students from around the world. The school’s campus is located 1-mile (1.6 km) from Powell Point near the southwestern-most tip of Eleuthera, The Bahamas.

Semester Programs

The Island School offers two 14-week semester programs each year and a 6-week summer term. Fall semester begins in late August and runs through early December and spring semester begins in late February and ends in the beginning of June. Summer term runs from late June to early August.

Students participate in a holistic education model where coursework is integrated into practical experiences of daily life. The school seeks to break down the traditional walls that divide real life from academic learning. Each semester, 48 students embark on a challenging and transformative journey. Students finish the program more confident, self-aware, and better global citizens, prepared and empowered to be active leaders of their generation. The Island School pioneered the vision for the Putting Schools to Work Movement that focuses on teaching leadership by allowing students to tackle real world problems and issues through research, project planning and implementation.

The admissions process is selective, with applicants submitting essays, recommendations, transcripts, and where possible supplementing with an alumni or parent interview. Applications for the following year are due in early spring. The school awards financial assistance to selected students including the Bahamian Environmental Steward Scholarship for Bahamian applicants. The Island School believes in supporting sending families with payment partnerships. In 2011, over half a million dollars in financial aid was awarded.

Fall and spring semester program students complete a course of study in seven classes including Marine Ecology, Human Ecology, Applied Scientific Research, Literature of The Sea, Histories of The Bahamas, Mathematics, and Environmental Art. Students also participate in weekly Community Outreach classes with the Deep Creek Middle School. Summer programs focus on Applied Scientific Research and Human Ecology.

History

The Island School was founded in 1999 by Chris and Pam Maxey with support from The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Chris Maxey taught at the school and in 1996, he received the Joukowsky Fellowship allowing him to work towards his Masters in Marine Resource Management at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. He initiated the Cape Eleuthera Marine Conservation Project (now the Cape Eleuthera Foundation) and began to set the framework to build a school and research station at Cape Eleuthera in The Bahamas. The project received a donation of 18 acres of land donated by the Cape Eleuthera Resort & Yacht Club. Construction on the campus began in the fall of 1998. On March 15, 1999, Pam and Chris started the first 14-week, one-hundred day Island School semester journey which included 22 students and 6 faculty members.

Facilities

Island School Entrance

What began as a three-building campus grew into a diverse system of interconnected facilities. The current campus comprises a faculty office and school store, two large dormitory buildings, four main classrooms, a boathouse, dining hall with outside patio seating, a student life and medical center, two two-story faculty apartment buildings, two open-air gazebos, a living-roof multi-use building, a farm and orchard, a bio-diesel production facility, woodshop, a resource processing center, and in addition, the adjacent campus which hosts the Cape Eleuthera Institute.

Ecological Design

The 10-acre (4 hectare) campus is powered by systems that allow the school to reduce its ecological impact. Rainwater from the roofs is captured for use, and collected into a system of cisterns with 82,000 gallon (310,403 liter) storage capacity. Water is heated through solar thermal collectors. Buildings are designed and constructed from local materials where possible and without air-conditioning. Furniture for the school is hand-crafted on campus out of Casuarina, a local non-native species of tree. The school generates the majority of its electricity through its 29 kW photovoltaic array and 10 kW wind turbine mounted on a 100 ft (30 m) tower above campus. The school seeks to transform its waste outputs through its constructed wetland which captures nutrients, and filters waste water before being used to irrigate landscaping. The school seeks to revolutionize its waste processing through the adaptation of its newly constructed bio-digester which will convert human waste into usable energy. In 2003, a student research group pioneered the Biodiesel program which annually transforms 18.000 gallons of waste cooking oil, collected from local restaurants and cruise ships. The Biodiesel powers Island School’s fleet of 9 boats and 11 vehicles, and backup generators. The school’s permaculture, aquaculture, and aquaponics programs, seek to reduce the amount of food imported annually. The school also invests in local agriculture by partnering with farmers to provide locally sourced fruits, vegetables, and meats.

Philosophy

Central Question: How can we live better in a place? Vision: Leadership effecting change. Mission: The Island School serves as a catalyst in the global transition to a more livable future through three institutional keystones: -Developing an intimate sense of place in students through immersion experiences in the natural and cultural environment; -Modeling sustainability of individual lifestyles, larger communities, and the systems that support them; -Creating an intentional community whose members are cognizant of their abilities, limitations, and effect on others.

Academics

Curriculum design is grounded in education research and progressive approaches to teaching and learning. Pedagogy at The Island School is characterized by models which include place-based, experiential, project-based, inter-disciplinary and cooperative learning philosophies. The school seeks to make all learning authentic and relevant to real-world issues.

The school employs the Harkness Discussion Style a seminar method pioneered at Philips Exeter Academy. Students are arranged around an oval Harkness table where the teacher acts as facilitator only. The student-driven seminar style empowers the class to develop into a discussion community where individuals practice respectful and considerate speaking and listening and where all members contribute and collectively craft meaning out of shared texts and essential questions. Students practice the process of inquiry together, developing answers organically and forming ideas out interactive consideration of their coursework.

The Island School uses skill-based grading in which students are assessed and receive feedback that is specific and aligned with skill-development in four important areas: Reasoning, Speaking and Listening, Writing, and Organization. Different skill areas are weighted differently by department. At mid-term, individual students meet one-on-one with each of their teachers for comprehensive and individualized feedback. Students reflect on the feedback from their teachers and craft mid-term report letters home to their parents which accompany grade reports. Students are awarded final semester grades in each of the four skill areas for all classes, with the exception of Land and Environmental Art, which gives pass/no-pass instead of corresponding letter grades. Final grade reports include skill area grades and individualized half-page comments for each class with discussion of individual students’ growth and performance over the semester. Students receive academics and interpersonal support through The Island School’s advising program.

In the final days of the semester, each student performs a Demonstration of Learning (DOL) in which he or she guides a thoughtful and reflective performance considering the importance of his or her learning at The Island School. Individuals connect with the school’s vision and mission in creative and personal demonstrations of their semester growth and achievement. The DOL is performed for a panel of peers and faculty members. Students also leave the school with a comprehensive electronic portfolio made up of all component coursework and assignments, with additional artifacts from student life and outdoor programs.

Outdoor Programs

Students undergo PADI Open Water Scuba Certification so that the ocean can become their classroom. They learn about concepts of marine ecology and then interact with knowledge through direct observation of the marine world. Students may also be required do dive as part of their coursework in Research classes.

All students participate in two kayak expeditions during the course of the semester. The initial 3 Day Kayak trip teaches basic skills of ocean kayaking, camping, team building and serves as and introduction to exploring the island. Later, students complete an 8 Day Kayak trip that covers 30 nautical miles of the southern point of Eleuthera which further develops students’ kayaking skills while focused on leadership training. The kayak trip culminates with a 48 hour solo experience in which individual students are spread out individually in assigned spaces along Lighthouse Beach. Solos are overseen by on-sight faculty who support this safe yet challenging opportunity for self-discovery.

The Island School believes in a fundamental connection between a healthy mind and a healthy body. All students and faculty train together each morning as part of the exercise program. The training culminates with two events: a four mile open-ocean “Super Swim” and a Half-Marathon. All individuals participate in one of the final events.

External links

• The Island School official site