By Laurie O’Brien
There’s a great saying about not letting one’s schooling get in the way of one’s education, and NOVA School, a private middle school in Olympia, reinforces that every February. Back when the Olympia School District had a mid-winter break, the staff at NOVA decided to mix things up a bit, and instead of following suit, they took advantage of the shortened week to provide alternative learning opportunities for their students. They offered multiple activities from which students could pick and choose and called the intensive program Winterim.
According to Head of School, Jack Fallat, by the time the school district discontinued the weeklong mid-winter break a few years ago, “Winterim had become such a success, that they wanted to maintain it. It’s one of the highlights of the year.”
This year proved no different as the 100 students at the school selected from a course listing of over 40 different enrichment activities. Parents, teachers, community volunteers and organizations all pitched in to provide a diverse array of experiences.
On the Tuesday following President’s Day, everyone gathered for an all school trip to Skateland in the morning then watched a movie with the Olympia Film Society at the Capitol Theater in the afternoon.
Starting on Wednesday, the choice activities began. Mornings were filled with short one-day “try it” sessions. This year’s options included multiple cooking classes focused on learning how to prepare tamales, baking, or sushi rolling. Two teachers, Janet Hubbard and Anne Weldon, joined forces to introduce students to kayaking out at Boston Harbor. The school also partnered with Olympia Parks Arts and Recreation to offer a Budd Inlet wildlife tour by kayak.
Some students opted to learn various strategy games like chess or the Settlers of Catan. For those who love games, having a two and half hour window to play and interact with school friends and teachers was a chance to strengthen important bonds. A session with word games was also offered. For those with an artistic bent, print making, calligraphy, scrapbooking, paper airplane making, and a walking art tour of downtown were on the schedule.
Afternoons were filled with more intensive three day sessions. One group of students joined parent volunteer Nichole Rose at the Procession of the Species community art studio to learn how to make luminary stars, crystals, and other forms. Rose, who has been a key volunteer with the Luminary Ball and the Procession itself, has taught the same Winterim course for a number of years, but this was the first time she was able to utilize the downtown space. Her daughter, Linnea Alexander, an eighth grader at NOVA School, was busy taking a different class while her mother supervised a dozen students armed with glue guns and matchstick bamboo.
Another popular offering was a class teaching basic bike maintenance and urban riding strategies. On Wednesday, students learned how to oil their chains, remove the wheels from their bikes, and fix a flat. Thursday focused on rules of the road and actual riding in a neighborhood. On Friday, students ventured out with teacher Jeff Olfson on an extended ride on the Chehalis Western Trail.
Erin Scheel, Youth Education Specialist for Intercity Transit, helped organize the class that utilized adult volunteers from the Bike PARTners Program. “Our goal is to (teach kids) that their bike is a piece of machinery they have to maintain, that it’s not like a toy that you just take out whenever you want to use it. It’s got moving parts that need to be taken care of,” she explained.
The Bike PARTners program has the primary objective of helping kids and families utilize mass transportation. “We (know that) every transit trip begins and ends with either biking or walking,” said Scheel. She encouraged students to explore using the bus system both with and without their bikes. “People can bike or walk to the bus stop, put the bike on the bus, and get to their destination without relying upon a car. If they take their bikes on the bus, people are not even limited by the bus route.” Gaining that sense of freedom is important for young teens who are beginning to venture outside the nest more and more.
In another room at the school, parent volunteers Cheri Keller and Eric Mandt were joined by their colleague, Tim Flumerfelt, to teach a three day Rock Band seminar. The trio performs locally as the 10th Avenue Trio, and they have a wealth of performing experience. In their class, brave students stood up at the microphone belting out Elvis’s “Blue Suede Shoes” while their peers improvised on drums, guitars, and keyboards. Over the course of three days, students worked on a couple of rock standards and focused on listening and performance skills.
Said Keller, “All of us like the idea of helping kids who like music learn how to do it better. We all enjoy being in a band together. It enriches our lives, so I think it was an easy way for us to volunteer and do something teenagers would like.”
TCTV Young Producers Network faculty member Peter Epperson put together two different afternoon seminars, Animation and Digital Story Telling. Students were able to produce stop-motion animation shorts and documentary style short videos.
Improv acting, puppet making, sewing, and Taekwon-do rounded out the afternoon classes.
Nicole Caden, Advancement Director for NOVA School, is a huge fan on the Winterim Program. “I wish I went to a school where there was a Winterim. That’s the way I learn. That would have been a rich education for me. Working with other people in the community, learning different crafts and skills like cooking, you don’t get that in schools anymore.”
For students, it’s an opportunity to step outside their regular classes and explore, in digestible bites, new and exciting possibilities. Said Caden, “It’s innovative and it makes you connect with things you didn’t even know you were interested in.” When all is said and done, isn’t that what education is supposed to be about?
