The School Overnight Program, which was the basis of IslandWood’s founding in 1999, was created to increase access to meaningful nature-based learning experiences for the region’s children. Accessibility has been one of the core tenants of IslandWood ever since. To ensure financial barriers don’t prevent children from participating, we fundraise to make the program a cost-effective option for all schools. In addition, we also fundraise to provide scholarships for schools who need further financial support, typically providing scholarships to 50% of the schools that come to our Bainbridge Island campus each year.
Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices influence every aspect of our educational philosophy. CRT refers to an educational approach that honors students’ individual learning styles, identities, and life experiences as a way to deepen learning and spark engagement. We believe that honoring multiple ways of knowing and using a child’s existing knowledge and sense of culture is a powerful framework for making sense of and integrating new learning. It is part of our process to learn about and incorporate students’ home culture in the design of their learning experience. One way we do this is by pre-trip visits to schools by our staff or pre-trip questionnaires to gather insights about school, local neighborhood, and classroom culture. Other ways we incorporate CRT practices into our teaching can be found here.
Launched in 2017, Engaging Across Boundaries (EAB) is an initiative created within the SOP program as a result of our increased prioritization of JEDI. We leverage the unique opportunity we have to bring schools from different cultural, socioeconomic, and racial backgrounds together for several shared experiences (meals, group games, etc) during their four days at IslandWood. As students participate in EAB, they engage with students they may not otherwise have the opportunity to connect with and further develop their communication, perspective-taking, and collaborative problem-solving skills. EAB allows students to learn from each other in ways that go beyond the classroom and creates learning that comes from both directions, opening the door for a better understanding of each student’s reality.
The School Overnight Program seeks to intentionally incorporate multiple cultures in the narrative of the program. Some of the ways this can be seen include:
We work to identify and address barriers that keep children from attending the School Overnight Program. Some examples of this in action include:
We work hard to provide adaptive, flexible, and differentiated instruction based on our awareness of student needs and various modes of learning.
‘Leaning into discomfort’ is a strong focus of the School Overnight Program. The intentional use of this language was influenced by JEDI work and is intricately woven into our daily support of a culture of growth mindset with students. While there are endless ways we encourage students to lean into discomfort during SOP (there are often a lot of “firsts” that happen for students during their time!), two examples of this include modeling critical thinking and reasoning that challenges student bias through evidence-based problem solving and engaging in “courageous conversations” with students on the topics of cultural, racial, and gender identities.
In the past, IslandWood over-represented children of color, perpetuated stereotypes, and expressed white saviorism in our communications about the School Overnight Program. Over the past few years, we have made a highly concerted effort to correct this harmful tokenization of children of color and white savior language with communications that accurately reflect the demographics and goals of the program.
In addition to organization-wide JEDI trainings and external workshops, members of the team have been participating in internal racial equity meetings aimed at growing their capacities as anti-racist educators. During the school year, our education team comes together for Building Antiracist White Educators sessions alternating weeks with a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) affinity group and a white caucus group.
