News Detail
Sending students into the world -- and wilderness
The world is a complicated and challenging place, and we are experiencing it.
Last Friday, around the time that former Ransom Everglades Director of College Counseling Steve Frappier got caught up in the horrific shooting at Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, our four-year-old grandson waited for pickup behind police barricades in Manhattan because a security threat caused his church preschool to dismiss the children through the basement and out the service entrance.
Last Friday, around the time that former Ransom Everglades Director of College Counseling Steve Frappier got caught up in the horrific shooting at Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, our four-year-old grandson waited for pickup behind police barricades in Manhattan because a security threat caused his church preschool to dismiss the children through the basement and out the service entrance.
Today's world can make us feel despondent, worried for ourselves and for our children. What do we do?
At Ransom Everglades, we do what we’ve done for 114 years: we continue working to produce graduates who will make the world a better place. This represents an imperative. Never before has educating young men and women brought with it more responsibility: The world is in desperate need of young people with the hearts, minds, energy, ingenuity and – yes – grit to tackle its problems and make a difference. There are many ways we craft young leaders with these traits. We rely on an outstanding faculty, Harkness pedagogy, technology, innovative curricula and parents who partner with us.
And we also send our students off into the wilderness for a few days.
Next week, our freshmen will pack their compasses, navigational charts, mosquito repellant and rain-resistant clothing and head out into the Everglades for the annual freshman Outward Bound trip. They will venture out in small groups, paddling canoes, preparing their own meals and taking care of one another during their five-day adventure.
One of the true gurus of today’s educational thinking, Tony Wagner (author of Most Likely to Succeed, The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators) wrote that “an overarching goal of education should be to immerse students in the beauty and inspiration of their surrounding world.” If he knew what we do at Ransom Everglades, he might have added this: So students can both appreciate that world – and learn how to survive in it.
The Outward Bound trip seems to gain more relevance as the world around us grows more forbidding. This excursion takes our students out of their comfort zones, away from their smart phones and from the daily benefits that Ransom Everglades offers. They need this. And so – after extensive preparation from our Bay Studies faculty, Penny Matthews and Paul Elkins, and with Outward Bound guides close by – we send them into Florida’s famous River of Grass.
We fully expect that will they get a little scared, a little wet, a little cold, perhaps a little lost and even a little confused. We want them to figure it out, and figure out they need each other.
When I think of Steve Frappier, who worked here from 2006-15 and mentored so many of our students, scrambling out of the path of a crazed gunman, and when I think about Cameron being rushed out of pre-school with alarms blaring, already awakening to the world’s nightmares, I am reminded just how much we need this program.
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At Ransom Everglades, we do what we’ve done for 114 years: we continue working to produce graduates who will make the world a better place. This represents an imperative. Never before has educating young men and women brought with it more responsibility: The world is in desperate need of young people with the hearts, minds, energy, ingenuity and – yes – grit to tackle its problems and make a difference. There are many ways we craft young leaders with these traits. We rely on an outstanding faculty, Harkness pedagogy, technology, innovative curricula and parents who partner with us.
And we also send our students off into the wilderness for a few days.
Next week, our freshmen will pack their compasses, navigational charts, mosquito repellant and rain-resistant clothing and head out into the Everglades for the annual freshman Outward Bound trip. They will venture out in small groups, paddling canoes, preparing their own meals and taking care of one another during their five-day adventure.
One of the true gurus of today’s educational thinking, Tony Wagner (author of Most Likely to Succeed, The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators) wrote that “an overarching goal of education should be to immerse students in the beauty and inspiration of their surrounding world.” If he knew what we do at Ransom Everglades, he might have added this: So students can both appreciate that world – and learn how to survive in it.
The Outward Bound trip seems to gain more relevance as the world around us grows more forbidding. This excursion takes our students out of their comfort zones, away from their smart phones and from the daily benefits that Ransom Everglades offers. They need this. And so – after extensive preparation from our Bay Studies faculty, Penny Matthews and Paul Elkins, and with Outward Bound guides close by – we send them into Florida’s famous River of Grass.
We fully expect that will they get a little scared, a little wet, a little cold, perhaps a little lost and even a little confused. We want them to figure it out, and figure out they need each other.
When I think of Steve Frappier, who worked here from 2006-15 and mentored so many of our students, scrambling out of the path of a crazed gunman, and when I think about Cameron being rushed out of pre-school with alarms blaring, already awakening to the world’s nightmares, I am reminded just how much we need this program.
We want our students to work together with inspiring adult mentors, in an environment where safety comes first, so that they will indeed find “beauty and inspiration in their surrounding world.”
Penny Townsend
Head of School
Head of School
Middle School
2045 South Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 250 6850
Upper School
3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 460 8800
Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.