Lessons from the Tide Pools of Hermit Island, Maine

Each fall I take our senior class to Hermit Island, Maine, on the coast near Bath, to study tide pool zoology for a week. We set up camp amid birch and pine trees and within the sound of the surf—boys’ and girls’ tents, a couple of picnic tables for a “kitchen” and a couple more for a “dining room.” We stretch a tarp overhead—it rains at least once during the week—and a clothesline nearby. We circle folding chairs around the fire pit and grill steaks.

We talk late into the night. The first night, students chatter and let fall away the social and electronic world they have just left behind. The second night, more calmly, we discuss the world they are about to enter and how to make it a better place. They can allow their idealism free reign, stare into the fire, and imagine how, given a chance, they will change the world. They jump up to sing, they sit quietly to write a poem, they whittle spoons, they—hesitantly—chase skunks away from the food they have forgotten to pack away.

In the morning, students make breakfast—they’re responsible for planning, cooking, and cleaning for all meals. For some, it’s a challenge to get instant oatmeal on the table; others present a restaurant-worthy vegetarian frittata. We hike half a mile to the “Kelp Shed,” a snack bar in the summer and our classroom in the fall, where we meet about 100 seniors from other high schools across the country. Students have come from as far south as Atlanta and as far west as Chicago.

Each morning, teachers from the eight or so schools that have gathered share two-hour presentations on the animal phyla of the tide pools. (I’ve co-taught mollusks for the past three years with a teacher from Vermont.) Students take notes, make drawings, ask questions, and have a chance to examine live specimens they’ve helped collect.

Students are delighted by hermit crabs, intrigued by a sea star’s hydrodynamic tube feet, awed by the relative power of a little clam’s single foot, slightly scared of the crabs’ pinchers—although there are always a couple of students who hang as many crabs as possible from their clothes and skin. Students spend a morning with lobsters, learning about migrations, territorial disputes, mating rituals, and lobster offspring, the superlobsters. Many students name their lobsters—highly unscientific, but understandable—and one purchases it in order to give it its freedom.

The rhythm of life revolves around the tides. We wake in time to be at the tide pools near low tide, sometimes five in the morning. We coach students in walking on the sharp rocks and slippery seaweed, in watching out for rogue waves. We peer into tide pools that appear at first to contain nothing but gray-green blobs.

We’re far from home, we’re tired, we’re not necessarily dressed for the weather, we’re awake when we’d rather not be, we’re uncertain of our footing, we’re cold and wet, and we’re just not sure why we are here. “Dr. Sagarin, I feel like a clam and I don’t want to be a clam. Now I know why they call it ‘clammy.’”

Each year, it amazes me how, within about twenty minutes, our vision begins to clear, and we begin to see and then to identify plant and animal life in the pools. What was, at first, a pool of meaningless shapes and dull colors begins to teem with life. Purple sea stars, green urchins, orange anemones, red hermit crabs, blue mussels, white barnacles, transparent sea vases; once we’ve seen them, we can’t believe we didn’t see them earlier.

We forget our fatigue, our cold, wet feet, and we begin to discover our kinship with a world we have never seen before. We overcome the strangeness of the place and begin to lift rocks and reach under overhangs. With luck, we snag a young lobster or an old Jonah crab, and, gingerly, we learn to hold them so that they are calm and safe. We return them to their holes or crevices. One student finds a colony of large anemones in a tiny cave, and group after group of students approaches to admire it and snap photos. The students name the cave after the one who found it.

It seems to me that this is a lot like education: we leave our homes to go to a strange place and we’re thrown together with others our own age and a couple of adults called teachers. The world makes demands on us—chores, schedules, rhythms, work. At first, at least metaphorically, we’re cold and wet, we’re not sure why we’re here, and we’re not sure what we’re looking at. But, with time and guidance, we begin to see for ourselves and then to discover. A teacher can show us where to stand, how to look, encourage patience, demonstrate how to turn a rock over without destroying what’s beneath it. But we have to use our own eyes, our own hands, and our own minds to make sense of our experience. And then we can begin to explore on our own.

This process, which occurs in each of us to a greater or lesser degree, is transformational and transcendental. No student who has spent an hour in the tide pools will look at this part of the world the same way again; and, by extension, we hope, will learn that other apparently inaccessible, cold, wet, seemingly empty spaces are worth the trouble to get to know.

Is the Bible a Banned Book?

What do you need in order to look at Medieval art, to understand Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, speeches—or Abraham Lincoln’s speeches—or to read Moby-Dick?

Regardless of your personal beliefs, your faith, or your lack of faith, you need a knowledge of the Bible.

So, in our high school, we teach a course for 10th graders called “The Bible as Literature.” Not that this matters, but, to give some perspective, the woman who teaches it happens to be a Jew who tutors local students in Hebrew for their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. (She has also taught an elective course in Hebrew for our students, and she teaches another seminar on World Religions.)

Each spring, as a private school, we submit a list of the books we’ll be using the following year to local districts in New York State. The districts buy these books using the money of taxpayers—the parents of our students—and send the books to us. We use them and return them at the end of the year. Our students come from Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut, but only New York has such a law or program. Students from Massachusetts and Connecticut private schools buy their own textbooks.

Maybe you can see where this is heading. We submit a list of dozens of books that includes, say, The Great Gatsby, Dante’s Inferno, Moby-Dick, The Color Purple, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, Algebra 2, and… the Bible.

And, a few days later, a nice person from the local district calls to say that they can’t order the Bible. It’s not her job to say why or why not a book may be ordered—the computer just won’t let her do it. Software for separation of church and state.

So, presumably, the way we’re asked to teach is this: “See that man wrapped up like a mummy in that painting by Giotto? Does anyone know who he is? Well, let me tell you about Lazarus… He’s a guy whose story is told in the Bible.” “Does anyone know to whom Lincoln is referring when he speaks of the ‘better angels’ of our nature? No? Well, let me tell you about Paul… He’s a guy who wrote letters that you can find in the Bible…” And on and on and on. Good humanities teachers—literature, history, philosophy, you name it—will necessarily reveal to their students that the world in which they live is full of allusions to a book that the district is not allowed to purchase for them.

Let’s hope against hope that they’re iconoclastic enough to look into it for themselves.

Our students buy their own Bibles.

Did Dwight Schrute go to a Waldorf School?

• He speaks German and apparently knows about that awful German children’s book, Struwwelpeter.
• He plays the (fluorescent plastic) recorder.
• He believes exposure to germs strengthens your immune system.
• He wanted to teach children to make cornhusk dolls...

Did Rainn Wilson or a writer for the American version of The Office go to a Waldorf school?
Is there other evidence that Dwight Schrute did?

Inquiring minds want to know.
Comments, please!

"Earino" (Spring): Fragment of a Lost Socratic Dialogue

Socrates meets his students—Halitosis, Leukemia, Diabetes, and Osteoporosis—in the woods near Athens known as the Academia.

Socrates: It is good to see you all again. We were discussing justice and the good life... Halitosis! What are you doing?
Halitosis: One minute, Socrates. My mom texted me that I forgot my lunch and I have to text her back...
Socrates: Well, okay. But then put that thing away, whatever it is. Haven’t we established that direct communication is the only true communication? As I was saying… You know Leukemia, it’s very hard for the other students to concentrate when your toga is so short…
Leukemia: But Socrates, it’s too hot here in Athens in the spring. And I have such nice legs. You want me to wear long togas like you old people? That’s so mean…
Socrates: That’s not really the point, Leukemia. When you consider… Diabetes! Are you here to learn or to eat? I can hear you chewing like a cow and it is distracting.
Diabetes: I’m not eating, Socrates. This is a breath freshener. In chewing gum form. It’s minty fresh. Would you like one?
Socrates: No, Diabetes, although it’s kind of you to offer. But, listen, is that what I find stuck to every stump and boulder in the Academia? The gods know I walked home yesterday with a chunk of that stuck to my sandal. It’s very annoying… Where was I? Oh, yes… Yes, Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis: I have to work this afternoon and I feel terrible and I have a headache and I really want to take a nap before I go to work, so can I go now? There’s nothing really important happening here…
Socrates: Well, it’s obvious why not, isn’t it?
(End of fragment.)

Giving a Test 101

Among the reasons for high school and middle school students to lose confidence in their teachers are simple things—organization, preparation, clarity, attention. A lack of these may become particularly evident in times of stress, and there may be no more acute case in the everyday life of a school than during the administration of a test. I believe I can hand identical tests to different teachers who will walk into classes that have been identically prepared and, depending on how the teachers handle the test-taking, from beginning to end, student attitudes and results will vary widely.

An organized, clear, attentive teacher will elicit the best behavior and results—the room will be calm, the test fair. A disorganized, unclear, inattentive teacher will elicit bad behavior—including cheating—and worse results.

So I thought I’d walk through test-administering 101.

Write a test that is fair and that allows students to demonstrate what they know. It could even be fun… Start with a cartoon or a joke (maybe an “in” joke that you and the class share). The test should should be difficult to get a perfect score on but also difficult to fail. It should test students on what they should know—what is important in your course, what you have reviewed.

Frankly, in most cases, you should be so confident of your students that giving or taking the test is just about beside the point—you should know the students well enough to know what they know, to know how well they will do on your test. (In which case, you don’t have to give it at all.) Or, if you give it, you can make it, too, into part of the learning for your course. Ask them to synthesize information in an essay. Don’t insult their intelligence. Don’t waste your own time.

Begin, perhaps, by telling the story of how you cheated in high school and how bad you feel now. Or how you got caught and learned your lesson. Or about the girl who plagiarized a Spanish paper in senior year of college and got un-accepted to law school, wrecking her life. Make it clear how seriously you take cheating. Tell students they will fail if caught cheating, and stick to your decision.

Give clear instructions for taking the test and for what to do when finished (For example: read it over, hand it to me, face down, with all essays or scrap paper stapled in order, with your name on each sheet, sit down without speaking and read a book until everyone is done).

Separate students as much as possible. Move tables and desks as necessary to create space.

Have students clear their desks except for test-taking essentials. (If they need scrap paper, you give it to them.)

Once you hand out the tests, face down on each desk, no talking. Talking gets a reduced grade.

Anyone who has a question can walk over to you and whisper, one at a time.

Sit in the back of the room, behind the students. They can’t see you, you can see them—head swivels, desk searches…

Do not talk unless absolutely necessary. Do not leave the room. Do not turn your back on the students.

Give time or progress updates if helpful; “You have ten minutes until the end of the period.” “You should be at least halfway through the test by now.”

If you are tough but fair, students will feel secure, they will perform better, results will be indicative of what you want them to be indicative of, and your life will run more smoothly.

Teachers usually don’t fail, in my experience, because they don’t know the subject they are teaching, or because they aren’t committed to the job. They fail for one of four reasons. (I teach in a small private school; teachers in other schools may amend my list.) First, young or inexperienced teachers may discover that they simply are not teachers—that their dream of teaching was a romantic one, and that the realities of teaching are simply not for them. This can be a hard lesson to learn, but one better learned sooner than later. In most cases, teachers and schools part ways peaceably and with mutual respect in circumstances like these.

The other three reasons for leaving teaching do not always results in peaceful partings. Teachers may lose the confidence of the parents of the students in their class; they may lose the confidence of their colleagues; and they may lose the confidence of the students in their class. This last may be expressed in different ways depending on the teacher and the age of the students—lack of control or discipline, disillusionment, disdain, complaints, insecurity… the student behaviors that signal that a teacher is not up to the job are myriad. And parent or colleague confidence is almost always tied to student confidence and security, which is made acutely visible when taking a test.